Linking ideas with the world
The bill has been pulled by its sponsor, Susan Talamantes-Eggman: “It became clear that the bill would not have the support it needed today, and manufacturers had sown enough doubt with vague and unbacked claims of privacy and security concerns,” she said. Her full statement has been added at the end of the piece. In Read more about Apple killing right to repair bill[…]
A vulnerability in the Dell SupportAssist utility exposes Dell laptops and personal computers to a remote attack that can allow hackers to execute code with admin privileges on devices using an older version of this tool and take over users’ systems. Dell has released a patch for this security flaw on April 23; however, many Read more about Dell laptops and computers vulnerable to remote hijacks via Dell admin tool[…]
The space agency eggheads pointed the finger of blame at the aluminium manufacturer after probing two failed science missions: the February 24, 2009 fruitless launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, and the March 4, 2011 doomed launch of the Glory satellite, designed for monitoring atmospheric pollutants. In both cases, the rocket fairing, which is the Read more about Sapa Profiles / Hydro Extrusion falsified aluminium tensile strength for profit, causes $700m in losses in NASA launches, years of science crashing and burning[…]
After weeks of speculation, SpaceX has finally admitted that a Crew Dragon capsule was destroyed during a test of system’s abort thrusters on April 20. No cause was given for the anomaly, nor were any new details disclosed about possible delays to NASA’s languishing Commercial Crew Program. Speaking to reporters at a NASA briefing held Read more about Yep, That SpaceX Crew Capsule Was Definitely Destroyed During Failed Ground Test, Company Confirms[…]
Russia’s internet iron curtain has been formally signed into law by President Putin. The nation’s internet service providers have until 1 November to ensure they comply. The law will force traffic through government-controlled exchanges and eventually require the creation of a national domain name system. The bill has been promoted as advancing Russian sovereignty and Read more about Kremlin signs total internet surveillance and censorship system into law, from Nov 1st.[…]
Police from around the world shut down the biggest active black market on the dark web this month, according to announcements from law enforcement agencies in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands released on Friday. Wall Street Market, as the black market site was known, was the target of a 1.5-year-long multinational investigation. Three Read more about Dark Net’s Wall Street Market Falls to Police[…]
A new deep learning algorithm can generate high-resolution, photorealistic images of people — faces, hair, outfits, and all — from scratch. The AI-generated models are the most realistic we’ve encountered, and the tech will soon be licensed out to clothing companies and advertising agencies interested in whipping up photogenic models without paying for lights or a catering budget. At Read more about Amazing AI Generates Entire Bodies of People Who Don’t Exist[…]
Smart cities are designed to make life easier for their residents: better traffic management by clearing routes, making sure the public transport is running on time and having cameras keeping a watchful eye from above. But what happens when that data leaks? One such database was open for weeks for anyone to look inside. Security Read more about Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system[…]
Marcus Hutchins, the British security researcher who shot to fame after successfully halting the Wannacry ransomware epidemic, has pleaded guilty to crafting online bank-account-raiding malware. For nearly two years now, Hutchins, 24, has been under house arrest in the US after being collared at Las Vegas airport by FBI agents acting on a tip-off. The Read more about Wannacry-slayer Marcus Hutchins pleads guilty to two counts of banking malware creation after being held for 2 years by US. Forced confession, maybe?[…]
The discovery of a new, sophisticated team of hackers spying on dozens of government targets is never good news. But one team of cyberspies has pulled off that scale of espionage with a rare and troubling trick, exploiting a weak link in the internet’s cybersecurity that experts have warned about for years: DNS hijacking, a Read more about Hackers take control of top level domains to perform massive man in the middle attack[…]
On Thursday, at just about the same time as the most highly anticipated government document of the decade was released in Washington D.C., Facebook updated a month-old blog post to note that actually a security incident impacted “millions” of Instagram users and not “tens of thousands” as they said at first. Last month, Facebook announced Read more about Facebook uploaded the contacts of 1.5m people without permission[…]
On Thursday, at just about the same time as the most highly anticipated government document of the decade was released in Washington D.C., Facebook updated a month-old blog post to note that actually a security incident impacted “millions” of Instagram users and not “tens of thousands” as they said at first. Last month, Facebook announced Read more about ‘Millions’ of Instagram Passwords Were Exposed to Facebook Employees In Plaintext[…]
