The Belgian region of Flanders is rolling out personal data "pods" to 7 million citizens in a trial of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee's vision for user-controlled data privacy.

Five Belgian hospitals have begun storing patient visit information in the data pods, developed by Berners-Lee's startup Inrupt over the past five years. The system aims to help compliance with European privacy regulations by giving citizens control over their personal information, from medical records to social media posts.

The initiative counters the current internet landscape dominated by major technology companies like Google and Meta, which store user data across their servers. Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, advocates for returning data control to users through decentralized systems rather than leaving it vulnerable to harvesting by tech platforms and governments.

On a small network of islands north of Seattle, Washington, San Juan County just completed its first full year of 32-hour workweeks, reports CNN.

And Tuesday the county released a report touting "a host of positive outcomes — from recruiting to retention to employee happiness — and a cost savings of more than $975,000 compared to what the county would have paid if it met the union's pay increase demands." The county said the 32-hour workweek has attracted a host of new talent: Applications have spiked 85.5% and open positions are being filled 23.75% faster, while more employees are staying in their jobs — separation (employees quitting or retiring) dropped by 48%. And 84% of employees said their work-life balance was better. "This is meeting many of the goals that we set out to do when we implemented it," County Manager Jessica Hudson said. said, noting the county is looking for opportunities to expand the initiative...

Departments across San Juan County have implemented the 32-hour workweek differently, some staggering staffing to maintain their previous availability to the public while others have shortened schedules to be open just four days a week... "I tell people, you're not going to see things change from your perspective," said Joe Ingman, a park manager in the county. "Offices are going to stay open, bathrooms are going to get cleaned, grass is going to get mowed." His department adjusted schedules to stay staffed seven days a week, and while communication across shifts was an initial hurdle, issues were quickly ironed out. "It was probably the smoothest summer I've had, and I've been working in parks for over a decade," he said, crediting the new schedule as a boon for recruiting. While job postings used to languish unfilled for months, last summer the applicant pool was not only bigger but more qualified, and the two staffers he hired both cited coming to the county because of the 32-hour workweek.

"It's no more cost to the public to work 32 hours — but we have better applicants," he said. Ingman also said the four-day workweek has done wonders for his job satisfaction; he'd watched colleagues burn out for years, but now sees a path for his own future in the department... County employees have used their extra time off to spend less money on childcare, volunteer in their kids' schools, and contribute to the community... While San Juan County's motivation in adopting a shortened workweek was financial, the benefits its employees cite speak to a larger trend, as workplaces around the country increasingly explore flexible schedules to combat burnout and attract and retain talent.

A survey of CEOs this spring found nearly one third of large US companies were looking into solutions like four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks... Even without a reduction in total hours, a Gallup poll last year found a third day off would be widely embraced: 77% of US workers said a 4-day, 40-hour workweek would have a positive impact on their wellbeing.
One worker shared their thoughts with CNN. "Life shouldn't be about just working yourself into the ground..." And they added that "So far, I feel happy; I feel seen as an employee and as a human, and I feel like it could be a beautiful step forward for other people if we just trust it and try it."

They even had some advice for other employers. "Change happens by somebody actually doing the change. The only way we're going to find out if it works is by doing."

"The Pentagon's latest report on UFOs has revealed hundreds of new reports of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena," reports the Associated Press, "but no indications suggesting an extraterrestrial origin.

"The review includes hundreds of cases of misidentified balloons, birds and satellites as well as some that defy easy explanation, such as a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York." Federal efforts to study and identify UAPs have focused on potential threats to national security or air safety and not their science fiction aspects. Officials at the Pentagon office created in 2022 to track UAPs, known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, have said there's no indication any of the cases they looked into have unearthly origins. "It is important to underscore that, to date, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology," the authors of the report wrote... Reporting witnesses included commercial and military pilots as well as ground-based observers. Investigators found explanations for nearly 300 of the incidents. In many cases, the unknown objects were found to be balloons, birds, aircraft, drones or satellites. According to the report, Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system is one increasingly common source as people mistake chains of satellites for UFOs. Hundreds of other cases remain unexplained, though the report's authors stressed that is often because there isn't enough information to draw firm conclusions.

