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Cybersecurity researchers have charted the evolution of Jupyter, a .NET infostealer known for singling out healthcare and education sectors, which make it exceptional at defeating most endpoint security scanning solutions. The new delivery chain, spotted by Morphisec on September 8, underscores that the malware has not just continued to remain active but also showcases "how threat actors

When America's law enforcement investigators serve tech companies with subpoenas or search warrants,"the target of the investigation has no idea their data is being seized," the Washington Post pointed out this weekend. It's becoming surprisingly common in the U.S. "And if investigators obtain a gag order, the records must be handed over without the person's knowledge or consent — depriving the person of an opportunity to challenge the seizure in court." Every year, Facebook, Google and other technology companies receive hundreds of thousands of orders from law enforcement agencies seeking data people stash online: private messages, photos, search histories, calendar items — a potentially rich trove for criminal investigators. Often, those requests are accompanied by secrecy orders, also known as nondisclosure or gag orders, that require the tech companies to keep their customers in the dark, potentially for years... In the last six months of 2020, Facebook received 61,262 government requests for user data in the United States, said spokesman Andy Stone. Most — 69 percent — came with secrecy orders. Meanwhile, Microsoft has received between 2,400 and 3,500 secrecy orders from federal law enforcement each year since 2016 — or seven to 10 per day — according to congressional testimony by vice president of customer security and trust Tom Burt. Google and Apple declined to disclose the number of gag orders they've received. But in the first half of 2020, Google said U.S. law enforcement made 39,536 requests for information about 84,662 accounts — with many of the requests targeting multiple accounts. Apple said it received 11,363 requests... Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal prosecutors are required to seek digital information from tech companies, not their customers. Since then, prosecutors have routinely used gag orders to prevent the companies from spilling the beans to suspects who might destroy evidence, go into hiding or threaten someone's life. But the practice has mushroomed over the past two decades, part of a broader surveillance ramp-up following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, lawyers said. As the orders have proliferated, privacy advocates and the tech companies themselves have become increasingly concerned. Some tech company officials have accused prosecutors of reflexively requesting gag orders for routine investigations, regardless of whether the cases actually require such secrecy. And an array of company officials and legal experts argue that the practice robs tech company customers of their constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. "Across all the rest of society, it's understood that government doesn't get to take your stuff, doesn't get to come in and into your house, doesn't get to break into your file folders or your lock box at the bank without a warrant. And you get to know about that warrant and you get to exercise your legal rights," Microsoft's Burt said in an interview. "Someone cannot exercise their Fourth Amendment rights when their data has been taken in secret." U.S. lawmakers are considering changes, the article points out. One idea? Require tech companies "to preserve digital files that are the subject of court orders and permit customers to challenge the orders in court before the information is turned over to prosecutors." Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon points out that's how wiretaps currently work — and is also drafting a measure that would finally require federal courts to publish statistics on the number of surveillance and secrecy orders they've issued.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IMDB Rating: 6.6/10
Genre: Documentary
Size: 971.63 MB
Runtime: 1hr 45 min

Last Man Standing takes at look at Death Row Records and how L.A.'s street gang culture had come to dominate its business workings, as well as an association with corrupt L.A. Police Officers who were also gang affiliated. It would be this world of gang rivalry and dirty cops that would later claim the lives of the world's two greatest rappers: Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

The most exciting thing about "Last Night in Soho" is that it feels unlike any other Edgar Wright film, while being, unmistakably, an Edgar Wright film. This is undeniably the filmmaker who made "Shaun of the Dead" and "Scott Pilgrim vs the World," but his work on this new London-set, time-jumping horror movie is far removed from his earlier filmography. Before our very eyes, an already-skilled filmmaker has refused to keep doing the same thing. It may feel insulting to say he's grown up, so let's say he's evolved.

Welcome to the next generation of Edgar Wright movies, which refreshingly refuse to lean on any on the familiar quirks that defined the films that made his name.

Winking And Nudging

Much digital ink has been spilled about Wright's first four movies — the "Cornetto" trilogy consisting of "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," and "The World's End," and the graphic novel adaptation "Scott Pilgrim vs the World" — and for good reason. They're terrific. And they're made for movie fans by a movie fan, a filmmaker who breathes in pop culture and exhales cinema, reconfiguring it through his own amused and amusing filter. And naturally, movie fans took notice. Even while his films didn't burn up the box office, they developed passionate, and immediate, followings. There's a real "one of us" quality to the fandom surrounding the early Wright movies: folks who loved movies recognized one of their own.

And Wright's early movies acknowledge this proudly. "Shaun of the Dead" wears its George A. Romero influences loudly and proudly, from its title to its gruesome third act. "Hot Fuzz" literally features a movie buff as a lead character, allowing him to gleefully point out action movie cliches the cast indulges in and subverts. "Scott Pilgrim" is lighter on the movie references, swapping them out for needle drops and one-liners intended to elicit grins from anyone who has ever held a video game controller.

Wright's movies never lacked an emotional core (the comedy is never at the expense of three-dimensional characters!), but they were movies that were aware they were movies. They winked. They nudged. They were in on the joke and knew you were too.

So, what happens when Wright stops the winking and the nudging?

A Voice Of Its Own

It's not that "Last Night in Soho" abandons Wright looking to the past for inspiration. He has name-checked "Repulsion" and "Don't Look Now" as touchstones for his new movie, which follows a young student (Thomas McKenzie, who is frankly astonishing here) whose new flat turns into a window to the 1960s, allowing her to witness the past and unlock a gnarly ghost story that consumes and destroys her life.

The big difference between this film and the director's earlier work is that "Last Night in Soho" never plays as an extended love letter to the movies from which Wright took inspiration. The film is happy to stand alone, never asking you to chuckle along with a deliberate homage to a movie you've seen before. There's a quiet confidence to it — it's a terrific movie because it's terrific, not because it's subverting something you already love. Wright is no longer nudging.

Whereas past Wright movies saw him gleefully leaning on familiar style and iconography, "Last Night in Soho" feels like its own thing. Its confidence is eerie, its style subtle but astonishing (you'll wonder how they pulled off so many key scenes once it clicks how impossible they seem). Wright knows that power of letting veteran performers like Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg operate as characters, rather than reference their past roles. He knows to put his own story — which is twist-y and fun and scary — first. Edgar Wright has realized that an Edgar Wright movie can be more than the sum of its winking references. It can hold its own, his style and his actors and his storytelling being the stars rather than the admittedly giddy thrill of "let's watch him take on another genre and lovingly twist it inside out."

