David Chaum, as we know him was a professor who created concept of vault system in 1979 during his doctorate.

Infact he held the first annual crypto and cryptology conference, called 'CRYPTO' back in 1980.

"Bitcoin is Islamic "
-Says Economist Bruce Fenton

He recently said these things in a video message.

Usury: Islam

Riba (usury) is forbidden in Islam. As such, specialized codes of banking have developed to cater to investors wishing to obey Qur'anic law. (See Islamic banking)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Islam

All anyone has to do is create a bridge network from a foreign IP to a El Salvador IP, to bypass any restrictions.

ASICS do not communicate directly with the peer to peer network.. they only communicate to a pool manager.

a pool manager broadcasts a block to the peers(fullnodes). just like peers that relay blocks when syncing and such/ when they see a new block they download. if they are not getting blocks they are not getting blocks.

to stop blocks outside of el salv is to ban peers of full nodes outside of elsalvador

this means it becomes a whole network closed system of full nodes only running inside elsalvador

this means no own can own el-btc on a full node outside of el salv because they cannot communicate to the el-btc network

..
also
bitcoins bottom line value is ~$15k due to the most efficient underlying cost mining of network hashrate
the price is then a premium above the $15k

if el salv only does say 5exa network mining. the underlying value is $300 meaning the el-btc will be on the market speculating from $300 to a ~ speculated5x so probably a ATH of $1.5k at current rates of this scenario

Hasn't history taught us at least one thing - that all those who have created their own version of Bitcoin have failed or are completely worthless in every sense? Maybe El Salvador should have accepted the offer from Cardano and declared that token a legal tender in the country?

As for recreating "the glory days of low mining difficulty," I think it is only possible if the fork is highly unsuccessful because otherwise, existing bitcoin miners will use part of their equipment for mining this state-sponsored fork, thereby automatically increasing the difficulty of mining.

It has been around two weeks since Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, acquired Twitter and, already, increasing fears of what this means for free speech on the microblogging platform have begun to proliferate. With Musk firing some of Twitter’s key personnel, including Twitter’s legal chief Vijaya Gadde and terminating contracts with outsourced content moderators, many users are looking for an alternative.

A substantial number are migrating to the ‘fediverse,’ and specifically to Mastodon, a similar microblogging platform that has been called “Twitter, with the underlying architecture of email”. Mastodon’s decentralization raises substantial questions about how existing regulatory regimes, such as Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), will apply.

The Move to Mastodon

The fediverse – a portmanteau of federation and universe – is a network of interconnected servers that communicate with each other based on decentralized networking protocols. These servers can be used for web publishing and file hosting, and allow users to communicate with each other despite being on independent servers.

For Mastodon, interoperability is key. Think of it as an email account – a user may use a Google mail service, but that does not stop her from communicating with someone who uses Hotmail, or even someone who hosts their own mail server. As long as a set of protocols are followed, users can communicate across servers easily. The idea behind such a decentralized architecture is giving users direct control of their online use and presence.  Mastodon is one of many social networks that operate using free and open-source software; other examples include Peertube, which is similar to YouTube, and diaspora*, which resembles more with Facebook.

Since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the turmoil it has caused, Mastodon’s growth has risen from 60-80 new users an hour to 3,568 new registrations in one hour on the morning of 7th November. It has now amassed 6 million+ user accounts and is still growing.

To sign up to Mastodon, a user can join a number of different servers (known as ‘instances’) of their choice; these instances determine the content users get to see and the community guidelines to which they must subscribe. In essence, the administrator(s) of each instance acts as the ‘moderator’ — deciding what is or is not allowed on that instance – and has the power to filter or block content that contradicts the established rules. The administrator(s) can either act as the moderator themself or use a team of moderators. Within an instance, a user can post text or other media, follow and communicate with other users (within and outside their instance), and share data publicly or to a selected group.

Just like Twitter, Mastodon uses hashtags, has a character limit for posts (500 instead of Twitter’s 280), and is already populated with cat pictures. Although some users have complained about the complexity of the sign-up process and the site’s overall user-friendliness (or lack thereof), Mastodon has proven a healthy alternative and has demonstrated that users are ready to walk away from established social media services if they are presented with options.

Content Moderation on Mastodon

Ultimately, though, the future of Mastodon will hang on the way its individual instances and the site – as a collaborative whole – deals with content moderation and free speech. Mastodon’s appeal lies in its decentralization. When Eugen Rochko founded the network in 2016, it came from a “feeling of distrust of the topdown control that Twitter exercised”. Countering this distrust, while also proudly claiming that it is “not for sale”, the Mastodon network has no single owner or administrator that can set the rules; instead, the administrator of each local instance sets the rules of their server, which users have to abide by. If a user disagrees with these rules, they can easily switch to an instance that aligns with their viewpoint, creating robust avenues for free speech. If an administrator finds that a user has published something in violation of the instance’s rules, they can take the content down, or even remove the user from the instance; the user can then simply move to a different server.

The administrator can also block content from the instance they run if it disrupts users. In 2019, the social media platform Gab – a hub for white supremacists – tested Mastodon’s limits on content moderation. Even though Mastodon could not deny Gab’s use of its open source software, since anyone can use the software if “they keep the same license and make their modifications public”, individual instances were able to block, and consequently isolate, Gab and its users. With no ability to interoperate with other instances, Gab became an instance of no value to the Mastodon collective. As a response to this, mastodon.social — one of the severs run by Mastodon – updated its policy regarding the promotion of instances on their official website, before blocking Gab for good.

