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Die Belegschaft der europäischen Ford-Werke ist zunehmend verunsichert über die Zukunft der Standorte. (Ford, Elektroauto)
Die Belegschaft der europäischen Ford-Werke ist zunehmend verunsichert über die Zukunft der Standorte. (Ford, Elektroauto) Anthropic hat ein Update für den KI-Chatbot Claude veröffentlicht, das eine enorme Kontextlänge und Persona bietet. (Chatbots, KI)
Biologisch abbaubare Implantate können etwa gezielt Medikamente verabreichen. Ihre Energieversorgung war bislang ein Problem, chinesische Forscher wollen es gelöst haben. (Innovation & Forschung, Graphen)
Biologisch abbaubare Implantate können etwa gezielt Medikamente verabreichen. Ihre Energieversorgung war bislang ein Problem, chinesische Forscher wollen es gelöst haben. (Innovation & Forschung, Graphen) Jetzt die IT für die Zukunft fitmachen: Mit Workshops zu KI, Microsoft Copilot, Green IT, Circular IT und Cloud Competence Center! Jetzt mit 40 Prozent Rabatt! (Golem Karrierewelt, Server-Applikationen)
Jetzt die IT für die Zukunft fitmachen: Mit Workshops zu KI, Microsoft Copilot, Green IT, Circular IT und Cloud Competence Center! Jetzt mit 40 Prozent Rabatt! (Golem Karrierewelt, Server-Applikationen) LitterDrifter’s means of self-propagation are simple. So why is it spreading so widely?
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
A group of Russian-state hackers known for almost exclusively targeting Ukranian entities has branched out in recent months either accidentally or purposely by allowing USB-based espionage malware to infect a variety of organizations in other countries.
The group—known by many names, including Gamaredon, Primitive Bear, ACTINIUM, Armageddon, and Shuckworm—has been active since at least 2014 and has been attributed to Russia’s Federal Security Service by the Security Service of Ukraine. Most Kremlin-backed groups take pains to fly under the radar; Gamaredon doesn't care to. Its espionage-motivated campaigns targeting large numbers of Ukrainian organizations are easy to detect and tie back to the Russian government. The campaigns typically revolve around malware that aims to obtain as much information from targets as possible.
One of those tools is a computer worm designed to spread from computer to computer through USB drives. Tracked by researchers from Check Point Research as LitterDrifter, the malware is written in the Visual Basic Scripting language. LitterDrifter serves two purposes: to promiscuously spread from USB drive to USB drive and to permanently infect the devices that connect to such drives with malware that permanently communicates with Gamaredon-operated command and control servers.
Binance CEO popularly known as CZ names successor in emotional X post.
Enlarge / Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao leaves the US District Court on November 21, 2023 in Seattle. (credit: David Ryder / Stringer | Getty Images North America)
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has resigned as CEO of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange after agreeing to plead guilty to money laundering violations, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
The DOJ's settlement concludes a three-year investigation into Binance that found "willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform," Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote in a statement. According to the plea agreement, Zhao will pay a $50 million fine, and Binance—which also pled guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and violating sanctions against Iran, Cuba, and Syria—will pay a $4.3 billion fine.
"Today’s historic penalties and monitorship to ensure compliance with US law and regulations mark a milestone for the virtual currency industry," Yellen said. "Any institution, wherever located, that wants to reap the benefits of the US financial system must also play by the rules that keep us all safe from terrorists, foreign adversaries, and crime or face the consequences."
Can playing 16:9 content on a 21:9 screen impact burn-in risk? Apparently.
Enlarge (credit: Scharon Harding)
Burn-in is always possible with OLED displays, but for computer monitors, which tend to display static content (like icons and taskbars), the risk is even more concerning than with other OLED devices, like TVs.
Generally, OLED monitors are way better at fighting burn-in than before, thanks to improved OLED materials, compensation algorithms, brightness efficiencies, manually operable features, and heat management techniques.
At the same time, there's still much to learn about OLED monitor burn-in. Since OLED monitor selection only started significantly improving over the last couple of years, long-term usage is minimal. Further, new types of OLED monitor technologies, like QD-OLED, are still evolving.
Fake gearshifts and powertrain noises enhance Hyundai’s electric hot hatch—mostly.
Enlarge / The regular Hyundai Ioniq 5 is one of our favorite EVs. Now there's a hot hatch variant, and it's great. (credit: Hyundai)
SEOUL, South Korea—EV drivers either seem to love or hate the fake powertrain sounds that accompany their cars. Some fully embrace the spaceship or video-game-like noises, while others can't turn them off fast enough. I'm firmly in the latter group, long believing that the best thing about an EV is its dead-silent operation. Or, at least, I was until I drove the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 N earlier this month.
When you put the Ioniq 5 in N mode, it calls up a few different sound profiles—everything from your typical spaceship-y wooh-ahh tones to something attempting to re-create the aural quality of a turbocharged hot hatch. I say “attempting” because, well, none of the soundtracks are particularly good or high-quality. I've heard better stuff in Gran Turismo. Like, the first Gran Turismo.
In any case, when you activate N mode, the 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster also displays a tachometer in the middle, complete with a needle that rests at an imaginary idle. The regenerative braking paddles mounted to the steering wheel suddenly become gear shifters, and the sound of the "engine" rises and lowers as you move through each "gear." (Read all these as air quotes—it helps.)
Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company aims not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take action. This means responding to DMCA subpoenas and takedown requests for hosted content, for example. In addition, Cloudflare now reports it has blocked access to ‘abusive’ content on its Ethereum gateway.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Popular Internet infrastructure service Cloudflare serves millions of customers and provides a variety of connectivity and privacy features to the general public.
People can freely use the company’s open DNS resolver 1.1.1.1, for example, or use its IPFS and Ethereum gateways to access content on these decentralized web services.
One of Cloudflare’s main aims is to make the Internet more secure while respecting the privacy of its users. This laudable goal is broadly respected but in common with other internet services, abuse of Cloudflare’s services can lead to conflicting situations.
The California-based company previously terminated service to controversial sites including the Daily Stormer and Kiwi Farms. These actions were taken voluntarily, with Cloudflare citing an immediate threat to human life as the reason for the Kiwi Farms intervention.
In addition to these rare events, the Internet infrastructure company is also subject to court orders from around the globe. In some cases, these orders require the company to block access to piracy-related domain names.
Cloudflare mentions these blocking orders in its latest transparency report which covers the second half of 2022. The report doesn’t mention the number of court orders or blocked domains, but it confirms that Cloudflare complies with legitimate legal rulings.
“If we determine that the order is valid and requires Cloudflare action, we may limit blocking of access to the content to those areas where it violates local law, a practice known as ‘geo-blocking’,” Cloudflare writes.
DNS blocking orders apply locally and shouldn’t affect people in other countries. However, things got more complicated recently when an Italian court required Cloudflare to restrict access to three torrent sites through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.
Cloudflare fiercely objected to the order but ultimately lost the legal battle. That left the company with no other option than to take action. But, instead of blocking content through its global DNS resolver, it geo-blocked the domains for Italians.
“To the extent that those websites used Cloudflare services, Cloudflare took steps following the issuance of the order to disable access to those websites for users in Italy or from Cloudflare equipment in Italy.
“Cloudflare took action to geoblock all three domains that were addressed by the court’s order and were using our service at the time the orders were issued via Cloudflare’s pass-through CDN and security services,” the company added.
In its most recent transparency report, Cloudflare further notes that it has implemented access restrictions on its public Ethereum gateway. The company doesn’t store any content on the Ethereum network, nor can it remove any. However, it can block access through its service.
If Cloudflare receives valid abuse reports or copyright infringement complaints, it will take appropriate action. The same applies to the gateway for the decentralized IPFS network.
In its previous transparency report, Cloudflare already mentioned more than 1,000 IPFS actions a figure that increased slightly in the second half of last year. At the same time, Cloudflare also restricted access to 99 ‘items’ on the Ethereum network.
Since these are ‘gateway’ related restrictions there’s no impact on the content hosted on IPFS or Ethereum. Instead, it will only make it impossible to access content through Cloudflare’s service.
It’s not clear how many of these restrictions are abuse or copyright-related, as not much context is provided. The Ethereum actions are, at least in part, a response to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s sanctions against the cryptocurrency tumbler Tornado Cash.
“Those sanctions raise significant legal questions about the extent to which particular computer software, rather than individuals or entities that use that software, can be subject to sanctions,” Cloudflare writes.
“Nonetheless, to comply with legal requirements, Cloudflare has taken steps to disable access through the Cloudflare-operated Ethereum Gateway to the digital currency addresses identified in the designation.”
There are more obvious copyright responses as well. While Cloudflare generally doesn’t block content in response to DMCA notices for customers that use its CDN services, it does remove infringing content permanently hosted on its servers.
These hosting services have expanded over the years and the same is true for the volume of valid DMCA notices received, up from 18 to 972 in the span of a year, as shown below. That’s still a fairly modest number for a company with millions of customers.
Finally, Cloudflare reports that the number of civil subpoenas, including those issued under the DMCA, has decreased. Rightsholders including the Motion Picture Association (MPA) typically use these requests to obtain identifying information about Cloudflare customers.
In the second half of last year, the company received 20 civil subpoenas which targeted 57 domain names. That’s the lowest number since Cloudflare first disclosed this statistic five years ago, signaling a downward trend.
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A copy of Cloudflare’s latest Transparency Report is available here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Amazon has had a notoriously hard time making money from Alexa.
Enlarge / Amazon's third-gen Echo Show 5. (credit: Amazon)
Amazon is going through yet another round of layoffs, reports Computerworld, and once again the company’s devices-and-services division appears to be bearing the brunt of it. The layoffs will primarily affect the team working on Alexa, the Amazon voice assistant that drives the company's Echo smart speakers and other products.
"Several hundred roles are impacted," the company said in a statement, "a relatively small percentage of the total number of people in the Devices business who are building great experiences for our customers."
Amazon says these layoffs result from "discontinue[d] initiatives" that have been discarded as the company invests more resources in generative AI products; the company didn't specify exactly which initiatives were being discontinued. Amazon hasn't released an AI-powered version of Alexa yet, but it showed "an early preview" of its efforts in September, "based on a new large language model that's been custom-built and specifically optimized for voice interactions."
Anthropic hat ein Update für den KI-Chatbot Claude veröffentlicht, das eine enorme Kontextlänge und Persona bietet. (
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