IT is who we hire
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/10/19/North-Korea-IT-workers-sanctions-web-domain-seizures-Justice-Treasury/1151697696145/

IT it is what we program it to do
https://www.darkreading.com/remote-workforce/oauth-log-in-full-account-takeover-millions

IT is ease of use
https://thehackernews.com/2023/10/hackers-using-msix-app-packages-to.html

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training with data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models.

The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission. Using it to “poison” this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, by rendering some of their outputs useless—dogs become cats, cars become cows, and so forth. MIT Technology Review got an exclusive preview of the research, which has been submitted for peer review at computer security conference Usenix.

As usual, they down play the severity of the data breach...

Aerospace giant Boeing is investigating a cyberattack that impacted its parts and distribution business after the LockBit ransomware gang claimed that they breached the company's network and stole data.

Boeing says the incident did not impact flight safety and confirmed collaboration with law enforcement and regulatory agencies as part of an ongoing investigation.

As usual, they down play the severity of the data breach...

Don't want investors to take the stock price to zero. And Boeing is a IT company, Foreflight.

Who ya wanna believe?...



Google dragged to UK watchdog over Chrome's upcoming IP address cloaking

Marketers tell antitrust cops privacy proxy will make it harder to protect kids online, etc etc

Google's plan to prevent marketers from tracking Chrome users across different websites by anonymizing IP [internet] addresses is being challenged by, surprise surprise, a marketing advocacy group...

... The Google-run proxy can observe the user's IP address but not the websites being visited and the third-party proxy can see the web servers being visited but not the IP address of the visitor. By separating the user's IP address from the user's destination through Google's service, websites and intermediaries cannot (without additional information) link people's IP addresses to their browsing habits to create marketing profiles...

... "Google's IP Protection means ISPs [internet service providers] will no longer have visibility of data via an IP address whist leaving Google with the ability to monitor and process data at all times," says a letter from MOW's London-based legal representative...

"This will make the provision of child protection services more difficult for ISPs."...

... The need to protect children has become a common rationale for efforts to weaken encryption in Europe, the UK, and the US. And marketers, like law enforcement agencies, fear that privacy technologies will leave them in the dark and without the lucrative data they've come to depend upon...

... "As with all aspects of the Sandbox, IP Protection is an anti-competitive technology that Google is attempting to impose upon the web under the veil of privacy. It removes an important piece of data from Google’s competitors whilst they can continue to make use of it."...

Who is tracking who for what profit?...

Happy surfin'!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Hope the judge throws the book at him despite his "rare form of cancer" instead of "serving his sentence under home confinement".

YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU SHOULD PAY THE TIME IN PRISON.
Cybersecurity firm executive pleads guilty to hacking hospitals

He (Singla) has now agreed to pay over $817,000 plus interest in restitution to the Northside Hospital Gwinnett in Lawrenceville and the Ace American Insurance Company as part of the plea deal.

The prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 57 months probation, including home detention, based on Singla being diagnosed with "a rare and incurable form of cancer" and "a potentially dangerous vascular condition," which warrant "home detention as an alternative to incarceration" so that the defendant can receive appropriate medical care.

The judge can impose a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years during the sentencing hearing scheduled for February 15, 2024.

And for the next bit of Googling:


... slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers
wrote:

Search giant says delays not specific to any browser – just those evading advert breaks. YMMV

Google has admitted its efforts to discourage the use of ad blockers now includes delaying the start of videos – a deliberate "suboptimal viewing" experience, as the corporation put it.

Earlier this year, YouTube began interrupting videos for those using advert blockers with a pop-up encouraging them to either disable the offending extension or filter, or pay for YT's ad-free premium tier.

More recently, netizens have reported experiencing delays in playback when using non-Chrome browsers as well.

Upon launching a video, Firefox users have reported a delay of roughly five seconds before playback would begin. In a statement to The Register, Google admitted it was intentionally making its content less binge-able for users unwilling to turn off offending extensions, though this wasn't linked to any one browser...