Although there is no central authority on Mastodon, when you sign up to the network it shows you some popular instances that you can join to get a general idea of the content on the network. These instances need to abide by certain rules such as not allowing racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. on their servers. This shows how content (or rather a platform) can be moderated on a decentralized network: while offending content is not necessarily  completely removed from the network, local action can be taken by each instance administrator to avoid and ultimately ostracize ‘problematic’ servers.

The clear benefits of such decentralized systems – especially if they are non-profit, like Mastodon – are diffused content moderation responsibilities, user empowerment, and disincentives for user conflict (especially related to driving engagement, as seen in big social media). However, this still leaves us with the question of manifestly objectionable content – such as child sexual exploitation material or terrorist content. Certainly, instances have their own incentives to moderate and get rid of such content; however, it is also important to remember that decentralized networks are not above government legislation, nor are they a panacea for content moderation. In the same way that governments can order the takedown of a website, they can also order the takedown of Mastodon instances.

Mastodon and the Digital Services Act

As Mastodon continues to gain in popularity, a question that remains is how existing legislative efforts may affect the entire website and/or its instances. Notably, the Digital Services Act (DSA) in Europe was created to address content moderation issues that manifest themselves in much larger and more centralized platforms, like Facebook. What will the DSA’s effect be on Mastodon?

Currently, there are more than 3000 instances on the network – all with their own users, guidelines, and administrators. In this context, the DSA does not provide clarity on questions of decentralized social media. However, based on the categorizations of the DSA, it is most probable that each instance could be seen as an independent ‘online platform’ on which a user hosts and publishes content that can reach a potentially unlimited number of users. Thus, each of these instances will need to comply with a set of minimum obligations for intermediary and hosting services, including having a single point of contact and legal representative, providing clear terms and conditions, publishing bi-annual transparency reports, having a notice and action mechanism and, communicating information about removals or restrictions to both notice and content providers.

Today– given the non-profit model and limited, volunteer administration of most existing instances– all Mastodon servers would seem to be exempt from obligations for large online platforms. Nonetheless, what will it mean if an instance ends up generating above EUR 10 million in annual turnover or hires more than 50 staff members? Under the DSA, if these thresholds are met the administrators of that instance would need to proceed to the implementation of additional requirements, including a complaint handling system, cooperation with trusted flaggers and out-of-court dispute bodies, enhanced transparency reporting and the adoption of child protection measures, as well as the banning of dark patterns. Failure to comply with these obligations may result in fines or the geo-blocking of the instance across the EU market.

Additionally, in theory, there is always the possibility an instance may reach the threshold for the DSA’s ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (VLOP) status if its user base continues growing and hits the 45 million monthly usage mark. Today, mastodon.social is the largest instance, with 835,227 users. If it goes beyond the VLOP user threshold, there are a significant number of obligations this instance would have to comply with, such as risk assessments and independent audits. This can prove to be an expensive and burdensome administrative burden, given its current turnover.  It is therefore important for the European Commission to provide further clarification about these instances, and to do so quickly.

It is difficult to project what will happen if, and when, Mastodon user numbers reach the likes of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, especially in the realm of content moderation. Since moderation in major social media platforms is conducted by a central authority, the DSA can effectively hold a single entity accountable through obligations. This becomes more complex in decentralized networks, where content moderation is predominantly community-driven.

Regulatory Ambiguity and the Fediverse

Presently, Mastodon attempts to answer the problems of content moderation through its decentralized architecture. There is no central authority or control that one could point to and hold responsible for content moderation practices; instead, moderation happens in an organic bottom-up manner. With regards to how upcoming digital regulations can apply to these platforms, we are still left with a plethora of questions, which only grow when we consider how a decentralized network could implement these requirements.

Ambiguity over the fediverse shows that when designing Internet regulation, it is important to do so with the widest possible creativity and innovation, instead of having certain players in mind. The last thing Europe wants is its regulation that restricts future innovation, raising barriers to entry for new businesses and users alike.



https://techpolicy.press/can-mastodon-survive-europes-digital-services-act/

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of police officers carried out raids across much of Germany on Wednesday against suspected far-right extremists who allegedly sought to overthrow the government in an armed coup. Officials said 25 people were detained.

Federal prosecutors said some 3,000 officers conducted searches at 130 sites in 11 of Germany's 16 states against adherents of the so-called Reich Citizens movement. Some movement members reject Germany's postwar constitution and have called for bringing down the government.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann described the raids as an “anti-terrorism operation,” adding that the suspects may have planned an armed attack on institutions of the state.

Germany's top security official said the group was “driven by violent coup fantasies and conspiracy ideologies.”

Prosecutors said 22 German citizens were detained on suspicion of "membership in a terrorist organization." Three other people, including a Russian citizen, were held on suspicion of supporting the organization, they said. Another 27 people were under investigation.

German media outlet Der Spiegel reported the searched locations included the barracks of Germany's special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw. The unit received scrutiny in the past over alleged far-right involvement by some soldiers.

Federal prosecutors declined to confirm or deny that the barracks was searched.

Along with detentions in Germany, prosecutors said one person was detained in the Austrian town of Kitzbuehel and another in the Italian city of Perugia.

Prosecutors said those detained are alleged to last year have formed a “terrorist organization with the goal of overturning the existing state order in Germany and replace it with their own form of state, which was already in the course of being founded.”

The suspects were aware their aim could only be achieved by military means and with force, prosecutors said.

Some of the group's members had made “concrete preparations” to storm Germany's federal parliament with a small armed group, according to prosecutors. “The details (of this plan) still need to be investigated” to determine whether any of the suspects can be charged with treason, they said.

