An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Over the past month, classified Pentagon documents have circulated on 4chan, Telegram, and various Discord servers. The documents contain daily intelligence briefings, sensitive information about Ukrainian military positions, and a handwritten character sheet for a table-top roleplaying game. No one knows who leaked the Pentagon documents or how. They appeared online as photographs of printed pages, implying someone printed them out and removed them from a secure location, similar to how NSA translator Reality Winner leaked documents. The earliest documents Motherboard has seen are dated February 23, though the New York Times and Bellingcat reported that some are dated as early as January. According to Bellingcat, the earliest known instances of the leaks appearing online can be traced back to a Discord server.

At some point, a Discord user uploaded a zip file of 32 images from the leak onto a Minecraft Discord server. Included in this pack alongside highly sensitive, Top Secret and other classified documents about the Pentagon's strategy and assessment of the war in Ukraine, was a handwritten piece of paper that appeared to be a character sheet for a roleplaying game. It's written on a standard piece of notebook paper, three holes punched out on the side, blue lines crisscrossing the page. The character's name is Doctor "Izmer Trotzky," his character class is "Professor Scientist." They've got a strength of 5, a charisma of 4, and 19 rubles to their name. Doctor Trotzky has 10 points in first aid and occult skills, and 24 in spot hidden. He's carrying a magnifying glass, a fountain pen, a sword cane, and a deringer. [...]

But what game is it from? Motherboard reached out to game designer Jacqueline Bryk to find out. Bryk is an award-winning designer of roleplaying games who has worked on Kult: Divinity Lost, Changeling: the Lost, Fading Suns: Pax Alexius, and Vampire: the Masquerade. "I strongly suspect this is Call Of Cthulhu," Bryk said when first looking at the sheet. Call of Cthulhu (COC) is an RPG based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft where players attempt to stave off madness while investigating eldritch horrors. "This is a pretty classic Professor build. The sword cane really clinches it for me. I notice he's currently carrying a derringer and a dagger but took no points in firearms or fighting. I'm not sure which edition this is but it seems like the most he could do with his weapons is throw them." "After some research, Bryk concluded that the game is a homebrewed combination of COC and the Fallout tabletop game based on the popular video game franchise," adds Motherboard. "My best guest here is Fallout: Cthulhu the Homebrew," Bryk said, giving the home designed game a name.

When Dr. Makenzie Lystrup was sworn in as the new director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center last week, she didn't take her oath of office on the Bible or the U.S. Constitution, but rather on a tome revered by space enthusiasts everywhere: Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. From a report: The book, published in 1994, is named after an iconic image of Earth, snapped by the Voyager I probe, that depicts the planet as a small speck smothered by the emptiness of space. That photo inspired astronomer Carl Sagan to write: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us." For many, the book serves as a reminder of humanity's place in the universe and the need to preserve our home planet, which makes it similar to holy scripture for a newly appointed NASA director. On Thursday, when Lystrup chose to place her left hand on a copy of Sagan's book while being sworn in by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a photographer captured the moment, and NASA Goddard's social media shared the image. The constitution does not require that government officials be sworn in using a particular text, just that they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution." Most U.S. politicians and officials end up using the Bible.

"Rust" and "Cargo" are registered trademarks held by the Rust Foundation — the independent non-profit supporting Rust's maintainers. In August 1,000 people responded to the foundation's Trademark Policy Review Survey, after which the foundation invited any interested individuals to join their Trademark Policy Working Group (which also included Rust Project leaders). They've now created a draft of an updated policy for feedback...

Crate, RS, "Rustacean," and the logo of Ferris the crab are all available for use by anyone consistent with their definition, with no special permission required. Here's how the document's quick reference describes other common use-cases:

• Selling Goods — Unless explicitly approved, use of the Rust name or Logo is not allowed for the purposes of selling products/promotional goods for gain/profit, or for registering domain names. For example, it is not permitted to sell stickers of the Rust logo in an online shop for your personal profit.

