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Submission + - Qantas hit by cyberattack (abc.net.au)

Submitted by dnrck
dnrck writes: Qantas has confirmed a significant cyber incident affecting one of its contact centres, where a cybercriminal gained access to a third-party customer service platform containing data on approximately six million customers.
The breach exposed customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and frequent flyer numbers, but did not compromise credit card details, personal financial information, passport details, or account passwords and PINs. Qantas responded by immediately containing the breach, notifying impacted customers, and working with government cyber agencies and law enforcement. The airlineâ(TM)s operations and safety were not affected, and additional security measures, including enhanced monitoring and support lines, have been implemented while investigations continue. Qantas has also warned customers to be vigilant against potential scams following the incident.
The company and other researchers have posited that this is likely the work of having group Scattered Spider.

Submission + - US Embassy: open your social media profiles (usembassy.gov)

Submitted by rastos1
rastos1 writes: U.S. Embassies in countries around the world, have following on their website:
Notice: Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.

Submission + - The top red teamer in the US is an AI bot (csoonline.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The hacker “Xbow” now tops an eminent US security industry leaderboard that ranks red teamers based on reputation — and it’s an AI chatbot.

On HackerOne, which connects organizations with ethical hackers to participate in their bug bounty programs, Xbow scored notably higher than 99 other hackers in identifying and reporting enterprise software vulnerabilities. It’s a first in bug bounty history, according to the company that operates the eponymous bot.

Submission + - NYT: Inside DOGE's Chaotic Takeover of Social Security

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security, the New York Times begins: "Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found. [...] At Social Security, Mr. Musk’s efforts amount to a case study in what happened when his team of government novices ran a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts. The Times’s investigation found that Mr. Musk became fixated on the program in early February after members of his team misread government spending data — a pivotal and previously unreported moment that DOGE believed had exposed massive fraud inside the agency." (Spoiler Alert: Things only go downhill from there.)

Submission + - For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time (quantamagazine.org)

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: Time and memory (also called space) are the two most fundamental resources in computation: Every algorithm takes some time to run, and requires some space to store data while it’s running. Until now, the only known algorithms for accomplishing certain tasks required an amount of space roughly proportional to their runtime, and researchers had long assumed there’s no way to do better. Williams’ proof established a mathematical procedure for transforming any algorithm — no matter what it does — into a form that uses much less space.
One of the most important classes goes by the humble name “P.” Roughly speaking, it encompasses all problems that can be solved in a reasonable amount of time. An analogous complexity class for space is dubbed “PSPACE.”

The relationship between these two classes is one of the central questions of complexity theory. Every problem in P is also in PSPACE, because fast algorithms just don’t have enough time to fill up much space in a computer’s memory. If the reverse statement were also true, the two classes would be equivalent: Space and time would have comparable computational power. But complexity theorists suspect that PSPACE is a much larger class, containing many problems that aren’t in P. In other words, they believe that space is a far more powerful computational resource than time. This belief stems from the fact that algorithms can use the same small chunk of memory over and over, while time isn’t as forgiving — once it passes, you can’t get it back.

Submission + - Nintendo says your Switch 2 isn't really yours even if you paid for it (betanews.com) 1

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: The new Nintendo Switch 2 is almost here. Next month, eager fans will finally be able to get their hands on the highly anticipated follow-up to the wildly popular hybrid console. But before you line up (or frantically refresh your browser for a preorder), you might want to read the fine print, because Nintendo might be able to kill your console.

Yes, really. That’s not just speculation, folks. According to its newly updated user agreement, Nintendo has granted itself the right to make your Switch 2 “permanently unusable” if you break certain rules. Yes, the company might literally brick your device.

Buried in the legalese is a clause that says if you try to bypass system protections, modify software, or mess with the console in a way that’s not approved, Nintendo can take action. And that action could include completely disabling your system. The exact wording makes it crystal clear: Nintendo may “render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.”

Submission + - Musk to "fix" Community Notes for contradicting Trump (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: The man who espouses "free speech" has announced he will be "fixing" Community Notes on Twitter because they repeatedly contradict what Trump says. He claims a cabal of governments and media are using Notes to game the system.