The group is alleged to have believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology,” according to the statement. Prosecutors added that members of the group also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called “deep state;” similar baseless claims about the United States were made by former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors identified the suspected ringleaders as Heinrich XIII P. R. and Ruediger v. P., in line with German privacy rules. Der Spiegel reported that the former was a well-known 71-year-old member of a minor German noble family, while the latter was a 69-year-old former paratrooper.

Federal prosecutors said Heinrich XIII P. R., whom the group planned to install as Germany's new leader, had contacted Russian officials with the aim of negotiating a new order in the country once the German government was overthrown. He was allegedly assisted in this by a Russian woman, Vitalia B.

“According to current investigations there is no indication however that the persons contacted responded positively to his request,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors identified another individual detained by police Wednesday as Birgit M.-W. Der Spiegel reported she is a judge and former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

The party, known by its German acronym AfD, has increasingly come under scrutiny by German security services due to its ties with extremists.

AfD's co-leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel condemned the reported plans, which they said they had only learned of through the media.

“We have full confidence in the authorities involved and demand a swift and comprehensive investigation,” they said in a statement.

Prosecutors said that apart from a council of leaders, or Rat, the group had tasked several members with the formation of an armed wing. Led by Ruediger v. P., the they planned to obtain weapons and conduct firearms training.

The raids showed that “we know how to defend ourselves with full force against the enemies of democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.

“The investigation offers an insight into the depths of the terrorist threat within the Reich Citizens milieu," Faeser said. “Only the further investigation will provide a clear picture of how far the coup plans had come.”

Sara Nanni, a Green party lawmaker, suggested the group may not have been very capable.

“More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup," Nanni said in a post on the social network Mastodon. "The fact is: no matter how crude their ideas are and how hopeless their plans, even the attempt is dangerous!”

Officials have repeatedly warned that far-right extremists pose the biggest threat to Germany's domestic security. This threat was highlighted by the killing of a regional politician and the deadly attack on a synagogue in 2019.

Faeser announced earlier this year that the government planned to disarm about 1,500 suspected extremists and to tighten background checks for those wanting to acquire guns as part of a broader crackdown on the far right.

Germany's chief federal prosecutor planned to make a statement on the case later Wednesday.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/12/07/germany-arrested-suspicion-planning-armed-coup/10850364002/

AMHERST, Mass. – In a discovery that has repercussions for everything from domestic agricultural policy to global food security and the plans to mitigate climate change, researchers at the University of Massachusetts recently announced that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than pre-agricultural erosion rates. These newly discovered pre-agricultural rates, which reflect the rate at which soils form, are orders of magnitude lower than the upper allowable limit of erosion set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The study, which appears in the journal Geology, makes use of a rare element, beryllium-10, or 10Be, that occurs when stars in the Milky Way explode and send high-energy particles, called cosmic rays, rocketing toward Earth. When this galactic shrapnel slams into the Earth’s crust, it splits oxygen in the soil apart, leaving tiny trace amounts of 10Be, which can be used to precisely determine average erosion rates over the span of thousands to millions of years.

“We went to fourteen small patches of remnant native prairie that still exist in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, and used a hand auger to collect deep soil cores, in material that dates back to the last Ice Age,” says Isaac Larsen, professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst and the paper’s senior author. “We brought this soil back to our lab at UMass, sifted it to isolate individual sand grains, removed everything that wasn’t quartz, and then ran these few spoonfuls through a chemical purification process to separate out the 10Be —which was just enough to fit on the head of a pin.”

This sample was then sent to a lab which counted the individual 10Be atoms, from which Larsen and his colleagues calculated a precise rate of erosion, stretching from the present day all the way back to the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago.

“For the first time, we know what the natural rates of erosion are in the Midwest,” says Caroline Quarrier, the paper’s lead author and who completed this research as part of her master’s thesis at UMass Amherst. “And because we now know the rate of erosion before Euro-American settlement, we can see exactly how much modern agriculture has accelerated the process.”

The numbers are not encouraging. “Our median pre-agricultural erosion rate across all the sites we sampled is 0.04 mm per year,” says Larsen. Any modern-day erosion rate higher than that number means that soil is disappearing faster than it is accumulating.

Unfortunately, the USDA’s current limit for erosion is 1 mm per year—twenty-five times greater than the average rate Larsen’s team found. And some sites are experiencing far greater erosion, disappearing at 1,000 times the natural rate. This means that the USDA’s current guidelines will inevitably lead to rapid loss of topsoil.

Not only is the topsoil crucial for U.S. agriculture—the annual cost of diminished agricultural productivity and environmental degradation due to erosion is estimated to be tens of billion dollars per year—as well as world-wide food security, but most climate-mitigation plans rely heavily on storing carbon in the soil.

Yet, there’s no reason to despair. “There are agricultural practices, such as no-till farming, that we know how to do and we know greatly reduce erosion,” says Quarrier. “The key is to reduce our current erosion rates to natural levels,” adds Larsen.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation.


https://www.umass.edu/news/article/soil-midwestern-us-eroding-10-1000-times-faster-it-forms-study-finds

USDC stablecoin could get indirect access to the Federal Reserve’s risk-free liability, as its partner BlackRock is set to apply for the Fed’s reserve repo (RRP) program.

Circle CFO Jeremy Fox-Geen recently announced that the stablecoin issuer had started investing in the Circle Reserve Fund.

The Circle Reserve Fund is managed by BlackRock, which qualifies Circle as an indirect investor in the government money market fund. The reserve will comprise 20% cash held at the Bank of New York Mellon, and 90% short-term U.S. Treasuries.

Fox-Green said that the reserve fund will increase investors’ confidence in the stability and redeemability of their USDC holdings, 1:1 for U.S. dollars at any time.

Circle said that it will convert all its existing Treasury holdings into the Circle Reserve Fund by the end of March 2023.

