An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed from The Globe and Mail, written by Kate Robertson and Ron Deibert. Robertson is a senior research associate and Deibert is director at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. From the piece: A federal cybersecurity bill, slated to advance through Parliament soon, contains secretive, encryption-breaking powers that the government has been loath to talk about. And they threaten the online security of everyone in Canada. Bill C-26 empowers government officials to secretly order telecommunications companies to install backdoors inside encrypted elements in Canada's networks. This could include requiring telcos to alter the 5G encryption standards that protect mobile communications to facilitate government surveillance. The government's decision to push the proposed law forward without amending it to remove this encryption-breaking capability has set off alarm bells that these new powers are a feature, not a bug.

There are already many insecurities in today's networks, reaching down to the infrastructure layers of communication technology. The Signalling System No. 7, developed in 1975 to route phone calls, has become a major source of insecurity for cellphones. In 2017, the CBC demonstrated how hackers only needed a Canadian MP's cell number to intercept his movements, text messages and phone calls. Little has changed since: A 2023 Citizen Lab report details pervasive vulnerabilities at the heart of the world's mobile networks. So it makes no sense that the Canadian government would itself seek the ability to create more holes, rather than patching them. Yet it is pushing for potential new powers that would infect next-generation cybersecurity tools with old diseases.

It's not as if the government wasn't warned. Citizen Lab researchers presented the 2023 report's findings in parliamentary hearings on Bill C-26, and leaders and experts in civil society and in Canada's telecommunications industry warned that the bill must be narrowed to prevent its broad powers to compel technical changes from being used to compromise the "confidentiality, integrity, or availability" of telecommunication services. And yet, while government MPs maintained that their intent is not to expand surveillance capabilities, MPs pushed the bill out of committee without this critical amendment last month. In doing so, the government has set itself up to be the sole arbiter of when, and on what conditions, Canadians deserve security for their most confidential communications -- personal, business, religious, or otherwise. The new powers would only make people in Canada more vulnerable to malicious threats to the privacy and security of all network users, including Canada's most senior officials. [...] "Now, more than ever, there is no such thing as a safe backdoor," the authors write in closing. "A shortcut that provides a narrow advantage for the few at the expense of us all is no way to secure our complex digital ecosystem."

"Against this threat landscape, a pivot is crucial. Canada needs cybersecurity laws that explicitly recognize that uncompromised encryption is the backbone of cybersecurity, and it must be mandated and protected by all means possible."

Salesforce shares dropped as much as 17% in extended trading due to weaker-than-expected revenue and guidance that fell short of Wall Street expectations. "Revenue in the fiscal first quarter, which ended April 30, increased 11% from $8.25 billion a year earlier," reports CNBC. "It's the first time since 2006 that Salesforce fell short on revenue, according to LSEG data." From the report: Salesforce called for adjusted earnings per share in the current quarter of $2.34 to $2.36 on $9.2 billion to $9.25 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected $2.40 in adjusted earnings per share on $9.37 billion in revenue. [...] Salesforce saw budget scrutiny and longer deal cycles than usual during the quarter, president and operating chief Brian Millham told analysts on a conference call. Management implemented go-to-market changes that cut into bookings, Millham said.

All five of Salesforce's product areas contributed to the growth. But revenue from the Professional Services and Other category, at $548 million, was down 9% and under the StreetAccount consensus of $572.9 million. Net income jumped to $1.53 billion, or $1.56 per share, from $199 million, or 20 cents per share a year ago.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The U.S. Department of the Treasury today unveiled sanctions against three Chinese nationals for allegedly operating 911 S5, an online anonymity service that for many years was the easiest and cheapest way to route one's Web traffic through malware-infected computers around the globe. KrebsOnSecurity identified one of the three men in a July 2022 investigation into 911 S5, which was massively hacked and then closed ten days later.

From 2015 to July 2022, 911 S5 sold access to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows computers daily, as "proxies" that allowed customers to route their Internet traffic through PCs in virtually any country or city around the globe -- but predominantly in the United States. 911 built its proxy network mainly by offering "free" virtual private networking (VPN) services. 911's VPN performed largely as advertised for the user -- allowing them to surf the web anonymously -- but it also quietly turned the user's computer into a traffic relay for paying 911 S5 customers. 911 S5's reliability and extremely low prices quickly made it one of the most popular services among denizens of the cybercrime underground, and the service became almost shorthand for connecting to that "last mile" of cybercrime. Namely, the ability to route one's malicious traffic through a computer that is geographically close to the consumer whose stolen credit card is about to be used, or whose bank account is about to be emptied.

