Daily Archives: September 30, 2025

Chinese Hackers Breached Foreign Ministers’ Exchange Email Servers

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Chinese hackers breached email servers of foreign ministers as part of a years-long effort targeting the communications of diplomats around the world, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks Inc.

Attackers accessed Microsoft Exchange email servers, gaining the ability to search for information at some foreign ministries, said the team at Unit 42, the threat intelligence division of Palo Alto Networks, which has been tracking the group for nearly three years.

Hackers specifically searched in the email servers for key terms related to a China-Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022, said Lior Rochberger, senior researcher at the company. They also searched for names such as including Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in the context of that summit, the researchers said.

The researchers declined to specifically identify which countries had their systems breached in the hacking campaign, but wrote in the report that the group’s targeting patterns “align consistently with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) economic and geopolitical interests.”

[…]

“When I found them searching for specific diplomatic keywords and then exfiltrating emails from embassies and military operations, I realized this was a serious intelligence collection effort,” Rochberger said.

[…]

Source: Chinese Hackers Breached Foreign Ministers’ Email Servers

So that sounds like it was the Cloud version of Exchange was targeted. You would think that countries would have some respect for their own security and not have their data in the US on a US company servers. But no, their procurement departments are led by idiots who are now complaining that there are no alternatives – probably because they didn’t fund the alternatives that do exist.

YouTube coughs up $24.5 million to make Trump case (with no legal leg to stand on) go away. Oh, is that a bribe then?

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YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to end the case brought by US president Donald Trump, who alleged the vid-streamer had infringed his freedom of speech.

The case stems from the events of January 6th, 2020, when supporters of the president stormed the US Capitol building and attempted to disrupt certification of the presidential election that Trump lost. YouTube, Meta, and Twitter all suspended Trump’s accounts after January 6th, because they felt the president might use their platforms to incite violence.

Once out of office, Trump sued all three. His case [PDF] against YouTube claimed the video outfit deprived him of the constitutional right to freedom of speech. Lawyers at the time pointed out Trump didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, because corporations are not required to guarantee or preserve free speech.

Meta and Twitter nonetheless settled their cases, and on Monday YouTube did likewise.

A court filing [PDF] states that the settlement is not “an admission of liability or fault on the part of the Defendants or their agents, servants, or employees, and is entered into by all Parties for the sole purpose of compromising disputed claims and avoiding the expenses and risks of further litigation.”

President Trump is a paper billionaire. Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, reported annual revenue of $350 billion for its last full financial year, and net income of $100 billion. YouTube alone generates revenue close to $10 billion each quarter.

The vid-streamer can therefore afford to litigate.

The risks of litigation are another matter, as the second Trump administration has seemingly looked favorably on companies engaged in activities that might require the federal government’s approval, and which resolve matters close to the president’s heart.

Google could certainly benefit from good relations with the administration, as it faces possible appeals against a recent antitrust judgment that left its monopolies intact, and seeks approval to build new datacenters to run AI workloads.

This settlement might help because Trump has directed one $22 million payment YouTube will make to the body overseeing his pet project – construction of a ballroom at the White House. Another $2.5 million payment will go to plaintiffs who joined the case and also felt YouTube infringed their rights.

YouTube has not commented on the matter at the time of writing. ®

Source: YouTube coughs up $24.5 million to make Trump case go away • The Register

Innovative aviation projects cleared for take off – UK invests paltry $4.4m in 14 projects.

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An investment of £4.4 million across 14 innovative aviation projects will support areas such as the NHS, emergency services and nature restoration in the UK.

Innovate UK, in partnership with the Department for Transport, has announced the latest group of projects to receive funding from the Future Flight Programme.

The programme encourages the innovative use of aviation technologies to support a variety of challenges in the UK, including:

  • medical supply chains
  • protecting national infrastructure
  • agricultural restoration

Project ambitions

Eight of the projects are for strategic growth, to demonstrate progress towards commercialisation.

These focus on real-world operations proving use cases in a variety of sectors, from agriculture to healthcare and provide tangible insights to support regulatory development in key areas.

Six of the projects are regional demonstrators, which have been funded to enable local areas across the UK to plan for the adoption and integration of drones.

