Apple’s Macs have long escaped ransomware, but that may be changing

Getty Images reader comments 64 with Share this story Security researchers are examining newly discovered Mac ransomware samples from the notorious gang LockBit, marking the first known example of a prominent ransomware group toying with macOS versions of its malware. Ransomware is a pervasive threat, but attackers typically don’t bother creating versions of their malware […]

The Download: fire-resistant homes, and Big Tech’s AI chokehold

With each devastating wildfire in the US West, officials consider new methods or regulations that might save homes or lives the next time. In the parts of California where the hillsides meet human development, and where the state has suffered recurring seasonal fire tragedies, that search for new means of survival has especially high stakes.  […]

The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes

“We have to get over this idea that it’s always the best thing to actually evacuate,” says Kolden. “We used to have community bomb shelters, right? These are functionally community fire shelters. Those are the sort of conversations that we haven’t had. And if we really want to build fire-­resilient communities, we have to have those […]

Generative AI risks concentrating Big Tech’s power. Here’s how to stop it

Myers West says her secondment taught her that AI regulation doesn’t have to start from a blank slate. Instead of waiting for AI-specific regulations, such as the EU’s AI Act, which will take years to put into place, regulators should ramp up enforcement of existing data protection and competition laws. Because AI as we know it […]

Microsoft’s Vasu Jakkal: AI will transform cybersecurity – and tackle the cyber skills shortage

Cybersecurity is getting the generative AI treatment, with Microsoft’s new Security Copilot service incorporating the same artificial intelligence technology that has taken the world by storm. Security Copilot combines OpenAI’s GPT-4 generative AI with a security-specifc model Microsoft has created. It allows cybersecurity professionals to enter prompts to find out about the status of a […]

Adobe teases generative AI video tools

Enlarge / A demo of Firefly AI generation in Adobe Premiere. reader comments 9 with Share this story On Monday, Adobe announced plans to add AI video synthesis tools to Premiere Pro and After Effects, reports Reuters. This follows an announcement last week that AI-powered text-based video editing will come to Premiere Pro in May. […]

FSF: Chrome’s JPEG XL killing shows how the web works under browser hegemony

Enlarge / When Google, whose Chromium/Chrome-related browsers make up 80% of browser share, says that something has “not enough interest from the entire ecosystem,” what does that mean, exactly? Aurich Lawson reader comments 56 with Share this story Chrome developers’ decision to remove support for a compressed image format that Google helped develop is just […]

The US is pouring money into surveillance tech at the southern border

According to EFF, the agency plans to triple the number of towers, from 135 today to 442, and upgrade existing towers with new technologies in the next several years. There are three different types of towers: integrated fixed towers, remote video surveillance systems, and autonomous surveillance towers. They all focus on detecting people from afar, […]