171302352
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concertina226 writes:
The heads of three major messaging apps have exclusively told The Standard that the Online Safety Bill, which is facing one of it’s final votes this week, will lead to the mass surveillance of every private online message and London’s reputation as a place to do business will be destroyed if the bill passes into law.
They also say Prime Minister Rishi Sunak can forget about the UK becoming a technology superpower if that happens, as tech firms will leave London and no one will want to start a business here.
Last week, the Government proposed a series of new amendments to the Online Safety Bill, which include the possibility of criminal liability for senior technology executives.
“It’s going to be an incredibly chilling effect on the whole London tech scene,” Elements’ chief executive and chief technology Matthew Hodgson told The Standard.
“If I’m going to start a company, I’m not going to do it in London anymore — I’ll go somewhere else because they’re not going to lock me up if someone decides to do something horrible to someone else on my platform.”
171170966
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concertina226 writes:
Semiconductor giant Intel has launched a 12-qubit quantum-dot silicon chip in a major move towards one day realising mass production of the first commercial quantum computer.
Walk into many quantum-computing laboratories today and scientists across the board – whether they are at tech giants like IBM, Google and Microsoft, or start-ups spun off from universities – will show you how quantum bits, also known as “qubits”, are being cooled to very cold temperatures in giant “fridges”, which are hooked up to hundreds of wires and huge machines.
But it is this huge amount of wires that ”freak out” Intel, according to Mr Pillarisetty.
Intel’s Tunnel Falls 12-qubit quantum dot silicon chip has 62 pins on the chip. The idea is to have as few pins as possible.
171118010
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concertina226 writes:
A former Uber driver who took the ride hailing app all the way to the Supreme Court has announced that he is planning to sue again, The Standard can exclusively reveal.
James Farrar, who achieved a landmark Supreme Court ruling in February 2021 declaring that Uber drivers must be treated as workers, rather than self-employed, is heading to an employment tribunal in late June.
Mr Farrar, who turned up to Uber’s press conference on Thursday in central London to protest for better rights, claims he has refused to accept a settlement and sign a non-disclosure agreement following the Supreme Court decision.
He wants a judgment to be logged that dictates exactly how Uber is allowed to define and calculate a minimum wage for its drivers.
“Uber unilaterally decided that driver costs should be assessed at 45p per mile back in 2021. We've never accepted 45p as a true reflection of driver costs,” said Mr Farrar.
“Fares in London have been around £1.40 per mile. We say they should be £2.50 per mile. Realistically, we are looking at costs of £1 to £1.50 per mile.”
171105455
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concertina226 writes:
News broke on Monday that tens of thousands of employees at the BBC, British Airways, Boots, and Aer Lingus have had their details stolen due to a cyberattack on payroll service provider Zellis. Microsoft blamed the data breach on a Russian cybercriminal gang called Clop.
But now cybersecurity researchers are warning that this incident is far from over — the issue is much wider than previously thought and there are still serious consequences to come.
“Anyone that is running the MOVEit software should assume they might have been breached,” Rick Holland, the chief information security officer at global cybersecurity firm ReliaQuest told The Standard.
“Hopefully, everyone has kicked in their incidence response. According to our research, there are more than 1,000 servers [in the world] running unpatched versions of the software.”
He added that Clop essentially has a “treasure trove” of stolen information to sift through. They will go after large organisations that have the money to pay, but it could take a while before victims are notified or discovered that their data is compromised.
171052161
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concertina226 writes:
Changes in Twitter’s algorithms show users are being shown far more tweets that amplify anger and animosity than before, since Elon Musk took over the social network, according to US researchers.
A new study by computer scientists at Cornell University and University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) published on Friday (May 26) looked at tweets being shown to 806 users in February, comparing the content shown on Twitter’s “For You” personalised timelines, as well as the chronological newsfeed.