This includes passenger carrying eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing) and zero emission conventional aircraft.

[…]

Full list of funded projects

Strategic Growth projects

Advanced Logistics BVLOS UAV Mission (ALBUM)

Partners include:

  • ARC Aerosystems
  • Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership
  • Acroflight
  • Scubatx

This project will test a large, uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) in Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations.

This was a key step towards commercialisation of ARC’s heavy cargo for mid-mile logistics with up to 100kg payload and flying long distances of up to 400km.

It aims to revolutionise logistics and medical transport in remote areas, such as the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

ALIAS II: Regulatory Policy Concepts Enabling Integrated Traffic Management (ITM)

Partners include:

  • Volant Autonomy
  • Snowdonia Aerospace Centre
  • Planefinder
  • Draken Europe
  • DroneCloud

This project aims to demonstrate an ITM system that will allow drones, air taxis, and traditional crewed aircraft to safely operate together in the same airspace.

It will use a combination of simulations and real-world flight trials of an advanced Detect and Avoid capability at the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre.

Beyond Restoration

Partners include:

  • Autospray Systems
  • National Trust
  • Woodland Trust
  • North Pennines National Landscape
  • Skypointe

This project aims to deploy a fleet of drones to apply lime, native seed mixes, fertiliser and tree seeds across ecologically significant sites in England, Wales and Scotland.

It offers an innovative, scalable alternative to manual spreading, using heavy-lift drones operating BVLOS to deliver restoration materials over remote and degraded land.

Containment with Confidence

Partners include:

  • Flare Bright
  • RPAS Heroes
  • National Gas Transmission
  • Satellite Applications Catapult

This project aims to help National Gas improve how it monitors the safety of its pipelines by replacing periodic helicopter inspections with a more efficient and environmentally friendly drone-based system.

By moving from helicopters to BVLOS drones, this project will enable National Gas to reduce its carbon emissions and demonstrate that drone-based systems can be harnessed to improve UK energy security and infrastructure monitoring.

“Dragon’s Heart”: A Welsh Medical Drone Delivery Network (MDDN)

Partners include:

  • Snowdonia Aerospace
  • Volant Autonomy
  • Skyports Deliveries
  • SLiNK-TECH

This project is building a Welsh MDDN to increase NHS operational flexibility and improve connectivity for all health and social care providers across Wales.

Drone as a First Responder

Partners include:

  • Idroneinnovations
  • SLiNK-TECH
  • Leading Edge Power
  • Thames Valley Police
  • Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

This project is developing advanced automated drone systems to improve the safety, speed and cost efficiency of infrastructure inspections, emergency response and public safety operations.

Its modular, adaptable platform will help organisations such as emergency services and infrastructure operators integrate drones into routine workflows more easily.

London Health Bridge Growth

Partners include:

  • Apian
  • Matternet UK

This project is an expansion of an existing medical drone delivery service trial, aiming to significantly increase the number of medical samples delivered by drone and create a multi-site logistics network for the NHS.

Scaling BVLOS Operations for Critical National Infrastructure (Project SOCNI)

Partners include:

  • DroneCloud
  • NATS
  • Network Rail
  • Transport for Wales
  • Railscape
  • British Transport Police

This project will create a structured approach to designing, deploying and testing safety mitigations across national infrastructures, to improve incident management and asset inspection in a real-world rail environment.

Regional Demonstrator projects

Future Air: Southwest

Partners include:

  • Daedal Research
  • Somerset Council
  • Isles of Scilly Skybus

This project aims to overcome the significant obstacles to using eVTOLs and Zero Emission Conventional Take-off and Landing for commercial purposes.

It will look at all the challenges at once, including those related to regulations, how the aircraft are operated, the money needed, and social acceptance.

By simultaneously evaluating the full range of challenges, it will develop solutions that enable scalable BVLOS drone capabilities.

OXCAM AAM Corridor

Partners include:

  • Skyports Infrastructure
  • Bristow Helicopters
  • NATS
  • Vertical Aerospace Group
  • Oxfordshire County Council

This project aims to demonstrate the commercial and operational viability of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), like passenger and cargo services using eVTOLs, between Oxford and Cambridge.

