TikTok recommends self-harm and eating disorder content to some users within minutes of joining the platform, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). CBS News: The new study had researchers set up TikTok accounts posing as 13-year-old users interested in content about body image and mental health. It found that within as few as 2.6 minutes after joining the app, TikTok's algorithm recommended suicidal content. The report showed that eating disorder content was recommended within as few as 8 minutes.

Over the course of this study, researchers found 56 TikTok hashtags hosting eating disorder videos with over 13.2 billion views. "The new report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate underscores why it is way past time for TikTok to take steps to address the platform's dangerous algorithmic amplification," said James P. Steyer, Founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, which is unaffiliated with the study. "TikTok's algorithm is bombarding teens with harmful content that promote suicide, eating disorders, and body image issues that is fueling the teens' mental health crisis." The CCDH report details how TikTok's algorithms refine the videos shown to users as the app gathers more information about their preferences and interests. The algorithmic suggestions on the "For You" feed are designed, as the app puts it, to be "central to the TikTok experience." But new research shows that the video platform can push harmful content to vulnerable users as it seeks to keep them interested. Further reading: For teen girls, TikTok is the 'social media equivalent of razor blades in candy,' new report claims

After taking control of the Tomb Raider franchise earlier this year, today Crystal Dynamics announced Amazon Games will publish the next game in the series. From a report: The new Tomb Raider is currently untitled, but Amazon confirmed it will be a multiplatform release and a "single-player, narrative-driven adventure." We should expect gameplay familiar to the franchise (exploration, puzzles, creative enemy encounters), which Tomb Raider fans will be happy to hear.

Back in April, Crystal Dynamics formed part of the launch of Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5, and took the opportunity to announce it was just starting development on a new Tomb Raider game. That game will of course use Unreal Engine 5, which should offer some spectacular, super-realistic visuals on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PCs running the latest graphics cards.

Federal prosecutors have charged six people for allegedly operating websites that launched millions of powerful distributed denial-of-service attacks on a wide array of victims on behalf of millions of paying customers. From a report: The sites promoted themselves as booter or stressor services designed to test the bandwidth and performance of customers' networks. Prosecutors said in court papers that the services were used to direct massive amounts of junk traffic at third-party websites and Internet connections customers wanted to take down or seriously constrain. Victims included educational institutions, government agencies, gaming platforms, and millions of individuals. Besides charging six defendants, prosecutors also seized 48 Internet domains associated with the services.

"These booter services allow anyone to launch cyberattacks that harm individual victims and compromise everyone's ability to access the Internet," Martin Estrada, US attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. "This week's sweeping law enforcement activity is a major step in our ongoing efforts to eradicate criminal conduct that threatens the Internet's infrastructure and our ability to function in a digital world." The services offered user interfaces that were essentially the same except for cosmetic differences. The screenshot below shows the web panel offered by orphicsecurityteam.com as of February 28. It allowed users to enter an IP address of a target, the network port, and the specific type of attack they wanted. The panel allowed users to pick various methods to amplify their attacks. Amplification involved bouncing a relatively small amount of specially crafted data at a third-party server in a way that caused the server to pummel the intended victim with payloads that were as much as 10,000 times bigger.

The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) on Thursday issued digital asset guidance to state-regulated banks laying out what information financial institutions must submit before getting approval to engage in virtual currency-related activities. From a reportL: The guidance, one of the clearest paths forward yet for banks to offer cryptocurrency services, instructs banks to submit a business plan with details of the proposed activity, detail how such a service would impact the bank's capital and liquidity and inform NYDFS of its plans at least 90 days beforehand.

In a statement, NYDFS Superintendent Adrienne Harris said the new policies are "critical to ensuring that consumers' hard-earned money is protected" and that New York-regulated banks remain competitive. The regulator will "make a comprehensive assessment" of the information presented under the guidance to determine whether a bank should be permitted to engage in a proposed crypto-related activity, according to an industry letter sent Thursday to regulated institutions.

The next time you order a meal from Uber Eats, it may be delivered by a robot -- at least if you live in Miami. From a report: Starting on Thursday, some Miami residents can order their Uber Eats takeout to be delivered via autonomous, sidewalk-trotting robots thanks to a new partnership between the ride-hailing company and robotics firm Cartken. With the new service, customers will be alerted when their food is on the way and then be instructed to meet the remotely-supervised robot on the sidewalk, according to in-app screenshots shared with CNN by Uber.

Customers can then unlock the vehicle using their phone and grab their order from a secure compartment. (Customers can also opt-out if they prefer to have their items delivered by a courier.) Cartken's six-wheeled robots are equipped with multiple sensors and cameras to help them avoid collisions and choose routes which have the fewest hazards, according to its website. The delivery robots can operate indoors as well as outdoors.