No injuries or crashes were reported in any of the incidents, though a commercial flight crew reported one near miss with a "cylindrical object" while flying over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York. That incident remains under investigation. In three other cases, military air crews reported being followed or shadowed by unidentified aircraft, though investigators could find no evidence to link the activity to a foreign power.
The article points out that the report's publication comes "a day after House lawmakers called for greater government transparency during a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena." And it concludes with this quote from Republican Represenative Andy Ogles of Tennessee. "There is something out there. The question is: Is it ours, is it someone else's, or is it otherworldly?"

jojowombl shares a report from The Guardian: Legal documents released in ongoing US litigation between NSO Group and WhatsApp have revealed for the first time that the Israeli cyberweapons maker -- and not its government customers -- is the party that "installs and extracts" information from mobile phones targeted by the company's hacking software. The new details were contained in sworn depositions from NSO Group employees, portions of which were published for the first time on Thursday.

It comes five years after WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, first announced it was filing suit against NSO. The company, which was blacklisted by the Biden administration in 2021, makes what is widely considered the world's most sophisticated hacking software, which -- according to researchers -- has been used in the past in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, India, Mexico, Morocco and Rwanda. [...] At the heart of the legal fight was an allegation by WhatsApp that NSO had long denied: that it was the Israeli company itself, and not its government clients around the world, who were operating the spyware. NSO has always said that its product is meant to be used to prevent serious crime and terrorism, and that clients are obligated not to abuse the spyware. It has also insisted that it does not know who its clients are targeting. [...]

To make its case, WhatsApp was allowed by Judge Phyllis Hamilton to make its case, including citing depositions that have previously been redacted and out of public view. In one, an NSO employee said customers only needed to enter a phone number of the person whose information was being sought. Then, the employee said, "the rest is done automatically by the system." In other words, the process was not operated by customers. Rather NSO alone decided to access WhatsApp's servers when it designed (and continuously upgraded) Pegasus to target individuals' phones. A spokesperson for NSO, Gil Lainer, said in a statement: "NSO stands behind its previous statements in which we repeatedly detailed that the system is operated solely by our clients and that neither NSO nor its employees have access to the intelligence gathered by the system. We are confident that these claims, like many others in the past, will be proven wrong in court, and we look forward to the opportunity to do so."

Chinese hackers, reportedly linked to a Chinese intelligence agency, breached T-Mobile as part of a broader cyber-espionage campaign targeting telecom companies to spy on high-value intelligence targets. "T-Mobile is closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time, T-Mobile systems and data have not been impacted in any significant way, and we have no evidence of impacts to customer information," a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. Reuters reports: It was unclear what information, if any, was taken about T-Mobile customers' calls and communications records, according to the report. On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. cyber watchdog agency CISA said China-linked hackers have intercepted surveillance data intended for American law enforcement agencies after breaking into an unspecified number of telecom companies. Further reading: U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Australian government plans to enact laws requiring big tech firms to protect its citizens online, the latest move by the center-left Labor administration to crack down on social media including through age limits and curbs on misinformation. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced the government's plan for a legislated Digital Duty of Care in Australia on Wednesday night, saying it aligned with similar laws in the UK and European Union. "It is now time for industry to show leadership, and for social media to recognize it has a social responsibility," Rowland said in a speech in Sydney announcing the measures. It would "keep users safe and help prevent online harms."

In response to the laws, Facebook and Instagram operator Meta Platforms Inc. called for the restrictions to be handled by app stores, such as those run by Google and Apple Inc., rather than the platforms themselves. The government has ignored those requests, but has yet to announce what fines companies would face or what age verification information will need to be provided. At the same time, Albanese has moved forward controversial laws to target misinformation and disinformation online, which opponents have labeled an attack on freedom of speech. Earlier this month, Albanese said the government would legislate for a ban on social media for children under 16, a policy the government says is world-leading. "Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it," Albanese told a news conference.

ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: [...] At KubeCon North America 2024 this week, CNCF executive director Priyanka Sharma said in her keynote, "Patent trolls are not contributors or even adopters in our ecosystem. Instead, they prey on cloud-native adopters by abusing the legal system. We are here to tell the world that these patent trolls don't stand a chance because CNCF is uniting the ecosystem to deter them. Like a herd of musk oxen, we will run them off our pasture." CNCF CTO Chris Aniszczyk added: "The reason trolls can make money is that many companies find it too expensive to fight back, so they pay trolls a settlement fee to avoid the even higher cost of litigation. Now, when a whole herd of companies band together like musk oxen to drive a troll off, it changes the cost structure of fighting back. It disrupts their economic model."

How? Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's executive director, said, "We don't negotiate with trolls. Instead, with United Patents, we go to the PTO and crush those patents. We strive to invalidate them by working with developers who have prior art, bringing this to the attention of the USPTO, and killing patents. No negotiation, no settlement. We destroy the very asset that made patent trolls' business work. Together, since we've started this effort, 90% of the time, we've been able to go in there and destroy these patents." "It's time for us to band together," said Joanna Lee, CNCF's VP of strategic programs and legal. "We encourage all organizations in our ecosystem to get involved. Join the fight, enhance your own company's protection, protect your customers, enhance our community defense, and save money on legal expenses."

While getting your company and its legal department involved in the effort to fend off patent trolls is important, developers can also help. CNCF announced the Cloud Native Heroes Challenge, a patent troll bounty program in which cloud-native developers and technologists can earn swag and win prizes. They're asking you to find evidence of preexisting technology -- referred to by patent lawyers as "prior art" -- that can kill off bad patents. This could be open-source documentation (including release notes), published standards or specifications, product manuals, articles, blogs, books, or any publicly available information. All entrants who submit an entry that conforms to the contest rules will receive a free "Cloud Native Hero" t-shirt that can be picked up at any future KubeCon+CloudNativeCon. The winner will also receive a $3,000 cash prize.

In the inaugural contest, the CNCF is seeking information that can be used to invalidate Claim 1 from US Patent US-11695823-B1. This is the major patent asserted by Edge Networking Systems against Kubernetes users. As is often the case with such patents, it's much too broad. This patent describes a network architecture that facilitates secure and flexible programmability between a user device and across a network with full lifecycle management of services and infrastructure applications. That describes pretty much any modern cloud system. If you can find prior art that describes such a system before June 13, 2013, you could be a winner. Some such materials have already been found. This is already listed in the "known references" tab of the contest information page and doesn't qualify. If you care about keeping open-source software easy and cheap to use -- or you believe trolls shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of companies that make or use programs -- you can help. I'll be doing some digging myself.

quonset shares a report from CNN: Between August 2022 and January 2024, hundreds of swatting calls were made across the country targeting religious institutions, government offices, schools, and random people. Authorities were finally able to track down the criminal, Alan Fillon, who entered the plea to four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another, the US Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a news release. He faces up to five years in prison on each count. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

The US Attorney's Office said Filion made more than 375 swatting and threat calls from August 2022 to January 2024. Those calls included ones in which he claimed to have planted bombs in targeted locations or threatened to detonate bombs and/or conduct mass shootings at those locations, prosecutors said. He targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials and people across the United States. Filion was 16 at the time he placed the majority of the calls.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Data Center Dynamics: The Japanese government is planning to invest approximately $65 billion to support the country's semiconductor and AI industries. The initiative, which will run until the end of the decade, is expected to generate ~$104 billion in public and private investment during the period. According to a report from Reuters, this new round of funding will specifically target state-backed chip foundry Rapidus and other AI chip suppliers.