• Showing Support of Rust — When showing your support of the Rust Project on a personal site or blog, you may use the Rust name or Logo, as long as you abide by all the requirements listed in the Policy. You may use the Rust name or Logo in social media handles, avatars, and emojis to demonstrate Rust Project support in a manner that is decorative, so long as you don't suggest commercial Rust affiliation.

• Inclusion of the Marks in Educational Materials — You may use the Rust name in book and article titles and the Logo in graphic components, so long as you make it clear that the Rust Project or Foundation has not reviewed/approved/endorsed your content.

There's also a FAQ, answering questions like "Can I use the Rust logo as my Twitter Avatar?" The updated policy draft says "We consider social media avatars on personal accounts to be fair use. On the other hand, using Rust trademarks in corporate social media bios/profile pictures is prohibited.... In general, we prohibit the modification of the Rust logo for any purpose, except to scale it. This includes distortion, transparency, color-changes affiliated with for-profit brands or political ideologies. On the other hand, if you would like to change the colors of the Rust logo to communicate allegiance with a community movement, we simply ask that you run the proposed logo change by us..."

And for swag at events using the Rust logo, "Merch developed for freebies/giveaways is normally fine, however you need approval to use the Rust Word and/or Logo to run a for-profit event. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission... If your event is for-profit, you will need approval to use the Rust name or Logo. If you are simply covering costs and the event is non-profit, you may use the Rust name or Logo as long as it is clear that the event is not endorsed by the Rust Foundation. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission."

America's Department of Justice just launched an investigation into the leaking of classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense, reports the Washington Post.

"On Wednesday, images showing some of the documents began circulating on the anonymous online message board 4chan and made their way to at least two mainstream social media platforms, Telegram and Twitter." Earlier Friday, The Washington Post obtained dozens of what appeared to be photographs showing classified documents, dating to late February and early March, that range from worldwide intelligence briefings to tactical-level battlefield updates and assessments of Ukraine's defense capabilities. They outline information about the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, and include highly sensitive U.S. analyses about China and other nations. The materials also reference highly classified sources and methods that the United States uses to collect such information, alarming U.S. national security officials who have seen them.... The material that appeared online includes photographs of documents labeled "Secret" or "Top Secret," and began appearing on Discord, a chat platform popular with gamers, according to a Post review.

In some cases, it appears that the slides were manipulated. For instance, one image features combat casualty data suggesting the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war is far below what the Pentagon publicly has assessed. Another version of the image showed higher Russian casualty figures. Besides the information on casualties that appeared to be manipulated to benefit the Russian government, U.S. officials who spoke to The Post said many of the leaked documents did not appear to be forged and looked consistent in format with CIA World Intelligence Review reports distributed at high levels within the White House, Pentagon and the State Department....

The documents appear to have been drawn from multiple reports and agencies, and concern matters other than Ukraine. Two pages, for example, are purportedly a "CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update," and includes information about events concerning Russia, Hungary and Iran.... Rachel E. VanLandingham, a former Air Force attorney and expert on military law, said that whoever is responsible for the leak "is in a world of hurt." Such breaches, she said, constitute "one of the most serious crimes that exist regarding U.S. national security...."

Skepticism abounded Friday among both Russian and Ukrainian officials aware of reports about the leaks, with each side accusing the other of being involved in a deliberate act of disinformation.
The Post notes one defense official told them "hundreds — if not thousands" of people had access to the documents, so their source "could be anyone."

But the photographs received by the Post were apparently taken from printed documents, and "classified documents may only be printed from computers in a secure facility, and each transaction is electronically logged, said Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel with the National Security Agency who emphasized that he was speaking only about general procedures. "The fact that the documents were printed out should significantly narrow the universe of the initial inquiry."

