Latest News
Last updated 17 Jan, 10:59 PM
BBC News
US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban law - A law passed last year requires TikTok's Chinese parent company to sell the video platform or face a ban.
'War will last as long as Russia does': Ukrainian talk of victory fades as Trump returns - Those fighting for Ukraine and those who have lost loved ones hope to end the war with Russia on their own terms.
Secrets of The Traitors: From blindfolded car journeys to sleeping locations - Harry Clark is among the former contestants who reveals some of the show's secrets to the BBC.
US grounds SpaceX's Starship after test flight explosion - The rocket's upper stage disintegrated over the Caribbean, forcing airline flights to alter course.
Decoding Donald Trump's new official portrait - Photographers describe the photo as "serious", "ominous" and a "message picture".
The Register
FCC to telcos: By law you must secure your networks from foreign spies. Get on it - Plus: Uncle Sam is cross with this one Chinese biz over Salt Typhoon mega-snooping Decades-old legislation requiring American telcos to lock down their systems to prevent foreign snoops from intercepting communications isn't mere decoration on the pages of law books – it actually means carriers need to secure their networks, the FCC has huffed.…
Biden signs sweeping cybersecurity order, just in time for Trump to gut it - Ransomware, AI, secure software, digital IDs – there's something for everyone in the presidential directive Analysis Joe Biden, in the final days of his US presidency, issued another cybersecurity order that is nearly as vast in scope as it is late in the game.…
China to probe US chip subsidies as export curbs rattle allies - Beijing investigating claims of unfair competition in mature semiconductors The "chip wars" between the US and China show no sign of cooling off as Beijing prepares to examine whether America is unfairly subsidizing its own semiconductor companies. Meanwhile, Washington's latest export restrictions have angered even some of its allies.…
Fortinet: FortiGate config leaks are genuine but misleading - Competition hots up with Ivanti over who can have the worst start to a year Fortinet has confirmed that previous analyses of records leaked by the Belsen Group are indeed genuine FortiGate configs stolen during a zero-day raid in 2022.…
Clock ticking for TikTok as US Supreme Court upholds ban - With Biden reportedly planning to skirt enforcement and kick the can to Trump, this saga might still not be over updated The US Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring TikTok to either divest from its Chinese parent ByteDance or face a ban in the United States. The decision eliminates the final legal obstacle to the federal government forcing a shutdown of the platform for US users on January 19.…
New Scientist - News
Fire at world’s largest battery facility is a clean energy setback - A fire at Vistra Energy's Moss Landing battery storage facility in California destroyed thousands of lithium batteries – and a significant amount of the state's clean energy storage capacity
Tiny insect-like robot can flip, loop and hover for up to 15 minutes - A flying robot the size of a postage stamp can hover for up to 15 minutes without breaking, and it can perform acrobatic manoeuvres
2024 may have been the rainiest – as well as hottest – year on record - Global average precipitation in 2024 may have broken the previous record set in 1998, as rising temperatures boosted the amount of moisture in the atmosphere
US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban – but the fight isn't over yet - Now that the US Supreme Court has decided that a law banning TikTok is constitutional, the platform is set to shut down in the US on 19 January – but Trump could still save it
World's first AI chatbot has finally been resurrected after decades - ELIZA is famous as a rudimentary artificial intelligence and the first ever chatbot, but versions found online today are actually knock-offs because the original computer code was lost – until now
Hacker News
Investigating an "Evil" RJ45 Dongle - Comments
So You Want to Build Your Own Data Center - Comments
Brood War Korean Translations - Comments
Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline - Comments
Branchless UTF-8 Encoding - Comments
Slashdot
US Sanctions Chinese Firm, Hacker Behind Telecom and Treasury Hacks - The U.S. Department of the Treasury's OFAC has sanctioned Yin Kecheng and Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co. for their roles in a recent Treasury breach and espionage operations targeting U.S. telecommunications. BleepingComputer reports: "Yin Kecheng has been a cyber actor for over a decade and is affiliated with the People's Republic of China Ministry of State Security (MSS)," reads the Treasury's announcement. "Yin Kecheng was associated with the recent compromise of the Department of the Treasury's Departmental Offices network," says the agency. OFAC also announced sanctions against Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., a Chinese cybersecurity firm believed to be directly involved with the Salt Typhoon state hacker group. Salt Typhoon was recently linked to several breaches on major U.S. telecommunications and internet service providers to spy on confidential communications of high-profile targets. "Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., LTD. (Sichuan Juxinhe) had direct involvement in the exploitation of these U.S. telecommunication and internet service provider companies," the U.S. Treasury explains, adding that "the MSS has maintained strong ties with multiple computer network exploitation companies, including Sichuan Juxinhe." [...] The sanctions imposed on Kecheng and the Chinese cybersecurity firm under Executive Order (E.O.) 13694 block all property and financial assets located in the United States or are in the possession of U.S. entities, including banks, businesses, and individuals. Additionally, U.S. entities are prohibited from conducting any transactions with the sanctioned entities without OFAC's explicit authorization. It's worth noting that these sanctions come after OFAC sanctioned Beijing-based cybersecurity company Integrity Tech for its involvement in cyberattacks attributed to the Chinese state-sponsored Flax Typhoon hacking group. U.S. Treasury's announcement reiterates that the U.S. Department of State offers, through its Rewards for Justice program, up to $10,000,000 for information leading to uncovering the identity of hackers who have targeted the U.S. government or critical infrastructure in the country. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Russian Disinformation Campaigns Eluded Meta's Efforts To Block Them - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: A Russian organization linked to the Kremlin's covert influence campaigns posted more than 8,000 political advertisements on Facebook despite European and American restrictions barring companies from doing business with the organization, according to three organizations that track disinformation online. The Russian group, the Social Design Agency, evaded lax enforcement by Facebook to place an estimated $338,000 worth of ads aimed at European users over a period of 15 months that ended in October, even though the platform itself highlighted the threat, the three organizations said in a report released on Friday. The Social Design Agency has faced punitive sanctions in the European Union since 2023 and in the United States since April for spreading propaganda and disinformation to unsuspecting users on social media. The ad campaigns on Facebook raise "critical questions about the platform's compliance" with American and European laws, the report said. [...] The Social Design Agency is a public relations company in Moscow that, according to American and European officials, operates a sophisticated influence operation known as Doppelganger. Since 2022, Doppelganger has created cartoon memes and online clones of real news sites, like Le Monde and The Washington Post, to spread propaganda and disinformation, often about the war in Ukraine. [...] The organizations documenting the campaign -- Check First, a Finnish research company, along with Reset.Tech in London and AI Forensics in Paris -- focused on efforts to sway Facebook users in France, Germany, Poland and Italy. Doppelganger has been also linked to influence operations in the United States, Israel and other countries, but those are not included in the report's findings. [...] The researchers estimated that the ads resulted in more than 123,000 clicks by users and netted Meta at least $338,000 in the European Union alone. The researchers acknowledged that the figures provide only one, incomplete example of the Russian agency's efforts. In addition to propagating Russia's views on Ukraine, the agency posted ads in response to major news events, including theHamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and a terrorist attack in a Moscow suburb last March that killed 145 people. The ads would often appear within 48 hours, trying to shape public perceptions of events. After the Oct. 7 attacks, the ads pushed false claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas. The ads reached more than 237,000 accounts over two to three days, "underscoring the operation's capacity to weaponize current events in support of geopolitical narratives," the researcher's report said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Fire Erupts At Huge Battery Plant In California - Longtime Slashdot reader sfcat shares a report from the Associated Press: Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate and part of Highway 1 in Northern California was closed when a major fire erupted Thursday afternoon at one of the world's largest battery storage plants. As the fire sent up towering flames and black smoke and showed no sign of easing by Thursday night, about 1,500 people were instructed to leave Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area, The Mercury News reported. The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (about 124 kilometers) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries. The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out. "There's no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in. According to reports, the fire originated in the 300-megawatt Phase I section of the 750-megawatt facility, located on the site of a retired PG&E natural gas plant. It's unclear what caused the fire, but officials said a full investigation will begin after it's out. Thankfully, everyone at the site was evacuated safely. Videos and images of the fire can be found here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft-OpenAI Partnership Raises Antitrust Concerns, FTC Says - Microsoft's $13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent AI market, the Federal Trade Commission said in a report released Friday. From a report: The commission said Microsoft's deal with OpenAI, as well as Amazon and Google's partnerships with AI company Anthropic, raise the risk that AI developers could be "fully acquired" by the tech giants in the future. "The FTC's report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key AI inputs, and reveal sensitive information that can undermine fair competition," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. The FTC has the power to open market studies to glean more information about industry trends. The findings can be used to inform future actions. It's unclear what the agency's new leadership under the Trump administration will do with the report. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FBI Warned Agents It Believes Phone Logs Hacked Last Year - An anonymous reader shares a report: FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T's system last year stole months of their agents' call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows. FBI officials told agents across the country that details about their use on the telecom carrier's network were believed to be among the billions of records stolen, according to the document and interviews with a current and a former law enforcement official. They asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information. Data from all FBI devices under the bureau's AT&T service for public safety agencies were presumed taken, the document shows. The cache of hacked AT&T records didn't reveal the substance of communications but, according to the document, could link investigators to their secret sources. The data was believed to include agents' mobile phone numbers and the numbers with which they called and texted, the document shows. Records for calls and texts that weren't on the AT&T network, such as through encrypted messaging apps, weren't part of the stolen data. Read more of this story at Slashdot.