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Online Discounts Are Getting Stingier Published on September 25, 2024 at 01:32AM Steep online discounts aren't as sweet as they used to be. From a report: The average discount offered by online retailers in the US is down to 36% so far this year, data from Centric Market Intelligence shows. That's down two percentage points from last year, and down from an average of 42% in 2019 -- a 14% drop in real terms. Finding a bargain is getting tougher for a variety of reasons, according to retail experts who spoke with Sherwood. Sellers are having to pay more for raw materials, and they're shelling out more in customer-acquisition costs to get you to order from them. Fulfilling online orders is also generally more expensive than selling items in person. All these add up to increased costs that make it harder to offer discounts. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Electronic Warfare Spooks Airlines, Pilots and Air-Safety Officials Published on September 25, 2024 at 12:55AM GPS spoofing attacks are increasingly disrupting commercial flights worldwide, with over 1,100 daily incidents reported in August, up from dozens in February. The false signals, primarily originating from Russia, Ukraine, and Israel, confuse cockpit navigation systems, triggering false alarms and misdirecting flight paths, WSJ reports. Pilots report clocks resetting, erroneous warnings, and navigation errors lasting minutes to entire flights. While no major safety incidents have occurred, aviation officials warn that managing these disruptions could overburden crews during emergencies. Airlines, manufacturers, and regulators are scrambling for solutions, but new equipment standards to combat spoofing won't be ready until next year at the earliest. In the meantime, pilots receive briefings on identifying and responding to potential attacks, sometimes instructed to ignore ...

DOJ Sues Visa For Locking Out Rival Payment Platforms Published on September 25, 2024 at 12:18AM The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. From a report: The lawsuit follows a multiyear investigation of Visa which the company disclosed in 2021. "We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa's unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing -- but the price of nearly everything." Visa makes more than $7 billion a year in payment processing fees alone, and more tha...

Some Kaspersky Customers Receive Surprise Forced-Update To New Antivirus Software Published on September 24, 2024 at 02:25AM Customers of Kaspersky antivirus in the United States found out in the last few days that their cybersecurity software was automatically replaced with a new one called UltraAV, according to several customers. And while Kaspersky said earlier this month that its U.S. customers would be transitioned to UltraAV, many of its customers said they had no idea this was going to happen and that it would automatically be forced upon them. From a report: "Woke up to Kasperky [sic] completely gone from my system with Ultra AV and Ultra VPN freshly installed (not by me, just automatically while I slept)," a user on Reddit wrote. Others reported having the same experience in the same Reddit thread, as well as in other threads. A reseller, who until recently sold Kaspersky products prior to the recent sales ban, told TechCrunch that he was left "annoyed" b...

Government of Bhutan Holds Over $825 Million, or Nearly a Third of Its GDP, in Bitcoin, Arkham Data Shows Published on September 24, 2024 at 01:35AM The government of Bhutan is currently holding over $828 million in bitcoin, according to onchain data by Arkham Intelligence. From a report: "Unlike most governments, Bhutan's BTC does not come from law enforcement asset seizures, but from bitcoin mining operations, which have ramped up dramatically since early 2023," the crypto intelligence firm explained. Crypto intelligence firm Arkham highlighted the Kingdom of Bhutan's bitcoin holdings on social media platform X last week. Bhutan is a small, landlocked kingdom located in the eastern Himalayas, bordered by China to the north and India to the south. The country currently has a population of less than 800,000 people. We learned last year that Bhutan had been secretly mining bitcoin using its abundant hydroelectric resources since around 2019. The operation, which bega...

Earth May Have Breached Seven of Nine Planetary Boundaries, Health Check Shows Published on September 24, 2024 at 12:58AM Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world's life-support systems. From a report: "Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold," particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. "The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems." The report, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), builds on years of research showing there are nine systems and processes -- the planetary boundaries -- that contribute to the stability of the planet's life-support functions. Thresholds beyond which they can no longer properly function have already been breached in six. Climate change, the introduction of novel ...

Microsoft Tightens Digital Defenses with Sweeping Security Overhaul Published on September 24, 2024 at 12:12AM Microsoft unveiled detailed security reforms Monday, five months after CEO Satya Nadella pledged to prioritize cybersecurity following major breaches. The 25-page Secure Future Initiative report [PDF] outlines technical and governance changes addressing criticisms in an April 2024 Cyber Safety Review Board report that deemed Microsoft's security culture "inadequate." Microsoft said it implemented significant security upgrades to its Entra ID and Microsoft Account systems, introducing Azure-managed hardware security modules for access token signing keys. The company has also purged 5.75 million inactive tenants to minimize potential attack vectors and adopted a new testing system with secure defaults to prevent legacy-related security issues. Concurrently, Microsoft has enhanced its network tracking capabilities, now monitoring over 99 percent of its physical ne...