The Blackstone-owned genealogy giant Ancestry.com raised a ton of red flags earlier this month with an update to its terms and conditions that give the company a bit more power over your family photos. From here on out, the August 3 update reads, Ancestry can use these pics for any reason, at any time, forever. Read more about Ancestry.com Gave Itself the Rights to Your Family Photos[…]
Cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network was attacked on Tuesday, with the alleged hacker draining roughly $600 million in crypto. Poly Network, a protocol launched by the founder of Chinese blockchain project Neo, operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Tuesday’s attack struck each chain consecutively, with the Poly team identifying Read more about Cross-Chain DeFi Site Poly Network Hacked; Hundreds of Millions Potentially Lost[…]
Until recently, there was only one smartphone on the market equipped with an under-screen camera: last year’s ZTE Axon 20 5G. Other players such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi had also been testing this futuristic tech, but given the subpar image quality back then, it’s no wonder that phone makers largely stuck with punch-hole cameras Read more about Oppo’s latest under-screen camera may finally be capable of good photos – I hate the notch![…]
One day after Apple confirmed plans for new software that will allow it to detect images of child abuse on users’ iCloud photos, Facebook’s head of WhatsApp says he is “concerned” by the plans. In a thread on Twitter, Will Cathcart called it an “Apple built and operated surveillance system that could very easily be Read more about WhatsApp head says Apple’s child safety update is a ‘surveillance system’[…]
[…] The AI community, in particular, rushed to develop software that many believed would allow hospitals to diagnose or triage patients faster, bringing much-needed support to the front lines—in theory. In the end, many hundreds of predictive tools were developed. None of them made a real difference, and some were potentially harmful. That’s the damning Read more about Hundreds of AI tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped.[…]
Pfizer is raising the price of its covid-19 vaccine in Europe by over 25% under a newly negotiated contract with the European Union, according to a report from the Financial Times. Competitor Moderna is also hiking the price of its vaccine in Europe by roughly 10%. Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine is already expected to generate the Read more about Pfizer Hikes Price of Covid-19 Vaccine by 25% in Europe[…]
The hackers who breached Electronic Arts last month have released the entire cache of stolen data after failing to extort the company and later sell the stolen files to a third-party buyer. The data, dumped on an underground cybercrime forum on Monday, July 26, is now being widely distributed on torrent sites. According to a Read more about Hackers leak full EA data after failed extortion attempt[…]
A recent scientific paper proposed that, like Big Tobacco in the Seventies, Big Tech thrives on creating uncertainty around the impacts of its products and business model. One of the ways it does this is by cultivating pockets of friendly academics who can be relied on to echo Big Tech talking points, giving them added Read more about How Google quietly funds Europe’s leading tech policy institutes[…]
[…] UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will expand on existing rules covering all research papers produced from its £8 billion in annual funding. About three-quarters of papers recently published from U.K. universities are open access, and UKRI’s current policy gives scholars two routes to comply: Pay journals for “gold” open access, which makes a paper Read more about Major U.K. science funder to require grantees to make papers immediately free to all[…]
Chinese antitrust watchdog, State Administration of Market Supervision (SAMR), announced Tuesday it has started investigating price gouging in the automotive chip market. The regulatory body promised to strengthen supervision and punish illegal acts such as hoarding, price hikes and collusive price increases. SAMR singled out distributors as the object of its ire. In the early Read more about Chinese regulators go after price gauging in car chip industry[…]
[…] The issue is that ambiguity or discrepancies can be introduced if the machine-learning software ignores certain invisible Unicode characters. What’s seen on screen or printed out, for instance, won’t match up with what the neural network saw and made a decision on. It may be possible abuse this lack of Unicode awareness for nefarious Read more about Hey, AI software developers, you are taking Unicode into account, right … right?[…]
[…] computer scientists at Tel Aviv University in Israel say they have discovered a way to bypass a large percentage of facial recognition systems by basically faking your face. The team calls this method the “master face” (like a “master key,” harhar), which uses artificial intelligence technologies to create a facial template—one that can consistently Read more about Researchers Say They’ve Found a ‘Master Face’ to Bypass Face Rec Tech[…]
