Linked List: December 20, 2023

Wednesday, 20 December 2023

‘What Happens When Facebook Heats Your Home’ 

Morgan Meaker, writing for Wired:

Søren Freiesleben has lived in Odense his entire life. He likes the historic Danish city for its size. It’s not too big — just 200,000 people live there — and he never feels like he’s drowning in crowds. So far so normal. But there is something unusual about Odense: Its homes are heated by the social giant Meta.

Since 2020, Meta’s hyperscale data center — spanning 50,000 square meters on an industrial estate on the edge of the city — has been pushing warm air generated by its servers into the district heating network under Odense. That heat is then dispersed through 100,000 households hooked up to the system, with Meta providing enough heat to cover roughly 11,000.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade; when massive data centers generate heat, warm houses.

(Also via Dave Pell.)

Colorado Supreme Court Rules Trump Ineligible for President Under 14th Amendment 

Dave Pell, writing at NextDraft:

Donald Trump has been kicked out of the mile high club. In a 4-3 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot in the state under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. “The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.” For now, the decision is stayed, giving the Supreme Court time to weigh in on the matter. [...]

Why 14th Amendment bars Trump from office: A constitutional law scholar explains principle behind Colorado Supreme Court ruling. In Slate, Lawrence Lessig explains why the 14 Amendment actually doesn’t do that at all: “The Supreme Court Must Unanimously Strike Down Trump’s Ballot Removal”. Once you’re done reading the analysis, you might want to shift your focus to the 21st Amendment, because you’re gonna need a drink.

I dislike the AP’s emphasis on the fact that the justices on Colorado’s supreme court were all nominated by Democratic governors — it emphasizes partisanship in the branch of government that ought to be least partisan. (After serving an initial term, Colorado supreme court justices must stand for statewide election; the four of them who have served that long have been retained by voters overwhelmingly.) The AP does not use such language when describing the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, of which 6 of 9 justices were nominated by Republican presidents — and who never stand for retention by voters. (This, despite the fact that voters have, in the aggregate popular vote, overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates for president over the last 30 years. The only Republican candidates to win the popular vote after Reagan were George H.W. Bush in 1988 (7.7% margin) and George W. Bush in 2004 (2.5%).)

The argument that the 14th Amendment bars Trump from running again for federal office — and that it’s self-executing — was first put forth in a paper by two law professors, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, who are members of the very conservative Federalist Society. It’s not some crackpot left-wing plot.

To Pell’s list of reading material, I’ll add George Conway, also writing at The Atlantic:

But last night changed my mind. Not because of anything the Colorado Supreme Court majority said. The three dissents were what convinced me the majority was right.

The dissents were gobsmacking — for their weakness. They did not want for legal craftsmanship, but they did lack any semblance of a convincing argument.

I find Lessig’s argument that SCOTUS should overrule Colorado compelling, but not convincing. The only thing about this I’m certain of is that you’re a damn fool if you think it isn’t devilishly tricky. If you’re of the mind that our current SCOTUS is in the bag for Republicans, I don’t disagree — but I don’t think that means for a second they’re in the bag for Orange Jesus. They’re Republican hacks, not Trump hacks. Even his three nominees to the Court — Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett — owe him nothing, and if anything, might want to assert their independence. My gut feeling is that SCOTUS will either rule unanimously that the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to presidential candidates, or, in a split decision (with the hackiest of hacks, Alito and Thomas at least, and maybe Gorsuch, kowtowing to Trump), they’ll pull a Caesar on Trump and keep him off the ballot.

Comcast Xfinity Discloses Data Breach Affecting Over 35 Million People 

Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer:

Cybersecurity company Mandiant says the Citrix flaw had been actively exploited as a zero-day since at least late August 2023.

Following an investigation into the impact of the incident, Xfinity discovered on November 16 that the attackers also exfiltrated data from its systems, with the data breach affecting 35,879,455 people.

“After additional review of the affected systems and data, Xfinity concluded on December 6, 2023, that the customer information in scope included usernames and hashed passwords,” the company said. “[F]or some customers, other information may also have been included, such as names, contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers. However, the data analysis is continuing.”

Not sure what that last sentence means other than “Hold onto your butts, it might be even worse than we know so far.”