SpaceX plans to carry out a launch rehearsal next week of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, and its first test flight possibly the following week, the private space company said Thursday. Phys.Org reports: SpaceX published photos of the massive Starship, which is designed to eventually send astronauts to the Moon and beyond, on its launchpad at the company's base in Texas. "Starship fully stacked at Starbase," SpaceX said in a tweet. "Team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week followed by Starship's first integrated flight test ~ week later pending regulatory approval."

SpaceX will need a green light from the Federal Aviation Administration before being allowed to carry out the orbital test launch. SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster of Starship in February. The 230-foot (69-meter) Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing, called a static fire, to prevent it from lifting off.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The Russian government has banned more than 10,000 websites for content about the war in Ukraine since Moscow launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The blacklist includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and independent news outlets. Over the past year, Russians living inside the country have turned to censorship circumvention tools such as VPNs to pierce through the information blockade. But as dozens of virtual private networks get blocked, leaving users scrambling to maintain their access to free information, local activists and developers are coming up with new solutions. One of them is Amnezia VPN, a free, open source VPN client.

"We even do not advertise and promote it, and new users are still coming by the hundreds every day," says Mazay Banzaev, Amnezia VPN's founder. Unlike commercial VPNs that route users through company servers, which can be blocked, Amnezia VPN makes it simple for users to buy and set up their own servers. This allows them to choose their own IP address and use protocols that are harder to block. "More than half of the commercial VPNs in Russia have been blocked because it's easy enough to block them: They do not block them by protocols, but by IP addresses," says Banzaev. "[Amnezia] is an order of magnitude more resilient than a typical commercial VPN." Amnezia VPN is similar to Outline, a free and open source tool developed by Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google. Amnezia was created in 2020 during a hackathon supported by Russian digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda. Even then, "it was clear that things were moving toward stricter censorship," says Banzaev. [...]

It is unclear how many users the service has, since the organization doesn't have a way to monitor user numbers, Banzaev says. However, Amnezia offers a Telegram bot called AmneziaFree, which shares VPN configurations that help users access blocked platforms and news; it has almost 100,000 users. The bot is currently struggling with overload, and users are complaining about spotty service. Banzaev says the Amnezia team is working to add new servers on a limited budget, and that they are also working on a new version of the service. "Amnezia is not only used in Russia," notes Wired. "The service has spread to Turkmenistan, Iran, China, and other countries where users have been struggling with free access to the web."

With no discussion, the Arkansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that would require social media users in The Natural State to verify they're 18 years old or older to use the platforms. Arkansas Times reports: The proposal, backed by Gov. Sarah Sanders, is aimed at shielding minors from the harmful effects of social media. Young folks could use the platforms, but only if parents provide consent. Senate Bill 396, sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Springdale) and Rep. Jon Eubanks (R-Paris), would require social media companies including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to contract with third-party companies to perform age verification. Users would have to provide the third-party company with a digital driver's license. Dees also sponsored a bill, now law, that requires anyone who wants to watch online pornography to verify they're an adult.

The social media bill squeaked through the Senate with 18 yes votes, the bare minimum, but passed the House 82-10 with four voting present (same as no). No one asked any questions of Eubanks -- who assured his colleagues that Facebook had "the AI and algorithms" to keep track of what users had parental consent without holding on to sensitive data -- but because it was amended (to among other things exempt LinkedIn, the most boring social media platform), the bill has to go back to the Senate, where perhaps it will meet some resistance. Utah's governor signed two bills into law last month requiring companies like Meta, Snap and TikTok to get parents permission before teens could create accounts on their platforms. "The laws also require curfew, parental controls and age verification features," adds Engadget.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: An Apple Store at the Alderwood Mall was burgled last weekend, with thieves infiltrating the location through a nearby coffee shop. According to Seattle's King 5 News, thieves broke into Seattle Coffee Gear, went into the bathroom, and cut a hole in the wall to get to the Apple Store backroom. The burglars were able to bypass the Apple Store's security system by using the adjacent coffee shop, stealing a total of 436 iPhones that were worth around $500,000.