Jamming and spoofing attacks can cripple GPS connections entirely or make something appear in the wrong location, causing disruption and safety issues. Just ask Russia. From a report: New data analysis reveals that multiple major Russian cities appear to have faced widespread GPS disruption during the past week. The signal interference follows Ukraine launching long-range drone attacks deep into Russian territory, and it may act as a way to potentially stop drones that rely upon GPS for navigation, experts say. The GPS interference has "expanded on a scale that hasn't been seen before," says Erik Kannike, a program manager at Estonian defense intelligence firm SensusQ who has been monitoring the situation. "What we're seeing now, since about a week ago, is GPS jamming bubbles covering hundreds if not thousands of kilometers around tactical cities."

The GPS issues were first spotted by the monitoring system GPSJam, which uses data from planes to track problems with the satellite navigation system. The website has logged an increasing number of GPS disturbances in the Russian cities of Saratov, Volgograd, and Penza since the start of December. All of the cities are in Eastern Russia and within hundreds of kilometers of the border with Ukraine. On December 5, GPSJam logged a limited amount of GPS interference in Russia -- the majority of registered interference took place around Moscow, where the Kremlin for years has tampered with GPS connections. However, since December 11, multiple areas of the country have faced GPS disruption, data gathered by GPSJam shows. In addition, wireless data analytics firm Aurora Insight measured an increase in GPS signal levels in the area at the start of December -- a sign that potential GPS interference could have happened.

The Senate has passed legislation to ban TikTok from US government devices, in a move designed to limit perceived information-security risks stemming from the social media app. From a report: The vote by unanimous consent approved the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, a bill authored by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. The move marks lawmakers' latest step against the short-form video app that has become popular with over a billion users worldwide. US officials fear that TikTok's user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government due to that country's influence over TikTok's parent, ByteDance.

A companion bill was introduced in the House last year by Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck. It has yet to be approved by members of the House Oversight Committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday it isn't yet clear whether the chamber will take up the TikTok bill in light of its Senate passage, saying lawmakers were consulting with White House officials on its language.

India currently doesn't plan to put restrictions on how much time individuals, including youngsters, spend playing games online, taking a different approach from the neighboring nation China that rocked the local gaming market after enforcing strict new measures last year. From a report: Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India's minister of state for electronics and information technology, told the lower house of the country's parliament in a written response that no such proposal is currently under the consideration of the Indian government. New Delhi is aware of the possible risks and challenges surrounding online games, including addiction, violence and financial loss, Chandrasekhar said, but asserted that country's IT rules already impose obligation on intermediaries to perform due diligence such as ensuring they don't "host, display, publish, transmit or share any information that is harmful to child."

The Linux Foundation has partnered with some of the world's biggest technology companies to develop interoperable and open map data, in what is a clear move to counter Google's dominance in the mapping realm. From a report: The Overture Maps Foundation, as the new effort is called, is officially hosted by the Linux Foundation, but the program is driven by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Facebook's parent company Meta, Microsoft, and Dutch mapping company TomTom. The ultimate mission of the Overture Maps Foundation to power new map products through openly available datasets that can be used and reused across applications and businesses, with each member throwing their own data and resources into the mix.

"Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage," noted the Linux Foundation's executive director Jim Zemlin in a press release. "Industry needs to come together to do this for the benefit of all." Map and location data plays such a fundamental role across society today, powering everything from IoT (internet of things) devices and self-driving cars, to logistics and big data visualization tools. Having all that data under the auspices of just one or two mega-firms can be hugely restrictive in terms of what companies can do with the data and what features they have at their disposal, not to mention the costs involved in licensing it.

Bloomberg: Last March, brain-computing interface expert Tom Oxley sat down to dinner with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to talk about Oxley's nascent company, Synchron. That meal in Ojai, Calif., ended with something better than dessert: Bezos told Oxley that he wanted to invest in the business. Synchron said Thursday it completed a $75 million funding round, part of it from Bezos Expeditions. The financing was led by ARCH Venture Partners, and includes a check from Gates Frontier, the venture investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and others. Existing investors also participated, including Khosla Ventures -- whose founder, Vinod Khosla, introduced Oxley to Gates.

Brain-computer interfaces, known as BCIs, can interpret and stimulate parts of the brain and are seen as a possible treatment for brain injuries. New investors approached Synchron "through the lens of making an impact in neurology in an area of need," Oxley said in an interview. They "saw BCI as a future therapeutic." About 100 million people globally have upper limb impairment, he said, and could benefit from the technology. [...] Synchron's Switch device aims to help paralyzed people, such as those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), communicate by controlling computer cursors with their minds. The company has already enrolled three patients in a six-person US feasibility trial and implanted the device in two of them. Oxley expects the remaining patients to enroll and receive their implants in the next few months.

