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Submission + - First Agentic AI Data Breach Reported to Spanish Regulator (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Spain’s data protection regulator is investigating what may be the first reported personal-data breach executed through an AI agent. According to the filing, the agent allegedly chained together a successful login, vulnerability discovery, modification of personal data, and access to invoices.

Details remain limited, and researchers caution against assuming a “rogue AI” scenario. Still, the incident raises a consequential question for defenders: as attackers use agents to plan, execute, and adapt at machine speed, will traditional human-led detection and response remain fast enough?

Submission + - Why can't M$ get any UI/UX changes right? (pcmag.com)

Submitted by golem100
golem100 writes: A couple weeks ago PCMag, and others, wrote articles along the lines of: "Microsoft Finally Backs Down: The Windows 11 Taskbar Update You've Been Waiting For". This is currently implemented with CU KB5120998 and since M$ has elected to defer "activation" of this feature--some two weeks later for most users it still needs to be enabled by the ViVe tool: vivetool /enable /id:59213768,61090762

Um, No...

The fundamental set of [lost] attributes that this "We brought Movable TaskBar back" lacks:

You can not control the position of the TaskBar on each desktop monitor--example: I have four displays on my desktop, three Landscape & one of which is in a Portrait orientation for reading documents.

With Windows7/8/10 you could position the TaskBar so that it was "Out of the way" and each display--on the right side of the right-most Landscape, on the left for the left-most Landscape display, & on the top/bottom for the Portrait. [same as my desktop on my Linux workstation]
Now you still get the same Taskbar alignment on all desktops.

You can not "resize" the taskbar. (well, you can--it has three sizes: too big, too small, and really way too small) For the previous three generations of the OS you could "Drag-Select" and resize the TaskBar to be the correct size for your needs on your desktop. [...just as I can on my KDE Desktop!]
With this implementation, 1/3 of the Taskbar real estate is consumed with "TaskBar-Tray Notification Icons."

Nobody asked for a partial, broken, re-implementation. The ask was: "Put it Back as it was!"
Dealing with M$ is pretty much like getting your 15 year old to do their chores on garbage night.

Submission + - Hackers Stole Flockâ(TM)s Camera Software, Revealing How the Company Tracks (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: While much of the automatic license plate readerâ(TM)s (ALPR) most sensitive storage remained encrypted and inaccessible, the joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclistâ(TM)s saddlebag.

Submission + - The 'Anti-AI' Panic Is Led by...AI Companies (hotair.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: What we are seeing is a massive, pretty obviously coordinated campaign by AI researchers, companies, NGOs, and politicians to strangle competition in an industry and, as I will show, save the financial bacon of the top AI companies that are vastly overextended financially because they have made contractual commitments that they simply have no prospect of paying for.

Submission + - Welcome to the Security Singularity (safety.google) 4

Submitted by shanen
shanen writes: Or should this be an AskSlashdot about how to avoid such problems? But mostly I think it's a funny story to build a rant around. Or it could be regarded as a kind of spinoff of the recent story about record numbers of patches from Microsoft. Is the AI fixing old bugs? Or have recent AI-driven patches created more bugs that need to be fixed in the next month's record-setting patch package?

But here's the background of my funny story. My smartphone contract has a price structure linked to data usage. The least expensive tier is for less data (of course) so I try to use Wi-Fi as much as possible. No recent problems on that front in terms of using too much data.

Often I wind up using municipal Wi-Fi systems, but they are divided up into fairly small regions here. The login procedures vary quite a bit. Yesterday I was in a memorial museum doing a bit of research and that particular municipality has a somewhat different login system for their Wi-Fi. One of the options was to use my google account... Usually a convenient and quick approach.

But this time something caused the google to go berserk. Leading to hours of password changes and account recoveries and battles between my various computers and my smartphone and I'm pert' shure there's still more to come. No idea what the google thinks it is protecting me from, but the "convenient and quick approach" led to a major nightmare. In the end it appears my SIM was my only salvation?

Slashdot wants a URL, so I linked to the google's page on the topic. Doubleplusungood on steroids.

Submission + - Bipartisan support to blacklist Appin, a cyber espionage firm. (techdirt.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: There’s a cyber espionage firm called Appin that doesn’t like you mentioning that it’s a cyber espionage firm. So, definitely don’t say that Appin is a cyber espionage firm. Also, don’t forward any articles about Appin, the cyber espionage firm.

This week, Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Rep. Pat Harrigan, sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, asking him to add Appin and several related companies to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) “Entity List” , the tool that effectively cuts foreign entities deemed national security threats off from American technology and American business partners.

Submission + - Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at 2,357 Degrees Celsius (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Alert is reporting that Scientists have now demonstrated one of the weirdest forms of ice yet – under preposterous pressures up to 2.3 million atmospheres, and tremendous temperatures up to 2,630 kelvins (2,357 degrees Celsius, or 4,274 degrees Fahrenheit).

This superionic water ice is a deeply odd state of matter that's neither entirely solid nor entirely liquid. Its oxygen atoms remain fixed in a rigid crystal lattice, as they would in a solid. But the hydrogen nuclei are mobile, diffusing through that lattice more like particles in a liquid.

Researchers squeezed the samples between the tips of diamonds to pressures as high as 230 gigapascals, while using lasers to heat them to thousands of degrees. That's 2.3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level – the pressure at the center of Earth, for context, is around 360 gigapascals.

Then, using an extremely narrow beam of synchrotron X-rays, they probed for changes in the crystal structure of the ice.

What emerged was a configuration predicted theoretically but never unambiguously observed in experiments: hexagonal close-packed, or hcp, ice. As the hcp crystal was heated, its expansion also showed a signature of superionic behavior, suggesting it entered the superionic state at around 1,700 kelvins.