The process of printing the heart involved a biopsy of the fatty tissue that surrounds abdominal organs. Researchers separated the cells in the tissue from the rest of the contents, namely the extracellular matrix linking the cells. The cells were reprogrammed to become stem cells with the ability to differentiate into heart cells; the matrix Read more about 3D-printed heart made using a human patient’s cells – CNN[…]
Microsoft says miscreants accessed some of its customers’ webmail inboxes and account data after a support rep’s administrative account was hijacked. The Redmond software giant has sent Hotmail, MSN, and Outlook cloud users notifications that the unnamed customer support rep’s account was compromised by hackers who would have subsequently gained “limited access” to certain parts Read more about Microsoft admits: Yes, miscreants leafed through some Hotmail, MSN, Outlook inboxes after support rep pwned[…]
Finally stopped using Internet Explorer? Good! But, now it’s time to completely delete it from your computer, too. Security researcher John Page has discovered a new security flaw that allows hackers to steal Windows users’ data thanks to Internet Explorer. The craziest part: Windows users don’t ever even have to open the now-obsolete web browser Read more about Internet Explorer exploit is trouble even if you never use the browser[…]
Android TV is an operating system designed specifically for SmartTV purposes and is developed by Google. Android TV is basically a smart entertainment platform that comes built into a number of TVs (primarily from Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, etc..) but also in a number of streaming video players like Android TV Boxes and the most popular Read more about Android TV: Everything You Need To Know[…]
Why did the frog cross the road? Well, a new artificial intelligent (AI) agent that can play the classic arcade game Frogger not only can tell you why it crossed the road, but it can justify its every move in everyday language. Developed by Georgia Tech, in collaboration with Cornell and the University of Kentucky, the Read more about Research Findings May Lead to More Explainable AI | College of Computing[…]
The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined commercial pregnancy and parenting club Bounty some £400,000 for illegally sharing personal details of more than 14 million people. The organisation, which dishes out advice to expectant and inexperienced parents, has faced criticism over the tactics it uses to sign up new members and was the subject of a Read more about Pregnancy and parenting club Bounty fined £400,000 for shady data sharing practices of more than 14 million people[…]
China’s largest stock photo flinger has been forced to backtrack after it tried to put its own price tags on images of the first black hole and the Chinese flag. Visual China Group reportedly tried to hawk out the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole and its shadow, which was the painstaking work of Read more about Chinese stock photo pusher tries to claim copyright on Event Horizon pic, Chinese Flag[…]
A hacker group has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned. The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. Read more about Script kiddie Hackers publish personal data on thousands of US police officers and federal agents and have more in the pipeline[…]
Electronic health records store valuable information about hospital patients, but they’re often sparse and unstructured, making them difficult for potentially labor- and time-saving AI systems to parse. Fortunately, researchers at New York University and Princeton have developed a framework that evaluates clinical notes (i.e., descriptions of symptoms, reasons for diagnoses, and radiology results) and autonomously Read more about AI predicts hospital readmission rates from clinical notes[…]
Sonos stands accused of seeking to obtain “excessive” amounts of personal data without valid consent in a complaint filed with the UK’s data watchdog. The complaint, lodged by tech lawyer George Gardiner in a personal capacity, challenges the Sonos privacy policy’s compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and the UK’s implementation of that law. Read more about Sonos finally blasted in complaint to UK privacy watchdog – lets hope they do something with it[…]
Two out of three hotel websites inadvertently leak guests’ booking details and personal data to third-party sites, including advertisers and analytics companies, according to research released by Symantec Corp on Wednesday. The study, which looked at more than 1,500 hotel websites in 54 countries that ranged from two-star to five-star properties, comes several months after Read more about Two out of three hotels accidentally leak guests’ personal data to third parties[…]
You might not even know what options you can tweak (or turn off) in your operating system, which is where the cleverly named O&O ShutUp10 application comes in to play. It’s a simple application that makes it incredibly easy to tweak various aspects of Windows 10 that are normally buried or otherwise inaccessible to regular people. Read more about Increase Your Privacy in Windows 10 With ‘O&O ShutUp10’[…]
Charges announced by the Justice Department on Thursday against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange provide fresh insight into why federal prosecutors sought to question whistleblower Chelsea Manning last month before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Manning, convicted in 2013 of leaking classified U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks, was jailed in early Read more about Assange Charges Finally Reveal Why Chelsea Manning Is Sitting in Jail[…]