In July 2022, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive into 911 S5, which found the people operating this business had a history of encouraging the installation of their proxy malware by any means available. That included paying affiliates to distribute their proxy software by secretly bundling it with other software. That story named Yunhe Wang from Beijing as the apparent owner or manager of the 911 S5 proxy service. In today's Treasury action, Mr. Wang was named as the primary administrator of the botnet that powered 911 S5. Update, May 29, 12:26 p.m. ET: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) just announced they have arrested Wang in connection with the 911 S5 botnet. The DOJ says 911 S5 customers have stolen billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, and federal lending programs. [...] The third man sanctioned is Yanni Zheng, a Chinese national the U.S. Treasury says acted as an attorney for Wang and his firm -- Spicy Code Company Limited -- and helped to launder proceeds from the business into real estate holdings. Spicy Code Company was also sanctioned, as well as Wang-controlled properties Tulip Biz Pattaya Group Company Limited, and Lily Suites Company Limited. "911 S5 customers allegedly targeted certain pandemic relief programs," a DOJ statement on the arrest reads. "For example, the United States estimates that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in a confirmed fraudulent loss exceeding $5.9 billion. Additionally, in evaluating suspected fraud loss to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the United States estimates that more than 47,000 EIDL applications originated from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5. Millions of dollars more were similarly identified by financial institutions in the United States as loss originating from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5."

"Jingping Liu assisted Yunhe Wang by laundering criminally derived proceeds through bank accounts held in her name that were then utilized to purchase luxury real estate properties for Yunhe Wang," the document continues. "These individuals leveraged their malicious botnet technology to compromise personal devices, enabling cybercriminals to fraudulently secure economic assistance intended for those in need and to terrorize our citizens with bomb threats."

American Lidar, a company registered in Michigan in December, is a subsidiary of China-based lidar maker Hesai Group, which the U.S. has labeled a security concern, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing policymakers and national-security experts. Chinese firms facing regulatory or reputational problems are rebranding and creating U.S.-domiciled businesses to sell their wares as the Biden administration expands the government entity lists that restrict Chinese companies' business dealings in the U.S., the report said.

These moves, while legal, irritate regulators who can't enforce laws when it isn't clear who is behind a company. Hesai became a target in the U.S.-China tech-trade war after allegations that its laser sensors could be used to collect sensitive American data, and was added to the Defense Department list that designates companies as Chinese military entities operating in the U.S. BGI Genomics and DJI are also facing similar challenges and are attempting to rebrand or license their technology to American startups to avoid sanctions.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is killing off a messaging service! This one is the odd "Google Business Messaging" service -- basically an instant messaging client that is built into Google Maps. If you looked up a participating business in Google Maps or Google Search on a phone, the main row of buttons in the place card would read something like "Call," "Chat," "Directions," and "Website." That "Chat" button is the service we're talking about. It would launch a full messaging interface inside the Google Maps app, and businesses were expected to use it for customer service purposes. Google's deeply dysfunctional messaging strategy might lead people to joke about a theoretical "Google Maps Messaging" service, but it already exists and has existed for years, and now it's being shut down.

An anonymous reader shares a report: At a two-hour drive from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, rows of solar panels extend to the horizon like waves on an ocean. Despite having almost limitless reserves of oil, the kingdom is embracing solar and wind power, partly in an effort to retain a leading position in the energy industry, which is vitally important to the country but fast changing. Looking out over 3.3 million panels, covering 14 square miles of desert, Faisal Al Omari, chief executive of a recently completed solar project called Sudair, said he would tell his children and grandchildren about contributing to Saudi Arabia's energy transition.

Although petroleum production retains a crucial role in the Saudi economy, the kingdom is putting its chips on other forms of energy. Sudair, which can light up 185,000 homes, is the first of what could be many giant projects intended to raise output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind to around 50 percent by 2030. Currently, renewable energy accounts for a negligible amount of Saudi electricity generation. Analysts say achieving that hugely ambitious goal is unlikely. "If they get 30 percent, I would be happy because that would be a good signal," said Karim Elgendy, a climate analyst at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington. Still, the kingdom is planning to build solar farms at a rapid pace. "The volumes you see here, you don't see anywhere else, only in China," said Marco Arcelli, chief executive of Acwa Power, Sudair's Saudi developer and a growing force in the international electricity and water industries.

