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Submission + - Reddit's New API Policy Squeezes Out Third-Party Apps

Submitted by nearmex
nearmex writes: Recently, Reddit has updated its API policy, and it's having a big impact on third-party applications. These new rules impose strict limitations on data access and usage, causing many apps that rely on Reddit's data to malfunction or stop working entirely.

This policy change mainly restricts how much data third-party apps can pull from Reddit and puts tougher rules on how this data can be used. It seems like Reddit is trying to keep its users on its own platform rather than on various third-party apps.

Submission + - Nvidia's AI Software Tricked Into Leaking Data (ft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A feature in Nvidia’s artificial intelligence software can be manipulated into ignoring safety restraints and reveal private information, according to new research. Nvidia has created a system called the “NeMo Framework,” which allows developers to work with a range of large language models—the underlying technology that powers generative AI products such as chatbots. The chipmaker’s framework is designed to be adopted by businesses, such as using a company’s proprietary data alongside language models to provide responses to questions—a feature that could, for example, replicate the work of customer service representatives, or advise people seeking simple health care advice.

Researchers at San Francisco-based Robust Intelligence found they could easily break through so-called guardrails instituted to ensure the AI system could be used safely. After using the Nvidia system on its own data sets, it only took hours for Robust Intelligence analysts to get language models to overcome restrictions. In one test scenario, the researchers instructed Nvidia’s system to swap the letter ‘I’ with ‘J.’ That move prompted the technology to release personally identifiable information, or PII, from a database.

The researchers found they could jump safety controls in other ways, such as getting the model to digress in ways it was not supposed to. By replicating Nvidia’s own example of a narrow discussion about a jobs report, they could get the model into topics such as a Hollywood movie star’s health and the Franco-Prussian war—despite guardrails designed to stop the AI moving beyond specific subjects. In the wake of its test results, the researchers have advised their clients to avoid Nvidia’s software product. After the Financial Times asked Nvidia to comment on the research earlier this week, the chipmaker informed Robust Intelligence that it had fixed one of the root causes behind the issues the analysts had raised.

Submission + - Barracuda Urges Replacing, Not Patching, Its Email Security Gateways (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s not often that a zero-day vulnerability causes a network security vendor to urge customers to physically remove and decommission an entire line of affected hardware — as opposed to just applying software updates. But experts say that is exactly what transpired this week with Barracuda Networks, as the company struggled to combat a sprawling malware threat which appears to have undermined its email security appliances in such a fundamental way that they can no longer be safely updated with software fixes.

Campbell, Calif. based Barracuda said it hired incident response firm Mandiant on May 18 after receiving reports about unusual traffic originating from its Email Security Gateway (ESG) devices, which are designed to sit at the edge of an organization’s network and scan all incoming and outgoing email for malware. On May 19, Barracuda identified that the malicious traffic was taking advantage of a previously unknown vulnerability in its ESG appliances, and on May 20 the company pushed a patch for the flaw to all affected appliances (CVE-2023-2868).

In its security advisory, Barracuda said the vulnerability existed in the Barracuda software component responsible for screening attachments for malware. More alarmingly, the company said it appears attackers first started exploiting the flaw in October 2022. But on June 6, Barracuda suddenly began urging its ESG customers to wholesale rip out and replace — not patch — affected appliances. “Impacted ESG appliances must be immediately replaced regardless of patch version level,” the company’s advisory warned. “Barracuda’s recommendation at this time is full replacement of the impacted ESG." [...] In addition to replacing devices, Barracuda says ESG customers should also rotate any credentials connected to the appliance(s), and check for signs of compromise dating back to at least October 2022 using the network and endpoint indicators the company has released publicly.

Submission + - Smart TV Industry Rocked By Alleged Patent Conspiracy From Chipmaker (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: During the pandemic, the demand for smart TVs dwindled as the supply chain for critical TV components became unreliable and consumers began tightening up on frivolous spending. Amid this smart TV demand slump, one of the world's top TV chipmakers, Taiwan-based Realtek, was hit with multiple meritless lawsuits by an alleged patent troll, Future Link Systems. These actions, Realtek said, drained its resources, made Realtek appear unreliable as a TV-chip supplier, and created "the harmful illusion of supply chain uncertainties in an already constrained industry." Determined to defend its reputation and maintain its dominant place in the market, Realtek filed a lawsuit this week in a US district court in California. In it, the TV chipmaker alleged that Future Link launched "an unprecedented and unseemly conspiracy" with the world's leading TV-chip supplier, Taiwan-based MediaTek, and was allegedly paid a "bounty" to file frivolous patent infringement claims intended to drive Realtek out of the TV-chip market.

The scheme allegedly worked like this: Future Link "intentionally and knowingly" asked a US district court in Texas and the US International Trade Commission "for injunctions prohibiting importation of Realtek TV Chips and devices containing the same into the United States," Realtek alleged. This allowed MediaTek to reap the benefits of diminished competition in that market, Realtek claimed. Today, Reuters reported that MediaTek has officially responded to Realtek's allegations, vowing to defend itself against the lawsuit and claiming that MediaTek will supply evidence to dispute Realtek's claims.

Realtek's lawsuit seeks a jury trial to fight back against MediaTek and Future Link, as well as IPValue Management, which the complaint said owns and operates Future Link. The TV chipmaker alleged that defendants violated unfair competition laws in California, as well as federal laws. Any damages won from the lawsuit will be donated to charity, Realtek said. Realtek's complaint likens MediaTek to "robber barons of the Industrial Age," allegedly seeking to destroy competition and secure a monopoly in the TV-chip market. "With this action, Realtek seeks to stop a modern robber baron and its hired henchmen, protect itself from ongoing injury, and guard against the destruction of competition in the critical semiconductor industry by holding defendants accountable for their conspiracy," the complaint said.

Comment App? No one needs a weather app. (Score 4, Informative) 57

by geekprime (#63442238) Attached to: The Problem With Weather Apps
In the US https://www.weather.gov/ will let you enter your zip+4 or street address or even gps coordinates and show you not only your forecast but radar on demand and historical weather information, and there is not a single ad on the entire site. It's SO good that the owner of a certain weather site/app has bribed multiple senators multiple times to try to get it taken off the internet because it interferes with his business model. https://stormeyes.org/wp/2005/...

Comment Re:Sadly unions have gone badly wrong (Score 2) 207

>In the US unions have resulted in the massive unfunded pension liabilities which plague the balance sheets of most states. No, that was the state government not keeping it's end of the bargain. That's not the Union's fault, pretending otherwise is just playing up the capitalists wish to get rid of anything that limits their power.

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