According to Seattle Coffee Gear manager Eric Marks, the coffee shop is not noticeably adjacent to the Apple Store because of the way that the store is laid out. "I would have never suspected we were adjacent to the Apple Store, how it wraps around I mean," Marks told King 5 News. "So, someone really had to think it out and have access to the mall layout." Police were able to obtain surveillance footage of the theft, but as it is part of an active investigation, it has not yet been released. Nothing was stolen from the coffee shop, but it will cost $1,500 to replace locks and repair the bathroom wall.

Here's a good reason to use Google Pay: Google might send you a bunch of free money. From a report: Many users report that Google accidentally deposited cash in their accounts -- anywhere from $10 to $1,000. Android researcher Mishaal Rahman got hit with the bug and shared most of the relevant details on Twitter. The cash arrived via Google Pay's "reward" program. Just like a credit card, you're supposed to get a few bucks back occasionally for various promotions, but nothing like this. Numerous screenshots show users receiving loads of "Reward" money for what the message called "dogfooding the Google Pay Remittance experience." "Dogfooding" is tech speak for "internally beta testing pre-release software," so if a message like this was ever supposed to go out, it should have only gone out to Google employees and/or some testing partners. Many regular users received multiple copies of this message with multiple payouts.

India amended its IT law on Thursday to prohibit Facebook, Twitter and other social media firms from publishing, hosting or sharing false or misleading information about "any business" of the government and said the firms will be required to rely on New Delhi's own fact-check unit to determine the authenticity of any claim in a blow to many American giants that identify the South Asian market as their largest by users. From a report: Failure to comply with the rule, which also impacts internet service providers such as Jio and Airtel, risks the firms losing their safe harbour protections. The rule, first proposed in January this year, gives a unit of the government arbitrary and overbroad powers to determine the authenticity of online content and bypasses the principles of natural justice, said New Delhi-headquartered digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation.

The recently introduced RESTRICT Act, otherwise known as the "TikTok ban," is a dangerous substitute for comprehensive data privacy legislation, writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post. From the post: As we wrote in our initial review of the bill, the RESTRICT Act would authorize the executive branch to block 'transactions' and 'holdings' of 'foreign adversaries' that involve 'information and communication technology' and create 'undue or unacceptable risk' to national security and more. We've explained our opposition to the RESTRICT Act and urged everyone who agrees to take action against it. But we've also been asked to address some of the concerns raised by others. We do that here in this post. At its core, RESTRICT would exempt certain information services from the federal statute, known as the Berman Amendments, which protects the free flow of information in and out of the United States and supports the fundamental freedom of expression and human rights concerns. RESTRICT would give more power to the executive branch and remove many of the commonsense restrictions that exist under the Foreign Intelligence Services Act (FISA) and the aforementioned Berman Amendments. But S. 686 also would do a lot more.

EFF opposes the bill, and encourages you to reach out to your representatives to ask them not to pass it. Our reasons for opposition are primarily that this bill is being used as a cudgel to protect data from foreign adversaries, but under our current data privacy laws, there are many domestic adversaries engaged in manipulative and invasive data collection as well. Separately, handing relatively unchecked power over to the executive branch to make determinations about what sort of information technologies and technology services are allowed to enter the U.S. is dangerous. If Congress is concerned about foreign powers collecting our data, it should focus on comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation that will have a real impact, and protect our data no matter what platform it's on -- TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else that profits from our private information. That's why EFF supports such consumer data privacy legislation. Foreign adversaries won't be able to get our data from social media companies if the social media companies aren't allowed to collect, retain, and sell it in the first place. EFF says it's not clear if the RESTRICT Act will even result in a "ban" on TikTok. It does, however, have potential to punish people for using a VPN to access TikTok if it is restricted. In conclusion, the group says the bill is similar to a surveillance bill and is "far too broad in the power it gives to investigate potential user data."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Like so much in our modern era, Australia's high-stakes gamble on renewable energy starts with an Elon Musk Twitter brag. South Australia's last coal-fired power plant had closed, leaving the province of 1.8 million heavily reliant on wind farms and power imports from a neighboring region. When an unprecedented blackout caused much of the country to question the state's dependence on clean power, Tesla boasted -- on Twitter, of course -- that it had a solution: It could build the world's biggest battery, and fast. "@Elonmusk, how serious are you about this," replied Australian software billionaire and climate activist Mike Cannon-Brookes. "Can you guarantee 100MW in 100 days?" Musk responded: "Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?"