The Saudis not only have the money to expand rapidly, but are free of the long permit processes that inhibit such projects in the West. "They have a lot of investment capital, and they can move quickly and pull the trigger on project development," said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institution in Washington. Even Saudi Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy and the producer of nearly all its oil, sees a shifting energy landscape. To gain a foothold in solar, Aramco has taken a 30 percent stake in Sudair, which cost $920 million, the first step in a planned 40-gigawatt solar portfolio -- more than Britain's average power demand -- intended to meet the bulk of the government's ambitions for renewable energy. The company plans to set up a large business of storing greenhouse gases underground.

Mistral, the French AI startup backed by Microsoft and valued at $6 billion, has released its first generative AI model for coding, dubbed Codestral. From a report: Codestral, like other code-generating models, is designed to help developers write and interact with code. It was trained on over 80 programming languages, including Python, Java, C++ and JavaScript, explains Mistral in a blog post. Codestral can complete coding functions, write tests and "fill in" partial code, as well as answer questions about a codebase in English. Mistral describes the model as "open," but that's up for debate. The startup's license prohibits the use of Codestral and its outputs for any commercial activities. There's a carve-out for "development," but even that has caveats: the license goes on to explicitly ban "any internal usage by employees in the context of the company's business activities." The reason could be that Codestral was trained partly on copyrighted content. Codestral might not be worth the trouble, in any case. At 22 billion parameters, the model requires a beefy PC in order to run.

Data centers could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the United States by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, as technology companies pour funds into expanding their computing hubs, the Electric Power Research Institute said on Wednesday. From a report: Depending on the adoption pace of technology such as generative artificial intelligence, which is fueling the expansion of data centers, and the energy efficiency of new centers, the estimated annual growth rate of electricity use by the industry ranges from 3.7% to 15% through 2030, the institute's analysis said. The institute is a U.S.-based research organization funded by energy and government organizations.

Data centers, along with expanding domestic manufacturing and electrification of transportation, are lifting the U.S. electricity industry out of two decades of flat growth. The centers require massive amounts of power for high-intensity computing and cooling systems, with a new large data center requiring the same amount of electricity needed to power 750,000 homes, according to numerous energy company earnings calls this year.

Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member, said that the board didn't know about the company's 2022 launch of its chatbot ChatGPT until afterward -- and only found out about it on Twitter. From a report: In a podcast, Toner gave her fullest account to date of the events that prompted her and other board members to fire Sam Altman in November of last year. In the days that followed Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman's sudden ouster, employees threatened to quit, Altman was reinstated, and Toner and other directors left the board. "When ChatGPT came out in November 2022, the board was not informed in advance about that," Toner said on the podcast. "We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter."

In a statement provided to the TED podcast, OpenAI's current board chief, Bret Taylor said, "We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues." He also said that an independent review of Altman's firing "concluded that the prior board's decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners." [...] In the podcast, Toner also said that Altman didn't disclose his involvement with OpenAI's startup fund. And she criticized his leadership on safety. "On multiple occasions, he gave us inaccurate information about the formal safety processes that the company did have in place," she said,"meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change."

Former FTX executive Ryan Salame has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, "the first of the lieutenants of failed cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to receive jail time for their roles in the 2022 collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange," reports the Associated Press. From the report: Salame, 30, was a high-ranking executive at FTX for most of the exchange's existence and, up until its collapse, was the co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets. He pleaded guilty last year to illegally making unlawful U.S. campaign contributions and to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The sentence of 7 1/2 years in prison, plus three years of supervised release, was more than the five to seven years prosecutors had asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to impose on Salame in their pre-sentencing memo.