Circle to get indirect access to Fed’s RRP

Barclays Strategist Joseph Abate wrote that BlackRock plans to use Circle’s Reserve Fund to apply for access to the Federal Reserve’s overnight reverse repurchase (RRP) facility.

A reverse repurchase (RRP) is a monetary instrument that allows the Federal Reserve to sell a security to an eligible party, with an agreement to repurchase the same security at a later date.

The RRP access will give Circle indirect access to a risk-free central bank liability.


Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a CNBC interview that his company was looking to become a full reserve digital bank.


According to Allaire, Circle was open to being a Federal Reserve-supervised entity if that will fast-track its journey to becoming a full reserve digital bank.


https://www.cryptonews.net/news/altcoins/17379529/

The limits set by the Central Bank of Nigeria are part of a broader push to encourage digital financial transactions.

Nigeria has drastically reduced the amount of cash individuals and businesses can withdraw as it attempts to push its “cash-less Nigeria” policy and increase the use of the eNaira — Nigeria’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

The Central Bank of Nigeria issued the directive to financial businesses in a Dec. 6 circular, noting that individuals and businesses would now be limited to withdrawing $45 (₦20,000) per day and $225 (₦100,000) per week from ATMs.

Individuals and businesses will also be limited to withdrawing $225 (₦100,000) and $1,125 (₦500,000) respectively at banks per week, with individuals hit with a 5% fee and businesses with a 10% fee for amounts above those limits.

The maximum cash withdrawal via point-of-sale terminals is also capped at $45 (₦20,000) per day. Announcing the changes the Director of Banking Supervision Haruna Mustafa noted:


The limits are cumulative limits for each withdrawal, so an individual withdrawing $45 from an ATM who then tries to withdraw cash from a bank on the same day would be hit with the 5% service fee.

The previous limits on daily cash withdrawals prior to the announcement were $338 (₦150,000) for individuals and $1,128 (₦500,000) for businesses.

Adoption rates for eNaira have been low since its launch on Oct. 25, 2021. As reported by Cointelegraph on Oct. 26 the Central Bank of Nigeria has struggled to convince its citizens to use the CBDC with less than 0.5% of the population reported having used the eNaira as of Oct. 25, a year on from its launch.

Nigeria established its “cash-less” policy in 2012, suggesting a shift away from physical cash would make its payment system more efficient, reduce the cost of banking services, and improve the effectiveness of its monetary policy.

On Oct. 26 the Governor of Nigeria’s central bank, Godwin Emefiele, noted 85% of all Naira in circulation was held outside of banks and as a result it would be reissuing new banknotes in an effort to drive the shift towards digital payments.

According to a CBDC tracker from the American think-tank, Atlantic Council, Nigeria is one of 11 countries to have fully deployed a CBDC, 15 other countries have launched pilot programs with India set to join the ranks later this month.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigeria-bans-atm-cash-withdrawals-over-225-a-week-to-force-use-of-cbdc

Class action covers anyone in the US who owns iOS or Android devices.

When Apple released AirTags in 2021, the small electronic tracking devices were touted by top executives as being “stalker-proof.” Since then, Vice reported a minimum of 150 police cases documenting stalkers using AirTags, and there have already been two severe stalking cases involving AirTags that ended in murder in Ohio and Indiana.

Confronted by police reports and concerns from privacy advocates, Apple released updates in February, claiming that new features would mitigate reported stalking risks. Stalking reports kept coming, though, and it increasingly seemed to victims that Apple had not done enough to adequately secure AirTags. Now, Apple is being sued by two women who claim that the company is still marketing a “dangerous” product.

In the complaint filed yesterday in a federal court in California, the women suing Apple say that AirTags have become “one of the most dangerous and frightening technologies employed by stalkers.” It has become the “weapon of choice,” they say, because the small size makes the devices hard to detect, the accuracy of Apple’s location tracking is “unparalleled,” and the $29 price is extremely affordable. Victims say that stalkers can effectively track them, and if the device gets deactivated, AirTags are easy to replace at the next opportunity.

These AirTags are supposed to work by emitting Bluetooth signals to Apple’s massive “Find My” network of connected devices, accurately reporting the location of a missing AirTag to the owner. The coat button-size tracking devices can be easily clipped to key rings or dropped in purses to help owners recover lost items.

But the AirTags are also so small that they can easily go undetected, especially when stalkers alter the devices to make them harder to find. For one woman suing, Lauren Hughes, her ex-boyfriend allegedly used a Sharpie to color the AirTag and hide it inside the wheel well of her car. The other woman suing, who remains anonymous out of fear for her physical safety, found an AirTag that her “estranged husband” had allegedly planted in her child’s backpack. When she removed the device from the backpack, it was soon replaced by another.

Lawyers representing the women suing did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Apple previously acknowledged “reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes,” describing in a blog how the company had partnered with law enforcement to help trace AirTags back to the stalkers who owned them. They also said they worked with safety groups to take other steps to prevent unwanted tracking and promised to release a “series of updates” before the end of this year. So far, Apple has not made any mention on its blog of those updates and did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment on whether those updates are still expected to be released in 2022.

The lawsuit Apple now faces is not just about two women being harassed by stalkers using AirTags. It’s a class-action lawsuit that represents all persons residing in the United States who own iOS and Android devices, as well as other sub-classes at risk of stalking.

Plaintiffs suing represent various stalked classes. They are asking for a jury to assess whether, in addition to injunctive relief and damages, Apple should owe punitive damages for allegedly releasing a defective product with insufficient safeguards to prevent stalking, then profiting off sales after allegedly misleading the public to believe AirTags were “stalker-proof.”