Edgar Wright 2.0

This transformation has been a few years coming. "Baby Driver" saw Wright deliver his first mainstream smash hit, a heist movie powered with the soul of a musical. "The Sparks Brothers" is one of the more unique and stylized musical documentaries you'll ever see. But "Last Night in Soho" confirms that we've entered the age of Edgar Wright 2.0, an era where the filmmaker clearly feels a desire to reinvent what people expect from him and his work.

You'll still find Wright's touchstones in "Last Night in Soho." His stories are intricately plotted, with seemingly every scene leading to a payoff that proves worth the wait. He's still one of the most clever stagers of scene transitions working today, moving us (and his characters) between locations and time periods with either grace and discombobulating force. And yes, his characters still sometimes say one thing and immediately do the opposite, the kind of wry comedy that's been a trademark since his television days. But now, they exist to serve this story, not to remind you of a dozen others.

I imagine there will be a crowd of movie fans who wonder what happened to the filmmaker who made "Shaun of the Dead," and why he'd make "Last Night in Soho" (and "Baby Driver" and "The Sparks Brothers"). But if there's one thing a seasoned cineaste like Edgar Wright knows, it's that filmmakers who stagnate are filmmakers who cease to be interesting. That makes "Last Night in Soho" Wright's greatest movie reference yet. He knows that the filmmakers with the most interesting legacies are those who know when to reinvent themselves.

Cue a young filmmaker building their name referencing these newer Edgar Wright films in their homage-laden first films. They're special enough, and unique enough to warrant that reaction from another artist. By taking this leap, Edgar Wright has officially done his part to create... Well, the next Edgar Wright.

Read our review of "Last Night in Soho" here. The film hits theaters on October 29, 2021.

Read this next: 5 Things To Love About Last Night In Soho [TIFF 2021]

The post Last Night in Soho Reveals the Thrilling Next Era of Edgar Wright [Fantastic Fest] appeared first on /Film.

If you know me or my work, you know I'm a Stephen King guy. My (far too) early childhood viewings of adaptations of his work like "The Shining" and "Stand By Me" tempted young me to pick up my very first King book in the sixth grade. It was "Cujo" and I'd read it in snippets while my teacher wasn't looking, hiding it in my perfectly-sized pencil box when their Sauron-like gaze fell my way.

About halfway through the book, most of which I didn't fully understand but could keep up with thanks in no small part to having seen the movie version, I made a pledge to myself that I'd read everything he's ever written; a pledge, I might add, that I kept.

One of the fringe benefits of being obsessed with King was that I came to Joe Hill's work earlier than most. I'd wager that Hill really started his ascension with his comic book work (if you haven't read any of his "Locke & Key" comic series, I highly recommend it), but for me it started with the double whammy of his short story collection "20th Century Ghosts" and his novel "Heart-Shaped Box." He came right out of the gate swinging, stepping out of the shadow of his father and blazing his own trail. I tore right through "Heart-Shaped Box" and would recommend it to any horror fan, but I think what really hooked me were his short stories.

Yes, he plays with horror, and delights in some extremely cruel things, but the emotion Hill imbues his stories with, especially his short stories, is the real sweet spot. The titular story in "20th Century Ghosts" is about spirits that frequent an old movie theater and marries my love of genre fiction and my cinephile tendencies. If ghosts are real and the day comes when it's time for me to check out, you'll probably find my spirit chilling at a movie theater, watching movies and knocking phones out of rude texters hands like I'm Vincent Schiavelli in "Ghost."

Hill's work hasn't been adapted as frequently as his dad's, but his track record is pretty good. "Horns" is fun, the "Locke & Key" Netflix series is well-done and definitely faithful, "In the Tall Grass" is an effective thriller, and "NOS4A2" has a pretty dedicated fanbase. But I think "The Black Phone" might be the best adaptation of Hill's work so far.

Heart Plus Horror

"The Black Phone" had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest last night with director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill (who previously collaborated on "Sinister" and "Doctor Strange") in attendance. I went in optimistic, because Derrickson's a hell of a shooter, but if I'm being honest, I was a little curious how the adaptation would stretch the central conceit of the not-even-20 page story into a feature.

I'll avoid any major spoilers as I dive into this review, but if all you want to know is if it's good or not, then I'll say it's really damn good right up front. If you're sold and haven't read the short story, then why not go in cold? The film has a release date of January 2022, so you have a little time to sit and wait, but it's worth it. Trust me.

The movie's about a young boy named Finney (Mason Thames). He's a kind-hearted kid and that makes him a target for the school's bullies. He's a good kid, but isn't a fighter. In fact, his much younger foul-mouthed sparkplug of a little sister (Madeleine McGraw) is the fighter of the family.

Children have gone missing in his town for quite a while. The locals call the mysterious perpetrator "The Grabber" (Ethan Hawke) and, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, Finney becomes the latest victim of this child abductor. It's up to Finney to find a way to get over his fear and get out of his basement prison, but he does have help.

Undead help, but hey, you take what you can get in these kinds of situations.

There's a black phone in the room with him and although it's disconnected, young Finney hears it ring. The voice on the other end of the line is one of The Grabber's previous victims. A dead kid, in other words, but one that tries to help Finney survive.

This film lives or dies on two very key performances. The first is the villain, a mask-wearing psycho played with great relish and dedication by Hawke, and the second is Finney himself. Finney is the most important character in this thing because if the actor comes across as precocious or "acty," the whole movie falls apart. You won't buy it and if you're not invested then the scares don't work.

It's a lot to ask of any actor, let alone a tween actor. He's alone in a room for a good chunk of his screen time. Finney's a realist that has to be proactive about his situation, but at the end of the day he's still a kid who was plucked off the street and smart enough to know what's ultimately going to happen to him.

Mason Thames absolutely knocks it out of the park here, carrying the movie with confidence and a sense of reality that you need in order to make the supernatural stuff hit home. That's the Joe Hill sweet spot. Heart plus horror.