Superionic ice is thought to exist deep inside Uranus and Neptune, where its unusual properties may play a role in generating the planets' equally unusual magnetic fields.

The findings have been published in Physical Review Letters: Observation of Hexagonal Close-Packed Water Ice at Conditions in Ice Giant Planetary Interiors

Submission + - Lawsuit challenges intimidation of DHS observers across the country (npr.org)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: NPR reports that a new lawsuit follows a handful of other cases brought by observers arguing First Amendment violations, but it is the most sweeping to date, as it includes incidents from multiple states and seeks national relief. It is asking a judge in Washington, D.C. to bar federal agencies from intimidating or retaliating against observers.

"The right of citizens to criticize and hold our government accountable is the backbone of American democracy – and it is under attack," Common Cause's vice president for litigation, Maryam Jazini Dorcheh, told NPR. "We want to make sure we're promoting participation in the political process. And obviously, if government officials are criminalizing peaceful observation, that hinders our mission," Jazini Dorcheh said.

The lawsuit describes disturbing encounters seven Common Cause members had with federal officers in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey after trying to observe immigration enforcement. They include being photographed, followed, reported to police, pepper-sprayed or threatened with a visit to their home by federal officers. Federal officers did show up at one Common Cause member's Minnesota home.

NPR did not receive an immediate response from DHS or DOJ about the lawsuit's allegations. The FBI declined to comment.

Submission + - Dark energy debunked? Cosmic acceleration may be an illusion (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: A new analysis of more than 1,700 supernovae is questioning whether the universe is really accelerating at all. After accounting for the ages of the stars that produce these explosions, researchers found signs that cosmic expansion may actually be slowing. They also argue that the apparent acceleration changes with direction, which would be difficult to explain with dark energy. Other cosmologists dispute the conclusion, setting up a major test for upcoming observatories.

Submission + - Free speech dies in Britian (breitbart.com)

Submitted by noshellswill
noshellswill writes: Brit neo-Stalinist speech laws have resulted in arrest of 60-thousand Brits during the last five years. Angle-Saxon common law has been overwrit by Trotsky-slut OxBridge agendistas. So USA computer /devs traveling to Britain had better review past code & email posts to ensure they does not cause arrest upon arrival.

Submission + - New York City Forced to Release 170,000 Pages Exposing 9/11 Toxic Air Deception (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: New York City has been forced to release more than 170,000 pages of documents exposing how government officials assured Americans that the air around Ground Zero was safe despite evidence showing dangerous contaminants remained in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The massive document release comes 25 years after thousands of first responders, workers, residents, and others were exposed to the toxic cloud that engulfed Lower Manhattan following the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The records show officials had information indicating troubling levels of asbestos and other hazardous contaminants while the public was being reassured about the safety of the air.

The documents are now being released after transparency organization 9/11 Health Watch sued New York City to force their disclosure.

The revelations come as people exposed to the toxic aftermath continue to suffer and die from cancers, respiratory illnesses, heart disease, and other conditions decades later.

The newly disclosed records contain evidence of hazardous conditions extending beyond the immediate footprint of the Twin Towers.

In November 2001 an audit was prepared by a private company and submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency that relied on information collected by New York City and state agencies.

The findings raised serious concerns.

“That audit demonstrated that air concentration of the carcinogen benzene was still spiking near the towers’ footprint, and that the concentration of asbestos in the air at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island had increased after the attacks,” the New York Times reported.

The records also show higher-than-acceptable levels of asbestos and other contaminants in dust and air elsewhere in Lower Manhattan.

Yet Americans were being told something very different.

Officials Told the Public the Air Was ‘Safe’

Submission + - Journalist Calls Out 'Collective Amnesia' of Schools' Romance with Big Tech 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The74 reports that in her new book, Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools ("the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America"), Natasha Singer, a veteran business reporter for The New York Times, traces Big Tech's bid to persuade schools to embrace their products, with industry-sponsored curricula and tools growing at astonishing speed.

In his book review of Coding Kids , Aran Shetterly begins with a Spoiler Alert: "Turns out, Silicon Valley isn’t especially altruistic." He writes, "At the center of her book is the story of the nonprofit Code.org and its charismatic, Harvard-educated leader, Hadi Partovi. Thirteen years ago, Partovi produced a five-minute video called “What Most Schools Don’t Teach.” This 'audacious act of Silicon Valley influencer marketing...aimed...at a low-resourced nonprofit sector: public schools serving millions of children,' delivered a worrying message: Kids who didn’t learn to write code would be left behind. And the long-term success of the United States economy depended on training these students to fill a million open tech jobs. [...] No word in Coding Kids chills more than 'democratize.' 'Democratizing' sounds a lot like 'democracy,' but the tech-elite byword has nothing to do with a form of government; from the lips of the tech barons, it means enforcing ubiquitous access to their products."

Fast-forward to 2026, and now we're dealing with AI, and tech is reading from a similar playbook. Asked by The74's Greg Toppo, "Does this moment seem different to you?", Singer replies, "This moment is different, but also similar. We are in a moment in society where a lot of people have increased distrust of these huge tech companies, and we see a wave of parents pushing back against tech in schools. [...] We have had these cycles of tech in schools where there are all these promises about the latest tech, laptops, learning apps, massive open online courses, virtual reality, big data's going to revolutionize schools and like democratize access to education for kids and get them these great career skills, and we keep having these cycles. My concern is that we don't learn anything. One of the reasons I wrote this book is because it feels like we have collective amnesia. Now we're in the sixth or eighth cycle of this — and shouldn't we be asking questions about the push for AI in schools, based on what we've learned about the push for all the other things that came before?"

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