“This is problematic for all Class members, as they are unlikely to learn of the dangers associated with AirTags until they have become victims of stalking,” the complaint states.

AirTag safeguards against stalking deemed deficient

The complaint alleges that the Apple AirTag has “revolutionized” location-based stalking by creating a tool with the sole purpose of transmitting its location to its owner and then dismissing warnings from privacy experts to “consider its inevitable use in stalking.” Electronic Frontier Foundation’s director of cybersecurity, Eva Galperin, described AirTags as “uniquely harmful” and was quoted in the complaint as saying that “the network that Apple has access to is larger and more powerful than that used by the other trackers. It’s more powerful for tracking and more dangerous for stalking.”

Quickly after releasing AirTags, the complaint says that immediately, Apple was inundated with “chilling” stalking reports, including stalkers sewing AirTags into clothing to evade discovery. Soon, Apple was “scrambling to address its failures in protecting people from unwanted, dangerous tracking,” the complaint says.

One of the earliest solutions from Apple was providing text-based notifications for iOS users, alerting them when there was an “AirTag Found Moving With You.” However, users couldn’t always trust this alert was accurate—or referring to an AirTag device located near them in a crowd—and they couldn’t always find the tracking device, even if they knew it existed. For Android users, the situation was even bleaker because Apple had no way to send automatic alerts. Android users, thus, became “nearly defenseless to tracking/stalking using an AirTag,” because the only way to find out was to proactively download an app called Tracker Detect and manually search for AirTags.

“Any Android owner who downloads Tracker Detect must decide when and where to scan for AirTags—something a person being unknowingly tracked would be unlikely to do,” the complaint states.

Another solution that Apple has implemented is playing sound notifications when an AirTag is detected, chiming an alert at 60 decibels (“as loud as a normal conversation between two people,” the complaint says). This is not an effective solution, the complaint says, for hearing-impaired people or anyone located in a loud environment when the warning sounds. It also doesn’t help when stalkers cleverly place the device out of hearing range. In Hughes’ case, with an AirTag hidden in the wheel well of her car, she’d likely never hear the warning chime, and when she attempted to engage the AirTag feature to chime when she was searching for the hidden device, the chime only rang once.

Women suing say that even if the text and sound notifications were effective solutions for iOS users, stalkers have already found a way around the safeguard. “Silent AirTags” are sold on e-commerce sites like Etsy and eBay, the complaint says, disabling the speaker that is supposed to protect vulnerable targets of stalking. (A recent Ars review found "silent AirTags" for sale on Etsy, but not eBay.)

In addition to these features, Apple also promised more updates yet to be announced in 2022. These include “precision finding” to help victims using iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 to locate unwanted trackers, as well as syncing text alerts with sound alerts to “help in cases where the AirTag may be in a location where it is hard to hear, or if the AirTag speaker has been tampered with.” They also promised “to use more of the loudest tones to make an unknown AirTag more easily findable.”

The most troublesome aspect of Apple relying on alerts like these to prevent stalking—rather than proactively designing a product that cannot be used by stalkers—is that these alerts are typically substantially delayed. Sometimes victims have been tracked for days before they received an alert, which would give a stalker plenty of time to note their new address or frequented locations. Apple has said that it will release an update “to notify users earlier that an unknown AirTag or ‘Find My’ network accessory may be traveling with them,” but has not yet clarified if that ever happened.

For now, victims like the women suing expect they will remain in danger of being unknowingly tracked as long as AirTags are sold as currently marketed.

“The risks involved with a product like this being abused still seem like they far outweigh the convenience of finding a misplaced set of keys,” the complaint says.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/apple-airtags-are-now-the-weapon-of-choice-for-stalkers-lawsuit-says/

Across Canada, journal calculates up to $136.8 M in savings

New research suggests medically assisted dying could result in substantial savings across Canada's health-care system.

Doctor-assisted death could reduce annual health-care spending across the country by between $34.7 million and $136.8 million, according to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday.

The savings exceedingly outweigh the estimated $1.5 to $14.8 million in direct costs associated with implementing medically assisted dying.

"The take-away point is that there may be some upfront costs associated with offering medical assisted dying to Canadians, but there may also be a reduction in spending elsewhere in the system and therefore offering medical assistance in dying to Canadians will not cost the health care system anything extra," said Aaron Trachtenberg, an author of the report and a resident in internal medicine at the University of Calgary.

Cost has to be a part of the discussion

The researchers used numbers from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, combined with Canadian spending data from Ontario. Trachtenberg stressed that means the work is theoretical and needs to be readdressed when Canada starts collecting large scale data at home.

After June 17, 2016 when Bill C-14 became law, provinces began rolling out their plans to deal with requests for doctor-assisted death.

Manitoba has set up a Medical Assistance in Dying team (MAID). More than 100 patients have contacted MAID, with 24 receiving medically assisted deaths as of Jan. 6.

"In a resource-limited health care system, anytime we roll out a large intervention there has to be a certain amount of planning and preparation and cost has to be a part of that discussion," Trachtenberg said, adding the provinces' differing plans could impact the cost structure of implementation.

"It's just the reality of working in a system of finite resources."

The report estimated that about one to four per cent of Canadians will die using physician-assisted death. Of those, 50 per cent will be between the ages of 60 and 80.

The report estimates a 50-50 split between men and women.

About 80 per cent of patients will have cancer and 60 per cent will have their lives shortened by one month while 40 per cent will have their lives shortened by one week.

End-of-life care has high costs in Canada

Health-care costs increase substantially among patients nearing the end of their life, Trachtenberg said.

"Canadians die in hospitals more often than, say, our counterparts in America or Europe and … we have a lack of palliative care services even though we are trying to improve that. And therefore people end up spending their final days in the hospital," he said.