Musk's attack on Community Notes is somewhat surprising. Although he has always maintained that Community Notes aren't "perfect," he has defended Community Notes through multiple European Union probes challenging their effectiveness and declared that the goal of the crowdsourcing effort was to make X "by far the best source of truth on Earth." At CES 2025, X CEO Linda Yaccarino bragged that Community Notes are "good for the world."

Yaccarino invited audience members to "think about it as this global collective consciousness keeping each other accountable at global scale in real time," but just one month later, Musk is suddenly casting doubts on that characterization while the European Union continues to probe X.

Perhaps most significantly, Musk previously insisted as recently as last year that Community Notes could not be manipulated, even by Musk. He strongly disputed a 2024 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that claimed that toxic X users were downranking accurate notes that they personally disagreed with, claiming any attempt at gaming Community Notes would stick out like a "neon sore thumb."

Submission + - "Largest data breach in US history": Three more lawsuits try to stop DOGE (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: The US DOGE Service's access to the private data of ordinary Americans and federal employees is being challenged in several lawsuits filed this week.

Three new complaints seek court orders that would stop the data access and require the deletion of unlawfully accessed data. Two of the complaints also seek financial damages for individuals whose data was accessed.

The US DOGE Service, Elon Musk, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell were named as defendants in one suit filed yesterday in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

"The Privacy Act [of 1974] makes it unlawful for OPM Defendants to hand over access to OPM's millions of personnel records to DOGE Defendants, who lack a lawful and legitimate need for such access," the lawsuit said. "No exception to the Privacy Act covers DOGE Defendants' access to records held by OPM. OPM Defendants' action granting DOGE Defendants full, continuing, and ongoing access to OPM's systems and files for an unspecified period means that tens of millions of federal-government employees, retirees, contractors, job applicants, and impacted family members and other third parties have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords."

The lawsuit names Musk as a defendant "in his capacity as director of the US Doge Temporary Service," which was created by President Trump and has a mandate lasting until July 4, 2026. The temporary organization is separate from the US DOGE Service, which used to be called the US Digital Service. DOGE, of course, is a reference to the popular meme involving a Shiba Inu and in the government context stands for the Department of Government Efficiency.

Submission + - Google joins firms dropping diversity recruitment goals (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: Google has become the latest big US firm to scrap its goals to recruit more workers from underrepresented groups, BBC News understands.

The decision to abandon the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recruitment targets comes after the company carried out an annual review of its corporate policies.

The technology giant is also reviewing some of its other DEI programmes.

Submission + - Musk Shows Us What Actual Government Censorship On Social Media Looks Like (techdirt.com)

Submitted by theweatherelectric
theweatherelectric writes: Self proclaimed "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk is now suppressing free speech on Twitter. Over the weekend, Wired reported on the inexperienced twenty-somethings between 19 and 24 working for Musk who have been given unprecedented access to sensitive government systems.

When someone posted these government employees’ names on Twitter, Musk first declared it “criminal” to name government employees (it isn't) and then he followed it up by having the comment removed.

Submission + - California Reservoir Dams Opened At Trump's Order 2

Submitted by Petersko
Petersko writes: At the order of the President, 2.2 billion gallons of water were released from reservoirs in Central California on Friday. The goal, according to his posts on Truth Social, was to provide water to "farmers throughout the state, and to Los Angeles."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03...

"There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season."

“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”

According to Trump, an additional 3 billion gallons will follow.

"The US Army Corps of Engineers and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment."

Submission + - CDC orders massive retraction of scientific papers on political grounds (substack.com) 2

Submitted by Mr. Dollar Ton
Mr. Dollar Ton writes: The CDC has apparently instructed its scientists to retract or pause the publication of any research manuscript being considered by any medical or scientific journal, not merely its own internal periodicals. The move aims to ensure that no “forbidden terms” appear in the work.

The policy includes manuscripts that are in the revision stages at journal (but not officially accepted) and those already accepted for publication but not yet live.

In the order, CDC researchers were instructed to remove references to or mentions of a list of forbidden terms: “Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, biologically female,” according to an email sent to CDC employees (see below).”

If true, Lisenko would give fat thumbs up to the new administration.

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