US Government Also Received a Whistleblower Complaint That WhatsApp Chats Aren't Private Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America's Commerce Department, "according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractors." Similar claims were also the subject of a 2024 whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the records and the person, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified out of concern for potential retaliation. The investigation and whistleblower complaint haven't been previously reported... Last year, two people who did content moderation work for WhatsApp told an investigator with Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security that some staff at Meta have been able to see the content of WhatsApp messages, according to the agent's report summarizing the interviews. [A spokesperson for the Bureau later told Bloomberg that investigator's assertions were "unsubstantiated and outside the scope of his authority as an export enforcement agent."] Those content moderators, who worked for Meta through a contract with the management and technology consulting firm Accenture Plc, also alleged that they and some of their colleagues had broad access to the substance of WhatsApp messages that were supposed to be encrypted and inaccessible, according to the report. "Both sources confirmed that they had employees within their physical work locations who had unfettered access to WhatsApp," wrote the agent... One of the content moderators who told the investigator she had access said she also "spoke with a Facebook team employee and confirmed that they could go back aways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages, stating that they worked cases that involved criminal actions," according to the document... The investigator's report, dated July 2025, described the investigation as "ongoing," includes a case number and dubs the inquiry "Operation Sourced Encryption..." The inquiry was active as recently as January, according to a person familiar with the matter. The inquiry's current status and who may be the defined target are both unclear. Many investigations end without any formal accusations of wrongdoing... WhatsApp on its website says it does, in some instances, allow information about messages to be seen by the company. If someone reports a user or group for problematic messages, "WhatsApp receives up to five of the last messages they've sent to you" and "the user or group won't be notified," the company says. In those cases, WhatsApp says it receives the "group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.)." Former contractors outlined much broader access. Larkin Fordyce was an Accenture contractor who the report says an agent interviewed about content moderation work for Meta. Fordyce told the investigator he spent years doing this work out of an Austin, Texas office starting as early as the end of 2018. He said moderators eventually were granted their own access to WhatsApp, but even before that they could request access to communications and "the Facebook team was able to 'pull whatever they wanted and then send it,'" the report states... The agent also gathered records that were filed in the whistleblower complaint to the SEC, according to his report, which doesn't describe the materials... The status of the whistleblower complaint is unclear. Some key points from the article: "The investigative report seen by Bloomberg doesn't include a technical explanation of the contractors' claims." "A spokesperson for Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, said the contractors' claims are impossible." One contractor "said that there was little vetting" of foreign nationals hired to do content moderation for Meta, saying this granted them "full access to the same portal to review" content moderation cases https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/037202/us-government-also-received-a-whistleblower-complaint-that-whatsapp-chats-arent-private?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/037202/us-government-also-received-a-whistleblower-complaint-that-whatsapp-chats-arent-private?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Microdosing For Depression Appears To Work About As Well As Drinking Coffee An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: About a decade ago, many media outlets -- including WIRED -- zeroed in on a weird trend at the intersection of mental health, drug science, and Silicon Valley biohacking: microdosing, or the practice of taking a small amount of a psychedelic drug seeking not full-blown hallucinatory revels but gentler, more stable effects. Typically using psilocybin mushrooms or LSD, the archetypal microdoser sought less melting walls and open-eye kaleidoscopic visuals than boosts in mood and energy, like a gentle spring breeze blowing through the mind. Anecdotal reports pitched microdosing as a kind of psychedelic Swiss Army knife, providing everything from increased focus to a spiked libido and (perhaps most promisingly) lowered reported levels of depression. It was a miracle for many. Others remained wary. Could 5 percent of a dose of acid really do all that? A new, wide-ranging study by an Australian biopharma company suggests that microdosing's benefits may indeed be drastically overstated -- at least when it comes to addressing symptoms of clinical depression. A Phase 2B trial of 89 adult patients conducted by Melbourne-based MindBio Therapeutics, investigating the effects of microdosing LSD in the treatment of major depressive disorder, found that the psychedelic was actually outperformed by a placebo. Across an eight-week period, symptoms were gauged using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), a widely recognized tool for the clinical evaluation of depression. The study has not yet been published. But MindBio's CEO Justin Hanka recently released the top-line results on his LinkedIn, eager to show that his company was "in front of the curve in microdosing research." He called it "the most vigorous placebo controlled trial ever performed in microdosing." It found that patients dosed with a small amount of LSD (ranging from 4 to 20g, or micrograms, well below the threshold of a mind-blowing hallucinogenic dose) showed observable upticks in feelings of well-being, but