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An important follow-up to yesterday’s item about Russia demanding Apple remove VPN apps from the Russian App Store: you can use a VPN on iOS without an app. It just requires some futzing in Settings and a VPN provider that supports it. Presumably, this technique remains available to iPhone users in Russia. Here are instructions from one such VPN provider, ForestVPN:

1. Access Settings:
   • Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
   • Tap on General and scroll to VPN & Device Management.
2. Add VPN Configuration:
   • Select Add VPN Configuration.
   • Choose your desired protocol, such as L2TP or IKEv2.
3. Enter VPN Details:
   • Fill in the necessary fields like Description, Server, Remote ID, and Local ID. These details can be found on the ForestVPN website.
4. Save and Connect:
   • Tap Done to save your configuration.
   • Enable the VPN by toggling the switch next to your newly created profile.

VPN apps remove complexity from this process, but it’s worth noting that VPN access doesn’t require an app.

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Chili Palmer, reporting for HighSpeedInternet:

Starlink announced on Oct. 2 it will offer one month of free internet in Hurricane Helene disaster areas. The free service will be available to new customers who order through the Starlink website and to customers who activate a kit they already have, whether it was donated or purchased at a retail store. Existing customers may also be eligible.

The announcement comes after more than 500 Starlink kits were distributed throughout the disaster area by private relief organizations.

It’s hard to overstate how differently Elon Musk would be perceived if he weren’t a whackjob on political and cultural issues.

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Ryan Christoffel, writing for 9to5Mac:

Hurricane Helene has caused massive damage and taken over 100 lives across several US states. Many thousands of people are without power and/or cell service. But in the wake of the storm, reports have surfaced about a key iOS 18 feature that has been a lifeline for survivors: Messages via satellite.

Apple added Messages via satellite to millions of iPhones via its recent iOS 18 update. And now, according to reports on social media, it seems the feature arrived just in time. Here are a few tweets highlighting how useful the feature has proven.

It’s great that iOS 18 shipped before Helene hit, but a shame that it’s so new that most users haven’t yet upgraded. And once Helene hit and knocked out all comms in the most severely-hit areas, it was too late. (Apple hasn’t yet pushed iOS 18 to the majority of users whose devices are set to install updates automatically, and typically doesn’t do so with new iOS versions until the .1 release in October or November.) Some heads-up people were specifically recommending that iPhone 14 and 15 users in Helene’s path update to iOS 18 before it hit specifically to get this feature. But still: the feature is already making a huge difference.

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Cool Hunting:

We love getting into the nerdy details of design innovations and the iPhone 16‘s new Camera Control button presented a perfect opportunity to dig in. For this first podcast of our new Design Tangents series aptly named Nerdy Details we sit down with Johnnie Manzari from the Apple Human Interface team and Rich Dinh, Senior Director of Product Design, to talk about cameras and photography through the lens of the new control on “the world’s most popular camera.”

You don’t often get to hear Apple employees speak about their work. When you do, it’s often largely about trying to get the feel right.

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Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

iPhone users are being notified about an excessive heat weather event through Apple’s Weather app on iPhone. While the weather event is happening in the Santa Clara Valley region of California, the alert says that the occurrence is happening in an area nearby regardless of where you live.

Hall had a good theory — that the warnings were being to delivered to people who live nowhere near Santa Clara Valley because Apple includes Cupertino as a default location for the Weather app — but in an update acknowledges that the warning notification is being received by users who don’t have any saved locations near the heat wave. (I’ve gotten the notification on multiple devices, and don’t have Cupertino saved as a Weather location.)

What a weird bug.

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The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia:

Haotian Sun, 34, and Pengfei Xue, 34, both Chinese nationals, were sentenced today for participating in a sophisticated scheme to defraud Apple Inc. out of millions of dollars’ worth of iPhones. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly sentenced Sun to 57 months in prison, and sentenced Xue to 54 months in prison. [...]

