Apple is the first company to be charged with violating the Digital Markets Act, a law passed in 2022 that gives European regulators wide authority to force the largest “online gatekeepers” to change their business practices. The charges signal that the European Union, already known as an aggressive regulator of the tech industry, plans to Read more about E.U. starts swinging DMA, starts with monolithic monopolist Apple[…]
Microsoft has been pushing hard for its users to sign into Windows with a Microsoft Account. The newest Windows 11 installer removed the easy bypass to the requirement that you make an account or login with your existing account. If you didn’t install Windows 11 without a Microsoft Account and now want to stop sending Read more about Microsoft Account to local account conversion guide erased from official Windows 11 guide[…]
A now-patched vulnerability in Ollama – a popular open source project for running LLMs – can lead to remote code execution, according to flaw finders who warned that upwards of 1,000 vulnerable instances remain exposed to the internet. Wiz Research disclosed the flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-37032 and dubbed Probllama, on May 5 and its maintainers Read more about Patch now: ‘Easy-to-exploit’ RCE in open source Ollama[…]
Automated license plate readers “pose risks to public safety,” argues the EFF, “that may outweigh the crimes they are attempting to address in the first place.” When law enforcement uses automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to document the comings and goings of every driver on the road, regardless of a nexus to a crime, it Read more about EFF: New License Plate Reader Vulnerabilties Prove The Tech Itself is a Public Safety Threat[…]
“A good portion of my home directory got deleted,” complained a bug report for systemd filed last week. It requested an update to a flag for the systemd-tmpfiles tool which cleans up files and directories: “a huge warning next to –purge. This option is dangerous, so it should be made clear that it’s dangerous.” The Read more about Systemd dev thinks it fine for a temp file purge command to just go and delete your /home/ directory[…]
According to correspondence released by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) under freedom of information (FOI) rules, Microsoft is unable to guarantee that data uploaded to a key Police Scotland IT system – the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) – will remain in the UK as required by law. While the correspondence has not been released Read more about Microsoft admits no guarantee that UK policing data will stay in the UK and at all private – are you looking, EU member states?![…]
[…] A letter to publishers seen by Reuters on Friday, which does not name the AI companies or the publishers affected, comes amid a public dispute between AI search startup Perplexity and media outlet Forbes involving the same web standard and a broader debate between tech and media firms over the value of content in Read more about Forbes accuses Perplexity AI of bypassing robots.txt web standard to scrape content, Tollbit startup gains publicity by baselessly accusing everyone of doing this too in open letter. Why do we listen to this shit?[…]
If you found out that 500,000 books had been removed from your local public library, at the demands of big publishers who refused to let them buy and lend new copies, and were further suing the library for damages, wouldn’t you think that would be a major news story? Wouldn’t you think many people would Read more about 500,000 Books Have Been Deleted From The Internet Archive’s Lending Library by Greedy Publishers[…]
European Union officials have delayed talks over proposed legislation that could lead to messaging services having to scan photos and links to detect possible child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Were the proposal to become law, it may require the likes of WhatsApp, Messenger and Signal to scan all images that users upload — which would Read more about EU delays decision over continuous spying on all your devices *cough* scanning encrypted messages for kiddie porn[…]
Deliberately exposing people to the coronavirus behind covid-19 in a so-called challenge study has helped us understand why some people seem to be immune to catching the infection. As part of the first such covid-19 study, carried out in 2021, a group of international researchers looked at 16 people with no known health conditions who Read more about We finally know why some people seem immune to catching covid-19[…]
[…] Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has Read more about FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network[…]
The proliferation of microplastics (MPs) represents a burgeoning environmental and health crisis. Measuring less than 5 mm in diameter, MPs have infiltrated atmospheric, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, penetrating commonplace consumables like seafood, sea salt, and bottled beverages. Their size and surface area render them susceptible to chemical interactions with physiological fluids and tissues, raising bioaccumulation Read more about Seven types of microplastics found in the human penises, raises questions about sexual function[…]