"Hospital-based care costs the health care system more than a comprehensive palliative care system where we could help people achieve their goal of dying at home."

The report used Manitoba as an example, where 20 per cent of health care costs are attributable to patients within the six months before they die, despite their representing only one per cent of the population. Patients who choose medical assistance in dying may forego this resource-intensive period, the report said.

"Whenever we roll out a large-scale intervention there has to be a discussion around costs. But we do not suggest that costs should ever be considered at an individual level," Trachtenberg said.

"We are not suggesting that patients or providers consider costs when making this very personal and intimate decision to request or provide medical assistance in dying."

The report also emphasized that it is only a cost analysis and doesn't include the clinical effects on patients. Patient-level research will need to be done before true economic evaluation of medical assistance in dying in terms of cost-effectiveness and utility can be done, the report said.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/medically-assisted-death-could-save-millions-1.3947481

Can I ask a question - tell me, just be honest, why are you so worried about the identification technology at the airport? If essentially identical systems have long been operating in shopping centers, subways, banks, and many other structures, where you have been filmed for a long time and without your knowledge, your data is processed and used in any necessary way! I led a project to implement a similar system in a large retail chain. Comfortable and high quality! A lot of issues are being solved - from client identification, for targeted advertising and offers, collecting analytics for analysis (age, gender, etc.), to identifying scammers using a single database of scammers!
At the airport, you have long been known to everyone with your passport, bought by e-ticket, using a bank card. Face identification technology (using fiducial points to create a unique "landscape" of the face) only minimizes the possibility of error and allows you to identify those who are trying to impersonate another person ... Which, by the way, from the point of view of the safety of your flight, is very beneficial for you !

• U.S. manufacturing orders in China are down 40% in what a logistics manager described to CNBC as an unrelenting demand collapse.
• Asia-based shipping firm HLS recently told clients it is a “very bad time for the shipping industry.”
• China to U.S. container volume was down 21% between August and November.
• Chinese factories are shutting down two weeks earlier than usual ahead of Chinese New Year.

U.S. logistic managers are bracing for delays in the delivery of goods from China in early January as a result of canceled sailings of container ships and rollovers of exports by ocean carriers.

Carriers have been executing on an active capacity management strategy by announcing more blank sailings and suspending services to balance supply with demand. “The unrelenting decline in container freight rates from Asia, caused by a collapse in demand, is compelling ocean carriers to blank more sailings than ever before as vessel utilization hits new lows,” said Joe Monaghan, CEO of Worldwide Logistics Group.

U.S. manufacturing orders in China are down 40 percent, according to the latest CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map data. As a result of the decrease in orders, Worldwide Logistics tells CNBC it is expecting Chinese factories to shut down two weeks earlier than usual for the Chinese Lunar New Year — Chinese New Year’s Eve falls on Jan. 21 next year. The seven days after the holiday are considered a national holiday.

“Many of the manufacturers will be closed in early January for the holiday, which is much earlier than last year,” Monaghan said.

Supply chain research firm Project44 tells CNBC that after reaching record-breaking levels of trade during the pandemic lockdowns, vessel TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) volume from China to the U.S. has significantly pulled back since the end of summer 2022 — including a decline of 21% in total vessel container volume between August and November.



Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/TR4BmSv/chinese-imports.jpg

Asia-based global shipping firm HLS warned clients in a recent communication about the ocean transport business climate.

″It seems to be a very bad time for the shipping industry. We have the combination of declining demands and overcapacity as new tonnage enters the market,” it wrote.

HLS analysts are predicting a further 2.5% decline in container volumes and a nearly 5-6% increase in capacity in 2023, which will continue to negatively impact freight rates in 2023.

“The container shipping market will be further complicated by economic uncertainty, geopolitical concerns, and also the increasingly heated market competition,” HLS wrote.

OL USA CEO Alan Baer tells CNBC that there are some early signs of an inventory correction. Overall business volume and order flow out of Asia continue to be muted as carriers cancel more vessels, and there is little upside momentum leading into Chinese New Year. But Baer said, “Space has already tightened, so while demand is soft, space may be at a premium in January and throughout Q1. On the plus side, inventory depletion and the need to restart the order and delivery cycle appears to be inching upward.”

U.S. West Coast ports take biggest hit

HLS cited trade data showing that U.S. imports from Asia plunged in October to their lowest level in 20 months. The spot rate for a container from Asia to the U.S. West Coast has crossed the breakeven point, “with little room for further reductions,” it wrote.

The large West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have experienced the largest drop in trade, according to Josh Brazil, vice president of supply chain insights at Project44, as shippers also rerouted some of their shipments to the East Coast to avoid the risk of a major union strike at West Coast ports.

HLS expects most carriers to extend their West Coast rates until December 14, holding at $1,300-$1,400 per forty-foot equivalent containers (FEU). However, U.S. East Coast rates are expected to drop by $200 or $300 to average $3,200-3,300 per FEU in the first half of December.

The recent rise in Covid lockdowns in China continues to impact manufacturing operations and delay cargo outputs. There are also local access obstacles for cross-province and cross-city transportation, mostly related to truck driver testing requirements, with trucking capacity to be largely affected.

The fight for vessel space, the rollovers of cargo, and the slow trucking is tracked by the CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map.

Blank (canceled) sailings data shows the cut in vessel capacity on the transpacific route (China to the U.S.) continues at a significant pace. The 2M Alliance of Maersk and MSC has suspended almost half of its U.S. West Coast services for December. The Ocean Alliance (CMA CGM, Cosco Shipping, OOCL and Evergreen) and THE Alliance (Ocean Network Express, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM and Yang Ming Line) have cut overall vessel capacity by 40-50% up to Chinese New Year.