Commanding Your Attention

I have a feeling Madeleine McGraw, who plays Finney's younger sister, will be getting a lot of the attention because she has a really fun, funny character that can't help but steal every scene she's in. And she earns all the praise she's going to get from this movie. This is the same kind of role and performance that demands you pay attention to this child actor in much the same way Julia Butters commanded your attention in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. However,' I'm saying right here and now that the reason this movie landed the way it did for me was Thames' nuanced, complex and sympathetic work as the lead boy.

Before I get into talking about the villain, I do have to give a shoutout to the great character actor James Ransone, who brings in the right kind of lightheartedness at just the right moment. He's not in the movie a whole lot, but you certainly perk up when he is.

For his part, Hawke plays the villain perfectly. For the vast majority of the movie, he's wearing a segmented devil mask (designed by the legendary Tom Savini, no less), which is interesting as well. The only voices Finney hears while kidnapped are muffled, either by his abductor's mask or by the haze of static on the undead phone. The only clear voice he has to rely on is his own.

Playing a creepy child-killer is probably not a very attractive part for a lot of actors, especially those like Hawke who don't typically play villains, but the man fully commits and the results are horrifying. It's not the overly threatening moments with this guy that get under the skin. It's when his words are kind and loving when the skeevies really start crawling up and down your spine. The way The Grabber is portrayed is one of the biggest deviations from the short story. In the story he's essentially just John Wayne Gacy. This version is far creepier and complex and way scarier.

Derrickson and his crew took a neat little horror concept from an actually short short story and were able to expand upon it in ways that both make sense and don't feel like filler. There's a complicated family story barely hinted at in the short story that is more fleshed out here, particularly when it comes to Finney's little sister.

For my money, "The Black Phone" is more complete and effective than Derrickson's previous horror movie "Sinister" and is the first feature adaptation of Joe Hill's work that demands more big-screen Joe Hill adaptations. Hopefully, Hollywood answers that call.

/Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Read this next: Upcoming Horror Movies That Will Freak You Out

The post The Black Phone Review: Scott Derrickson Delivers the Best Joe Hill Adaptation Yet [Fantastic Fest] appeared first on /Film.

As someone who works as a writer and editor on a movie website, I tend to know at least a little bit about every movie we cover. Sometimes, news about upcoming movies slides across my desk. More often, I find myself editing reviews and spoiler posts about releases I have not yet had a chance to see. It's part of the job. It goes with the territory. I've long held the opinion that if a spoiler ruins the experience of seeing a film, that film has pretty major issues.

So it's rare when I see a fairly major movie knowing absolutely nothing about it, including its basic premise and characters. And it's even rarer when I see that fairly major movie and realize "Oh wow, I'm genuinely glad I knew nothing about this, holy sh*t, what the absolute f*ck did I just watch?"

Folks, that's "Titane." And I strongly recommend you follow in my tracks and see this movie knowing as little as possible. The rest of this post won't touch on any plot or character details. I promise.

What I Knew (And What You Can Know, Too)

Here's what I knew about "Titane," the winner of this year's Palme d'Or at the prestigious Cannes film festival, when I sat down to watch it during the opening night of Fantastic Fest. I knew many critics and journalists were over the moon about it. I knew it had elicited some very strong responses due to its content. And I knew it was the new film from director Julia Ducournau, the French filmmaker whose 2016 debut "Raw" bowled me over when I saw it (and you should see it, too — it's the sweetest cannibal movie ever made).

Heck, another editor even took on /Film's review of the film, so I didn't even read that. I won't link it here because that would defeat the purpose of this article. Sorry.

I had also seen the trailer, which was cleverly cut by distributor Neon to not feature any dialogue or even tease the plot, instead leaning entirely on unusual, out-of-context imagery. I didn't realize until after the credits rolled on "Titane" how effectively spoiler-free this trailer really is, and how it left me throughly unprepared for what was to come. I tip my hat.

And since I had seen "Raw," and since I had seen the visceral reactions out of Cannes, I knew this was a film that would test the nerves and stomachs of even seasoned genre fans. Consider that a warning for folks who don't like to indulge in boundary-prodding cinema.

That's it. I didn't realize how powerfully unprepared I would be for the actual movie.

Taking The Bonkers Train To Bonkersville

Since I'm not even offering a single spoiler here, let's just say that "Titane" left me exhausted and unsettled. I somehow thought about both the South Korean thriller "I Saw the Devil" and the '90s family comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire" while watching it. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie where every scene feels like an adventure — you literally don't know where this movie is going to go on a scene-by-scene basis, and you watch, jaw agape, as it propels you in directions only a maniac could've predicted.

This film is the express train to a very intoxicating hell, and Ducournau is the conductor who needs to prep another journey soon. I need more of her movies in my life.

Watching "Titane" without knowing a damn thing was a shot of adrenaline to the soul. You don't realize just how boilerplate, how predictable, most movies are until you watch the least predictable movie of the past few years without any prep whatsoever. And while I'll continue to be spoiled on movies by the very nature of my job, this was a reminder that I, and you, should allow this to happen more often. Every once in awhile, let's skip the trailer, skip the reviews, and just let a movie happen to us. And believe me, you'll want "Titane" to happen to you.

Read this next: Every Darren Aronofsky Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

The post You Owe It To Yourself To See Titane Knowing As Little As Possible [Fantastic Fest] appeared first on /Film.

Long-time Slashdot reader BoredStiff shares this report from Fortune: Moore's law of ever-increasing miniaturization seemingly never reached the automotive industry. Dozens of chips found in everything from electronic brake systems to airbag control units tend to rely on obsolete technology often well over a decade old. These employ comparatively simple transistors that can be anywhere from 45 nanometers to as much as 90 nanometers in size, far too large — and too primitive — to be suitable for today's smartphones. When the pandemic hit, replacement demand for big-ticket items like new cars was pushed back while sales of all kinds of home devices soared. When the car market roared back months later, chipmakers had already reallocated their capacity. Now these processors are in short supply, and chipmakers are telling car companies to wake up and finally join the 2010s. "I'll make them as many Intel 16 [nanometer] chips as they want," Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger told Fortune last week during his visit to an auto industry trade show in Germany. Carmakers have bombarded him with requests to invest in brand-new production capacity for semiconductors featuring designs that, at best, were state of the art when the first Apple iPhone launched. "It just makes no economic or strategic sense," said Gelsinger, who came to the auto show to convince carmakers they need to let go of the distant past. "Rather than spending billions on new 'old' fabs, let's spend millions to help migrate designs to modern ones...." Reliability plays a major concern. Most systems in cars are safety-critical and need to perform in practically every situation regardless of temperature, humidity, vibrations, and even minor road debris. With so much at stake, tried and true is better than new and improved.... If semiconductor suppliers like Intel and Qualcomm have their way, however, the days of the auto industry relying on these cheap commodity chips are numbered. The article cites a prediction that 10% of pre-pandemic car production could be eliminated due to chip shortages — and includes this quote from a press briefing by the Volkswagen Group's head of procurement. "Because of a 50-cent chip, we are unable to build a car that sells for $50,000."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