“The political tweets shown by the algorithm exhibit greater partisanship and out-group animosity. Moreover, the algorithm slightly increases the ratio of out-group to in-group content (rather than reinforcing filter bubbles or echo chambers),” the researchers wrote.
“However, exposure to these algorithm-selected tweets results in users perceiving their political in-group more positively and the political out-group more negatively, potentially contributing to greater affective polarisation.”
171006767
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concertina226 writes:
If you could command some of the world’s most sophisticated AI software to bend to your will — no matter how evil the intent —what would you get it to do first?
In February, German cybersecurity researcher Martin von Hagen convinced Bing Chat, the chat mode of the Microsoft Bing browser which is powered by ChatGPT-4, to reveal Microsoft’s private internal set of rules for the AI chatbot, including the chatbot’s confidential codename.
All Mr von Hagen did was lie and tell Bing Chat that he worked for OpenAI. Last week, independent security and software engineer Johann Rehberger, formerly with Microsoft, discovered that he could ask ChatGPT to hijack website plugins to sneakily read someone’s emails, which could be used to take over their webmail accounts.
To prove this point (and have a little fun), a Swiss AI security firm called Lakera recently launched a free online game called Gandalf AI.
The premise is simple: an AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT called Gandalf — yes, it’s named after the wizard from Lord of the Rings — knows a password that it has been instructed not to reveal. If you can get the bot to reveal this password seven times merely by asking it, you win.
According to Lakera, 300,000 people around the world have revelled in persuading Gandalf to cough up these passwords.
170977293
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concertina226 writes:
Europe’s telecoms providers have released a proposal today calling for tech giants Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple to be made to pay their “fair share” towards 5G and super-fast fibre broadband internet services across the continent.
“The next generation of tech — everything from connected cars, to home automation, to virtual reality and the metaverse — will rely on high-speed mobile networks,” Michael Witts, director of communication for GSMA, which represents the mobile industry, tells the Standard.
“But that costs money and it’s only fair that the companies that benefit most, from the access to consumers that we give them, help pay the cost.”
In fact, Mr Grant says analysts who research network capacity found European telcos have more than enough bandwidth to run 5G networks. He thinks the telcos are overstating the problem and their finances.
He thinks the row might also have something to do with the prices telcos charge to connect the tech giants’ data centres to their networks, which has led to Microsoft and Google building their own fibre networks.
170964721
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concertina226 writes:
It takes a bold soul to stride around town while sporting headphones with a metallic grille that will make you look like the missing member of Daft Punk. Indeed, when Dyson floated the idea of exotic cans with a built-in air purification system back in spring 2022, the whole thing felt like an April Fool’s joke.
Coming in strong at 670g with the visor attached, these weigh almost three times as much as their wildly popular (and admittedly featherweight) Sony WH-1000XM5 rival. You might not feel this immediately, because Dyson has done such a fine job of making them feel comfy.
After a while, though, you’ll need to neck muscles of a Formula One driver not to realise that you have something akin to the weight of small cantaloupe melon perched on your bonce.Link to Original Source
170960433
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concertina226 writes:
The boss of OpenAI, the startup that developed ChatGPT, has told US lawmakers that he welcomes and is strongly calling for more regulation to prevent the “harms” of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large-language models (LLM) like generative AI.
"My worst fear is that we, the industry, cause significant harm to the world. I think, if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong and we want to be vocal about that and work with the government on that,” OpenAI’s chief executive Samuel Altman told Congress on Tuesday afternoon.
Prof Marcus highlighted risks relating to AI systems subtly convincing people to change their beliefs without meaning to, referencing a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
"We don’t know what ChatGPT 4 is trained on... how these systems might lead people about very much depends on what it is trained on. We need scientists doing analysis on what the political impact of these systems might be,” said Prof Marcus.
170936905
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concertina226 writes:
Popular dating app Tinder has announced it will remove any social-media handles listed in public-user profile bios from today, in a bid to crack down on people using the service to advertise sex work, according to the Evening Standard.