As a result, space for shippers is considered tight for cargo bound for the Pacific Southwest route and service reliability has declined, with carriers including MSC and Hapag-Lloyd rolling (not accepting) cargo on sailings in an effort to make up time. According to logistics managers, this is creating two weeks of delay. MSC said in its latest notice to clients, “ETAs are indicative and subject to change without prior notice.”

The drop in manufacturing orders from the U.S. and the E.U. is also impacting Vietnam, which has been booming as a manufacturing hub as more trade moved away from China.

Since early this year, 12,500 companies were closed per month, a 24.8% increase year over year, according to the Vietnam General Statistics Office report. The combination of the lack of manufacturing orders and loan interest rates increasing from 6.5% to 13.2% in Vietnam led many companies to close factories instead of signing new order contracts, according to HLS. Canceled ocean sailings bound for Vietnam are up 50% for December.

Surprise European manufacturing increase

Unlike the decrease in orders out of China, trade data analyzed by Project44 indicates that the Europe-to-U.S. route is “one of the possibly most surprising and certainly most significant developments since early 2020,” Brazil said.

“This sharp rise cannot be explained by the pandemic alone. But a strategic shift from over-dependency on trade with China and geopolitical tensions over Russia are the main drivers of the EU-U.S. trade boom,” he said.



Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/1ssfr3B/european-imports.jpg

The global trading map is being rapidly redrawn, with EU-U.S. trade and investment in U.S. rising sharply as economic ties between the West and China are subjected to critical scrutiny. This year, the U.S. has imported more goods from Europe than China – a big shift from the 2010s, according to Project 44.

“For their part, Europe’s manufacturers battling sky-high energy prices and inflation are increasingly exporting to and investing in the U.S.,” Brazil said.

Germany’s exports to the U.S. were almost 50% higher in September year over year. Germany’s mechanical engineering sector has boosted its exports to the U.S. by almost 20% in a year over year comparison of the first nine months of 2022, according to Project 44.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/04/manufacturing-orders-from-china-down-40percent-in-demand-collapse.html

It’s very hard to beat the stock or bond markets with any regularity.

Each year, some investors manage to do it, of course, but can they do it consistently? A new study of actively managed mutual funds by S&P Dow Jones Indices asked that question and came up with a startling result.

It found that not a single mutual fund — not one — managed to beat its benchmark in either the US stock or bond markets regularly and convincingly over the last five years. These results are even worse than those of 2014 and 2015, when I last examined this subject closely.

“If you want to be adventurous and pick stocks or actively managed funds, go ahead, of course,” Tim Edwards, global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in an interview. “But understand the risks you are taking.”

These findings support practical advice that has been the academic consensus for decades. Forget about trying to beat the odds and outsmarting everybody else. Instead, use low-cost stock and bond index funds that mirror the overall market, and keep them for decades. Don’t bother with fads or fancy market timing.

While it’s possible to beat index funds, it’s not easy to do over the long run, and as Paul Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel in economics said in the 1970s, it isn’t worthwhile for most of us to try.

Yet especially in a year like this — when both the stock and bond markets have had horrendous losses — it’s tempting to seek a better way. Why stick with index funds, which merely match the market, and ensure that you have had what any sane person would consider terrible results?

Picking stocks and bonds on your own — or getting a professional to do it — may seem a better way to go. But before you take that route, examine the latest evidence. It shows that as bad as index funds have been, actively managed funds have generally been worse.

For 20 years, S&P Dow Jones Indices has been providing “scorecards” that compare the performance of active mutual fund managers with a series of benchmarks, or indexes, that capture the broad stock and bond markets, or discrete pieces of them. Many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds mirror these indexes, and a basic question for any investment strategy is: Does it beat the index? S&P Dow Jones Indices also tabulates how many funds beat the indexes persistently, year in and year out.

In a nutshell, these report cards have never been particularly good for actively managed funds. The studies have found that most actively managed mutual funds do worse than their benchmark index, both over the long run and in the vast majority of calendar years, in the United States and elsewhere around the globe. For example, the last time the average active US stock fund beat the S&P 500 stock index for a full calendar year was in 2009. And over a full 20-year period ending last December, fewer than 10 per cent of active US stock funds managed to beat their benchmarks.

Still, every year, some actively managed funds outperform the indexes. If you own one that does, you may not care about all the others that fail to do so.

But then the issue is, will this outperformance persist? Another way of putting the question is this: Are these funds beating the market because they are lucky or because some investors are more skillful than others?

There is no absolutely correct, quantifiable answer to these questions. Some investors are undoubtedly more knowledgeable than others and make better decisions. But are they good enough to stay ahead of the market year after year, especially when fees and expenses are included?

The most recent evidence isn’t encouraging.

You may think that it’s easier to beat the market when stocks and bonds are falling in value. As it turns out, that’s not the case.

Over the last five years, not a single mutual fund has beaten the market regularly, using the definition that S&P Dow Jones Indices has employed for two decades.

The S&P Dow Jones team looked at all the 2,132 broad, actively managed domestic stock mutual funds that had been operating for at least 12 months as of June 2018. (The study excluded narrowly focused sector funds and leveraged funds that, essentially, used borrowed money to magnify their returns.)

The team selected the 25 per cent of the funds with the best performance over the 12 months through June 2018. Then the analysts asked how many of those funds remained in the top quarter for the four succeeding 12-month periods through June 2022.

The answer was none.

Not a single one of the initial 2,132 funds managed to achieve top-quartile performance for those five successive years. That hasn’t happened for stock funds since 2011. This time, S&P Dow Jones Indices did the same measurements for fixed-income funds and came up with the same result: zero. Not a single bond fund remained in the top quarter for every 12-month period.

