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[32]Close binspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe offtopicflamebaittrollredundantoverrated insightfulinterestinginformativefunnyunderrated descriptive typodupeerror [33]Sign up for the Slashdot newsletter! OR [34]check out the new Slashdot job board to browse remote jobs or jobs in your area Do you develop on GitHub? You can keep using GitHub but automatically [35]sync your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with [36]this tool so your projects have a backup location, and get your project in front of SourceForge's nearly 30 million monthly users. It takes less than a minute. Get new users downloading your project releases today! [37]× 173085692 story [38]Crime [39]Zeus, IcedID Malware Kingpin Faces 40 Years In Prison [40](theregister.com) [41]7 Posted by [42]BeauHD on Saturday February 17, 2024 @05:00AM from the law-enforcement-wins dept. Connor Jones reports via The Register: A Ukrainian cybercrime kingpin who ran some of the most pervasive malware operations [43]faces 40 years in prison after spending nearly a decade on the FBI's Cyber Most Wanted List. Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov, 37, pleaded guilty this week in the US to two charges related to his leadership role in both the [44]Zeus and [45]IcedID malware operations that netted millions of dollars in the process. Penchukov's plea will be seen as the latest big win for US law enforcement in its continued fight against cybercrime and those that enable it. However, authorities took their time getting him in 'cuffs. [...] "Malware like IcedID bleeds billions from the American economy and puts our critical infrastructure and national security at risk," said US attorney Michael Easley for the eastern district of North Carolina. "The Justice Department and FBI Cyber Squad won't stand by and watch it happen, and won't quit coming for the world's most wanted cybercriminals, no matter where they are in the world. This operation removed a key player from one of the world's most notorious cybercriminal rings. Extradition is real. Anyone who infects American computers had better be prepared to answer to an American judge." This week, he admitted one count of conspiracy to commit a racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations (RICO) act offense relating to Zeus, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in relation to IcedID. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. His sentencing date is set for May 9, 2024. Zeus malware, a banking trojan that formed a botnet for financial theft, caused over $100 million in losses before its 2014 dismantlement. Its successor, SpyEye, incorporated enhanced features for financial fraud. Despite the 2014 takedown of Zeus, Penchukov moved on to lead IcedID, a similar malware first found in 2017. IcedID evolved from banking fraud to ransomware, severely affecting the University of Vermont Medical Center in 2020 with over $30 million in damages. apply tags__________ 173085650 story [46]Space [47]Scientists Discover Water On Surface of an Asteroid [48](space.com) [49]12 Posted by [50]BeauHD on Saturday February 17, 2024 @02:00AM from the that's-a-first dept. For the first time, scientists say they've [51]detected water molecules on the surface of an asteroid. Space.com reports: Scientists studied four silicate-rich asteroids using data gathered by the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope-outfitted plane operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. Observations by SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera (FORCAST) instrument showed that two of the asteroids -- named Iris and Massalia -- exhibit a specific wavelength of light that indicated the presence of water molecules at their surface, a new study reports. While water molecules have previously been detected in asteroid samples returned to Earth, this is the first time that water molecules have been found on the surface of an asteroid in space. In a previous study, SOFIA found similar traces of water on the surface of the moon, in one of the largest craters in its southern hemisphere. [...] Therefore, the findings at Iris and Massalia suggest that some silicate asteroids can conserve some of their water over the eons and may be more commonly found in the inner solar system than previously thought. In fact, asteroids are believed to be the primary source of Earth's water, providing the necessary elements for life as we know it. Understanding of the distribution of water through space will help researchers better assess where to search for other forms of potential life, both in our solar system and beyond. The findings have been [52]published in The Planetary Science Journal. apply tags__________ 173085630 story [53]Government [54]California Bill Wants To Scrap Environmental Reviews To Save Downtown San Francisco [55](sfchronicle.com) [56]61 Posted by [57]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @10:30PM from the revitalization-efforts dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from the San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco's leaders have spent the past few years desperately trying to figure out how to deal with a glut of empty offices, shuttered retail and public safety concerns plaguing the city's once vibrant downtown. Now, a California lawmaker wants to try a sweeping plan to revive the city's core [58]by exempting most new real estate projects from environmental review, potentially quickening development by months or even years. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, [59]introduced SB1227 on Friday as a proposal to exempt downtown projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, for a decade. The 1970 landmark law requires studies of a project's expected impact on air, water, noise and other areas, but Wiener said it has been abused to slow down or kill infill development near public transit. "Downtown San Francisco matters to our city's future, and it's struggling -- to bring people back, we need to make big changes and have open minds," Wiener said in a statement. "That starts with remodeling, converting, or even replacing buildings that may have become outdated and that simply aren't going to succeed going forward." Eligible projects would include academic institutions, sports facilities, mixed-use projects including housing, biotech labs, offices, public works and even smaller changes such as modifying an existing building's exterior. The city's existing zoning and permit requirements would remain intact. "We're not taking away any local control," Wiener said in an interview with the Chronicle on Friday. California Sen. Scott Wiener is proposing a bill that, he said, would make it easier for San Francisco's downtown area to recover from the pandemic. However, it's not clear how much of an impact the bill would have if it's eventually passed since other factors are at play. New construction has been nearly frozen in San Francisco since the pandemic, amid consistently high labor costs, elevated interest rates and weakening demand for both apartments and commercial space.Major developers have reiterated that they have no plans to start work on significant new projects any time soon. Last week, Kilroy Realty, which has approval for a massive 2.3 million-square-foot redevelopment ofSouth of Market's Flower Mart, said no groundbreakings are planned this year -- anywhere. apply tags__________ 173085540 story [60]AI [61]Scientists Propose AI Apocalypse Kill Switches [62]52 Posted by [63]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @09:02PM from the someone-had-to-say-it dept. A [64]paper (PDF) from researchers at the University of Cambridge, supported by voices from numerous academic institutions including OpenAI, [65]proposes remote kill switches and lockouts as methods to mitigate risks associated with advanced AI technologies. It also recommends tracking AI chip sales globally. The Register reports: The paper highlights numerous ways policymakers might approach AI hardware regulation. Many of the suggestions -- including those designed to improve visibility and limit the sale of AI accelerators -- are already playing out at a national level. Last year US president Joe Biden put forward an executive order aimed at identifying companies developing large dual-use AI models as well as the infrastructure vendors capable of training them. If you're not familiar, "dual-use" refers to technologies that can serve double duty in civilian and military applications. More recently, the US Commerce Department proposed regulation that would require American cloud providers to implement more stringent "know-your-customer" policies to prevent persons or countries of concern from getting around export restrictions. This kind of visibility is valuable, researchers note, as it could help to avoid another arms race, like the one triggered by the missile gap controversy, where erroneous reports led to massive build up of ballistic missiles. While valuable, they warn that executing on these reporting requirements risks invading customer privacy and even lead to sensitive data being leaked. Meanwhile, on the trade front, the Commerce Department has continued to step up restrictions, limiting the performance of accelerators sold to China. But, as we've previously reported, while these efforts have made it harder for countries like China to get their hands on American chips, they are far from perfect. To address these limitations, the researchers have proposed implementing a global registry for AI chip sales that would track them over the course of their lifecycle, even after they've left their country of origin. Such a registry, they suggest, could incorporate a unique identifier into each chip, which could help to combat smuggling of components. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, researchers have suggested that kill switches could be baked into the silicon to prevent their use in malicious applications. [...] The academics are clearer elsewhere in their study, proposing that processor functionality could be switched off or dialed down by regulators remotely using digital licensing: "Specialized co-processors that sit on the chip could hold a cryptographically signed digital "certificate," and updates to the use-case policy could be delivered remotely via firmware updates. The authorization for the on-chip license could be periodically renewed by the regulator, while the chip producer could administer it. An expired or illegitimate license would cause the chip to not work, or reduce its performance." In theory, this could allow watchdogs to respond faster to abuses of sensitive technologies by cutting off access to chips remotely, but the authors warn that doing so isn't without risk. The implication being, if implemented incorrectly, that such a kill switch could become a target for cybercriminals to exploit. Another proposal would require multiple parties to sign off on potentially risky AI training tasks before they can be deployed at scale. "Nuclear weapons use similar mechanisms called permissive action links," they wrote. For nuclear weapons, these security locks are designed to prevent one person from going rogue and launching a first strike. For AI however, the idea is that if an individual or company wanted to train a model over a certain threshold in the cloud, they'd first need to get authorization to do so. Though a potent tool, the researchers observe that this could backfire by preventing the development of desirable AI. The argument seems to be that while the use of nuclear weapons has a pretty clear-cut outcome, AI isn't always so black and white. But if this feels a little too dystopian for your tastes, the paper dedicates an entire section to reallocating AI resources for the betterment of society as a whole. The idea being that policymakers could come together to make AI compute more accessible to groups unlikely to use it for evil, a concept described as "allocation." apply tags__________ 173084352 story [66]The Courts [67]New Bill Would Let Defendants Inspect Algorithms Used Against Them In Court [68](theverge.com) [69]25 Posted by [70]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @08:25PM from the it's-a-start dept. Lauren Feiner reports via The Verge: Reps. Mark Takano (D-CA) and Dwight Evans (D-PA) [71]reintroduced the Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act on Thursday, which would [72]allow defendants to access the source code of software used to analyze evidence in their criminal proceedings. It would also require the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create testing standards for forensic algorithms, which software used by federal enforcers would need to meet. The bill would act as a check on unintended outcomes that could be created by using technology to help solve crimes. Academic research has highlighted the ways human bias can be built into software and how facial recognition systems often struggle to differentiate Black faces, in particular. The use of algorithms to make consequential decisions in many different sectors, including both crime-solving and health care, has raised alarms for consumers and advocates as a result of such research. Takano acknowledged that gaining or hiring the deep expertise needed to analyze the source code might not be possible for every defendant. But requiring NIST to create standards for the tools could at least give them a starting point for understanding whether a program matches the basic standards. Takano introduced previous iterations of the bill in 2019 and 2021, but they were not taken up by a committee. apply tags__________ 173084324 story [73]AI [74]Apple Readies AI Tool To Rival Microsoft's GitHub Copilot [75](businessinsider.com) [76]7 Posted by [77]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @07:45PM from the better-late-than-never dept. According to [78]Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple [79]plans to release a generative AI tool for iOS app developers as early as this year. Insider reports: The tech giant is working on a tool that will use artificial intelligence to write code as part of its plans to expand the capabilities of Xcode, the company's main programming software. The revamped system will compete withÂMicrosoft's GitHub Copilot, which sources say operates similarly. Apple is also working on an AI tool that will generate code to test apps, which could provide potential time savings for a process that's known to be tedious. Currently, Apple is urging some engineers to test these new AI features to ensure they work before releasing them externally to developers. [...] The tech giant, Bloomberg has learned, has plans to integrate AI features into its next software updates for its iPhone and iPad known internally as Crystal. Glow, another internal AI project, is slated to be added to MacOS. The company is also building features that will generate Apple Music playlists and slideshows, according to the outlet. An AI-powered search feature titled Spotlight, currently limited to answering questions around launching apps, is in the works as well, Bloomberg reported. apply tags__________ 173083916 story [80]Privacy [81]New 'Gold Pickaxe' Android, iOS Malware Steals Your Face For Fraud [82](bleepingcomputer.com) [83]13 Posted by [84]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @07:02PM from the