According to the government’s evidence, between May 2017 and September 2019, Sun, Xue, and other conspirators defrauded Apple Inc. by submitting counterfeit iPhones to Apple Inc. for repair to get Apple to exchange them with genuine replacement iPhones. Sun and Xue received shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong at UPS mailboxes throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. They then submitted the fake iPhones, with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers, including the Apple Store in Georgetown. Trial evidence and evidence developed after trial showed that members of the conspiracy submitted more than 6,000 inauthentic phones to Apple during the conspiracy, causing an intended loss of approximately $3.8 million and an actual loss of more than $2.5 million.

This seems like a scam you might expect to get away with a few times. Maybe more than a few, if you keep taking the counterfeit iPhones to different stores. But 6,000?

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After making my first 10 contacts, I officially completed CWT #120 for 2024.

Completing CWT #120 was my last remaining goal for 2024.

• Hunt 1500+ POTA parks
• Do at least one activation with the Elecraft KH1 hand-held QRP rig
• Give a radio club presentation on solar power/batteries
• Compete in 120+ CWTs
• Wildcard (like finish the QDX or some other ham related project)

Now I have to put some thought into goals for 2025!

Maybe it is the magic of a new month, or perhaps the cooler days, but today felt like an excellent day for an activation.  Silver Springs park is just a few miles from my home, and has a couple of nice spots to park near the pond.

With a light mist falling, I was on the air just before 4 PM local time.  I used my KH1 QRP rig, which puts out about 4 watts.  less than a half-hour later I had 14 contacts in the log.  The skies really opened up right as I was putting the antenna away (a mag-mounted 17′ quarter wave vertical).

Thanks to all the hunters who helped out!

Activation of Silver Springs Park US-10547 using a Elecraft KH1 handheld QRP rig (4 watts). A 17-foot quarter-wave vertical on a mag mount was used. HAMRS was used to log the contacts.

There is a group of hams that have formed a global PBX called Hamshack Hotline, that allows hams to use VOIP phones to connect to each other.  The service is free (donations are encouraged).

After checking their website, it appeared that a Cisco SPA525G2 was especially easy to provision.  This phone is often available on the used market via eBay.  Prices seem to run from the $30 to $50 range (shop around for sure).  The provisioning process is simple: fill in a service ticket with a copy of your original license and a photo of MAC address of the phone.  The most difficult part was discovering the internal network address assigned by my router.  I expected it to identify it as Cisco, but it didn’t. In my case it began with the letters “spa” (the first three letters of the model name), and was followed by the MAC address.  Within a few minutes I had a desk phone (great speaker phone too) on the Hamshack Hotline network.

A Cisco SPA525G2 connected to Hamshack Hotline (chatting with W2DAN on the speaker phone)

I was surprised to find that Hamshack Hotline can connect to our club’s W1SYE repeater.

 

During the summer months, Bill Brown K4NYM, wasn’t on nearly as often as before – perhaps avoiding the heat, or dodging the many storms that Florida has endured.  Even so, Bill and I worked each other 500 times.  100 of those contacts were at a single park, Florida Trail US-4559.

 

Jason Snell returns to the show to discuss Apple’s September product announcements, and Meta’s Orion prototype AR glasses. Absolutely no baseball talk, almost.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change. Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe's tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts. Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border. Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023. Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland's glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022's record melt of 6%. An annual report is issued each year by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), which attributed the record losses to consecutive very warm summers, and 2022 winter's very low snowfall. Researchers say that if these weather patterns continue, the thaw will only accelerate. On Friday, Switzerland said that the redefined borders had been drawn up in accordance with the economic interests of both parties. It is thought that clarifying the borders will help both countries determine which is responsible for the upkeep of specific natural areas. Swiss-Italian boundaries will be changed in the region of Plateau Rosa, the Carrel refuge and Gobba di Rollin -- all are near the Matterhorn and popular ski resorts including Zermatt. The exact border changes will be implemented and the agreement published once both countries have signed it. Switzerland says that the approval process for signing the agreement is under way in Italy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Allen Pike:

As I understand it, my first experience in a self-driving car was typical:

• Minute 1: “How safe is this? Will it notice that cyclist? What about those construction cones?”
• Minute 10: “This is wild. It’s driving so calmly and safely. I love it.”
• Minute 20: (Bored, checking my email in the back seat.)