Personally, I'm very happy to miss out on all the cat videos...

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

More seriously in the abuse (or the excuse) of using AI:


UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges
wrote:

For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.

UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, is allegedly using a deeply flawed AI algorithm to override doctors' judgments and wrongfully deny critical health coverage to elderly patients. This has resulted in patients being kicked out of rehabilitation programs and care facilities far too early, forcing them to drain their life savings to obtain needed care that should be covered under their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plan...

All very profitably too easily done?

Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

A very good reason NOT to use"the cloud" to save vital data:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67554160
In this case it was Google, but I'm certain we have heard, and will hear, about other cloud providers having similar issues.

Then there's the big question - what happens when one forgets to pay the bill and your account is closed - with all your data being "lost"?

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Obviously, Google has a MAJOR Conflict of Interest considering they are the largest www advertising group/ player.
Google

Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024
Chrome's new adblock-limiting extension plan is still on. The company paused the rollout of the new "Manifest V3" extension format a year ago after an outcry over how much it would damage some of Chrome's most popular extensions. A year later, Google is restarting the phase-out schedule, and while it has changed some things, Chrome will eventually be home to inferior filtering extensions.
..
The one part of Manifest V3 that everyone can agree on is that it will hurt ad blockers. Google is adding a completely arbitrary limit on how many "rules" content filtering add-ons can include, which are needed to keep up with the nearly infinite ad-serving sites that are out there. Google originally went with a completely crippling limit of 5,000 "dynamic" rules, and after the widespread outrage during its first attempt to push Manifest V3, the company upgraded filtering to a "more generous" limit of 30,000 rules. uBlock Origin comes with about 300,000-plus filtering rules you can enable, and you can also import additional blocking lists and have that number skyrocket.

Remember Google own Youtube and on Youtube ad blocking is a TOS violation. Dump Chrome today!

Remember Google own Youtube and on Youtube ad blocking is a TOS violation. Dump Chrome today

I can't remember the last time I used Google Chrome - not even on my Android cell phones.

On Desktop I have been using IronWare's chrome browser for some things, but most of my web browsing, probably 80 to 90% is done using Mozilla Firefox.

On Android I would say 99% of web browsing is also Firefox.

All browsers have uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus for my ad & malware blockers.

Can't remember when the last time I saw an advert on my devices. I'm guessing maybe in 1989 or 1990 when the first ad blockers became available.

If a website asks me to disable my ad blocker to read content or interact with it, then I add the site to my "do not visit" list and look elsewhere for the content I want to read or download.

You don't say...
Study: Videoconferencing Mentally Draining

Video calls could cause more mental fatigue than in-person events according to a recent study. Although the study was on a very small scale, the researchers said the differences were "notable."

Austrian academics said they wanted to find out if widespread anecdotal reports of "videoconferencing fatigue" were true. They defined the effect as "somatic and cognitive exhaustion that is caused by the intensive and/or inappropriate use of videoconferencing tools." In other words, the exhaustion affected both the mind and the body.

Thanks to Google Maps a farmer spends a $1,000 on a sign to stop people coming to a dead end on his isolated property.

Queensland grazier makes sign to redirect lost travellers following Google Maps.


Google really seems to have a big problem with telling the difference between roads and driveways into properties here down under.

Even my brother's 600 metre driveway down the hill is marked as a road for some unknown reason. :-O

There's trouble in Apple land.

Millions of Apple users have been urged “do not put this off” after the iphone maker issued an urgent “zero-day alert”.

An urgent warning has been issued to users of Apple’s iphones, iPads and MacBooks after the global tech giant discovered “system vulnerabilities” and issued a “zero-day alert”.

Tech consultant Shelly Palmer explained to his email subscribers a “zero-day alert” is “geekspeak for system vulnerabilities serious enough to warrant a software update” and urged anyone with one of three Apple devices to immediately update.

