Month: June 2018

Google opens its human-sounding Duplex AI to public testing

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Google is moving ahead with Duplex, the stunningly human-sounding artificial intelligence software behind its new automated system that places phone calls on your behalf with a natural-sounding voice instead of a robotic one. The search giant said Wednesday it’s beginning public testing of the software, which debuted in May and which is designed to make calls to businesses and Read more about Google opens its human-sounding Duplex AI to public testing[…]

The Discovery of Complex Organic Molecules on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Is a Huge Deal

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Using data collected by NASA’s late-great Cassini space probe, scientists have detected traces of complex organic molecules seeping out from Enceladus’ ice-covered ocean. It’s yet another sign that this intriguing Saturnian moon has what it takes to sustain life. If life exists elsewhere in our Solar System, chances are it’s on Enceladus. The moon features Read more about The Discovery of Complex Organic Molecules on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Is a Huge Deal[…]

Not OK Google: Massive outage turns smart home kit utterly dumb

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Google’s entire Home infrastructure has suffered a serious outage, with millions of customers on Wednesday morning complaining that their smart devices have stopped working. At the time of writing, the cloud-connected gadgets are still hosed, the service is still down, and the system appears to have been knackered for at least the past 10 hours. Read more about Not OK Google: Massive outage turns smart home kit utterly dumb[…]

Facebook Patent Imagines Triggering Your Phone’s Mic When a Hidden Signal Plays on TV

Posted on by Robin Edgar

You may have seen the ads that Facebook has been running on TV in a full-court press to apologize for abusing users privacy. They’re embarrassing. And, it turns out, they may be a sign of things to come. Based on a recently published patent application, Facebook could one day use ads on television to further Read more about Facebook Patent Imagines Triggering Your Phone’s Mic When a Hidden Signal Plays on TV[…]

Facebook, Google, Microsoft scolded for tricking people into spilling their private info

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Five consumer privacy groups have asked the European Data Protection Board to investigate how Facebook, Google, and Microsoft design their software to see whether it complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Essentially, the tech giants are accused of crafting their user interfaces so that netizens are fooled into clicking away their privacy, and Read more about Facebook, Google, Microsoft scolded for tricking people into spilling their private info[…]

Ticketmaster Discloses Breach That Impacts Nearly 5 Percent of Its Customers

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Ticketmaster on Wednesday disclosed a data breach reportedly caused by malware infecting a customer support system outsourced to an external company. In a statement, Ticketmaster said some of its customer data may have been accessed by an unknown intruder. Email notifications were sent to customers who purchased tickets between February and June 23, 2018, the Read more about Ticketmaster Discloses Breach That Impacts Nearly 5 Percent of Its Customers[…]

Personal Information of 340 Million People and Businesses Leaked By Florida Marketing Firm Exactis

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A little-known, Florida-based marketing firm called Exactis may be responsible for a significant amount of personal data being exposed. According to a report from Wired, the firm left 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server that any person could have gotten ahold of. The leak was discovered earlier this month by security researcher Read more about Personal Information of 340 Million People and Businesses Leaked By Florida Marketing Firm Exactis[…]

Enabling new Google photo face and people search in UK, Europe, Germany

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Virtual Private Networks, a.k.a. VPN, are very handy to make your internet traffic to appear from a different location than you are. All your traffic is tunneled to an exit point of your choosing, for example a data center in New York City. To Google Photos service you then seem to be located in New Read more about Enabling new Google photo face and people search in UK, Europe, Germany[…]

The Biggest Digital Heist in History Isn’t Over Yet: $1.2 b and still growing since 2013

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Since late 2013, this band of cybercriminals has penetrated the digital inner sanctums of more than 100 banks in 40 nations, including Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., and stolen about $1.2 billion, according to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency. The string of thefts, collectively dubbed Carbanak—a mashup of a hacking program and Read more about The Biggest Digital Heist in History Isn’t Over Yet: $1.2 b and still growing since 2013[…]

AI recreates chemistry’s periodic table of elements

Posted on by Robin Edgar

It took nearly a century of trial and error for human scientists to organize the periodic table of elements, arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements in chemistry, into its current form. A new artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by Stanford physicists accomplished the same feat in just a few hours. Called Atom2Vec, the program Read more about AI recreates chemistry’s periodic table of elements[…]

OpenAI has created bots that can play Dota 2 as a team

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The bots learn from self-play, meaning two bots playing each other and learning from each side’s successes and failures. By using a huge stack of 256 graphics processing units (GPUs) with 128,000 processing cores, the researchers were able to speed up the AI’s gameplay so that they learned from the equivalent of 180 years of Read more about OpenAI has created bots that can play Dota 2 as a team[…]

Per 1 juli 2018: Besluit digitale toegankelijkheid websites en apps overheid

Posted on by Robin Edgar

In 2016 is een Europese richtlijn voor digitale toegankelijkheid in werking getreden. Nederland is verplicht om Europese richtlijnen om te zetten in nationale wetgeving. Deze richtlijn is omgezet in een Algemene Maatregel van Bestuur: het Tijdelijk besluit digitale toegankelijkheid overheid.Europese richtlijn digitale toegankelijkheidOp 22 december 2016 trad de EU-richtlijn voor de toegankelijkheid van websites en Read more about Per 1 juli 2018: Besluit digitale toegankelijkheid websites en apps overheid[…]