Rapidus was founded in November 2022 when the Japanese government and eight Japanese technology and automotive firms, including SoftBank, Sony, and NTT, invested more than $500 million to launch the business. Speaking at a news conference this week, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba did not provide any information about how the venture would be financed but said the government would not issue deficit-covering bonds. Japan's government also said it won't raise taxes to finance the $65 billion plan.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: U.K. consumer rights group 'Which?' is filing a legal claim against Apple under competition law on behalf of some 40 million users of iCloud, its cloud storage service. The collective proceeding lawsuit, which is seeking 3 billion pounds in compensation damages (around $3.8 billion at current exchange rates), alleges that Apple has broken competition rules by giving its own cloud storage service preferential treatment and effectively locking people into paying for iCloud at "rip-off" prices. "iOS has a monopoly and is in control of Apple's operating systems and it is incumbent on Apple not to use that dominance to gain an unfair advantage in related markets, like the cloud storage market. But that is exactly what has happened," Which wrote in a press release announcing filing the claim with the U.K.'s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

The lawsuit accuses Apple of encouraging users of its devices to sign up to iCloud for photo storage and other data storage needs, while simultaneously making it difficult for consumers to use alternative storage providers -- including by not allowing them to store or back-up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider. "iOS users then have to pay for the service once photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit," Which noted. The suit also accuses Apple of overcharging U.K. consumers for iCloud subscriptions owing to the lack of competition. "Apple raised the price of iCloud for UK consumers by between 20% and 29% across its storage tiers in 2023," it wrote, saying it's seeking damages for all affected Apple customers -- and estimating that individual consumers could be owed an average of 70 pounds (around $90), depending on how long they've been paying Apple for iCloud services. "Anyone who has 'obtained' iCloud services, including non-paying users, over the nine-year timeframe since the Consumer Rights Act came into force on October 1st, 2015," will be included in the claim. U.K.-based consumers will have to opt-out if they do not want to be included. "Consumers who live outside the U.K. and believe they are eligible to be included must actively opt-in to join the action," adds TechCrunch.

During a public joint hearing today titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," four experts testified that the U.S. is running secret UAP programs, including crash retrieval and reverse-engineering programs for advanced nonhuman technology. Although the Pentagon maintains there's no evidence of alien spacecraft, witnesses like Luis Elizondo and Michael Gold argue that UAPs represent an intelligence enigma and call for open, stigma-free study to address potential security concerns and unknown scientific possibilities. NPR reports: Tim Gallaudet, retired rear admiral, U.S. Navy; CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC
"Confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for me in January 2015," Gallaudet said in his written testimony (PDF). He describes being part of a pre-deployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast that culminated in the famous "Go Fast" video, in which a Navy F/A-18 jet's sensors recorded "an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal." He was among a group of commanders involved in the exercise who received an email containing the video, which was sent by the operations officer of Fleet Forces Command, Gallaudet said. "The very next day, the email disappeared from my account and those of the other recipients without explanation," he said.

Luis Elizondo, author and former Department of Defense official
Elizondo's written testimony (PDF) was brief and alleged that a secretive arms race is playing out on the global stage. "Let me be clear: UAP are real," he wrote. "Advanced technologies not made by our Government -- or any other government -- are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries." Elizondo is a former intelligence officer who later "managed a highly sensitive Special Access Program on behalf of the White House and the National Security Council," according to his official bio (PDF). "By 2012, [Elizondo] was the senior ranking person of the DOD's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a secretive Pentagon unit that studied unidentified anomalous phenomena," his bio states, adding that he resigned in 2017.

Michael Gold, former NASA associate administrator of space policy and partnerships; member of NASA UAP Independent Study Team
Gold's written testimony (PDF) stressed the need for government agencies and academics to "overcome the pernicious stigma that continues to impede scientific dialogue and open discussions" about unexplained phenomena. "As the saying goes, the truth is out there," Gold said, "we just need to be bold enough and brave enough to face it."

Michael Shellenberger, founder of Public, a news outlet on the Substack platform
Shellenberger's testimony (PDF) ran to some 214 pages, including a lengthy timeline of UAP reports from 1947 to 2023. Shellenberger pressed the White House and Congress to act, calling for the adoption of UAP transparency legislation and cutting funds for any related programs that aren't disclosed to lawmakers. "UAP transparency is bi-partisan and critical to our national security," his written testimony stated. You can watch the proceeding here.

