System76 will disable Intel Management engine on its Linux laptops via firmware update

System76 is one a handful of companies that sells computers that run Linux software out of the box. But like most PCs that have shipped with Intel’s Core processors in the past few years, System76 laptops include Intel’s Management Engine firmware. Intel recently confirmed a major security vulnerability affecting those chips and it’s working with Read more about System76 will disable Intel Management engine on its Linux laptops via firmware update[…]

Mailsploit: It’s 2017, and you can spoof the ‘from’ in email to fool filters

Penetration tester Sabri Haddouche has reintroduced the world to email source spoofing, bypassing spam filters and protections like Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC), thereby posing a risk to anyone running a vulnerable and unpatched mail client.What he’s found is that more than 30 mail clients including Apple Mail, Thunderbird, various Windows clients, Yahoo! Read more about Mailsploit: It’s 2017, and you can spoof the ‘from’ in email to fool filters[…]

DeepMind’s AI became a superhuman chess (and shogi and go) player in a few hours using generic reinforcement learning

In the paper, DeepMind describes how a descendant of the AI program that first conquered the board game Go has taught itself to play a number of other games at a superhuman level. After eight hours of self-play, the program bested the AI that first beat the human world Go champion; and after four hours Read more about DeepMind’s AI became a superhuman chess (and shogi and go) player in a few hours using generic reinforcement learning[…]

NiceHash Hacked, $62 Million of Bitcoin May Be Stolen

New submitter Chir breaks the news to us that the NiceHash crypto-mining marketplace has been hacked. The crypto mining pool broke the news on Reddit, where users suggest that as many as 4,736.42 BTC — an amount worth more than $62 million at current prices — has been stolen. The NiceHash team is urging users Read more about NiceHash Hacked, $62 Million of Bitcoin May Be Stolen[…]

Asus NovaGo: laptop built on an ARM mobile phone processor runs Windows

A 2-in-1 Windows 10 laptop powered by a smartphone chip The chipset behind the Asus NovaGo comes straight from smartphones, so we were into the fact that the volume and power keys are aligned along the right side of the laptop. This is shaping up to be the always-connected laptop counterpart to a smartphone in Read more about Asus NovaGo: laptop built on an ARM mobile phone processor runs Windows[…]

The Underground Uber Networks Driven by Russian Hackers

Uber’s ride-sharing service has given birth to some of the most creative criminal scams to date, including using a GPS-spoofing app to rip off riders in Nigeria, and even ginning up fake drivers by using stolen identities.Add to those this nefariously genius operation: Cybercriminals, many working in Russia, have created their own illegitimate taxi services Read more about The Underground Uber Networks Driven by Russian Hackers[…]

Scientists Added Two New Letters to DNA’s Code

Back in 2014, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in California reported that they’d engineered bacteria whose DNA used a whole new pair of letters, nicknamed X and Y. That same team now reports that they’ve gotten the bacteria to actually use these new letters. The biological possibilities, as a result, now seem endless.“The resulting Read more about Scientists Added Two New Letters to DNA’s Code[…]

This frostbitten black metal album was created by an artificial intelligence

Coditany of Timeness” is a convincing lo-fi black metal album, complete with atmospheric interludes, tremolo guitar, frantic blast beats and screeching vocals. But the record, which you can listen to on Bandcamp, wasn’t created by musicians.Instead, it was generated by two musical technologists using a deep learning software that ingests a musical album, processes it, Read more about This frostbitten black metal album was created by an artificial intelligence[…]

Sopranica: an Anonymous, DIY Cell Phone Network

For the past few years, Gingerich has been laying the groundwork for Sopranica, an open source, DIY cell network that allows smartphone owners to make calls, send texts and eventually browse the internet with total anonymity.In January, Gingerich published the code for the first part of Sopranica called JMP. This is essentially a way of Read more about Sopranica: an Anonymous, DIY Cell Phone Network[…]

Announcing the Initial Release of Mozilla’s Open Source Speech Recognition Model and Voice Dataset

I’m excited to announce the initial release of Mozilla’s open source speech recognition model that has an accuracy approaching what humans can perceive when listening to the same recordings. We are also releasing the world’s second largest publicly available voice dataset, which was contributed to by nearly 20,000 people globally. […] This is why we Read more about Announcing the Initial Release of Mozilla’s Open Source Speech Recognition Model and Voice Dataset[…]

‘Grinch bots’ are stealing Christmas

“Bots come in and buy up all the toys and then charge ludicrous prices​ a​midst the holiday shopping bustle​,” the New York Democrat said on Sunday. “​Cyber bots ​— ​we call them ‘Grinch bots’ — ​are expanding their reach and​ ​unfairly scooping up the hottest toys your parents can’t even click buy.​”​​For example, Schumer said, Read more about ‘Grinch bots’ are stealing Christmas[…]

Google’s AI Built its own AI That Outperforms Any Made by Humans

In May 2017, researchers at Google Brain announced the creation of AutoML, an artificial intelligence (AI) that’s capable of generating its own AIs.More recently, they decided to present AutoML with its biggest challenge to date, and the AI that can build AI created a ‘child’ that outperformed all of its human-made counterparts.The Google researchers automated Read more about Google’s AI Built its own AI That Outperforms Any Made by Humans[…]

PayPal Says 1.6 Million Customer Details Stolen in Breach at Canadian Subsidiary

PayPal says that one of the companies it recently acquired suffered a security incident during which an attacker appears to have accessed servers that stored information for 1.6 million customers.The victim of the security breach is TIO Networks, a Canadian company that runs a network of over 60,000 utility and bills payment kiosks across North Read more about PayPal Says 1.6 Million Customer Details Stolen in Breach at Canadian Subsidiary[…]

Prison hacker who tried to free friend now likely to join him inside

In a sustained campaign, Voits managed to get the login details and passwords for 1,600 county employees, including for the Xjail computer system that is used to track inmates. By March he had the logins to the prison management system and tried to amend the records of one inmate to arrange their early release. His Read more about Prison hacker who tried to free friend now likely to join him inside[…]