While Salame was a high-level executive at FTX, he was not a major part of the government's case against Bankman-Fried at his trial earlier this year and did not testify against him. In a bid for leniency, Salame said during the sentencing hearing that he cooperated and even provided documents that aided prosecutors in their cross examination of Bankman-Fried, as well as in his own prosecution. Along with helping Bankman-Fried hide the holes in FTX's balance sheet that ultimately led to the exchange's failure, Salame was used as a conduit for Bankman-Fried to make illegal campaign contributions to help shape U.S. policy on cryptocurrencies. On the surface, Bankman-Fried mostly gave political contributions to Democrats and liberal-leaning causes, while Salame gave contributions to Republicans and right-leaning causes. But ultimately the funds that Salame used for those contributions came from Bankman-Fried.

The judge also chastised Salame for pulling $5 million in cryptocurrencies out of FTX as the exchange was failing. "You tried to withdraw tens of millions more," Kaplan said. "It was me first. I'm getting in the lifeboat first. To heck with all those customers."

Russia may charge domestic companies to use foreign software, the TASS news agency quoted Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadaev as saying on Tuesday, as Moscow seeks to cut dependency on foreign technology and bolster its own. From a report: President Vladimir Putin has made achieving technological independence a key goal, as Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine seek to hamstring Moscow's ability to acquire technology and equipment from abroad that could help it on the battlefield. As part of that push, Putin signed a decree in early May which stated that at least 80% of Russian companies in key economic sectors should transition to using Russian-made software by 2030. Many Russian companies still use foreign software in their daily operations, although an EU sanctions package passed last December prohibits companies from supplying enterprise and design-related software to Russia. Shadaev said that introducing a levy on Russian firms would "equalise" foreign and Russian software.

Fintech firm Klarna, one of the early adopters of generative AI said on Tuesday it is using AI for purposes such as running marketing campaigns and generating images, saving about $10 million in costs annually. From a report: The company has cut its sales and marketing budget by 11% in the first quarter, with AI responsible for 37% of the cost savings, while increasing the number of campaigns, the company said. Using GenAI tools like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Firefly for image generation, Klarna said it has reduced image production costs by $6 million.

The WeWork founder Adam Neumann has shelved his bid to acquire the bankrupt shared office space provider. From a report: It emerged earlier this year that Neumann, who was ousted from the business in 2019 following a botched attempt to take it public on the stock market, was seeking to buy the business. His new real estate venture, Flow Global, submitted a bid of more than $500m to take over WeWork and its assets. On Tuesday morning, however, Neumann confirmed that Flow was walking away from his dream to take back control of the firm.

"For several months, we tried to work constructively with WeWork to create a strategy that would allow it to thrive," he told DealBook. "Instead, the company looks to be emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed." WeWork, with over $13bn in long-term leases, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last November in order to renegotiate these agreements. At its peak, the company had been valued at $47bn as investors including the Japanese multinational SoftBank lined up to back it. As it prepared to go public in 2019, however, analysts gave it a far lower valuation. After it eventually went public, in 2021, its market valuation tumbled to less than $50m.

Sales of SUVs hit a new record in 2023, making up half of all new cars sold globally, data has revealed. Experts warned that the rising sales of the large, heavy vehicles is pushing up the carbon emissions that drive global heating. From a report: The analysis, by the International Energy Agency, found that the rising emissions from SUVs in 2023 made up 20% of the global increase in CO2, making the vehicles a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis. If SUVs were a country, the IEA said, they would be the world's fifth-largest emitter of CO2, ahead of the national emissions of both Japan and Germany. Climate-fuelled extreme weather is increasing, with urgent cuts in emissions needed. But emissions from the global transport sector have risen fast in recent years, outside of the Covid pandemic. SUV sales rose 15% in 2023, compared with a 3% rise for conventional cars.

There were more than 360m SUVs on the roads worldwide in 2023, producing 1bn tonnes of CO2 emissions, up about 10% on 2022. As a result, global oil consumption rose by 600,000 barrels a day, more than a quarter of total growth in oil demand, the IEA said. SUVs weigh 200-300kg more than an average medium-sized car and emit about 20% more CO2. In rich countries, almost 20m new SUVs were sold in 2023, surpassing a market share of 50% for the first time. Globally, 48% of new cars were SUVs and, including older cars, one in four cars on the road today are SUVs, according to the IEA.