by Jason Adams

Never let it be said that writer, director, and everlasting gob-dropping provocateur Paul Verhoeven doesn't know how to entertain. In what other director's hands would a dramatic film about a 17th century Tuscan nun having visions and tackling both the patriarchy and the plague involve a Virgin Mary statue whittled down for her pleasure? (Okay definitely Almodovar too). But Benedetta, Verhoeven's latest outrageous act of delicious cinematic provocation, is nevertheless All Paul, from the hem of its habit to the tip of its nips. And that's just the poster! Just wait until you peel that part down and see what sexy bits are bouncing about underneath...

We're back despite the machinations of technical difficulties to talk about Deathloop, Diablo 2 Remastered, Halo Infinite multiplayer flight, No Man's Sky, Super Mario Bros. 3, Dagon, Burgers & Frights, Experience Share in Alameda, and more! This week's music:  VV - Salute the Sanguine

Epik's massive data breach is already affecting lives. Today the Washington Post describes a real estate agent in Pompano Beach who urged buyers on Facebook to move to "the most beautiful State." His name and personal details "were found on invoices suggesting he had once paid for websites with names such as racisminc.com, whitesencyclopedia.com, christiansagainstisrael.com and theholocaustisfake.com". The real estate brokerage where he worked then dropped him as an agent. The brokerage's owner told the Post they didn't "want to be involved with anyone with thoughts or motives like that." "Some users appear to have relied on Epik to lead a double life," the Post reports, "with several revelations so far involving people with innocuous day jobs who were purportedly purveyors of hate online." (Alternate URL here.) Epik, based outside Seattle, said in a data-breach notice filed with Maine's attorney general this week that 110,000 people had been affected nationwide by having their financial account and credit card numbers, passwords and security codes exposed.... Heidi Beirich, a veteran researcher of hate and extremism, said she is used to spending weeks or months doing "the detective work" trying to decipher who is behind a single extremist domain. The Epik data set, she said, "is like somebody has just handed you all the detective work — the names, the people behind the accounts..." Many website owners who trusted Epik to keep their identities hidden were exposed, but some who took additional precautions, such as paying in bitcoin and using fake names, remain anonymous.... Aubrey "Kirtaner" Cottle, a security researcher and co-founder of Anonymous, declined to share information about the hack's origins but said it was fueled by hackers' frustrations over Epik serving as a refuge for far-right extremists. "Everyone is tired of hate," Cottle said. "There hasn't been enough pushback, and these far-right players, they play dirty. Nothing is out of bounds for them. And now ... the tide is turning, and there's a swell moving back in their direction." Earlier in the week, the Post reported: Since the hack, Epik's security protocols have been the target of ridicule among researchers, who've marveled at the site's apparent failure to take basic security precautions, such as routine encryption that could have protected data about its customers from becoming public... The hack even exposed the personal records from Anonymize, a privacy service Epik offered to customers wanting to conceal their identity.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Update on May 16, 2022

Manifest request codes have been enforced since 14th, which likely means they are staying for good now.

Update on April 1st, 2022

After one of the recent Steam beta client updates, download_depot command once again allows downloading older manifests without the client-side check that prevented it. This likely indicates that will be enforced by manifest request codes in the future.

Update on March 22nd, 2022

For a couple of hours, manifest request codes were enforced by the Steam CDN and were required for all requests. Requests without providing one returned 401 Unauthorized error.

However since originally writing this post, manifest request codes are granted for older manifest ids that are no longer in the appinfo, which should still allow downloading older versions of games, given that developers do not remove them.

Update on September 28th, 2021

Valve gave a statement to PC Gamer:

"We are actually not planning to disable downloading old builds. What we are working on is an approach on handling edge cases involving unowned content, and helping partners more easily take down builds that need to be removed for things like copyright issues. We’ll have more to share on that work when it’s ready to ship."

As of right now Valve's statement isn't in line with these changes as manifest request codes are still not granted for any but the most recent manifest version in the appinfo. We look forward to seeing changes to allow this in future beta builds. As a sidenote, Valve's statement goes against the fact they removed the functionality to download older depot versions from inside the Steam client last year making it only able to do so in third-party applications. We also noted that until May 2019, there already was a ownership check when downloading manifests. We hope that with this post and the press coverage it received it's been made apparent that there is additional value in allowing users to download older builds.

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Original post

Steam Client Beta released on September 23, 2021 included a new method called ContentServerDirectory.GetManifestRequestCode and it is actively being used by the beta client.

This method takes app id, depot id, manifest id, branch name, and the branch password. All of these parameters have to match in the current app info for it to return a valid manifest code, if something mismatches, or you don't own the game it will return AccessDenied result. When a non-zero code is acquired, it is appended to the manifest download url. If a valid request code is provided, the manifest can be downloaded. Otherwise the content server returns an unauthorized error.

https://{cdn}/depot/{depotId}/manifest/{manifestId}/5 - beforehttps://{cdn}/depot/{depotId}/manifest/{manifestId}/5/{manifestRequestCode} - after

As of now, if the manifest request code is omitted from the download url, it still works, as the Steam stable client does not have this just yet. We do not know if Steam CDN will enforce this requirement for all games (if at all), or what other requirements may be.

We believe this is only limiting access for consumers, and not actually deleting old builds from their storage. Developers can see all of their previous builds on the partner site, and rollback to any of it.

All information and conclusions in this post are subject to change as this feature is new to the Beta client and might still change.

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Back in February 2020 they changed download_depot command in Steam client to perform similar checks locally, which meant you had to resort to using a third-party utility such as the Depot Downloader or steamctl to still be able to download older versions.