The FBI raided Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan's Manhattan apartment, seizing his phone and electronic devices. A source close to the matter told The New York Post it was politically motivated due to Polymarket's successful prediction of Trump's election win. It's "grand political theater at its worst," the source said. "They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things. Instead, they staged a so-called raid so they can leak it to the media and use it for obvious political reasons."

Although no charges were filed, the raid has sparked controversy, with speculation of political retribution and concerns over potential market manipulation, as Polymarket faces scrutiny both in the U.S. and from French regulators. The New York Post reports: Coplan was not arrested and has not been charged, a Polymarket spokesperson told The Post on Wednesday evening. "Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections," the rep said. "We charge no fees, take no trading positions, and allow observers from around the world to analyze all market data as a public good."

Coplan posted on X after his run-in with the feds: "New phone, who dis?" Polymarket does not allow trading in the US, though bettors can bypass the ban by accessing the site through VPN. The FBI's investigation comes a week after Coplan said Polymarket is planning to return to the US. [...] In 2022, the online gambling platform was forced to pause its trading in the US and pay a $1.4 million penalty to settle charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had failed to register with the agency. [In France, regulators are investigating Polymarket's compliance with national gambling laws, with concerns about unauthorized gambling activities within the country.] A Fortune report published a week before the election found widespread evidence of wash-trading on Polymarket. "Polymarket's Terms of Use expressly prohibit market manipulation," a Polymarket spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Officials inside the Secret Service clashed over whether they needed a warrant to use location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on smartphones, with some arguing that citizens have agreed to be tracked with such data by accepting app terms of service, despite those apps often not saying their data may end up with the authorities, according to hundreds of pages of internal Secret Service emails obtained by 404 Media.

The emails provide deeper insight into the agency's use of Locate X, a powerful surveillance capability that allows law enforcement officials to follow a phone, and person's, precise movements over time at the click of a mouse. In 2023, a government oversight body found that the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement all used their access to such location data illegally. The Secret Service told 404 Media in an email last week it is no longer using the tool. "If USSS [U.S. Secret Service] is using Locate X, that is most concerning to us," one of the internal emails said. 404 Media obtained them and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Secret Service.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Royal assent was granted to two right to repair bills last week that amend Canada's Copyright Act to allow the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) if this is done for the purposes of "maintaining or repairing a product, including any related diagnosing," and "to make the program or a device in which it is embedded interoperable with any other computer program, device or component." The pair of bills allow device owners to not only repair their own stuff regardless of how a program is written to prevent such non-OEM measures, but said owners can also make their devices work with third-party components without needing to go through the manufacturer to do so.

Bills C-244 (repairability) and C-294 (interoperability) go a long way toward advancing the right to repair in Canada and, as iFixit pointed out, are the first federal laws anywhere that address how TPMs restrict the right to repair -- but they're hardly final. TPMs can take a number of forms, from simple administrative passwords to encryption, registration keys, or even the need for a physical object like a USB dongle to unlock access to copyrighted components of a device's software. Most commercially manufactured devices with proprietary embedded software include some form of TPM, and neither C-244 nor C-294 place any restrictions on the use of such measures by manufacturers. As iFixit points out, neither Copyright Act amendments do anything to expand access to the tools needed to circumvent TPMs. That puts Canadians in a similar position to US repair advocates, who in 2021 saw the US Copyright Office loosen DMCA restrictions to allow limited repairs of some devices despite TPMs, but without allowing access to the tools needed to do so. [...]

Canadian Repair Coalition co-founder Anthony Rosborough said last week that the new repairability and interoperability rules represent considerable progress, but like similar changes in the US, don't actually amount to much without the right to distribute tools. "New regulations are needed that require manufacturers and vendors to ensure that products and devices are designed with accessibility of repairs in mind," Rosborough wrote in an op-ed last week. "Businesses need to be able to carry out their work without the fear of infringing various intellectual property rights."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years for stealing classified information from the Pentagon and sharing it online, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts announced. Teixeira received the sentence before Judge Indira Talwani in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In March, the national guardsman pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. He was arrested by the FBI in North Dighton, Massachusetts, in April 2023 and has been in federal custody since mid-May 2023.