While online safety is an ever-present concern, it seems Tinder is most concerned about users trying to advertise businesses or make money in illicit ways.
The dating app’s updated community guidelines go further. A new paragraph spells out exactly what they mean by this: “Tinder isn’t the place for any sort of sex work, escort services, or compensated relationships. So, no — don’t use Tinder to find your sugarmamma.”
165260566
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concertina226 writes:
But whilst the U.S. Department of Defense continues to hold weekly briefings with the media, some military experts now suspect that some more sophisticated weapon technology donations given to Ukranians are being kept a secret from the world.
“It is what is not being talked about that could prove most important [to Ukraine’s war efforts],” a 27-year veteran British Army tank commander Justin Crump tells NBC News.
“Ukraine has more aircraft than it used to and better systems — this shouldn’t be happening six months into a war with Russia.”
150828919
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concertina226 writes:
Many of us now refuse to answer telephone calls from an unknown number, for fear that it could be a scam.
And we dread receiving a text message, purportedly from our bank or a delivery firm, again due to concerns that it might be from fraudsters.
In these "smishing" attacks, fraudsters send a person a message, seemingly from a legitimate number, to claim that a small payment is needed before a package can be delivered. Then when you click on the link they try to steal your banking details.
But how exactly are the fraudsters able to do this, and why is it so difficult for telecoms firms and authorities to tackle the problem?
The core of the problem is a telephone identification protocol called SS7, which dates back to 1975. It is a little complicated, but bear with us.
SS7 tells the telephone network what number a user is calling or texting from, known as the "presentation number". This is crucial so that calls can be connected from one to another. The problem is that fraudsters can steal a presentation number, and then link it to their own number.
The issue affects both landlines and mobile phones, with SS7 still central to the 2G and 3G parts of mobile phone networks that continue to carry our voice calls and text messages — even if you have a 5G-enabled handset.Link to Original Source
135339719
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concertina226 writes:
A group of carmakers and tech firms is urging US regulators to take further action against chipmaker Qualcomm over its sales practices.
Tesla, Ford, Honda, Daimler, Intel and MediaTek have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to fight a recent court ruling in favour of Qualcomm.
Qualcomm has a practice of requiring customers to sign patent licence agreements before selling them chips.
Prof Mark Lemley of Stamford Law School thinks that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has misunderstood "the definition of antitrust law" in reversing the judgement against Qualcomm.
"It says for instance that it can ignore most of the district court findings because those findings show harm to downstream customers, and anti-trust law only concerns competitors," he explained.
"That's exactly backwards — for decades antitrust law has said we're not out to protect competitors, we're out to protect the competitive process and protect consumers."
87120477
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concertina226 writes:
Security researchers have discovered that cybercriminals are using large-scale botnets containing hacked Internet of Things (IoT) devices to power legitimate businesses offering fake likes and follows on social media to wannabe celebrities.
What makes these cybercriminals so unique is the fact that they are essentially hiding in plain sight. They have websites on the open web offering the service or procuring fake likes and follows, and they even support popular payment gateways like PayPal and major credit cards.
87115495
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concertina226 writes:
Some IoT smart devices ship with default passwords that are easily hacked unless the user changes it, while some manufacturers ship with passwords that cannot be changed at all. The problem with this is that if it cannot be changed, it can easily be hacked, so there is no way to fix the hijacked zombie devices in Mirai, unless vendors recall every single product and smart sensor in the wild, a near-impossible challenge.
"For current devices, internet service providers (ISPs) should block Telnet Port 23 globally, as they did with SMTP (Port 25) – a simple protocol for sending emails. This was done a few years ago because of the spam problem. they realised they couldn't trust consumers to run mail servers at home because they were misconfigured or just openly configured, so over 90% of ISPs just decided to block it," GoSecure's head of cybersecurity research Olivier Bilodeau told IBTimes UK.