Before May 2019 there was a mechanism similar to this called "CDN auth tokens" which authenticated downloads by appid and depotid, but not by manifestid. This was effectively an ownership check, but still allowed downloading older game versions. After we noticed this was no longer being enforced, we submitted this to Valve's HackerOne bug tracker, and they said this behaviour was by design.

Read our previous blog post on how the Steam download system works. In short, a depot decryption key is still required to decrypt the filenames in these manifests. SteamDB does this by either owning the game or people using our token dumper software which acquires a key on behalf of them.

As for LAN caches, this should not affect them, however they might want to ignore the request code part to increase cache hits.

Some of the observations we concluded for GetManifestRequestCode

• Returns a 64-bit integer for successful requests, EResult.AccessDenied otherwise
• Checks for app ownership
• Checks for correct appid, depotid and manifestid provided
• Manifest ID has to exist in the appinfo for the requested branch
• Requesting older Manifest ID returns AccessDenied (for example, previous CS:GO update)
• Requesting Manifest ID with incorrect branch returns AccessDenied
• Codes rotate every five minutes, still valid on the CDN for ten minutes after that
• Identical codes are returned to all users

Why people use this

There are many reasons why one would want to download earlier builds of games on Steam. To name a few, modding, and speed running, preserving game versions, and rolling back broken or controversial updates. Since Steam almost never deleted old builds from their servers, it allowed customers to legally obtain these older game builds.

This "undocumented" feature of Steam may be seen as a downside from developers and publishers side, especially when it could be used to download pre-release builds if one had a Manifest ID of these builds. It is not unheard of that people were able to acquire Denuvo-free builds because a developer did not upload an executable with Denuvo before the game's release. Valve's own games have been affected by this as well, where removed content/developer files were still present in pre-release builds.

As it is possible to track Manifest IDs during preloads, they may be retroactively downloaded and decrypted after the game is fully released and the decryption key becomes available.

Some game developers, such as developers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 provide public branches containing previous game versions for modders to use. This method has a downside because there is a limit of 25 branches.

Perhaps Valve should offer game developers an option to just delete old builds if they choose to do so?

What this means for SteamDB

We will still be able to track the Manifest ID changes for all games, but accessing the file lists and tracking its changes will require our bot to actually own these games. You can donate your spare Steam keys to our bot here.

This change will impact how SteamDB operates, and we will no longer be able to fully track file lists of all games on Steam, which affects the following features:

• Depots page which shows the file list, as well as the history for any changes in it
• Patch notes pages which automatically show what files were changed in a particular update
• Technologies page which automatically detects and categorizes engines and SDKs used by all games on Steam

SteamDB does not download older manifests, these features operate entirely on the access to the latest ones (as specified by the app info).

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These manifest files are raw protobufs which may be deserialized with a method in the SteamKit library. The filenames are still encrypted, which requires game ownership to obtain and decrypt.

Merely having the manifest files does not solicit piracy because you do not need any special tools to obtain them, it is enough to get the Manifest ID from app info (app_info_print command in the Steam console) and then constructing an url to download it.

In a sense, it is similar to torrent files that contain metadata about files and folders to be distributed. Manifests list the files and individual chunks to construct these files. Unlike a torrent file, after downloading said chunks, you still need a decryption key (and thus own the game to obtain the key) to reconstruct the real file.

You can backup manifest files yourself from the Steam client's depotcache folder. Depot Downloader also stores manifests as it downloads, however it is saved in its own format. The tool may be updated in the future to support Steam's manifest format.

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Plus: The ransomware scourge continues, a massive botnet gets wounded, and more of the week’s top security news.

Pavel Djundik tweets about a change in how the latest Steam beta handles game updates that no longer allows users to play previous versions of games (thanks PCGamesN). The data spy who founded...

"Cowboy Bebop" is one of the most beloved anime series of all time. Now, Netflix has turned it into a live-action series, after years of whispers about a live-action project of some kind. Fresh from Netflix's big Tudum event this weekend, here's our first glimpse at Spike, Jet, Faye, and -- of course - Ein the corgi in the opening credits for "Cowboy Bebop." Let's have a look-see.

Cowboy Bebop Opening Credits

Like virtually every other streaming service out there right now, Netflix is trying very hard to find viable franchises that can keep subscribers happy. With 209 million subscribers worldwide, Netflix is still by far the leader of the pack. But subscriber growth has slowed and retention is super important, with Disney+, HBO Max, and, to a lesser extent, the Peacocks of the world breathing down its neck. This represents a chance to tap into an established fanbase, while bringing lots of newbies along for the ride.

The cast for "Cowboy Bebop" is led by John Cho as Spike, with Mustafa Shakir on board as Jet Black and Daniella Pineda handing Faye Valentine duties. Alex Hassell and Elena Satine also star. A couple of key creatives involved in the adaptation include Shinichirō Watanabe, who directed the original anime and serves as a consultant on this new version, and Yoko Kanno, who returns to compose the score. After the opening credits reveal, Netflix shared some new promo photos from "Cowboy Bebop" on Twitter:

The Big Question

Anime is not, historically speaking, easy to adapt into live-action. See "Ghost In The Shell" or "Dragonball: Evolution," for example. Either Hollywood just botches it, or it is tough to translate what made it special in the first place to another medium. The question is, can Netflix avoid the pitfalls of previous anime adaptations with their "Cowboy Bebop" adaptation? If so, they could have a big hit on their hands. For what it's worth, showrunner Andre Nemec promised this show won't "violate the canon." So that sounds promising.

Here is the synopsis for Netflix's "Cowboy Bebop:"

COWBOY BEBOP is an action-packed space Western about three bounty hunters, aka "cowboys," all trying to outrun the past. As different as they are deadly, Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) form a scrappy, snarky crew ready to hunt down the solar system's most dangerous criminals — for the right price. But they can only kick and quip their way out of so many scuffles before their pasts finally catch up with them.

"Cowboy Bebop" hits Netflix on November 19, 2021.

Read this next: Cowboy Bebop Star John Cho Has Never "Taken A Role More Seriously"

The post Cowboy Bebop: Watch The Jazzy Opening Credits For Netflix's Anime Adaptation appeared first on /Film.