To the astonishment of many, Tesla succeeded, and today, almost seven years later, that battery and more like it have become central to a shockingly rapid energy transition. By the middle of the next decade, major coal-fired power stations that generate about half of Australia's electricity will shut down. Gas-fired plants are being retired, too, and nuclear power is banned. That leaves solar, wind and hydro as the major options in the country's post-coal future. "It's really a remarkable story," said Audrey Zibelman, the former head of the Australian Energy Market Operator, or AEMO, the agency that runs the grid, and now an adviser to Alphabet's X. "Because we're not interconnected, we've had to learn to do it in a much more sophisticated way, where a lot of other countries will go once they've shut down their fossils."

It may be Australia's biggest power buildout since electrification in the 1920s and 30s. And, if successful, could be replicated across the 80% of the world's population that lives in the so-called sun belt -- which includes Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India, southern China and Southeast Asia, says Professor Andrew Blakers, an expert in renewable energy and solar technology at Australian National University. That, in turn, would go a long way to halting climate change. Building battery storage is just one critical piece of the national project, and AEMO and others are worried coal plants will shut before there's enough additional electricity supply. Australia needs to increase its grid-scale wind and solar capacity ninefold by 2050. Connecting all that generation and storage into the grid will require more investment. Overall, the cost could be a staggering A$320 billion ($215 billion), and the money is starting to flow: Brookfield Asset Management Ltd., Macquarie Group Ltd., and billionaires Andrew Forrest and Cannon-Brookes have all been involved in headline-grabbing energy deals in recent months. New government support for renewables has also improved investor sentiment, according to the Clean Energy Investor Group, which includes project developers and financiers.

theodp writes: Are you ready to rock it with #datascience?" asks a tweet from Club for the Future, the tax-exempt foundation founded and funded by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, which is partnering with Microsoft's Hacking STEM to show how data science is used to determine a Go/No-Go launch of a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Interestingly, while Amazon founder Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are big backers of nonprofit Code.org and joined other tech CEOs for CS last fall to get the nation's Governors to "update the K-12 curriculum, for every student in every school to have the opportunity to learn computer science," Microsoft and Blue Origin have opted to teach kids aged 11-15 good old-fashioned Excel skills in their Introduction to the Data Science Process mini-course, not Python or R.

"Excel is a tool used around the world to work with data," Microsoft explains to teachers who have been living under a rock since 1985. "In these activities, students learn how to use Excel and complete all steps of a mission by engaging in the data science process. In this mission, students analyze key weather data in determining flight safety parameters for a New Shepard rocket and ultimately make a Go/No-Go decision for launch. Students learn how to use Excel while engaging in this dynamic Data Science Process activity [which is not unlike PLATO 'data science' activities of 50 years ago]." Blue Origin last September pledged to inspire youth to pursue space STEM careers as part of the Biden Administration's efforts to increase the space industry's capacity to meet the rising demand for the skilled technical workforce.

eFile.com, an IRS-authorized e-file software service provider used by many for filing their tax returns, has been caught serving JavaScript malware. BleepingComputer reports: eFile.com was caught serving malware, as spotted by multiple users and researchers. The malicious JavaScript file in question is called 'popper.js'. The development comes at a crucial time when U.S. taxpayers are wrapping up their IRS tax returns before the April 18th due date. BleepingComputer can confirm, the malicious JavaScript file 'popper.js' was being loaded by almost every page of eFile.com, at least up until April 1st. As of today, the file is no longer seen serving the malicious code.