According to court documents, Teixeira transcribed classified documents that he then shared on Discord, a social media platform mostly used by online gamers. He began sharing the documents in or around 2022. A document he was accused of leaking included information about providing equipment to Ukraine, while another included discussions about a foreign adversary's plot to target American forces abroad, prosecutors said. [...] While the documents were discovered online in March 2023, Teixeira had been sharing them online since January of that year, according to prosecutors.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Flock is one of the largest vendors of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. The company markets itself as having the goal to fully "eliminate crime" with the use of ALPRs and other connected surveillance cameras, a target experts say is impossible. [...] Flock and automated license plate reader cameras owned by other companies are now in thousands of neighborhoods around the country. Many of these systems talk to each other and plug into other surveillance systems, making it possible to track people all over the country.

"It went from me seeing 10 license plate readers to probably seeing 50 or 60 in a few days of driving around," [said Alabama resident and developer Will Freeman]. "I wanted to make a record of these things. I thought, 'Can I make a database of these license plate readers?'" And so he made a map, and called it DeFlock. DeFlock runs on Open Street Map, an open source, editable mapping software. He began posting signs for DeFlock (PDF) to the posts holding up Huntsville's ALPR cameras, and made a post about the project to the Huntsville subreddit, which got good attention from people who lived there. People have been plotting not just Flock ALPRs, but all sorts of ALPRs, all over the world. [...]

When I first talked to Freeman, DeFlock had a few dozen cameras mapped in Huntsville and a handful mapped in Southern California and in the Seattle suburbs. A week later, as I write this, DeFlock has crowdsourced the locations of thousands of cameras in dozens of cities across the United States and the world. He said so far more than 1,700 cameras have been reported in the United States and more than 5,600 have been reported around the world. He has also begun scraping parts of Flock's website to give people a better idea of where to look to map them. For example, Flock says that Colton, California, a city with just over 50,000 people outside of San Bernardino, has 677 cameras.

People who submit cameras to DeFlock have the ability to note the direction that they are pointing in, which can help people understand how these cameras are being positioned and the strategies that companies and police departments are using when deploying them. For example, all of the cameras in downtown Huntsville are pointing away from the downtown core, meaning they are primarily focused on detecting cars that are entering downtown Huntsville from other areas.

With iOS 18.2, Apple will allow you to share the location of a lost AirTag with other people and with more than 15 different airlines. The Verge reports: When using the feature, you can generate a Share Item Location link within the Find My app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Once you share the link with someone, they can click on it to view an interactive map with the location of your lost item. Apple will update the website automatically when the lost item moves, and it will also display a timestamp when it moved last. Apple will turn off the feature once you find your lost item. You can also manually stop sharing the location of an AirTag at any time, or the link will "automatically expire after seven days." [...]

As part of the rollout, Apple is partnering with over 15 airlines, including Delta, United, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Air Canada, and more. All of these airlines will be able to "privately and securely" accept links to lost items, as "access to each link will be limited to a small number of people, and recipients will be required to authenticate in order to view the link through either their Apple Account or partner email address." This feature will be available to airlines in the "coming months." Additionally, SITA, a baggage tracing solution, will also implement Share Item Location into its luggage tracker.

The FTX estate has filed a lawsuit against Binance and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, seeking to recover $1.76 billion, alleging a "fraudulent" 2021 share deal that involved funding from FTX's insolvent Alameda Research. The suit also accuses Zhao of misleading social media posts that allegedly spurred customer withdrawals and contributed to FTX's collapse. CNBC reports: In a Sunday filing with a Delaware court, FTX cites a 2021 transaction in which Binance, Zhao and others exited their investment in FTX, selling a 20% stake in the platform and a 18.4% stake in its U.S.-based entity West Realm Shires back to the company. The FTX estate alleges that the share repurchase was funded by FTX's Alameda Research division through a combination of the company's and Binance's exchange tokens, as well as Binance's dollar-pegged stablecoin.