Joanna Stern Goes to Prison 

Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+ link for the story; YouTube link for the excellent video):

Before the guards let you through the barbed-wire fences and steel doors at this Minnesota Correctional Facility, you have to leave your phone in a locker. Not a total inconvenience when you’re there to visit a prolific iPhone thief.

I wasn’t worried that Aaron Johnson would steal my iPhone, though. I came to find out how he’d steal it.

“I’m already serving time. I just feel like I should try to be on the other end of things and try to help people,” Johnson, 26 years old, told me in an interview we filmed inside the high-security prison where he’s expected to spend the next several years.

According to the Minneapolis Police Department’s arrest warrant, Johnson and the other 11 members of the enterprise allegedly accumulated nearly $300,000. According to him, it was likely more.

Fascinating and remarkable interview. Humanizing, but Stern in no way absolves Johnson for his thievery. (Points to Johnson for honesty too: he mostly regrets getting too greedy.)

One aspect that struck me from Johnson’s description of his modus operandi is that it relied little on observing people surreptitiously to glean their device passcodes. Instead it was mostly pure social engineering. He’d make fast friends with a target in a bar and just talk his way into the target telling him their passcode, so he could show them his Snapchat account or whatever. He’d talk people into giving him what he needed. Never underestimate how much digital crime revolves around person-to-person social engineering.

I’m glad Apple is adding the new Stolen Device Protection feature in iOS 17.3 (currently in beta), but my main takeaway from this entire saga is that everyone, including Apple, needs to spread awareness that device passcodes need to be treated as holiest-of-holy secrets. You should protect your device passcode with as much care and secrecy, if not more, as you do your ATM card PIN. Use Face ID (or Touch ID), and if you ever find yourself needing to enter your device passcode in public — anywhere in public — find a private location to enter it, far from any prying eyes or cameras. If you keep your device passcodes secret, you’re safe. I’m sure enough about this that I don’t think I’m going to enable Stolen Device Protection, personally.

Christopher Nolan on John August’s Script Notes Podcast 

John August:

John welcomes writer and director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) to discuss experimentation, subjectivity and adaptation as they take an in-depth look at his screenplay, Oppenheimer. They explore Chris’ writing process, how to make non-linear structures work, finding the story in real-life events, being kinetic on the page, the importance of embracing editing, and why theme can be a tricky thing.

Just a terrific interview; Nolan is as cogent as you’d expect. Even if you don’t write screenplays, I think his advice and experience are applicable to any creative endeavor, in terms of how to translate nebulous ideas churning around in your head into a concrete written description or plan. Writing is thinking, and it’s in the writing of ideas that they become fully formed.

Aston Martin and Porsche Preview Next-Gen CarPlay Interfaces 

Greg S. Fink, reporting for Car and Driver:

This next-generation CarPlay builds upon previous versions by integrating into all of the displays of a given vehicle and not just the central infotainment screen. Though the familiar CarPlay experience remains, multiple template options and special details ensure the interface reflects the ethos of a given brand.

For instance, the preview of Porsche’s CarPlay interface shows that it features a trio of circular gauges in the cluster and a background wallpaper that mimics the brand’s distinct houndstooth (or Pepita in Porsche-speak) seat pattern.

Aston Martin, on the other hand, goes a slightly different route. Its cluster includes a central information screen bookended by a circular speedometer and tachometer, the latter of which integrates “Handbuilt in Great Britain” wraparound text. [...]

This connection to the vehicle also means this new generation of CarPlay can cohesively display information from the vehicle’s native infotainment system (think tire-pressure information and the like), as well.

Not a false alarm like back in August — these really are the first announcements of support for the next-generation CarPlay that Apple announced at WWDC 2022, just under the wire for the promised “before the end of 2023”. Next-gen CarPlay was beginning to take on just the faintest aroma of vaporware.

Interesting to note that Porsche and Aston Martin are two companies that deeply value the branding of their dashboards and instrument displays, and are the first two to announce next-gen CarPlay support. The biggest knock against CarPlay — particularly the next-gen version — is that it takes branding out of the hands of the carmaker. Nilay Patel and I discussed just this issue on the last episode of The Talk Show (starts around 23m:10s).