The US government is blacklisting Yangtze Memory Technologies, Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group and dozens of other Chinese tech companies, ratcheting up a trade conflict between the world's two largest economies. From a report: The Department of Commerce is placing the companies on the so-called entity list, meaning that anyone seeking to supply them with US technology will require a license from Washington -- something that will likely be difficult to get. Bloomberg News previously reported that the US was preparing to add the companies to the list. The latest restrictions are part of a push to limit China's access to advanced chipmaking and artificial intelligence technology, which the US wants to keep away from the Asian nation's military. In October, the Biden administration unveiled sweeping measures that limit what US companies can sell to the country -- and it's been pushing for allies to go along with the plan.

The idea is to severely restrict China's "ability to leverage artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and other powerful, commercially available technologies for military modernization and human rights abuses," Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said in a statement. "This work will continue, as will our efforts to detect and disrupt Russia's efforts to obtain necessary items and technologies for its brutal war against Ukraine, including from Iran." Yangtze Memory and Shanghai Micro were added to the list out of concern that they'll work with Huawei, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and other companies that the US has decided are either a risk to national security or support oppression by the Chinese government. The two companies are key to China's efforts to build a domestic chipmaking business and wean itself off imports, particularly those from the US. In all, 36 companies are joining the entity list.

Microsoft has quietly banned cryptocurrency mining from its online services, and says it did so to protect all customers of its clouds. From a report: The Windows and Azure titan slipped the prohibition into an update of its Universal License Terms for Online Services that came into effect on December 1. That document covers any "Microsoft-hosted service to which Customer subscribes under a Microsoft volume licensing agreement," and on The Register's reading, mostly concerns itself with Azure.

Microsoft's Summary of Changes to the license states: "Updated Acceptable Use Policy to clarify that mining cryptocurrency is prohibited without prior Microsoft approval." Within the license itself there's hardly any more info. A section headed "Acceptable Use Policy" states: "Neither Customer, nor those that access an Online Service through Customer, may use an Online Service: to mine cryptocurrency without Microsoft's prior written approval."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rules around taking liquids and laptops through airport security will be eased from June 2024, the government has said. The announcement of the biggest relaxation of aviation security regulations in decades confirms reports last month that the change would come in the year after next. Passengers at most major UK airports will be able to carry liquids in containers holding up to two liters, a huge increase from the current limit of 100ml. Travelers will also no longer need to carry the containers in clear plastic bags, or remove tablets and laptops from hand luggage at checkpoints. The Department for Transport said major airports would be required to install new technology that gives security staff more detailed images of what is in passengers' bags. It will lay new legislation around the changes in parliament on Thursday. The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said: "The tiny toiletry has become a staple of airport security checkpoints, but that's all set to change. I'm streamlining cabin bag rules at airports while enhancing security."

"By 2024, major airports across the UK will have the latest security tech installed, reducing queueing times, improving the passenger experience, and most importantly detecting potential threats."

U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) are introducing a bill to crack down on money laundering and financing of terrorists and rogue nations via cryptocurrency. CoinDesk reports: If it becomes law, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act (PDF) will bring know-your-customer (KYC) rules to crypto participants such as wallet providers and miners and prohibit financial institutions from transacting with digital asset mixers, which are tools designed to obscure the origin of funds. The act would also allow the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to implement a proposed rule requiring institutions to report certain transactions involving unhosted wallets -- wallets where the user has complete control over the contents rather than relying on an exchange or other third party.

A NASA-led international satellite mission was set for blastoff from Southern California early on Thursday on a major Earth science project to conduct a comprehensive survey of the world's oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time. Reuters reports: Dubbed SWOT, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, the advanced radar satellite is designed to give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70% of the planet, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change. A Falcon 9 rocket, owned and operated by billionaire Elon Musk's commercial launch company SpaceX, was set to liftoff before dawn on Thursday from the Vandenberg U.S. Space Force Base, about 170 miles (275 km) northwest of Los Angeles, to carry SWOT into orbit. If all goes as planned, the SUV-sized satellite will produce research data within several months.

Nearly 20 years in development, SWOT incorporates advanced microwave radar technology that scientists say will collect height-surface measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers in high-definition detail over 90% of the globe. The data, compiled from radar sweeps of the planet at least twice every 21 days, will enhance ocean-circulation models, bolster weather and climate forecasts and aid in managing scarce freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions, according to researchers. One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a natural process that moderates global temperatures and climate change. [...] SWOT's ability to discern smaller surface features also be used to study the impact of rising ocean levels on coastlines.