[…] Apple told TechCrunch that the detection of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is one of several new features aimed at better protecting the children who use its services from online harm, including filters to block potentially sexually explicit photos sent and received through a child’s iMessage account. Another feature will intervene when a user Read more about Apple confirms it will begin scanning your iCloud Photos[…]
Apple is about to announce a new technology for scanning individual users’ iPhones for banned content. While it will be billed as a tool for detecting child abuse imagery, its potential for misuse is vast based on details entering the public domain. The neural network-based tool will scan individual users’ iDevices for child sexual abuse Read more about Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users’ photos[…]
[…] Parkour is rooted in French military history, and more specifically escape and evasion tactics using only the human body, trained using “parcours du combattant”; an obstacle course based training method. Whilst sharing common features, it should not be confused with freerunning, which places less of an emphasis on efficiency, allowing for more acrobatic movements. Read more about Parkour: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners[…]
In what can only be considered a triumph for all robot-kind, this week, a federal court has ruled that an artificially intelligent machine can, in fact, be an inventor—a decision that came after a year’s worth of legal battles across the globe. The ruling came on the heels of a years-long quest by University of Read more about Australian Court Rules That AI Can Be an Inventor, as does South Africa[…]
Amazon has been issued with a fine of 746 million euros ($887 million) by a European privacy watchdog for breaching the bloc’s data protection laws. The fine, disclosed by Amazon on Friday in a securities filing, was issued two weeks ago by Luxembourg’s privacy regulator. The Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection said Amazon’s processing Read more about Amazon hit with $887 million fine by European privacy watchdog[…]
Bungie and Ubisoft have filed a lawsuit against five individuals said to be behind Ring-1, the claimed creator and distributor of cheat software targeting Destiny and Rainbox Six Seige. Among other offenses the gaming companies allege copyright infringement and trafficking in circumvention devices, estimating damages in the millions of dollars. […] Filed in a California Read more about Bungie & Ubisoft Sue Destiny 2 Cheatmakers Ring-1 For Copyright Infringement[…]
The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said Friday. The department said 80% of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached. Read more about Justice Department says Russians hacked federal prosecutors during SolarWinds[…]
Analysis of tracking data from Automatic Identification System broadcasts reveals vessel locations have been simulated for a number of ships, including military vessels. This false information could compromise vessel safety, decrease confidence in a crucial collision avoidance system and potentially spark international conflict. Over the years, data analysts working with Global Fishing Watch and SkyTruth Read more about 100s of (war)ships are having their positions falsely reported in AIS[…]
The observed trend in Earth’s energy imbalance (TEEI), a measure of the acceleration of heat uptake by the planet, is a fundamental indicator of perturbations to climate. Satellite observations (2001–2020) reveal a significant positive globally-averaged TEEI of 0.38 ± 0.24 Wm−2decade−1, but the contributing drivers have yet to be understood. Using climate model simulations, we show that it Read more about Increase in Earth’s energy imbalance is proof that climate change is man made[…]
Governments must impose a global moratorium on the international spyware trade or face a world in which no mobile phone is safe from state-sponsored hackers, Edward Snowden has warned in the wake of revelations about the clients of NSO Group. Snowden, who in 2013 blew the whistle on the secret mass surveillance programmes of the Read more about Edward Snowden calls for spyware trade ban amid Pegasus revelations[…]
The revelation that our government might be using spyware called Pegasus to hack into its critics’ phones has started a whole new debate on privacy. The opposition is taking a dig at the ruling party every chance it gets, while the latter is trying to damage control after facing such serious allegations. Amidst the chaos, Read more about How To Check If Your iPhone Is Infected With Pegasus Using MVT[…]
Billions of people are inseparable from their phones. Their devices are within reach – and earshot – for almost every daily experience, from the most mundane to the most intimate. Few pause to think that their phones can be transformed into surveillance devices, with someone thousands of miles away silently extracting their messages, photos and Read more about Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance – governments are spying on critics, journos, etc without a warrant using commercial Pegasus spyware by NSO[…]
Samsung is causing much angst among its SmartThings customers by shutting down support for its original SmartThings home automation hub as of the end of June. These are network-connected home automation routers providing Zigbee and Z-Wave connectivity to your sensors and actuators. It’s not entirely unreasonable for manufacturers to replace aging hardware with new models. Read more about Samsung Bricking Original SmartThings Hubs[…]