[…] CVE-2024-30078, a Wi-Fi driver remote code execution hole rated 8.8 in severity. It’s not publicly disclosed, not yet under attack, and exploitation is “less likely,” according to Redmond. “An unauthenticated attacker could send a malicious networking packet to an adjacent system that is employing a Wi-Fi networking adapter, which could enable remote code execution,” Read more about Microsoft fixes hack-me-via-Wi-Fi Windows security hole[…]
Mathematicians have reinvented the wheel with the discovery of shapes that can roll smoothly when sandwiched between two surfaces, even in four, five or any higher number of spatial dimensions. The finding answers a question that researchers have been puzzling over for decades. Such objects are known as shapes of constant width, and the most Read more about Mathematicians find odd shapes that roll like a wheel in any dimension[…]
A report from BleepingComputer notes that ASUS “has released a new firmware update that addresses a vulnerability impacting seven router models that allow remote attackers to log in to devices.” But there’s more bad news: Taiwan’s CERT has also informed the public about CVE-2024-3912 in a post yesterday, which is a critical (9.8) arbitrary firmware Read more about ASUS Releases Firmware Update for Critical Remote Authentication Bypass Affecting Seven Routers[…]
In 2018, chip designer Arm introduced a hardware security feature called Memory Tagging Extensions (MTE) as a defense against memory safety bugs. But it may not be as effective as first hoped. Implemented and supported last year in Google’s Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones and previously in Linux, MTE aims to help detect Read more about Arm Memory Tag Extensions broken by speculative execution[…]
On Thursday, the EU Council is scheduled to vote on a legislative proposal that would attempt to protect children online by disallowing confidential communication. The vote had been set for Wednesday but got pushed back [PDF]. Known to detractors as Chat Control, the proposal seeks to prevent the online dissemination of child sexual abuse material Read more about Signal, MEPs urge EU Council to drop law that puts a spy on everyone’s devices[…]
The mysterious brightening of a galaxy far, far away has been traced to the heart of the star system and the sudden awakening of a giant black hole 1m times more massive than the sun. Decades of observations found nothing remarkable about the distant galaxy in the constellation of Virgo, but that changed at the Read more about Astronomers detect sudden awakening of black hole 1m times mass of sun[…]
Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally — including non-Apple Read more about Wi-Fi Routers are like an trackers available to everyone[…]
The visualisation of US vs EU spending on NATO going the rounds is pretty suspect: The Blue area contains not just the USA, but also Canada. The US defence budget is incorrect. It fails to take into account that the US is a global player with ambitions and commitments beyond NATO. It doesn’t show that Read more about US / EU NATO Expenditure – is the balance really so lopsided?[…]
ASUS has suddenly agreed “to overhaul its customer support and warranty systems,” writes the hardware review site Gamers Nexus — after a three–videoseries on its YouTube channel documented bad and “potentially illegal” handling of customer warranties for the channel’s 2.2 million viewers. The Verge highlights ASUS’s biggest change: If you’ve ever been denied a warranty Read more about ASUS promises to fix it’s broken support[…]
[…] The AWARE program, a project of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to develop a new version of dextroamphetamine that can be activated or deactivated through exposure to near-infrared light. This would enable near-infrared light emitters in a helmet to selectively activate the stimulant in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, and then Read more about Light-activated speed drugs could keep sleep-deprived military pilots alert[…]
Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to an unusual settlement to a class action lawsuit, The New York Times reports. Rather than paying cash, the company would provide a 23 percent stake in its company to any Americans in its database. Without the settlement, Clearview could go bankrupt, according to court documents. If Read more about If Creepy Spyware Clearview AI scanned your face, you may get equity in the company[…]
It’s been a rocky couple of months for Sonos — so much so that CEO Patrick Spence now has a canned autoreply for customers emailing him to vent about the redesigned app. But as the company works to right the ship, restore trust, and get the new Sonos Ace headphones off to a strong start, Read more about Sonos draws more customer anger — this time for its privacy policy. Now they will sell your customer data, apparently[…]
Mozilla has reinstated certain add-ons for Firefox that earlier this week had been banned in Russia by the Kremlin. The browser extensions, which are hosted on the Mozilla store, were made unavailable in the Land of Putin on or around June 8 after a request by the Russian government and its internet censorship agency, Roskomnadzor. Read more about Mozilla caves to public and restores Firefox add-ons banned in Russia that circumvent Russian censorship[…]