This will test and identify real-world, commercially viable uses for this new technology, addressing the social and economic needs of the area.

The project will culminate in live demo flights of Vertical Aerospace’s VX4 aircraft from Skyports’ Bicester Vertiport.

Regional Offshore Cargo Drone Demonstrator

Partners include:

  • Flowcopter
  • AYR Logistics
  • Angus Council

This project aims to demonstrate how a new heavy-lift drone can be used for logistics and maintenance at offshore wind farms.

The project tackles a major problem for the wind energy industry which is the cost and difficulty of transporting equipment in bad weather.

By using a heavy-lift drone, the project will provide a safer, faster, and cheaper alternative, which is crucial for the efficient operation and maintenance of the UK’s offshore wind farms.

Project RESCUE

Partners include:

  • Somerset Council
  • Limosaero
  • Land and Minerals Consulting

This project is a collaboration between Somerset Council, emergency services and specialised drone companies.

Its main goal is to develop a minimum viable product for a sustainable drone-based service.

The project will focus on environmental monitoring to allow for rapid response to critical weather events.

Testing in real-world scenarios, including monitoring floods and assisting with search and rescue operations.

SATE: Highlands and Islands Regional Pathway to Sustainable Aviation

Partners include:

  • Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership
  • University of the Highlands and Islands
  • Urban Foresight
  • European Marine Energy Centre
  • Windracers
  • Skyports Deliveries
  • Hybrid Air Vehicles
  • Streamline Shipping Agencies
  • Cormorant SEAplanes
  • Cranfield Aerospace Solutions
  • Loganair
  • Regional and Business Airports Group
  • Shetland Islands Council

This project will develop a Regional Sustainable Aviation Strategy that outlines a clear roadmap for how new technologies can be put into service in the area.

It will not just focus on the technology itself but will also calculate the financial and social benefits that better air connectivity will bring to the region.

Project URBAN ASCENT

Partners include:

  • Coventry City Council
  • Skyfarer
  • Coventry University
  • SLiNK-TECH
  • Manufacturing Technology Centre
  • Altitude Angel
  • Odys Aviation

This project, based in Coventry and the West Midlands, aims to create a scalable plan for integrating drones and eVTOLs into UK cities.

By addressing the challenges of integrating drones and air taxis into a complex urban environment, it will lay the foundation for new services that can provide significant economic and social benefits.

This includes faster and more efficient transport of goods and people within cities.

Source: Innovative aviation projects cleared for take off – UKRI

4.4m in 14 projects ensures that they won’t really have enough money to make it. Hopefully this is the start of iterative funding though.

Ladybird Browser Gains Cloudflare Support to Challenge the Status Quo

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In a somewhat unexpected move, Cloudflare has announced its sponsorship of the Ladybird browser, an independent (still-in-development) open-source initiative aimed at developing a modern, standalone web browser engine. It’s a project launched by GitHub’s co-founder and former CEO, Chris Wanstrath, and tech visionary Andreas Kling.

It’s written in C++, and designed to be fast, standards-compliant, and free of external dependencies. Its main selling point? Unlike most alternative browsers today, Ladybird doesn’t sit on top of Chromium or WebKit.

Instead, it’s building a completely new rendering engine from scratch, which is a rare thing in today’s web landscape. For reference, the vast majority of web traffic currently runs through engines developed by either Google (Blink/Chromium), Apple (WebKit), or Mozilla (Gecko).

The sponsorship means the Ladybird team will have more resources to accelerate development. This includes paying developers to work on crucial features, such as JavaScript support, rendering improvements, and compatibility with modern web applications. Just to remind you, last year the project was already funded with $1 million from Wanstrath and his family.

Cloudflare stated that its support is part of a broader initiative to keep the web open, where competition and multiple implementations can drive enhanced security, performance, and innovation.

[…]

Source: Ladybird Browser Gains Cloudflare Support to Challenge the Status Quo

The browser wars in the 2000s were not lite for no reason – the browser is the viewing portal to the world and who controls the underlying technology is also the harvester of information. Something that most Chrome users don’t really understand.