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Austin Moody wanted to apply his cybersecurity skills in his home state of Michigan, teaming up with investigators for the State Police to analyze evidence and track down criminals.

But the recent graduate set the idea aside after learning an unpaid internship was his only way into the Michigan agency.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: For the past 10 years, Sonia Grego has been thinking about toilets -- and more specifically what we deposit into them. "We are laser-focused on the analysis of stool," says the Duke University research professor, with all the unselfconsciousness of someone used to talking about bodily functions. "We think there is an incredible untapped opportunity for health data. And this information is not tapped because of the universal aversion to having anything to do with your stool." As the co-founder of Coprata, Grego is working on a toilet that uses sensors and artificial intelligence to analyze waste; she hopes to have an early model for a pilot study ready within nine months. "The toilet that you have in your home has not functionally changed in its design since it was first introduced," she says, in the second half of the 19th century. There are, of course, now loos with genital-washing capabilities, or heated seats, but this is basic compared with what Grego is envisaging. "All other aspects of your life -- your electricity, your communication, even your doorbell -- have enhanced capabilities." Smart toilet innovators believe the loo could become the ultimate health monitoring tool. Grego believes her product -- which analyses and tracks stool samples and sends the data to an app -- will provide "information related to cancer and many chronic diseases." For general consumers, it will provide peace of mind, she says, by establishing "a healthy baseline": "Having technology that tracks what is normal for an individual could provide an early warning that a checkup is needed." For people with specific conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease, the device could provide helpful monitoring for doctors. "It's very difficult to know when to escalate or de-escalate treatment," she says. "Stool-based biomarkers can provide that information." At some point, she thinks, a smart toilet could make lifestyle suggestions -- it could tell you to eat more fibre or certain nutrients, for instance, or work out what kind of food triggered an uncomfortable gastric episode. "The science of nutrition is really moving in the direction of personalized nutrition," says Grego. "Our technology will be an enabler of this, because you have information of what you eat, but we can make seamless the obtaining of information of what comes out." Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have been working on technology that can analyze feces (including "stool dropping time") and track the velocity and color of urine, as well as test it. According to the Wall Street Journal, the researchers have partnered with Izen, a Korean toilet manufacturer that's developed a scanner that can recognize the physical characteristics of whoever is sitting on the toilet -- or, in the words of the researchers, "the distinctive features of their anoderm" (the skin of the anal canal). While many people are ready for the smart toilet era, Stanford's study of user acceptance found that the "least favored module is analprint." The Guardian article continues: Is all this -- your analprint out in the world, the makeup of your bowel movements analyzed -- a privacy breach too far? "Can it be kept secure?" asks Eerke Boiten, a professor of cybersecurity at De Montfort University in Leicester. [...] Many people "wouldn't, for very good reasons, like cameras pointing up their bottoms," says Phil Booth, the coordinator of MedConfidential, which campaigns for the confidentiality of medical records. That said, under the guidance of a medical professional, "there are not necessarily inherent privacy risks" in using a smart toilet as a medical device, he says. However, it might get interesting if the data created by general consumer use was owned by a company: "You may trust that particular company, but every company is pretty much buyable by Google or Facebook or Amazon. Then, what I thought was something for my own health monitoring has become fodder to business models I really know nothing about." Where does it end? Could the police or others involved in surveillance track you by analprint, via the public and home smart lavatories you visit? Might you be asked to provide a print at a police station? [...] "Once you start to measure something that is of the body, the privacy line is stepped over," says Booth. "If you don't measure what's going on with someone's bowel movements, the bowel movement is private." This is an alarming thought -- but, says Booth with a laugh, it is not as though governments will mandate smart toilets. He says there will always be people -- those into the "quantified self" movement -- who are happy to measure and track themselves. If smart loos are considered clinical devices collecting medical data, "then it's a straight medical breach risk -- not special to toilets, but because you've turned the toilet into a medical data-generating experience. Are they managing those risks correctly?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix's TUDUM event is coming at us whether we want it or not tomorrow, but that hasn't stopped the official "Stranger Things" Twitter account from giving us some clues about season 4 today. 

Those clues come in the form of a 12-second teaser that includes microfiche images of a 1959 newspaper chronicling a murder in Hawkins. The headline screams that someone claims a "vengeful demon" killed their family. Check out the short teaser below:

The paper also talks about the "Bonanza" premiere (which is why we know the paper is from 1959), a magic pill helping people lose weight, a policeman who survived getting shot 12 times and ... wait for it ... prosecutors saying they're certain Creel is to blame for the deaths.

Need a refresher on who Creel is and what that means for "Stranger Things" season 4? Read on to learn more.

Victor Creel — The First To Open The Upside Down?

We already knew that Victor Creel, played by Robert Englund, would be part of the season 4 cast of "Stranger Things." We were first introduced to Victor way back in November 2020, when the show's Twitter account listed some new characters appearing in season 4. Victor Creel was described as "a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s." The newspaper images we got today are no doubt referencing that gruesome murder.

The new "Stranger Things" season 4 teaser clip is short, but we get a ton of info. There's a close up of what looks like a family of four, which is presumably the Creel family. There's also a hazy photo of what the caption says is a crime scene photo from the Creel home, where things were a "complete blood bath."

The teaser also gives us one other major clue: "003." This implies that Victor is 003 to Millie Bobby Brown's "011," which strongly suggests he also has psychic powers. The reference to the "vengeful demon" could mean that he opened the door to the Upside-Down way back in the '50s.

If that's the case, it would mean that Hawkins' history with the Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer goes back decades before Eleven and the rest of the gang encountered them. It also hints that the next season might have some flashbacks to the '50s to fill us in on what the heck has been going on in Hawkins for all these years. Perhaps tomorrow's TUDUM will give us more details. Let's hope so! In the meantime, we can mine this 12-second clip for more clues.

"Stranger Things" season 4 will premiere some time in 2022.

Read this next: 'Stranger Things' Season 4 Trailer: It's Time To Return To The Upside Down

The post Stranger Things Season 4 Promo Teases The Arrival of Robert Englund's Victor Creel appeared first on /Film.

