Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Hackers abused an antivirus service for five years in order to infect end users with malware. The attack worked because the service delivered updates over HTTP, a protocol vulnerable to attacks that corrupt or tamper with data as it travels over the Internet. The unknown hackers, who may have ties to...
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Microsoft’s Phi-3 shows the surprising power of small, locally run AI language models
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new, freely available lightweight AI language model named Phi-3-mini, which is simpler and less expensive to operate than traditional large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo. Its small size is ideal for running locally, which could bring an AI model of similar capability to the...
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Generative A.I. Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR
Much as ChatGPT generates poetry, a new A.I. system devises blueprints for microscopic mechanisms that can edit your DNA.
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States Move to Ban Deepfake Nudes to Fight Sexually Explicit Images of Minors
Legislators in two dozen states are working on bills, or have passed laws, to combat A.I.-generated sexually explicit images of minors.
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AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material May Overwhelm Tip Line
A report by Stanford researchers cautions that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children doesn’t have the resources to help fight the new epidemic.
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TikTok Faces E.U. Inquiry Over ‘Addictive’ Features
European officials threatened to fine TikTok and force it to remove some features, the latest regulatory challenge for the Chinese-owned social media app.
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Nina Jankowicz Forms New Group to Defend Disinformation Research
The group intends to fight what its leader, Nina Jankowicz, and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and their allies to undermine researchers who study disinformation.
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Windows vulnerability reported by the NSA exploited to install Russian malware
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Kremlin-backed hackers have been exploiting a critical Microsoft vulnerability for four years in attacks that targeted a vast array of organizations with a previously undocumented tool, the software maker disclosed Monday. When Microsoft patched the vulnerability in October 2022—at least two years after it came under attack by the Russian hackers—the...
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Apple Says It Was Ordered to Pull WhatsApp From China App Store
Apple said it removed WhatsApp and Threads from its China app offerings Friday on Beijing’s orders, amid technological tensions between the U.S. and China.
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Start-Up Founder Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for Fraud
Manish Lachwani, who founded the software start-up HeadSpin, is the latest tech entrepreneur to face time in prison in recent years.