The US stock market is finally as fast as it was about a hundred years ago. Bloomberg News: That was the last time share trades in New York settled in a single day, as they will from Tuesday under new Securities and Exchange Commission rules. The change, halving the time it takes to complete every transaction, also occurred in jurisdictions including Canada and Mexico on Monday. The switch to the system known as T+1 -- abandoned in the earlier era as volumes became unwieldy -- is ultimately intended to reduce risk in the financial system. Yet there are worries about potential teething issues, including that international investors may struggle to source dollars on time, global funds will move at different speeds to their assets, and everyone will have less time to fix errors.

The hope is that everything will run smoothly, but even the SEC said last week the transition may lead to a "short-term uptick in settlement fails and challenges to a small segment of market participants." The finance world's main industry group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has instigated what it calls the T+1 Command Center to identify problems and coordinate a response. Firms across the spectrum have been preparing for months, relocating staff, adjusting shifts and overhauling workflows, and many say they're confident in their own readiness. The worry is whether every other counterparty and intermediary is similarly organized.

PayPal hopes to boost its growth by starting an ad network [non-paywalled link] juiced with something it already owns: data on its millions of users. From a report: The digital payments company plans to build an ad sales business around the reams of data it generates from tracking the purchases as well as the broader spending behaviors of millions of consumers who use its services, which include the more socially-enabled Venmo app. PayPal has hired Mark Grether, who formerly led Uber's advertising business, to lead the effort as senior vice president and general manager of its newly-created PayPal Ads division. In his new role, he will be responsible for developing new ad formats, overseeing sales and hiring staff to fill out the division, he said.

PayPal in January introduced Advanced Offers, its first ad product, which uses AI and the company's data to help merchants target PayPal users with discounts and other personalized promotions. Advanced Offers only charges advertisers when consumers make a purchase. Online marketplaces eBay and Zazzle have begun testing it, according to a PayPal spokesman. But PayPal now aims to sell ads not only to its own customers, but to so-called non-endemic advertisers, or those that don't sell products or services through PayPal. Those companies might use PayPal data to target consumers with ads that could be displayed elsewhere, for instance, on other websites or connected TV sets.

"Concrete and steel production are major sources of CO2 emissions," writes New Atlas, "but a new solution from Cambridge could recycle both at the same time." Throwing old concrete into steel-processing furnaces not only purifies iron but produces "reactivated cement" as a byproduct. If done using renewable energy, the process could make for completely carbon-zero cement.

Concrete is the world's most used building material, and making it is a particularly dirty business — concrete production alone is responsible for about 8% of total global CO2 emissions. Unfortunately it's not easy to recycle back into a form that can be used to make new concrete structures... For the new study, Cambridge researchers investigated how waste concrete could be converted back into clinker, the dry component of cement, ready to be used again. "I had a vague idea from previous work that if it were possible to crush old concrete, taking out the sand and stones, heating the cement would remove the water, and then it would form clinker again," said Dr. Cyrille Dunant, first author of the study...

An electric arc furnace needs a "flux" material, usually lime, to purify the steel. This molten rocky substance captures the impurities, then bubbles to the surface and forms a protective layer that prevents the new pure steel from becoming exposed to air. At the end of the process, the used flux is discarded as a waste material. So for the Cambridge method, the lime flux was swapped out for the recycled cement paste. And sure enough, not only was it able to purify the steel just fine, but if the leftover slag is cooled quickly in air, it becomes new Portland cement.

The resulting concrete has similar performance to the original stuff. Importantly, the team says this technique doesn't add major costs to either concrete or steel production, and significantly reduces CO2 emissions compared to the usual methods of making both. If the electric arc furnace was powered by renewable sources, it could essentially make for zero-emission cement.
"The first industrial-scale trials are underway this month," the article adds. "Producing zero emissions cement is an absolute miracle, but we've also got to reduce the amount of cement and concrete we use," said Professor Julian Allwood, who led the research.

And the professor has also recorded a thoughtful video visualizing the process — and explaining the significance of their breakthrough.

In the future, "Probably none of us will have a job," Elon Musk said Thursday, speaking remotely to the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris. Instead, jobs will be optional — something we'd do like a hobby — "But otherwise, AI and the robots will provide any goods and services that you want."

