“Engineers at the tech giants built tools years ago that could put a name to any face but, for once, Silicon Valley did not want to move fast and break things.”
Source : The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release – The New York Times
Auteur/autrice : noflux (Page 14 of 614)
“Right to Repair just won in Big Tech’s backyard: California’s Right to Repair Act, Senate Bill 244, has passed the state legislature. The bill—championed by state senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, and cosponsored by iFixit—won overwhelming approval, with a 65–0 vote in the Assembly, following a 38–0 vote in the Senate. The bill has to go back to the Senate for a minor procedural vote, and then it will await the governor’s signature.
This bill stands out from the laws that passed in Minnesota and New York by ensuring that repairs stay possible for longer. Manufacturers are mandated to keep repair materials, ranging from parts and tools to software and documentation, available for extended periods post-production: 3 years for products within the $50-$99.99 price bracket, and 7 years for those priced $100 or above. The bill applies to electronic and appliance products made and sold after July 1, 2021.”
Source : California Just Became the Third State to Pass Electronics Right to Repair | iFixit News
“End users, admins, and researchers better brace yourselves: The number of apps being patched for zero-day vulnerabilities has skyrocketed this month and is likely to get worse in the following weeks. People have worked overtime in recent weeks to patch a raft of vulnerabilities actively exploited in the wild, with offerings from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Adobe, and Cisco all being affected since the beginning of the month. The number of zero-days tracked this month is considerably higher than the monthly average this year. September so far is at 10, compared with a total of 60 from January through August, according to security firm Mandiant. The company tracked 55 zero-days in 2022 and 81 in 2021. A sampling of the affected companies and products includes iOS and macOS, Windows, Chrome, Firefox, Acrobat and Reader, the Atlas VPN, and Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance Software and its Firepower Threat Defense. The number of apps is likely to grow because a single vulnerability that allows hackers to execute malicious code when users open a booby-trapped image included in a message or web page is present in possibly hundreds of apps.”
Source : With 0-days hitting Chrome, iOS, and dozens more this month, is no software safe? | Ars Technica
“Car makers have been bragging about their cars being “computers on wheels » for years to promote their advanced features. However, the conversation about what driving a computer means for its occupants’ privacy hasn’t really caught up. While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines. Machines that, because of their all those brag-worthy bells and whistles, have an unmatched power to watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go in your car.All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label — making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.”
Source : *privacy not included | Shop smart and safe | Mozilla Foundation
“Eric Ghysels, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted that while an AI can be speedier than human investors moment-to-moment, it’s sluggish to adapt to « paradigm-shifting events » like the war in Ukraine — or maybe even the rise of AI. Meaning, in his opinion, an AI can’t beat human investors over time. « Maybe one day it will, but for now AI is limited to plagiarizing history, » Ghysels told the WSJ.”
Source : AI Is Doing a Terrible Job Trading Stocks in the Real World
“Dans une tentative louable, mais périlleuse de lutter contre la fraude en ligne, la France s’apprête à obliger les créateurs de navigateurs à mettre en œuvre une fonctionnalité technique relevant de la dystopie. L’article 6 du projet de loi SREN obligerait les développeurs de navigateur à créer les moyens de bloquer obligatoirement les sites web figurant sur une liste fournie par le gouvernement et intégrée directement dans le navigateur. Une telle mesure renverserait des décennies de normes établies en matière de modération des contenus. Celle-ci fournira également aux gouvernements autoritaires un moyen de minimiser l’efficacité des outils qui peuvent être utilisés pour contourner la censure.”
“Les tâches de reconnaissance d’images réputées inaccessibles pour les machines deviennent maintenant plus simples pour elles que pour les humains. Des chercheurs de l’Université de Californie à Irvine (UC Irvine) ont en effet comparé les performances des humains avec celles des algorithmes de résolution de CAPTCHA et ont montré que la machine était, la plupart du temps, meilleure et plus rapide. Ils ont présenté leurs résultats à la conférence USENIX Security en ce mois d’août (PDF).”
Source : CAPTCHA : les machines « prouvent » plus rapidement qu’elles sont des humains
“As of July 20, 2023, the AI classifier is no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text, and have made a commitment to develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated.”
“When The New York Times reported in April that a contractor had purchased and deployed a spying tool made by NSO, the contentious Israeli hacking firm, for use by the U.S. government, White House officials said they were unaware of the contract and put the F.B.I. in charge of figuring out who might have been using the technology. After an investigation, the F.B.I. uncovered at least part of the answer: It was the F.B.I.”
Source : Who Paid for a Mysterious Spy Tool? The FBI, an FBI Inquiry Found. – The New York Times
“The proposal says the minor mode feature would try to prevent “internet addiction” by limiting children younger than 8 to 40 minutes of smartphone time a day. The time limit would increase with age, reaching two hours daily for those ages 16 to 18.Apps would also have to tailor their content for different age groups. Children younger than 3, for example, should be shown nursery rhymes and programs that can be watched with parents, according to documents from the Cyberspace Administration of China. Those between 8 and 12 could be offered videos about life skills, general knowledge, age-appropriate news and “entertainment content for positive guidance.””
Source : China Proposes ‘Minor Mode’ to Limit Kids’ Smartphone Use – The New York Times