social-engineering-trickery dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new iOS and Android trojan named 'GoldPickaxe' employs a social engineering scheme to trick victims into scanning their faces and ID documents, which are [85]believed to be used to generate deepfakes for unauthorized banking access. The new malware, spotted by Group-IB, is part of a malware suite developed by the Chinese threat group known as 'GoldFactory,' which is responsible for other malware strains such as 'GoldDigger', 'GoldDiggerPlus,' and 'GoldKefu.' Group-IB says its analysts observed attacks primarily targeting the Asia-Pacific region, mainly Thailand and Vietnam. However, the techniques employed could be effective globally, and there's a danger of them getting adopted by other malware strains. [...] For iOS (iPhone) users, the threat actors initially directed targets to a TestFlight URL to install the malicious app, allowing them to bypass the normal security review process. When Apple remove the TestFlight app, the attackers switched to luring targets into downloading a malicious Mobile Device Management (MDM) profile that allows the threat actors to take control over devices. Once the trojan has been installed onto a mobile device in the form of a fake government app, it operates semi-autonomously, manipulating functions in the background, capturing the victim's face, intercepting incoming SMS, requesting ID documents, and proxying network traffic through the infected device using 'MicroSocks.' Group-IB says the Android version of the trojan performs more malicious activities than in iOS due to Apple's higher security restrictions. Also, on Android, the trojan uses over 20 different bogus apps as cover. For example, GoldPickaxe can also run commands on Android to access SMS, navigate the filesystem, perform clicks on the screen, upload the 100 most recent photos from the victim's album, download and install additional packages, and serve fake notifications. The use of the victims' faces for bank fraud is an assumption by Group-IB, also [86]corroborated by the Thai police, based on the fact that many financial institutes added biometric checks last year for transactions above a certain amount. apply tags__________ 173083828 story [87]Math [88]Algebra To Return To San Francisco Middle Schools This Fall [89](axios.com) [90]69 Posted by [91]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @06:20PM from the what-to-expect dept. After a 6-1 vote by the district board, San Francisco middle schools [92]will teach Algebra I again this fall. Axios reports: Roughly a third of SFUSD middle schools this fall will begin offering the course to eighth graders at about a third of its 13 middle schools as well as six of its K-8 schools, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Students at other campuses will have access to the course via online classes or summer school while their schools take three years to make the transition. Those eighth graders will otherwise have to wait until high school to take the course. District officials plan to evaluate the best way to enroll students throughout the district in a pilot at the first schools this fall. The first approach would be to enroll all eighth graders. The second would prioritize students' interest or readiness. The third would give students the option of taking Algebra I on top of current eighth-grade math curricula. The 6-1 vote by the San Francisco Unified School District board Tuesday followed a decadelong battle over eighth graders' access to higher-level math courses and a larger debate over academic opportunity and equity in math performance. SFUSD previously taught eighth-grade algebra. But in 2014, the board voted to wait until high school to try to address racial gaps that had emerged as some students moved quicker to advanced math classes. Studies have shown that inequities including socioeconomic status, language differences and implicit bias often impede Black and Latino students' educational pursuits and result in lower rates of enrollment in higher-level classes. Yes, but: Stanford researchers found last year that large [93]racial and ethnic gaps in advanced math enrollment persisted [94]even after the policy change. apply tags__________ 173083780 story [95]Microsoft [96]Microsoft 'Retires' Azure IoT Central In Platform Rethink [97](theregister.com) [98]3 Posted by [99]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @05:40PM from the out-of-the-blue dept. Lindsay Clark reports via The Register: In a statement on the Azure console, Microsoft confirmed the Azure IoT Central service is [100]being retired on March 31, 2027. "Starting on April 1, 2024, you won't be able to create new application resources; however, all existing IoT Central applications will continue to function and be managed. Subscription {{subscriptionld} is not allowed to create new applications. Please create a support ticket to request an exception," the statement to customers, seen by The Register, said. According to a [101]Microsoft "Learn" post from February 8, 2024, IoT Central is an IoT application platform as a service (aPaaS) designed to reduce work and costs