It was like a firmware update to my brain.

Imagine how exhilarating subways must have been a century ago — zipping across cities in high-speed underground trains. All technology becomes mundane quickly. It’s kind of amazing when you notice it happening with yourself.

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Om Malik, after Apple’s September 9 “It’s Glowtime” event at Steve Jobs Theater:

I decided to become a fly on the wall and chronicle the spectacle unfolding in front of me. I focused on those who were there to create content about the devices, not the devices themselves. It was fun to just float among the crowds with my Nikon Zf and a 40mm lens.

It was a wonderful spectacle — just to bask in this new kind of raw media energy. Content for the sake of content. Events for the sake of content. Fog of content. It’s the new way of the world. As a student of media, I love this chaos and change — because from chaos and change comes the future.

I’m linking to this photo essay despite, not because of, the fact that it includes a portrait of yours truly dicking around on his phone in the small room where the media wait for post-event briefings. Steve Jobs Theater is a beautiful and unique space, but there are aspects of the space that are hard to capture in photos. Om’s collection here captures the feel of it.

I tried to return the favor by photographing the photographer.

See also: Om’s thoughts on the event and announcements.

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Google has obtained (PDF) a default judgment against two men who abused its DMCA takedown system to falsely target 117,000 URLs of competitors' online stores. With none of the defendants showing up in court, a California federal court sided with the search engine. Through an injunction, the men are now prohibited from sending false takedown notices and creating new Google accounts. TorrentFreak reports: Last November, Google decided to take action against the rampant DMCA abuse. In a lawsuit filed at a federal court in California, it accused Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien of sending over 100,000 fraudulent takedown requests. Many of these notices were allegedly filed against third-party T-shirt shops. [...] Following the complaint, the defendants, who are believed to reside in Vietnam, were summoned via their Gmail accounts and SMS. However, the pair remained quiet and didn't respond in court. Without the defendants representing themselves, Google requested a default judgment. According to the tech giant, it's clear that the duo violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. Google said that, absent a default judgment, the defendants would continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses. These actions, in turn, will damage Google's reputation as a search engine. In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim recommended granting Google's motion for default judgment. The recommendation included an injunction that prevents the two men from abusing Google's services going forward. However, the District Judge had the final say. Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila adopted the recommendations, issuing a default judgment in favor of Google. The order confirms that defendants Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. In typical copyrights-related verdicts, most attention is paid to the monetary damages, but not here. While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation. Therefore, the company asked for an injunction to prohibit the defendants from sending false takedowns going forward. This includes a ban on registering any new Google accounts. The request ticked all the boxes and, without a word from the defendants, Judge Davila granted the default judgment as well as the associated injunction.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cerebras Systems, an AI chip startup, filed (PDF) for an IPO and plans to trade under the ticker "CBRS" on Nasdaq. CNBC reports: Cerebras competes with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units are the industry's choice for training and running AI models. Cerebras says on its website that its WSE-3 chip comes with more cores and memory than Nvidia's popular H100. It's also a physically larger chip. In addition to selling chips, Cerebras offers cloud-based services that rely on its own computing clusters. [...] In addition to Nvidia, Cerebras cites AMD, Intel, Microsoft and Google as competitors, "as well as internally developed custom application-specific integrated circuits and a variety of private companies." Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes the Cerebras chips. Cerebrus warned investors that any possible supply chain disruptions may hurt the company. Cerebras was founded in 2016 and is based in Sunnyvale, California. Andrew Feldman, the startup's co-founder and CEO, sold server startup SeaMicro to AMD for $355 million in 2012. The company said in 2021 that it was valued at over $4 billion in a $250 million funding round.In May, G42 committed to purchasing $1.43 billion in orders from Cerebras before March 2025, according to the filing. G42 currently owns under 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares, and the firm has an option to purchase more depending on how much Cerebras product it buys.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon Prime is launching a new Shark Tank-style competition show where contestants pitch products to a panel of celebrity investors and a live audience called "The 100." If a product wins audience approval, it gets featured in Amazon's Buy It Now Store, accessible via QR codes during episodes. The show, called Buy It Now and hosted by JB Smoove, premieres on October 30, 2024. You can watch a trailer for it on YouTube. The Verge reports: The company announced the show earlier this year but has now released a trailer showing what it will look like. Contestants pitch their ideas to the audience. If the crowd votes for them, then the panelists pick which ones will show up on Amazon's Buy It Now Store: a new storefront launching alongside the show that viewers can reach using a QR code that shows up during episodes. One presenter per episode will get a $20,000 prize, too. Apart from Smoove -- who you may remember from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Harley -- the show will feature "a star-studded rotating panel of celebrity panelists," including Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk, and Christian Siriano. It will also include three Amazon executives, and Ring founder and current CEO of Door.com (formerly Latch) Jamie Siminoff will serve as the "resident judge and entrepreneurial panelist." Oh, and those panelists will be selling their own products on that Buy It Now Store.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With WorkOS you can start selling to enterprises with just a few lines of code. It provides a complete User Management solution along with SSO, SCIM, and FGA. The APIs are modular and easy-to-use, allowing integrations to be completed in minutes instead of months.