How do you adapt a graphic novel series like Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman"? It's a question that has eluded Hollywood producers and filmmakers for decades — to the point of many declaring the acclaimed comic books to be unadaptable. And for many years, that was true. Until suddenly two years ago, a pair of adaptations of "The Sandman" finally sprung into being: a live-action Netflix series that was finally getting off the ground after years of gestating. And ... an audiobook?

The audiobook, when it was announced, raised more eyebrows than the live-action series, which had gone through quite a revolving door of creatives and stars since it began as a film project several decades ago. Perhaps it was because the Audible audio drama seemingly came out of nowhere — fully formed and casted and ready to go early in the pandemic in 2020. Or, most likely, it was because it seemed counterintuitive to adapt a story from a fully visual medium like comic books into a fully oral one — and one that looked as distinctive and surreal as "The Sandman," too. And yet somehow, it works.

A Superb Part I

I will be the first to admit that I didn't finish reading all of Gaiman's "Sandman" graphic novels. As a teen I had a collection of the first 6 volumes, borrowed from my comic book collector aunt, that I started reading right before bed. Big mistake. "The Sandman" gave me the most frightening and strange nightmares — particularly after I read its most famously disturbing story arc, "24 Hours." Eventually, I would absorb all the stories from "The Sandman" into my own dreams, until I wasn't sure what I had dreamed up and what Gaiman's weird little mind had dreamed up 20 or so years ago.

But I had doubts that an audio drama could recapture that bizarre waking nightmare that "The Sandman" became to me. No spoken word could match the creeping gothic art by Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli, Steve Parkhouse, and many others. Happily, I was proven wrong by "The Sandman" Audible audio drama, dramatized and directed by Dirk Maggs, starring James McAvoy as Morpheus, and narrated by none other than Gaiman himself. Narrating via the original scripts that he had written for the comics over three decades ago, Gaiman imbued in "The Sandman" a storybook quality that was lurking beneath the horrors. 

The mystical and the mythological come to the forefront in the audio drama, while the horror lay in the bloody and brutal descriptions that Gaiman unflinchingly described. (He's not a bad narrator!) And yes, "24 Hours" is as disturbing to listen to as it is to read.

Why The Sandman Audio Drama Works

"The Sandman" is, at its core, a fairy tale. When you're telling a story about an ancient being that is really an anthropomorphic representation of dreams, it kind of has to be. That's part of what makes the first part such a success — in addition to the impeccable casting (Kat Dennings as Death and Riz Ahmed as the Corinthian are particular standouts) and direction (the British have long been making radio and audio dramas and know their way around foley effects and background chatter).

But what makes "The Sandman" audio drama so successful is that, like the comics, it leaves room for the imagination. The gravel-voiced Morpheus with stars in his eyes can morph into something wilder and stranger than a Gothic Gaiman lookalike. The androgynous Desire can be the person of your wildest dreams. The 24-Hour Diner can be transform into something even more putrid and debaucherous, if that suits your fancy. And with only the first three collected volumes adapted in "The Sandman," the possibilities are endless.

Taking The Sandman Out Of The Sandman Act II

I breezed through the first 20 episodes of "The Sandman," but dragged my feet a little more when came to "The Sandman Act II" (out now on Audible). That may be because of the volumes "Act II" adapts, Morpheus barely appears in a few of them. Instead, much of Act II falls on an ensemble that was unfortunately not as up to par as the first part's cast.

Remember what I said earlier about the British being well-versed with their audio dramas? That continues to be the case with Act II, with the standout performers being audio-play veterans like David Tennant as Loki (as perfect casting as you could get, really), Emma Corrin as Thessaly, and Brian Cox as Augustus. But, apart from honorary Brit John Lithgow as Joshua Norton and Jeffrey Wright as the omniscient Destiny, the American cast struggled to hold up their end of the deal, particularly in the primarily New York-set "A Game of You." (If I ever hear another bad "Long Island accent" I might scream.) And a few of the pieces of celebrity stunt casting ended up being distracting, like Kristen Schaal's totally fine performance as Delirum.

However, one performance I ended up warming to even more than in the first part was McAvoy as Morpheus. I've admitted to being cool towards McAvoy as the King of Dreams — I had felt like his performance was too heroic and light to be that gravel-voiced character I had seen on the pages of "The Sandman." But something happens in Act II that I hadn't noticed during those sleepless nights flipping through the old pages of the graphic novels. Morpheus is a little warmer, a little more flawed, even a little impish. No longer the wounded captive of the first part, Morpheus has changed into something a little more human. And McAvoy plays that very well, toeing the line between ancient figure and mischievous little stinker well.

So, What Next?

Slightly less impressed though I was with "Act II," I am looking forward to more of "The Sandman" audio drama, perhaps even more so than the Netflix live-action series. The two can easily exist alongside each other, of course, but I find something a little more freeing in the imaginative capacity of the audio drama. Perhaps while listening to it before falling asleep, Gaiman's "The Sandman" will once again find a way to creep its way into my dreams.

Read this next: Every 'The Sandman' Easter Egg And Detail Revealed In Netflix's First Look At The TV Series

The post The Sandman Audiobook is Better Than It Has Any Right to Be, Even With a Disappointing Act II appeared first on /Film.

It's been more than 24 hours since Diablo II: Resurrected launched, and it seems it's still plagued by server issues. Some players can't access their characters, finding they have either disappeared or that they are locked out. Others can't launch the RPG game at all. Blizzard says it's keeping a close eye on developments and has identified a workaround for at least one of the most common issues.

For players who have found that their offline Diablo II: Resurrected characters have disappeared, Blizzard says it's currently working on a fix to make sure this stops happening. However, in the meantime, the developer cautions players to make sure to use different names for online and offline characters, as that appears to be related to this particular bug.

If your character has been locked out, Blizzard says to hang tight: "Many of these characters are already in the process of being unlocked," the studio writes in the latest update. "We anticipate this process will take a few hours to complete."

Update: Blizzard has issued a patch for Diablo II: Resurrected (ver. 9.24) which promises to fix some issues. The actual effectiveness of the patch remains to be seen.

General

• Fixed saves for offline characters that shared the same names as their online characters
• Fixed an issue preventing players from creating a game in their region after they joined a game in a different region
• Fixed an issue that caused the in-game cinematics to stagger or stall

Stability and performance

• Fixed a bug that could cause players to crash upon launching the game who were using controllers (for PC)
• Fixed a bug that could cause players to crash upon launching the game because of an audio issue

Original story: Tell me if you’ve heard this one before – Blizzard had launched a new remaster of one of their classic games and yet server issues and other problems have rendered the game nearly unplayable. Diablo II: Resurrected arrived yesterday, and players have been beset with issues, ranging from being locked out of the game, to characters losing progress or disappearing altogether, particularly if you’re playing offline.