“I just updated my iPhone, MacBooks, and iPads – you should, too,” Palmer wrote.

“For my geekiest readers: the identified vulnerabilities are particularly concerning because they affect WebKit, the rendering engine used for all third-party web browsers on iOS and iPadOS, including popular ones like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Apple’s restriction – “Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit JavaScript” – makes Webkit a particularly inviting target.

“For normal people: Do not put this off. Go to the settings menu on all your Apple devices and update your software ASAP.

“You know the cliche: ‘Security is a lot like oxygen. You don’t miss it until it isn’t there’.”......

It seems that 1 mob is onto the game.

Search for websites using unlicensed Pokémon branding leads from Sydney to computer in Ukraine, Federal Court hears.

A search for the operator of mysterious websites using unlicensed Pokémon branding to spruik an upcoming game has proved trickier than catching the Nintendo characters themselves, with clues leading private investigators all the way from Sydney to a computer in Ukraine.

An "abundance of evidence" before the Federal Court suggests the creators have been "evading identification" including through identity theft, a judge said this week.

The Pokémon Company International, which manages the licensing of the popular brand, launched an intellectual property case after its marketing team was contacted by several news outlets last August.

A person purporting to be from the legal department of Kotiota studios in Australia had emailed the outlets requesting Kotiota's name be added to stories as a developer of Pokémon projects.

One email cited in court documents, to pop culture site BleedingCool and said to be from a Kotiota lawyer called "Osheya", suggested the company would claims its "rights" over intellectual property mentioned in an article.

"The reason for such a request is very simple, we have worked as a contractor in similar projects for many years and did not pay due attention to information about our studio on the Internet," the letter said.

"We are now serious about changing this."

It came as a surprise to The Pokémon Company's business development teams, who could find no record of any agreement.

The hunt was on........


.....Barrister Clare Cunliffe said it was clear that there had been several people whose identities had been "appropriated".

The prospect of Kotiota filing any appearance in the case seemed "vanishingly small", she told Justice David Yates.

The company sought a permanent injunction restraining Kotiota from using the Pokémon brand, along with declarations of false and misleading representations under Australian Consumer Law.

Justice Yates indicated it was an appropriate case for default judgement.

On Friday, he said the allegations asserted were taken to have been admitted, granting The Pokémon Company's application subject to there being no reply from Kotiota within 21 days.

"In these circumstances, it seems most unlikely that, even if it had been served, the third respondent (Kotiota) would have responded to the application for default judgement," the judge said.

Study: No Evidence Internet Harms Mental Health

Researchers say they were unable to find a clear link between Internet use and harm to mental health. However, the results looked at national populations as a whole, rather than individual behavior.

The researchers, from Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute, said they were limited by a lack of data and cooperation from major tech companies.

The broad research paper, "Global Well-Being and Mental Health in the Internet Age", looked at studies of psychological wellbeing of around 2.4 million people across 18 countries. The researchers looked at changes in reported wellbeing between 2005 and 2022 in each country, then compared it with figures for Internet usage growth over that period.

..

Tech Firms Criticized
Some reports of the study have pointed out limitations, most notably that it didn't seek to examine how people were using the Internet (for example, social media use vs streaming). Neither did it look at whether the time spent online had any measurable effect on mental health.

Co-author Andrew Przybylski has criticized previous research into the topic as being based on inadequate data with insufficient evidence to justify the high levels of attention given to the findings.

He also noted that much previous research has concentrated on English-speaking countries, which he says is particularly unrepresentative of the younger global population.

Another day, another massive data breach... But the information that was compromised involves some quite unique "personal & private" information!

Let the lawsuits start flying!
Genetic testing firm 23andMe admits hackers accessed DNA data of 7m users

US company says ‘threat actor’ responsible for security breach that affected nearly half of its 14m reported users