Today, some of the fastest growing startups are already powered by WorkOS, including Perplexity, Vercel, and Webflow.

For SaaS apps that care deeply about design and user experience, WorkOS is the perfect fit. From high-quality documentation to self-serve onboarding for your customers, it removes all the unnecessary complexity for your engineering team.

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The Cincinnati Enquirer:

Pete Rose, the Cincinnati native who became baseball’s all-time hits leader as well as one of the most divisive figures in the sport’s history, died Monday, according to a TMZ report, which was confirmed by his agent, Ryan Fiterman. He was 83.

After reaching the pinnacle of the sport he loved, Rose was banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling while manager of his hometown Reds. That came just four years after Rose had broken Ty Cobb’s hit record, a mark that still stands. He is MLB’s all-time hits leader with 4,256.

Even putting aside the betting scandal, Rose was, by all accounts, a rotten person — peculiar at best. But he was an astonishingly good and captivating baseball player, with a nickname for the ages: Charlie Hustle. He played with a maniacal intensity. When he drew a walk, he’d sprint to first base, because that’s the only way he knew how to traverse the bases: at full speed. He drew 1,566 walks in his career. I met him once, during his post-baseball career selling autographs at Las Vegas sports memorabilia shops. My favorite Rose play wasn’t a hit. It was this catch in game 6 of the 1980 World Series.

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The Arch Linux team has announced a collaboration with Valve, working to support critical infrastructure projects like a build service and secure signing enclave for the Arch Linux distribution. Tom's Hardware reports: If you're familiar with Valve and Steam Deck, you may already know that the Deck uses SteamOS 3, which is built on top of Arch Linux. Thanks to the Arch Linux base and Valve's development of the Proton compatibility layer for playing Windows games on Linux, we now have a far improved Linux gaming scene, especially on Valve's Steam Deck and Deck OLED handhelds. While Valve's specific reasons for picking Arch Linux for Steam Deck remain unknown, it's pretty easy to guess why it was picked. Mainly, it's a particularly lightweight distribution maintained since March 2002, which lends itself well to gaming with minimal performance overhead. A more intensive Linux distribution may not have been the ideal base for SteamOS 3, which is targeted at handhelds like Steam Deck first. As primary Arch Linux developer Levente Polyak discloses in the announcement post, "Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers." Polyak continues, "This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors [...] We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on the mailing list as work progresses."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.