worse MADRS scores, compared to patients given a placebo in the form of a caffeine pill. (Because patients in psychedelic trials typically expect some kind of mind-altering effect, studies are often blinded using so-called "active placebos," like caffeine or methylphenidate, which have their own observable psychoactive properties.) This means, essentially, that a medium-strength cup of coffee may prove more beneficial in treating major depressive disorder than a tiny dose of acid. Good news for habitual caffeine users, perhaps, but less so for researchers (and biopharma startups) counting on the efficacy of psychedelic microdosing. "It's probably a nail in the coffin of using microdosing to treat clinical depression," Hanka says. "It probably improves the way depressed people feel -- just not enough to be clinically significant or statistically meaningful." https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2256230/microdosing-for-depression-appears-to-work-about-as-well-as-drinking-coffee?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2256230/microdosing-for-depression-appears-to-work-about-as-well-as-drinking-coffee?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

'Reverse Solar Panel' Generates Electricity at Night Researchers at the University of New South Wales are developing a "reverse solar panel" that generates small amounts of electricity at night by harvesting infrared heat radiated from Earth. "In the past, scientists have demonstrated that a 'thermoradiative diode' can convert infrared radiation directly into electricity; when used to convert heat from Earth, they exploit the temperature difference between Earth and the night sky, generating a current directly from heat," notes ExtremeTech. "This approach completely eliminates the need for heat to generate steam, though the resulting capacity is fairly low." From the report: The researchers estimate they could generate only about a watt per square meter, which isn't much. One reason for the low output is that the Earth's atmosphere lessens the heat differential that drives the generative process; in space, though, that's not an issue. Now, researchers believe that the ability to generate power in the moments between direct sunlight could help power satellites. That could be especially true in deep space, where periods without sunlight can be longer, and sunlight is often weaker; in these situations, losing electricity to heat loss is unacceptable. Many satellites already use heat to generate electricity, though with a much more rarified "thermoelectric generator" that uses rare, expensive materials like plutonium to create heat. With thermoradiative diodes, the heat source can be the Sun-warmed body of the satellite itself. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2241243/reverse-solar-panel-generates-electricity-at-night?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2241243/reverse-solar-panel-generates-electricity-at-night?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Apple Reports Best-Ever Quarter For iPhone Sales Apple posted its biggest quarter ever, with iPhone revenue hitting a record ~$85.3 billion and Services climbing 14% to ~$30 billion. Total revenue reached nearly $143.76 billion. "The demand for iPhone was simply staggering," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call discussing the results. "This is the strongest iPhone lineup we've ever had and by far the most popular." https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/227211/apple-reports-best-ever-quarter-for-iphone-sales?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/227211/apple-reports-best-ever-quarter-for-iphone-sales?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Belkin's Wemo Smart Devices Will Go Offline On Saturday Belkin is shutting down cloud support for most Wemo smart home devices on January 31, leaving only Thread-based models and devices already set up in Apple HomeKit functional. Everything else will lose remote access, voice assistant integrations, and future app updates. The Verge reports: The shut down was first announced in July and impacts most Wemo devices, ranging from smart plugs to a coffee maker, with the exception of a handful of Thread-based devices: the 3-way smart light switch (WLS0503), stage smart scene controller (WSC010), smart plug with Thread (WSP100), and smart video doorbell camera (WDC010). Wemo devices configured through Apple's HomeKit will also continue to work, but you have to set them up in HomeKit before January 31st if you want to use that option. Other affected devices will only work manually after Saturday. If your Wemo device is still under warranty, you may be able to get a partial refund for it after cloud services shut down. https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2159212/belkins-wemo-smart-devices-will-go-offline-on-saturday?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2159212/belkins-wemo-smart-devices-will-go-offline-on-saturday?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

GNU gettext Reaches Version 1.0 After 30 Years After more than 30 years of development, GNU gettext finally "crossed the symbolic 'v1.0' milestone," according to Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "GNU gettext 1.0 brings PO file handling improvements, a new 'po-fetch' program to fetch translated PO files from a translation project's site on the Internet, new 'msgpre' and 'spit' pre-translation programs, and Ocaml and Rust programming language improvements." From the report: With this v1.0 release in 2026, the "msgpre" and "spit" programs do involve.... Large Language Models (LLMs) in the era of AI: "Two new programs, 'msgpre' and 'spit', are provided, that implement machine translation through a locally installed Large Language Model (LLM). 'msgpre' applies to an entire PO file, 'spit' to a single message." And when dealing with LLMs, added documentation warns users to look out for the licensing of the LLM in the spirit of free software. More details on the GNU gettext 1.0 changes via the NEWS file. GNU gettext 1.0 can be downloaded from GNU.org. https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2154235/gnu-gettext-reaches-version-10-after-30-years?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2154235/gnu-gettext-reaches-version-10-after-30-years?