CNN reports that Musk added this would require "universal high income" — and "There would be no shortage of goods or services." In a job-free future, though, Musk questioned whether people would feel emotionally fulfilled. "The question will really be one of meaning — if the computer and robots can do everything better than you, does your life have meaning?" he said. "I do think there's perhaps still a role for humans in this — in that we may give AI meaning."
CNN accompanied their article with this counterargument: In January, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab found workplaces are adopting AI much more slowly than some had expected and feared. The report also said the majority of jobs previously identified as vulnerable to AI were not economically beneficial for employers to automate at that time. Experts also largely believe that many jobs that require a high emotional intelligence and human interaction will not need replacing, such as mental health professionals, creatives and teachers.
CNN notes that Musk "also used his stage time to urge parents to limit the amount of social media that children can see because 'they're being programmed by a dopamine-maximizing AI'."

China's rapid solar power expansion is slowing due to grid bottlenecks, market reforms, and diminishing rooftop space, with new solar builds dropping 32% in March year-on-year. Reuters reports: The country's solar power expansion is slowing due to tighter curbs on supplying excess power from rooftop solar into the grid and changes in electricity pricing that are denting the economics of new solar projects. Forecasts show China's solar build this year will be heavily outpaced by growth in its photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing capacity, raising the prospect the country will export more solar panels despite a trade backlash in Europe and the U.S. The main factor slowing the expansion of distributed solar - installations built near the point of use, mostly on rooftops - is that there is not enough storage or transmission capacity to soak up the excess power generated when the sun is shining. That in turn is leading regulators to take away some of the price support that led to the rapid growth of distributed solar. "In the next couple of years, this is going to be a huge problem that all provinces will face as grids are oversaturated, the infrastructure is overwhelmed," said Cosimo Ries, an analyst with Trivium China, a policy research group. [...]

Renewable generators previously enjoyed a guarantee that grid operators would buy nearly all of their power at a rate tied to the coal index. That guarantee was lifted on April 1 and took effect earlier in some places, three industry experts said. Now, renewable generation is increasingly subject to less favourable market pricing. Shenhua Energy, a state-run coal and power firm, said in its first-quarter report that prices for its solar power fell 34.2% year-on-year to 283 yuan per megawatt-hour (MWh), while its coal power prices fell just 2.4% to 406 yuan per MWh. Wang Xiuqiang, a researcher at consultancy Beijing Linghang, attributed the lower solar prices and profitability to a higher proportion of market-based pricing. At the same time, grid companies are dialling back the 5% curtailment limit, "creating the risk for project owners that their generation might not be bought", said David Fishman of Shanghai-based energy consultancy the Lantau Group.

Curtailment for Huaneng Power International, a major state-owned generator, rose to 7.7% in the first quarter from 3.1% a year earlier, Jefferies analysts said in a client note, citing Huaneng management. In a further challenge, the easiest-to-site projects have already been largely developed, said Shi Lida, research manager at Yongan Guofu Asset Management. At sites still available, rooftops may need to be reinforced, grid connections may be limited, or hours of sunlight may be short. "If your costs don't continue to fall, the investment will not be cost effective," Shi said. Further reading: Germany Has Too Many Solar Panels, and It's Pushed Energy Prices Negative

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has shared data on the most impersonated companies in 2023, which include Best Buy, Amazon, and PayPal in the top three. The federal agency detailed the top ten companies scammers impersonate and how much they make depending on the impersonation. By far the most impersonated corp was Best Buy and its repair business Geek Squad, with a total of 52k reports. Amazon impersonators came in second place with 34k reports, and PayPal a distant third with 10,000. Proportionally, the top three made up roughly 72 percent of the reports among the top ten, and Best Buy and Geek Squad scam reports were about 39 percent on their own. Though, high quantity doesn't necessarily translate to greater success for scammers, as the FTC also showed how much scammers made depending on what companies they impersonated. Best Buy and Geek Squad, Amazon, and PayPal scams made about $15 million, $19 million, and $16 million respectively, but that's nothing compared to the $60 million that Microsoft impersonators were able to fleece. [...]

The FTC also reported the vectors scammers use to contact their victims. Phone and email are still the most common means, but social media is becoming increasingly important for scamming and features the most costly scams. The feds additionally disclosed the kinds of payment methods scammers use for all sorts of frauds, including company and individual impersonation scams, investment scams, and romance scams. Cryptocurrency and bank transfers were popular for investment scammers, who are the most prolific on social media, while gift cards were most common for pretty much every other type of scam. However, not all scammers ask for digital payment, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that even regular old mail is something scammers are relying on to get their ill-gotten gains.