UK offers JLR landmark £1.5B loan to safeguard suppliers after cyberattack – which we still don’t know what happened. 

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The UK government is stepping in with financial support for Jaguar Land Rover, providing it with a hefty loan as it continues to battle the fallout from a cyberattack.

A government-backed loan to the tune of £1.5 billion ($2 billion) will be made available to the carmaker to support its recovery and the companies in its extensive supply chain struggling as JLR brings its invoicing systems back online.

Business secretary Peter Kyle said: “This cyberattack was not only an assault on an iconic British brand, but on our world-leading automotive sector and the men and women whose livelihoods depend on it.

“Following our decisive action, this loan guarantee will help support the supply chain and protect skilled jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside, and throughout the UK.

“We’re backing our automotive sector for the long term through our modern Industrial Strategy and the landmark trade deals we’ve signed to boost exports, as part of our Plan for Change.”

[…]

JLR’s production plants have remained closed since August 31, and the impact on its suppliers – and local communities – is said to be severe.

Workers and their families fear for their jobs after seeing suppliers, many of which rely on their big JLR contracts, already initiate redundancy proceedings.

Then there are the smaller businesses that serve local communities. With JLR’s main production plants being based in Solihull and Halewood – employing roughly 9,000 and 3,000 workers respectively – businesses such as sandwich shops and cafes have seen a significant loss in revenue.

When these businesses lose out, so do their suppliers, such as bakers and butchers, meaning the impact of JLR’s attack extends far beyond what is typical for such cases.

[…]

It is estimated that the impact of the cyberattack threatens around 120,000 jobs at JLR and companies across its supply chain.

David Bailey, professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, said JLR could be hemorrhaging between £5-10 million ($6-13 million) for every day that production remains halted.

He estimated that JLR could ultimately lose out on £2.2 billion ($2.9 billion) in revenue and £150 million ($202 million) in profit.

[…]

Source: UK offers JLR landmark £1.5B loan to safeguard suppliers • The Register

The Internet Reacts To Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition

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After reports sprouted up last week that Electronic Arts, the publisher behind The Sims, BioWare’s catalog, and most of your favorite sports games, was being acquired for over $50 billion in a joint venture between Saudi Arabia’s Private Investor Fund, Silver Lake, and the Jared Kushner-owned Affinity Partners, the company has officially confirmed the deal. If approved, the acquisition would be one of the most expensive in the history of the video game industry and would make Electronic Arts a privately held company. Given the questionable ownership, the internet is not taking the news well.

The Saudi Arabian government’s attempts at sportswashing away the stink of its dire human rights laws, as evidenced by its investments in various facets of the video game industry, are well-documented at this point.

[…]

Given Saudi Arabia’s treatment of queer people, a fair bit of concern has been extended specifically to The Sims and to BioWare, the developer of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, all of which have been trailblazers for queer representation in video games. EA CEO Andrew Wilson has stated in an email statement to staff that the company’s “values and [its] commitment to players and fans around the world remain unchanged,” but considering that both the Saudi Arabian government and Jared Kushner, the owner of Affinity Partners and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, now own the publisher, that’s not exactly convincing.

[…]

The Saudi government’s influence on the games it has money in has thus far resulted in some bizarre shit, such as soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo showing up in the latest Fatal Fury, though developer SNK has insisted the company’s sale to PIF would not affect its games. Beyond that, the Saudi Arabian government has been hosting events with industry figureheads like Hideo Kojima. The nation’s monetary investment in video games has been extensive, but buying one of the biggest companies in the space, whose games are played by millions every year, is almost certainly the farthest-reaching move it’s made thus far. We don’t know what impact this will have on EA, its studios, and its IP in the future, but in this moment, things look bleak.

Source: The Internet Reacts To Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition

So yes, maybe EA will have more money to make more games, but they will be right wing nutcase / religious games, heavily censored. Considering that the gaming industry is larger than Hollywood and the shared experiences from gaming shape our culture, this is a pretty iron grip on what it is that we see, experience and how we experience it. Gaming tells us who are the goodies and the baddies and now this is under control of some very dubious people.