Blizzard promises they’re working on the server issues and manually unlocking characters, but no actual patch has been offered yet, and players continue to report widespread issues. In a post on the Blizzard forums, the studio promises they’re working on an array of issues.

Some players have reported offline characters disappearing or losing progress, and we believe we have identified the issue. We intend to release a permanent fix for this today for PC and for consoles shortly thereafter.

Furthermore, our team is working to resolve the issue of character lockouts. Many of these characters are already in the process of being unlocked. We anticipate this process will take a few hours to complete.

For players unable to create or join game lobbies, we’ve been evaluating activities that have prevented them from being able to play in those sessions. We’re actively working to find a solution to these issues. Additionally, our team has been monitoring players’ uptime across the globe. We’ve been reviewing crash reports across all platforms as we work to make Diablo II: Resurrected as stable as possible. On top of this, we’re exploring the AVX issue, preventing players from launching the game. As we progress, we’ll provide an update if we receive a development on this front.

While we wait for an actual update for the issue of disappearing characters, Blizzard suggests using different names for online and offline characters…

We’ve been working on players’ reports of offline characters disappearing or losing progress after creation. We identified the issue and are implementing a fix to prevent this from happening again. For the time being, we advise you not to use the same name for your offline characters and online characters, since that is related to this bug.

Diablo II: Resurrected seemed like it could provide a small glint of light after weeks of very gloomy PR for Blizzard. The fact that they’ve dropped the ball on yet another retro release, following the disaster that was Warcraft III: Reforged, is kind of astonishing. Did they not realize they needed to get this thing right?

California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) has filed suit against Activision Blizzard, alleging widespread gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment at the Call of Duty publisher. You can get more detail on that unfolding story here.

Diablo II: Resurrected is available now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Switch. Good luck trying to actually play it!

The post Diablo II: Resurrected is Blizzard’s Latest Disaster, Update Promises Some Fixes by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

Find the top air fryers handpicked by our experts to make your cooking easier.

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Turns out the future of "Doctor Who" was hidden in the past all along — Russell T. Davies is returning as the series' showrunner!

True Whovians know the significance of this announcement. Davies is the writer-director who helmed the series relaunch back in 2005, when "Doctor Who" first returned from its 16-year hiatus. He ushered Christopher Eccleston and then David Tennant into the Tardis as our Ninth and Tenth Doctors, steering one of the best eras in the series history. Now, Davies returns for the 60th year anniversary and, according to BBC, "series beyond."

Following his successful run with Tennant, Davies departed in 2009 to make room for new voices. So began the 7-year reign of Steven Moffat, who was later succeeded by the most recent showrunner, Chris Chibnall. Earlier this year, BBC announced the departure of both Chibnall and the Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. The pair are set to leave following the six-episode thirteenth season and a trio of specials scheduled for 2022. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they'll be followed by Davies in 2023. Davies himself is plenty excited to return to the series, but in the official announcement reminded fans that there's still another year before that transition comes. Davies said:

"I'm beyond excited to be back on my favorite show. "But we're time-traveling too fast, there's a whole series of Jodie Whittaker's brilliant Doctor for me to enjoy, with my friend and hero Chris Chibnall at the helm — I'm still a viewer for now."

In the years since leaving "Doctor Who," Davies has continued to write, produce and direct beloved series including "A Very English Scandal," "Years and Years," and most recently, the critically acclaimed five-part miniseries "It's A Sin."

Looking Backwards To Find The Future

The only thing more important than nailing the casting of the Doctor is choosing the right mind to steer the series into its next era. Fans love to speculate about what's to come with guesses that mostly amount to wishful thinking, but not even in our wildest dreams could anyone have imagined the return of Russell T. Davies.

Many "Doctor Who" fans are surely rejoicing to see the show return to trusted hands. After all, Davies was instrumental in getting the series revived and his four-year tenure was popular enough to launch two spin-off series, "The Sarah Jane Adventures" and the more mature "Torchwood." 

Fans fondly refer to the first four seasons as the "RTD era," a remnant of the time when new-Who seemed to exist as two distinct eras divided by their showrunner. Discussions of the "Moffat-era" vs the "RTD-era" often devolved into the characteristics that separated the two and which reigned supreme. Both receive their fair share of criticism but there's a certain nostalgia for the Davies-helmed seasons, given that they came first.

Davies' run with the show presented a number of challenges: he was tasked with introducing the Time Lord to a fresh faced crop of fans, and updating the series to keep them locked in. The first seasons were plagued by low budgets and early 2000s CGI, but ultimately none of that mattered with heart guiding the way. Plus, as the groundbreaking producer and writer behind "Queer As Folk," Davies has always been a champion of queer representation and injected that into early "Who" where he could. Davies created the foundation that "Doctor Who" leapt off of — so what will he accomplish now, with a well-established fanbase and a serious tech upgrade? 

Davies episodes tended to be soapy, family-oriented and sentimental, but  he's spent a decade producing new work that veers into all sorts of different directions. It'll be interesting to see where our old pal brings into the newest era of "Who."

Read this next: Why Do 'Doctor Who' Actors Usually Leave After 3 Seasons?

The post Russell T. Davies Is Returning To Doctor Who As Showrunner In 2023 appeared first on /Film.

The Biden administration is considering invoking a Cold War-era national security law to force companies in the semiconductor supply chain to provide information on inventory and sales of chips, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Thursday. From a report: The goal is to alleviate bottlenecks that have idled U.S. car production and caused shortages of consumer electronics and to identify possible hoarding, she said in an interview. Her team for months has sought clarity into how companies allocate their semiconductor supply. But previous meetings that convened firms from different industrial sectors haven't led to increased transparency and many companies have refused to hand over business data to the government. The Commerce Department is now asking companies to fill out questionnaires within 45 days providing supply chain information. The request is voluntary but Raimondo said she warned industry representatives that she might invoke the Defense Production Act or other tools to force their hands if they don't respond.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.