"Alameda was insolvent at the time of the share repurchase and could not afford to fund the transaction," the suit claims, labeling the deal agreed with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried -- who's now serving a 25-year sentence over fraud linked to the downfall of his exchange -- a "constructive fraudulent transfer." Binance denies the allegations, saying in an emailed statement, "The claims are meritless, and we will vigorously defend ourselves."

On Tuesday Massachusetts voted to become the first state to allow gig-working drivers to join labor unions, reports WBUR: Since these gig workers are classified as independent contractors, federal law allowing employees the right to unionize does not apply to them. With the passage of this ballot initiative, Massachusetts is the first state to give ride-hailing drivers the ability to collectively bargain over working conditions.
Supporters have said the ballot measure "could provide a model for other states to let Uber and Lyft drivers unionize," reports Reuters, "and inspire efforts to organize them around the United States." Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president of 32BJ SEIU, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, that had spearheaded a campaign to pass the proposal, said its approval shows that Massachusetts voters want drivers to have a meaningful check against the growing power of app-based companies... The Massachusetts vote was the latest front in a years-long battle in the United States over whether ride-share drivers should be considered to be independent contractors or employees entitled to benefits and wage protections. Studies have shown that using contractors can cost companies as much as 30% less than employees.

Drivers for Uber and Lyft, including approximately 70,000 in Massachusetts, do not have the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act... Under the Massachusetts measure, drivers can form a union after collecting signatures from at least 25% of active drivers in Massachusetts, and companies can form associations to allow them to jointly negotiate with the union during state-supervised talks.
But the Boston Globe points out that the measure " divided labor advocates in Massachusetts, some of whom worry it would in fact be a step backward in the lengthy fight to boost the rights of gig workers." Those concerns led the state's largest labor organization, the AFL-CIO, to remain neutral. But two unions backing the effort, the SEIU 32BJ and the International Association of Machinists, say allowing drivers to unionize, even if not as full employees, will help provide urgently needed worker protections and better pay and safety standards.

Friday "would have been his 38th birthday," writes the EFF, remembering Aaron Swartz as "a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open..." And they add that today the official web site for Aaron Swartz Day honored his memory with a special podcast "featuring those carrying on the work around issues close to his heart," including an appearance by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive.

The first speaker is Ryan Shapiro, FOIA expert and co-founder of the national security transparency non-profit Property of the People. The Aaron Swartz Day site calls him "the researcher who discovered why the FBI had such an interest in Aaron in the years right before the JSTOR fiasco." (That web page calls it an "Al Qaeda phishing expedition that left Aaron with an 'International Terrorism Investigation' code in his FBI database file forever," as reported by Gizmodo.)

Other speakers on the podcast include:

• Nathan Dyer of SecureDrop, Newsroom Support Engineer for the Freedom of the Press Foundation with an update on SecureDrop

• Tracey Jaquith, Founding Coder and TV Architect at the Internet Archive, discussing "Microservices, Monoliths, and Operational Security — The Internet Archive in 2024."

• Tracy Rosenberg, co-founder of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project and Oakland Privacy, with "an update on the latest crop of surveillance battles."

• Ryan Sternlicht, VR developer, educator, researcher, advisor, and maker, on "The Next Layer of Reality: Social Identity and the New Creator Economy."

• Grant Smith Ellis, Chairperson of the Board, MassCann and Legal Intern at the Parabola Center, on "Jury Trials in the Age of Social Media."

• Michael "Mek" Karpeles, Open Library, Internet Archive, on "When it Rains at the Archive, Build an Ark — Book bans, Lawsuits, & Breaches."

The site also seeks to showcase SecureDrop and Open Library, projects started by Aaron before his death, as well as new projects "directly inspired by Aaron and his work."