Technology

> Tandem Diabetes Care hasn’t reported any deaths linked to the issue.

> People are seeking help from AI-generated avatars to process their grief after a family member passes away.

> Report claims new tracking starts May 13 with unclear consequences.

> A recent partnership announcement between OpenAI and Stack Overflow has some members concerned that their data is being used without permission and, when trying to remove their posts, find their accounts are suspended.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/15114513 >> Section 230 immunity isn’t just for Big Tech companies, lawsuit says.

> An internal email from FBI deputy director Paul Abbate, obtained by WIRED, tells employees to search for “US persons” in a controversial spy program's database that investigators have repeatedly misused.

> Quadrupeds being reviewed have automatic targeting systems but require human oversight to fire.

Archived version

One of the cornerstones in censorship circumvention is fully encrypted protocols, which encrypt every byte of the payload in an attempt to “look like nothing”. In early November 2021, the Great Firewall of China (GFW) deployed a new censorship technique that passively detects—and subsequently blocks—fully encrypted traffic in real time. The GFW’s new censorship capability affects a large set of popular censorship circumvention protocols, including but not limited to Shadowsocks, VMess, and Obfs4. Although China had long actively probed such protocols, this was the first report of purely passive detection, leading the anti-censorship community to ask how detection was possible.

The paper discloses findings and suggestions to the developers of different anti-censorship tools, helping millions of users successfully evade this new form of blocking.

> In its first-ever earnings call as a public company, Reddit talked about user growth in non-U.S. countries using LLMs for automatic translations.

> Putting applications into fast lanes would violate FCC's no-throttling rule.

> Initial testing of the partnership will take place soon.

> No solder required.

> Security researchers allege that several apps are collecting data from iOS devices, violating Apple’s policy on device fingerprinting.

> Scales, trackers, and other fitness devices that don't get updated will stop syncing

> Social media firms like Instagram and TikTok will have to make changes to comply with new online safety laws.

> Huawei has been on a US trade blacklist since 2019.

> A massive network of 75,000 fake online shops called 'BogusBazaar' tricked over 850,000 people in the US and Europe into making purchases, allowing the criminals to steal credit card information and attempt to process an estimated $50 million in fake orders.

A trove of data examined by experts indicates the operation is highly organised, technically savvy – and ongoing.

Operating on an industrial scale, programmers have created tens of thousands of fake web shops offering discounted goods from Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace and Prada, as well as many other premium brands.

Published in multiple languages from English to German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian, the websites appear to have been set up to lure shoppers into parting with money and sensitive personal data.

However, the sites have no connection to the brands they claim to sell and in most cases consumers who spoke about their experience said they received no items.

> Amazon is adding three types of shoppable ads to Prime Video's ad tier.

Archived link without Cloudflare

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to maintain total control over the information environment within China, while simultaneously working to extend its influence abroad to reshape the global information ecosystem, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) says in a report.

China's goals includes not only controlling media and communications platforms outside China, but also ensuring that Chinese technologies and companies become the foundational layer for the future of information and data exchange worldwide.

The report concludes that globally recognized Chinese tech brands – like rideshare operator Didi Chuxing and e-tailer Temu – enable Beijing to learn about consumer habits, societal characteristics of nations in which they operate, and even how people in different places make decisions.

In the research, ASPI also alleges that Beijing invests in emerging tech – including generative AI, mobile gaming and immersive technologies – to establish and maintain control of China's desired narrative and seek "greater control, if not dominance, over the global information ecosystem."

"Generative AI is understood specifically as a next-generation technology changing the landscape of political communication," explained the think tank, citing the passing of the Internet Information Service Deep Synthesis Management Provisions law on November 25, 2022 as proof of China's intentions to weaponize it. Mobile gaming, R&D immersive technologies such as AR and VR, and the metaverse were also named as technologies rife for social manipulation.

Beijing has already experimented with gamifying propaganda digitally for the Chinese population, including through the use of the metaverse. It also shields its population from outside influence through the banning of entities like Facebook, VPNs and video games.

Such parallels obviously put a focus on the recent controversy surrounding attempts to have TikTok divested or banned from the United States.

However, ASPI concludes that "by dealing with only one platform at a time, policymakers fail to grasp the broader significance of the global technological changes that China's increasing investment in key information technologies is having."

Among the think tank's recommendations are that governments pressure technology industry players to examine their digital supply chains – especially when involved in government procurement.

It also suggests lawmakers define machine learning and cloud data as surveillance or dual-use goods – much in the way the EU has in its Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI.

Establishing standardization of data storage before Beijing gets a chance to define global norms would also be helpful, according to ASPI.

"Such efforts can reduce opportunities for authoritarian regimes to collect, use and misuse data in ways that harm ethnic communities, disparage and denigrate alternative perspectives and silence dissent in the global information environment," suggested the Institute.

While ASPI's overall picture can be alarming, other think tanks have argued Beijing is, quite frankly, not that organized.

A February analysis from the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Exovera – an AI-centric provider and subsidiary of defense contractor SOS International – argued that on the domestic level bureaucracy and inefficiencies have frustrated attempts to control public opinion and enforce censorship.

Which must lead one to question whether Beijing can pull off such a feat on a global scale.

> Reach your little Pis from nearly any browser—and free up your RealVNC slots.

> Matter’s latest release is full of goodies, but who knows when we’ll get to use them?

> Congress only gave 38% of funds needed for "rip and replace," FCC chair says.

> OpenStreetMap contributors have been dealing with Pokémon Go players for years.

> Stack Overflow, the developer Q&A site, has inked a licensing agreement with OpenAI to supply data to its models.

> “AI,” or semi-cooked language learning models are very cool. There’s a world of possibility there in terms of creativity and productivity tools to scientific research. But early a…

> Existing keys can’t be updated to the new 5.7 firmware though.

> Indeed and LinkedIn are incorporating more generative AI to improve the recruiting and job-hunting processes. Some recruiters are still unconvinced.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/I3WjA

> Microsoft Corp. has deployed a generative AI model entirely divorced from the internet, saying US intelligence agencies can now safely harness the powerful technology to analyze top-secret information.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/yuW4b

> It sounds like Bluesky’s most prominent backer is no longer on its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his

> The government will also make a CHIPS manufacturing institute.

> In its latest experiment, Meta is providing an easy toggle for users to cross-post from Instagram to Threads to increase engagement.

> Finland's Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) has issued a warning about an ongoing Android malware campaign targeting banking accounts.

> Spotify makes song lyrics a Premium-exclusive feature 🤌

> NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is making strides in astronomy with its 122-megapixel primarily infrared photos taken 1.5 million kilometers away from

> By exploiting a smart learning algorithm that fuses two microscopy signals, University of Michigan researchers have accomplished high-resolution, efficient 3D chemical imaging for the first time at the one-nanometer scale. For context, a nanometer is one-millionth of a millimeter, or one-hundred-thousandth the width of a human hair.

> It’s almost laughable that these two stories happened so close to one another. The Australian government has just announced a pilot program to test an online age verification system: And then, just…

> Microsoft has been criticized for "preventable" failures and poor communication.

> The Iranian state-backed threat actor tracked as APT42 is employing social engineering attacks, including posing as journalists, to breach corporate networks and cloud environments of Western and Middle Eastern targets.

> AT&T Turbo puts you in a faster lane but requires unlimited data and extra fee.