While scoring in the top 25% year after year is a fairly high hurdle, it strikes me as a reasonable one. But S&P Dow Jones Indices also used an easier test. How many funds ended up in the top 50 per cent year after year over five years? For those 2,132 stock funds, the answer was only 1 per cent. That’s still a dismal result.

Consider a very big public school with more than 2,100 students in a class. Not all the high performers will always score in the top 25 per cent of their class, but I’d expect that at least some of them would, every year, over five years. If not a single person managed to do that, I’d wonder why. If only 1 per cent — 21 of 2,100 — had better-than-average performance every year over five years, I’d think that something was wrong with the school or with the scores.

Why did all the actively managed funds perform so badly in the S&P Dow Jones tests? In an interview, Edwards said two things were going on.

“First, it’s always hard to consistently beat the market,” he said. “We’ve got two decades that show that. Very few people can do that in the best of times.

“The more subtle thing is the fact that no one has been able to do it lately,” he continued. “And what that shows is that whatever worked well for investors from, say, 2017 to 2021 just didn’t work in 2022, when the markets turned.” In other words, the markets are efficient enough that it’s hard to be better than average for long, and when trends change sharply as they did this year, nearly everyone is wrong-footed.

This is a classic reason for relying mainly on index funds — essentially, accepting overall market returns, no better and no worse. Note that for the 20 years through June, the S&P 500 annually returned more than 9 per cent, on average — which means your investment doubled in value every eight years. That’s roughly what an index fund would have done for you — and it’s better than the vast majority of actively managed funds were able to do.

On the other hand, given this year’s losses in both stocks and bonds, it’s also clear that investing in broad, diversified index funds is no panacea. These funds don’t protect you when the market falls. And they have other major problems, which I’ll come back to in other columns: They don’t allow you to vote directly on the policies of individual companies, and they include within them companies that you may dislike or even abhor.

Some actively managed funds did better than the overall market over the last 15 or 20 years. Though they were unable to do so consistently year after year, they had good stretches, and those periods were strong enough to make them outperform over the entire span. Such funds may well be worth owning.

“Those that have managed to do that are impressive,” Edwards said. “But which funds will be able to do it over the next 20 years?” Unfortunately, we don’t know.

That’s why cheap, broad index funds make sense as core investments for the long haul, even in a year like this one, when the markets have been falling.

https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/world/mutual-funds-that-consistently-beat-the-market-not-one-of-2132/ar-AA14T3ga

Austin, Texas-based 3D printing construction company ICON has gotten some pretty significant projects off the ground in recent years, from a 50-home development in Mexico to a 100-home neighborhood in Texas. This week the company won a NASA contract that will help it get an even bigger project much further off the ground—all the way to the moon, in fact.

The $57.2 million contract is intended to help ICON develop technologies for building infrastructure on the moon, like landing pads, houses, and roads. The goal is for ICON to build these lunar structures using local material—that is, moon houses built out of moon dust and moon rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anBl7HEo5pY

“To change the space exploration paradigm from ‘there and back again’ to ‘there to stay,’ we’re going to need robust, resilient, and broadly capable systems that can use the local resources of the moon and other planetary bodies,” said ICON co-founder and CEO Jason Ballard in a press release.

Doing anything in space is ultra-expensive because you have to bring the materials and tools you need up from Earth. Imagine loading rockets with bricks or cement mix for 100 houses and flying them to the moon. Not only would this be cost-prohibitive, it could very well be a waste of time and resources because those building materials wouldn’t hold up on the lunar surface the same way they do on Earth.

“If you tried to plan a lunar settlement or a moon base and you had to bring everything with you, every time you wanted to build a new thing it’s like another $100M,” Ballard said. “But once you’ve got a system that can build almost anything—landing pads, roadways, habitats—and it uses local material, you are probably two or three orders of magnitude cheaper to build a permanent lunar presence than you would be in any other way that we can think of.”

ICON engineers plan to study lunar regolith to determine how it might behave when used as a building material. According to Payload, ICON’s regolith-based building process would look something like this: they’d put down an initial layer of moon dust and rocks in the shape of whatever they’re trying to build—say, the walls of a lunar habitat—then use a purpose-built laser to melt the regolith so that it would be permanently stuck together. Once the first layer solidified, they’d add another; it’s not so different from the way their 3D printers work on Earth.

The “printer” ICON is developing for use on the moon is called Olympus, and it looks something like a giant mechanical spider with a crane attached. It would land on the moon via commercial lander and drive itself to the build site to start processing regolith for construction.

Similar to how soil on different parts of Earth can vary greatly in composition—in some places it’s rockier, in others it’s sandier, in yet others it contains clay (and that’s not even to mention the differences in its chemical makeup)—the moon’s regolith isn’t quite the same all over. ICON will need to test how Olympus functions with different materials to make sure the tool will be usable on various parts of the moon.

The new NASA contract is actually a continuation of an existing US Air Force contract, partially funded by NASA, under which ICON was tasked with exploring commonalities between Earth-based and off-Earth applications of 3D printing construction. The contract runs through 2028 and includes a  demonstration on the moon’s surface in 2026.

It all sounds pretty ambitious, and like something straight out of a sci-fi film. We’ll see how ICON’s plans play out over the next four years; various wrenches could get tossed into the project’s spokes and slow things down.

But Ballard is characteristically optimistic. “The final deliverable of this contract will be humanity’s first construction on another world, and that is going to be a pretty special achievement,” he said.




https://singularityhub.com/2022/12/01/nasa-gave-icon-57-million-to-build-a-3d-printer-for-structures-on-the-moon/