while building, managing, and maintaining IoT solutions. Microsoft's Azure IoT offering includes [102]three pillars: IoT Hub, IoT Edge and IoT Central. IoT Hub is a cloud-based service that provides a "secure and scalable way to connect, monitor, and manage IoT devices and sensors," according to Microsoft. Azure IoT Edge is designed to allow devices to run cloud-based workloads locally. And Azure IoT Central is a fully managed, cloud-based IoT solution for connecting and managing devices at scale. Central is a layer above Hub in the architecture, and Hub itself may well continue. One developer told The Register there was no warning about Hub on the Azure console. As for IoT Edge, it is "a device-focused runtime that enables you to deploy, run, and monitor containerized Linux workloads." Microsoft has not said whether this would continue. apply tags__________ 173083740 story [103]IOS [104]Apple Unbanned Epic So It Can Make an iOS Games Store In the EU [105](theverge.com) [106]10 Posted by [107]BeauHD on Friday February 16, 2024 @05:00PM from the good-faith-move dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Epic is one step closer to opening its iOS games store in the European Union. As part of [108]its 2023 year in review, Epic Games announced Apple has [109]reinstated its developer account, which means it will finally be able to let users download Fortnite on iPhones again. Epic first announced plans to bring its game store and Fortnite to iOS in January, but it wasn't clear whether Apple would grant it a developer account. In 2020, Apple pulled Epic's developer account after the company began using its own in-app payment option in the iOS version of Fortnite, sparking a [110]lengthy legal battle over whether Apple's behavior was anticompetitive. But even after the trial ended, and neither company emerged a clear winner, Apple still refused to reinstate Epic's developer account. Things are changing now that the EU has [111]implemented the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The new rules force Apple to open up its iOS ecosystem to third-party app stores in the EU. Epic Games says it plans to open its iOS storefront in the EU this year. "I'll be the first to acknowledge a good faith move by Apple amidst our cataclysmic antitrust battle, in granting Epic Games Sweden AB a developer account for operating Epic Games Store and Fortnite in Europe under the Digital Markets Act," Sweeney [112]says in a post on X. apply tags__________ 173081764 story [113]AI [114]NY Governor Wants To Criminalize Deceptive AI [115](axios.com) [116]37 Posted by msmash on Friday February 16, 2024 @04:20PM from the shape-of-things-to-come dept. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing legislation that would [117]criminalize some deceptive and abusive uses of AI and require disclosure of AI in election campaign materials, her office told Axios. From the report: Hochul's proposed laws include establishing the crime of "unlawful dissemination or publication of a fabricated photographic, videographic, or audio record." Making unauthorized uses of a person's voice "in connection with advertising or trade" a misdemeanor offense. Such offenses are punishable by up to one year jail sentence. Expanding New York's penal law to include unauthorized uses of artificial intelligence in coercion, criminal impersonation and identity theft. Amending existing intimate images and revenge porn statutes to include "digital images" -- ranging from realistic Photoshop-produced work to advanced AI-generated content. Codifying the right to sue over digitally manipulated false images. Requiring disclosures of AI use in all forms of political communication "including video recording, motion picture, film, audio recording, electronic image, photograph, text, or any technological representation of speech or conduct" within 60 days of an election. apply tags__________ 173082126 story [118]United States [119]No 'GPT' Trademark For OpenAI [120](techcrunch.com) [121]20 Posted by msmash on Friday February 16, 2024 @03:42PM from the tough-luck dept. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has [122]denied OpenAI's attempt to trademark "GPT," ruling that the term is "merely descriptive" and therefore unable to be registered. From a report: [...] The name, according to the USPTO, doesn't meet the standards to register for a trademark and the protections a "TM" after the name affords. (Incidentally, they refused once back in October, and this is a "FINAL" in all caps denial of the application.) As the denial document puts it: "Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a feature, function, or characteristic of applicant's goods and services." OpenAI argued that it had popularized the term GPT, which stands in this case for "generative pre-trained transformer," describing the nature of the machine learning model. It's generative because it produces new (ish) material, pre-trained in that it is a large model trained centrally on a proprietary database, and transformer is the name of a particular method of building AIs (discovered by Google researchers in 2017) that allows for much larger models to be trained. But the patent office pointed out that GPT was already in use in numerous other contexts and by other companies in related ones. apply tags__________ 173081866 story [123]Apple [124]Epic Chief Suspects Apple Broke iPhone Web Apps in EU For Anticompetitive Reasons [125](twitter.com) [126]76 Posted by msmash on Friday February 16, 2024 @03:00PM from the how-about-that dept. Apple is officially [127]cutting support for progressive web apps for iPhone users in the European Union. While web apps have been broken for EU users in every iOS 17.4 beta so far, Apple has confirmed that this is a feature, not a bug. Commenting on Apple's move, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney [128]tweeted: I suspect Apple's real reason for killing PWAs is the realization that competing web browsers could do a vastly better job of supporting PWAs -- unlike Safari's intentionally crippled web functionality -- and turn PWAs into legit, untaxed competitors to native apps. apply tags__________ 173081816 story [129]Security [130]DOJ Quietly Removed Russian Malware From Routers in US Homes and Businesses [131](arstechnica.com) [132]65 Posted by msmash on Friday February 16, 2024 @02:20PM from the thank-you-for-your-service dept. An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 1,000 Ubiquiti routers in homes and small businesses were infected with malware used by Russian-backed agents to coordinate them into a botnet for crime and spy operations, according to the Justice Department. That malware, which worked as a botnet for the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, [133]was removed in January 2024 under a secret court order as part of "Operation Dying Ember," according to the FBI's director. It affected routers running Ubiquiti's EdgeOS, but only those that had not changed their default administrative password. Access to the routers allowed the hacking group to "conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes," the DOJ claims, including spearphishing and credential harvesting in the US and abroad. Unlike previous attacks by Fancy Bear -- that the DOJ ties to GRU Military Unit 26165, which is also known as APT 28, Sofacy Group, and Sednit, among other monikers -- the Ubiquiti intrusion relied on a known malware, Moobot. Once infected by "Non-GRU cybercriminals," GRU agents installed "bespoke scripts and files" to connect and repurpose the devices, according to the DOJ. The DOJ also used the Moobot malware to copy and delete the botnet files and data, according to the DOJ, and then changed the routers' firewall rules to block remote management access. During the court-sanctioned intrusion, the DOJ "enabled temporary collection of non-content routing information" that would "expose GRU attempts to thwart the operation." This did not "impact the routers' normal functionality or collect legitimate user content information," the DOJ claims. "For the second time in two months, we've disrupted state-sponsored hackers from launching cyber-attacks behind the cover of compromised US routers," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a press release. apply tags__________ 173082310 story [134]AI [135]Microsoft, Google, Meta, X and Others Pledge To Prevent AI Election Interference [136](nbcnews.com) [137]40 Posted by msmash on Friday February 16, 2024 @01:40PM from the it's-a-start dept. Twenty tech companies working on AI said Friday they had signed a "pledge" to try to [138]prevent their software from interfering in elections, including in the United States. From a report: The signatories range from tech giants such as Microsoft and Google to a small startup that allows people to make fake voices -- the kind of generative-AI product that could be abused in an election to create convincing deepfakes of a candidate. The accord is, in effect, a recognition that the companies' own products create a lot of risk in a year in which 4 billion people around the world are expected to vote in elections. "Deceptive AI Election content can deceive the public in ways that jeopardize the integrity of electoral processes," the document reads. The accord is also a recognition that lawmakers around the world haven't responded very quickly to the swift advancements in generative AI, leaving the tech industry to explore self-regulation. "As society embraces the benefits of AI, we have a responsibility to help ensure these tools don't become weaponized in elections," Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, said in a statement. The 20 companies to sign the pledge are: Adobe, Amazon, Anthropic, Arm, ElevenLabs, Google, IBM, Inflection AI, LinkedIn, McAfee, Meta, Microsoft, Nota, OpenAI, Snap, Stability AI, TikTok, TrendMicro, Truepic and X. apply tags__________ [139]« Newer [140]Older » Slashdot Top Deals Slashdot Top Deals [141]Slashdot Deals Slashdot Poll Do you have a poll idea? (*) Yes, I will post in the comments ( ) No ( ) Cowboy Neal probably does (BUTTON) vote now [142]Read the 81 comments | 8815 votes Looks like someone has already voted from this IP. If you would like to vote please login and try again. 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