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South Africa’s spying problem
South Africa is trying to put a stop to the abuse of its intelligence agencies, but much needs fixing.
SATURDAY, 27 JULY 2024, 10:30
South Africa is trying to put a stop to the abuse of its intelligence agencies, but much needs fixing.
joshuark shares a report from The Verge: NASA researchers have successfully tested laser communications in space by streaming 4K video footage originating from an airplane in the sky to the International Space Station and back. The feat demonstrates that the space agency could provide live coverage of a Moon landing during the Artemis missions and bodes well for the development of optical...
Defining nature as separate from people perpetuates troubled relationship with the natural world, say campaigners
It was last year, during a conference at the Eden Project, the botanic garden and conservation centre in Cornwall, that Frieda Gormley first heard the dictionary definition of nature.
The businesswoman and environmental activist was answering questions about her plans to appoint a...
One of the wildest, most scam-ridden corners of the cryptocurrency industry — memecoins, which are rooted in internet memes — has roared back.
Elon Musk’s X has given users a way to prevent their posts and interactions from helping train his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok.
Apple’s declining sales in China pushed it out of the top five smartphone brands for the first time in four years.
MultiChoice has partnered with the police to clamp down on DStv piracy, which includes targeting the kingpins and users of these services.
Qatar Airways is considering buying as much as a 20% stake in Airlink, said people familiar with the matter.
In its first detailed response to a legal challenge, the agency said TikTok’s proposed changes wouldn’t prevent China from using it to collect U.S. users’ data or spread propaganda.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Since the beginning of the generative AI boom, content creators have argued that their work has been scraped into AI models without their consent. But until now, it has been difficult to know whether specific text has actually been used in a training data set. Now they have a new way to prove it: “copyright traps” developed by a...
Brian Krebs writes via KrebsOnSecurity: Google says it recently fixed an authentication weakness that allowed crooks to circumvent the email verification required to create a Google Workspace account, and leverage that to impersonate a domain holder at third-party services that allow logins through Google’s “Sign in with Google” feature. […] Google Workspace offers a free trial that people can...
On Wednesday, Judge Nina Morrison ruled that cellphone searches at the border are “nonroutine” and require probable cause and a warrant, likening them to more invasive searches due to their heavy privacy impact. As reported by Reason, this decision closes the loophole in the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, which Customs and Border Protection (CBP)...
Nvidia’s new R555 Linux driver series has significantly improved their open-source GPU kernel driver modules, achieving near parity with their proprietary drivers. Phoronix’s Michael Larabel reports: The NVIDIA open-source kernel driver modules shipped by their driver installer and also available via their GitHub repository are in great shape. With the R555 series the support and performance is...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Not long after Windows PCs and servers at the Australian limb of audit and tax advisory Grant Thornton started BSODing last Friday, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz remembered a small but important fact: When PCs boot, they consider barcode scanners no differently to keyboards. That knowledge nugget became important as the firm tried to...
US presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced during his keynote Friday at the Bitcoin Conference that he would direct the US government to buy Bitcoin until the size of its Bitcoin reserves matched its gold reserves. At current prices, that equates to $615 billion worth of gold. RFK Jr. said: “I will sign an executive order directing the US Treasury to purchase 550 Bitcoin daily...
The White House announced that Apple has “signed onto the voluntary commitments” in line with the administration’s previous AI executive order. “In addition, federal agencies reported that they completed all of the 270-day actions in the Executive Order on schedule, following their on-time completion of every other task required to date.” From a report: The executive order “built on voluntary...
Thomas Claburn reports via The Register: Researchers at Truffle Security have found, or arguably rediscovered, that data from deleted GitHub repositories (public or private) and from deleted copies (forks) of repositories isn’t necessarily deleted. Joe Leon, a security researcher with the outfit, said in an advisory on Wednesday that being able to access deleted repo data — such as APIs keys —...
DC went to YC to talk OS.
Internet service providers are pushing back against the Biden administration’s requirement for low-cost options even as they are attempting to secure funds from a $42.45 billion government broadband initiative. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, established by law to expand internet access, mandates that recipients offer affordable plans to eligible low-income subscribers, a...
Online education company 2U filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is being taken private in a deal that will wipe out more than half of its $945 million debt [non-paywalled link]. From a report: 2U was a pioneer in the online education space, joining with schools including the University of Southern California, Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...
Measles, bedbugs, and dengue have all been cited as concerns for tourists and athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with the tropical virus in particular forcing authorities into action.