Attacking Private Networks from the Internet with DNS Rebinding – Following the wrong link could allow remote attackers to control your WiFi router, Google Home, Roku, Sonos speakers, home thermostats, eat your etherium coins and more.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The home WiFi network is a sacred place; your own local neighborhood of cyberspace. There we connect our phones, laptops, and “smart” devices to each other and to the Internet and in turn we improve our lives, or so we are told. By the late twenty teens, our local networks have become populated by a Read more about Attacking Private Networks from the Internet with DNS Rebinding – Following the wrong link could allow remote attackers to control your WiFi router, Google Home, Roku, Sonos speakers, home thermostats, eat your etherium coins and more.[…]

EU breaks internet, starts wholesale censorship for rich man copyright holders

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The problems are huge, not least because the EU will implement an automated content filter, which means that memes will die, but also, if you have the money to spam the system with requests, you can basically kill any content you want with the actual content holder only having a marginal chance of navigating EU Read more about EU breaks internet, starts wholesale censorship for rich man copyright holders[…]

AI Lab: Learn to Code with the Cutting-Edge Microsoft AI Platform

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Among our exciting announcements at //Build, one of the things I was thrilled to launch is the AI Lab – a collection of AI projects designed to help developers explore, experience, learn about and code with the latest Microsoft AI Platform technologies. What is AI Lab? AI Lab helps our large fast-growing community of developers Read more about AI Lab: Learn to Code with the Cutting-Edge Microsoft AI Platform[…]

New ‘e-dermis’ brings sense of touch, pain to prosthetic hands

Posted on by Robin Edgar

a team of engineers at the Johns Hopkins University that has created an electronic skin. When layered on top of prosthetic hands, this e-dermis brings back a real sense of touch through the fingertips. “After many years, I felt my hand, as if a hollow shell got filled with life again,” says the anonymous amputee Read more about New ‘e-dermis’ brings sense of touch, pain to prosthetic hands[…]

Skynet for the win? AI hunts down secret testing of nuclear bombs

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A group of scientists have built a neural network to sniff out any unusual nuclear activity. Researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, decided to see if they could use deep learning to sort through the different nuclear decay events to identify any suspicious Read more about Skynet for the win? AI hunts down secret testing of nuclear bombs[…]

Red Shell packaged games (Civ VI, Total War, ESO, KSP and more) contain a spyware which tracks your Internet activity outside of the game

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Red shell is a Spyware that tracks data of your PC and shares it with 3rd parties. On their website they formulate it all in very harmless language, but the fact is that this is software from someone i don’t trust and whom i never invited, which is looking at my data and running on Read more about Red Shell packaged games (Civ VI, Total War, ESO, KSP and more) contain a spyware which tracks your Internet activity outside of the game[…]

Hackers steal $30m from top Seoul bithumb exchange

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Hackers stole more than $30 million worth of cryptocurrencies from South Korea’s top bitcoin exchange, sending the unit’s price falling around the world on Wednesday. The virtual currency was priced at $6,442 dollars late afternoon in Seoul, down about 4.4 percent from 24 hours earlier, after the latest attack on Bithumb raised concerns over cryptocurrency Read more about Hackers steal $30m from top Seoul bithumb exchange[…]

IBM AI Project Debater scores 1 – 1 vs man in 2 debates

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The AI, called Project Debater, appeared on stage in a packed conference room at IBM’s San Francisco office embodied in a 6ft tall black panel with a blue, animated “mouth”. It was a looming presence alongside the human debaters Noa Ovadia and Dan Zafrir, who stood behind a podium nearby. Although the machine stumbled at Read more about IBM AI Project Debater scores 1 – 1 vs man in 2 debates[…]

Here’s some phish-AI research: Machine-learning code crafts phishing URLs that dodge auto-detection

Posted on by Robin Edgar

An artificially intelligent system has been demonstrated generating URLs for phishing websites that appear to evade detection by security tools. Essentially, the software can come up with URLs for webpages that masquerade as legit login pages for real websites, when in actual fact, the webpages simply collect the entered username and passwords to later hijack Read more about Here’s some phish-AI research: Machine-learning code crafts phishing URLs that dodge auto-detection[…]

EU sets up High-Level Group on Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Following an open selection process, the Commission has appointed 52 experts to a new High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, comprising representatives from academia, civil society, as well as industry. The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLG) will have as a general objective to support the implementation of the European strategy on AI. Read more about EU sets up High-Level Group on Artificial Intelligence[…]

Significant Vulnerabilities in Axis Cameras – patch now!

Posted on by Robin Edgar

One of the vendors for which we found vulnerable devices was Axis Communications. Our team discovered a critical chain of vulnerabilities in Axis security cameras. The vulnerabilities allow an adversary that obtained the camera’s IP address to remotely take over the cameras (via LAN or internet). In total, VDOO has responsibly disclosed seven vulnerabilities to Read more about Significant Vulnerabilities in Axis Cameras – patch now![…]