On March 17th, a Reddit thread surfaced where multiple eFile.com users suspected the website was "hijacked." At the time, the website showed an SSL error message that, some suspected, was fake and indicative of a hack. Turns out that's indeed the case. [...] The malicious JavaScript file 'update.js', further attempts to prompt users to download next stage payload, depending on whether they are using Chrome [update.exe - VirusTotal] or Firefox [installer.exe - VirusTotal]. Antivirus products have already started flagging these executables as trojans.

BleepingComputer has independently confirmed these binaries establish a connection to a Tokyo-based IP address, 47.245.6.91, that appears to be hosted with Alibaba. The same IP also hosts the illicit domain, infoamanewonliag[.]online associated with this incident. Security research group, MalwareHunterTeam further analyzed these binaries, and stated that these contain Windows botnets written in PHP -- a fact that the research group mocked. Additionally, the group called out eFile.com for leaving the malicious code on its website for weeks: "So, the website of [efile.com]... got compromised at least around middle of March & still not cleaned," writes MalwareHunterTeam.

Google is backtracking on its decision to put a file creation cap on Google Drive. From a report: Around two months ago, the company decided to cap all Google Drive users to 5 million files, even if they were paying for extra storage. The company did this in the worst way possible, rolling out the limit as a complete surprise and with no prior communication. Some users logged in to find they were suddenly millions of files over the new limit and unable to upload new files until they deleted enough to get under the limit. Some of these users were businesses that had the sudden file cap bring down their systems, and because Google never communicated that the change was coming, many people initially thought the limitation was a bug.

Apparently, sunshine really is the best disinfectant. The story made the tech news rounds on Friday, and Ars got Google on the record saying that the file cap was not a bug and was actually "a safeguard to prevent misuse of our system in a way that might impact the stability and safety of the system." After the weekend reaction to "Google Drive's Secret File Cap!" Google announced on Twitter Monday night that it was rolling back the limit. [...] Google told us it initially rolled the limitation out to stop what it called "misuse" of Drive, and with the tweet saying Google wants to "explore alternate approaches to ensure a great experience for all," it sounds like we might see more kinds of Drive limitations in the future.

Apple will expand ProMotion to the standard iPhone models in two years, according to Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants. ProMotion was first introduced on the iPhone 13 Pro models in 2021 and remains exclusive to Pro models for now. MacRumors reports: In a tweet today, Young provided a roadmap outlining various display-related technologies coming to future iPhones. Notably, the roadmap indicates that low-power LTPO display technology will be expanded to the standard iPhones in 2025, which Young said will enable ProMotion on these devices, allowing the display to ramp up to a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling and video content when necessary.

ProMotion would also allow the display to ramp down to a more power-efficient refresh rate. iPhone 13 Pro models can ramp down to 10Hz, while iPhone 14 Pro models can go as low as 1Hz, allowing for an always-on display that can show the Lock Screen's clock, widgets, notifications, and wallpaper even when the device is locked. All in all, the roadmap suggests that the so-called "iPhone 17" and "iPhone 17 Plus" will feature ProMotion, and likely an always-on display too. Young also claimed the "iPhone 17 Pro" will be the first iPhone to feature under-panel Face ID technology.

Dogecoin (DOGE) rose 12% after the Shiba Inu symbol representing the token replaced the familiar blue bird atop the Twitter homepage. From a report: Elon Musk in the past has suggested the meme coin may offer better payments functionality than bitcoin.

Remember that entrepreneur planning an ostentatious NFT-based restaurant/members-only club in San Francisco? Seven months later it's still "an empty husk of a building, hindered by construction delays and unfulfilled crypto dreams," reports SFGate: Last August, Joshua Sigel held a "groundbreaking" event at what he said would be the future home of Sho Restaurant, located atop Salesforce Park in San Francisco. He told the gathered media that construction of the proposed Japanese fine dining restaurant would begin in less than two months, once some permitting issues were resolved, with a targeted opening date of September or October of 2023.