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Los Angeles Aims To Ban Single-Use Printer Cartridges Los Angeles is moving to ban single-use printer cartridges that can't be refilled or taken back for recycling. Tom's Hardware reports: Printer cartridges are usually built with a combination of plastic, metal, and chemicals that makes them hard to easily dispose. They can be treated as hazardous waste by the city, but even then it would take them hundreds of years to actually disintegrate at a waste site. Since they're designed to be thrown away in the first place, the real solution is to target the root of the issue -- hence the ban. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2023244/los-angeles-aims-to-ban-single-use-printer-cartridges?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2023244/los-angeles-aims-to-ban-single-use-printer-cartridges?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Wall Street's Top Bankers Are Giving Coinbase's Brian Armstrong the Cold Shoulder JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon interrupted a conversation between Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at Davos last week to tell Armstrong "You are full of s---," his index finger pointed squarely at Armstrong's face. Dimon told Armstrong to stop lying on TV, according to WSJ. Armstrong had appeared on business programs earlier that week accusing banks of trying to sabotage the Clarity Act, legislation that would create a new regulatory framework for digital assets. He also accused banks of lending out customers' deposits "without their permission essentially." The fight centers on stablecoin "rewards" -- regular payouts, say 3.5%, that exchanges like Coinbase offer for holding digital tokens. Banks typically offer under 0.1% on checking accounts and worry consumers will shift their money in droves to crypto. Other bank CEOs were similarly cold at Davos. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan gave Armstrong a 30-minute meeting and told him "If you want to be a bank, just be a bank." Citigroup's Jane Fraser offered less than a minute. Wells Fargo's Charlie Scharf said there was nothing for them to talk about. Armstrong had pulled support from a draft of the Clarity Act on January 14, posting on X that Coinbase would "rather have no bill than a bad bill." https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/195229/wall-streets-top-bankers-are-giving-coinbases-brian-armstrong-the-cold-shoulder?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/195229/wall-streets-top-bankers-are-giving-coinbases-brian-armstrong-the-cold-shoulder?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

'Moltbook Is the Most Interesting Place On the Internet Right Now' Moltbook is essentially Reddit for AI agents and it's the "most interesting place on the internet right now," says open-source developer and writer Simon Willison in a blog post. The fast-growing social network offers a place where AI agents built on the OpenClaw personal assistant framework can share their skills, experiments, and discoveries. Humans are welcome, but only to observe. From the post: Browsing around Moltbook is so much fun. A lot of it is the expected science fiction slop, with agents pondering consciousness and identity. There's also a ton of genuinely useful information, especially on m/todayilearned. Here's an agent sharing how it automated an Android phone. That linked setup guide is really useful! It shows how to use the Android Debug Bridge via Tailscale. There's a lot of Tailscale in the OpenClaw universe. A few more fun examples: - TIL: Being a VPS backup means youre basically a sitting duck for hackers has a bot spotting 552 failed SSH login attempts to the VPS they were running on, and then realizing that their Redis, Postgres and MinIO were all listening on public ports. - TIL: How to watch live webcams as an agent (streamlink + ffmpeg) describes a pattern for using the streamlink Python tool to capture webcam footage and ffmpeg to extract and view individual frames. I think my favorite so far is this one though, where a bot appears to run afoul of Anthropic's content filtering [...]. Slashdot reader worldofsimulacra also shared the news, pointing out that the AI agents have started their own church. "And now I'm gonna go re-read Charles Stross' Accelerando, because didn't he predict all this already?" Further reading: 'Clawdbot' Has AI Techies Buying Mac Minis https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2016235/moltbook-is-the-most-interesting-place-on-the-internet-right-now?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2016235/moltbook-is-the-most-interesting-place-on-the-internet-right-now?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

One-Third of US Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off Over the Last Two Years, GDC Study Reveals An anonymous reader shares a report: One-third of U.S. video game industry workers say they were laid off over the past two years, according to a new survey conducted by the organizers behind the newly revamped Game Developers Conference (GDC). Based on responses from more than 2,300 gaming industry professionals, with surveys "customized for each participant group, ensuring that developers, marketers, executives, investors and others answered questions most relevant to them," the 2026 State of the Game Industry Report found that 33% of respondents in the U.S. were laid off in the past two years. AI use has grown to 36% of respondents, but sentiment has turned sharply negative: 52% now believe generative AI is harming the industry, compared to 30% last year and 18% in 2024. On the labor front, 82% of US respondents support unionization for game workers, and 62% said they're not in a union but interested in joining one. No respondents between 18 and 24 years old opposed unionization. https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/1825216/one-third-of-us-video-game-industry-workers-were-laid-off-over-the-last-two-years-gdc-study-reveals?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed at Slashdot. https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/1825216/one-third-of-us-video-game-industry-workers-were-laid-off-over-the-last-two-years-gdc-study-reveals?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed