How censoring China’s open-source coders might backfire

The impact For now, there’s little clue as to what prompted the change, but censorship of certain types of language—profanity, pornography, and politically sensitive words—has been creeping up on the platform for a while. On Gitee’s official and public feedback page, there are multiple user complaints about how projects were censored for unclear reasons, possibly […]

The mystery of China’s sudden warnings about US hackers

Enlarge / Chinese flag with digital matrix -Innovation Concept – Digital Tech Wallpaper – 3D illustration peterschreiber.media | Getty Images reader comments 19 with 18 posters participating Share this story For the best part of a decade, US officials and cybersecurity companies have been naming and shaming hackers they believe work for the Chinese government. […]

US college VPN credentials for sale on Russian crime forums, FBI says

Getty Images reader comments 2 with 2 posters participating Share this story The FBI on Friday said that thousands of compromised credentials harvested from US college and university networks are circulating on online crime forums in Russia and elsewhere—and could lead to breaches that install ransomware or steal data. “The FBI is informing academic partners […]

Information security gets personal: How to protect yourself and your stuff

reader comments 5 with 4 posters participating Share this story Redefining privacy at Ars Frontiers. Click here for transcript. At the Ars Frontiers event in Washington, DC, I had the privilege of moderating two panels on two closely linked topics: digital privacy and information security. Despite significant attempts to improve things, conflicting priorities and inadequate […]

The Download: Driverless cars’ AI plan, and stretching cells with a robotic shoulder

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 New privacy-focused apps are ill-equipped to cope with moderation demandsIt makes maintaining the balance between privacy and policing more complicated. (WP $)+ How to have honest conversations with children about the Texas shooting. (The Atlantic $) 2 Big Tech’s lobbying efforts are […]

The big new idea for making self-driving cars that can go anywhere

Cruise control Either way, should we count on this new wave of firms to chase down the front-runners? Unsurprisingly, Mo ElShenawy, executive vice president of engineering at Cruise, isn’t convinced. “The state of the art as it exists today is not sufficient to get us to the stage where Cruise is at,” he says. Cruise […]

Griffin on Tech: Tech innovation and tragedy in the US

Peter Griffin, Editor. 27 May 2022, 1:41 pm It has been an immensely enjoyable week travelling abroad for the first time in over two years and reconnecting with the world beyond our borders. I’ve spent most of the week visiting IBM’s research labs at Yorktown Heights and Poughkeepsie, catching up on the latest developments in […]

Omnipotent BMCs from Quanta remain vulnerable to critical Pantsdown threat

Getty Images reader comments 12 with 12 posters participating Share this story In January 2019, a researcher disclosed a devastating vulnerability in one of the most powerful and sensitive devices embedded into modern servers and workstations. With a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10, the vulnerability affected a wide range of baseboard management controllers […]

Broadcom will pay $61 billion to become the latest company to acquire VMware

reader comments 48 with 35 posters participating Share this story Chipmaker Broadcom will be acquiring VMware for $61 billion in cash and stock, the companies announced today. Broadcom is best known for designing and selling a wide range of wired and wireless communication chips, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips and the processors that power many […]

A robotic shoulder could make it easier to grow usable human tissue

But growing usable human tendon cells—which need to stretch and twist—has proved trickier. Over the past two decades, scientists have encouraged engineered tendon cells and tissue to grow and mature by repeatedly stretching them in one direction. However, this approach has so far failed to produce fully functional tissue grafts that could be used clinically, […]