Sigel maintained that he'd soon be offering 3,275 Sho Club NFT (non-fungible token) memberships — first via a private sale, then a larger public sale in late September — which would serve as the backbone of Sho Restaurant's clientele. (Sigel is the CEO of Sho Group, which encapsulates Sho Restaurant and Sho Club.) There were to be 2,878 "Earth" NFT memberships, priced at $7,500 each; 377 "Water" NFT memberships, priced at $15,000 each; and 20 "Fire" NFT memberships; priced at $300,000 each. The NFTs are basically membership cards for the restaurant, spruced up with Web3 jargon.... Each membership tier comes with increasingly luxurious benefits, though restaurant reservations would also be available for nonmembers.

Seven months later, things don't seem to be going very well for Sho Club or for Sho Restaurant. I recently walked over to Salesforce Park and peered inside the shell of the building that's supposed to become a restaurant; I saw an empty space that looks almost exactly the same as it did in August. The mock-up design photos that journalists looked at during the "groundbreaking" in August remain strewn about on the floor. Permits for Sho Restaurant haven't been issued, the result of Sho Restaurant designers not yet responding to a number of San Francisco Department of Building Inspection notes, among a host of permitting steps that haven't been completed. Sho Club social media accounts have been radio silent since late September....

Sho Club appears to have sold around 100 NFT memberships, rather than 3,275, as Sigel originally projected. I repeatedly reached out to Sigel, to Sho Club, and its public relations representatives. No one replied to my questions.

Technical glitch during a scheduled upgrade affected all automated immigration clearance systems and led to rare delays at Singapore's Changi Airport, which recently was again named the world's best airport. ZDNet reports: Long lines were spotted Thursday morning at the country's airport where travelers usually would not need more than mere minutes to clear immigration. In a series of posts on Facebook and Twitter, Singapore's Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said it was experiencing "system slowness" at several passenger clearance checkpoints, including all automated departure lanes at all terminals at Changi Airport. Selected automated systems at the Woodlands and Tuas border checkpoints, through which travelers would enter neighboring country Malaysia, also were affected. Immigration systems at coastal checkpoints were the only ones that were not disrupted.

Passengers were advised to postpone non-essential travel and expect delays, as they would be redirected to manual lanes for immigration clearance. By 4pm the same day, automated immigration clearance at all checkpoints were back up and running. ICA said in a statement late-Thursday that preliminary investigations revealed a "technical glitch" had occurred during a pre-scheduled system upgrade, causing an "unanticipated system overload". This brought down the automated immigration clearance systems, which affected all departure terminals at Changi Airport and arrival terminals at Terminals 2 and 4. ICA did not provide details on the system upgrade or whether the procedure was tested before the scheduled live rollout.

Twitter blog: At Twitter 2.0, we believe that we have a responsibility, as the town square of the internet, to make our platform transparent. So today we are taking the first step in a new era of transparency and opening much of our source code to the global community.

On GitHub, you'll find two new repositories (main repo, ml repo) containing the source code for many parts of Twitter, including our recommendations algorithm, which controls the Tweets you see on the For You timeline. We're also sharing more information on our recommendation algorithm in this post on our Engineering Blog. For this release, we aimed for the highest possible degree of transparency, while excluding any code that would compromise user safety and privacy or the ability to protect our platform from bad actors, including undermining our efforts at combating child sexual exploitation and manipulation. Today's release also does not include the code that powers our ad recommendations.

We also took additional steps to ensure that user safety and privacy would be protected, including our decision not to release training data or model weights associated with the Twitter algorithm at this point. Ultimately, this is our first step to be more transparent in this way, and we plan to continue sharing more code that does not present a significant risk to Twitter or people on our platform.