A new report offers one of the most comprehensive overviews of the challenges to global electoral integrity posed by the onslaught of misinformation, online extremism, and social media manipulation campaigns, and calls for a series of reforms from platforms, politicians, and international governing bodies. In a report released Wednesday, the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections […]
The law that took effect January 1 says businesses must “inform” consumers that they are collecting personal information “at or before the point of collection.” The attorney general’s draft regulations, due to be finalized in time for enforcement to begin in July, suggests physical premises distribute paper notices or display “prominent signage” with a web […]
Two days ago, I finally gave up Windows 7. I don’t dislike Windows 10, but there’s just always been something special about Windows 7. It was svelte. It actually ran faster and took up less hard drive space than its predecessor, the much-maligned Windows Vista. It looked great. We Windows users could finally hold our […]
An Android phone subsidized by the US government for low-income users comes preinstalled with malware that can’t be removed without making the device cease to work, researchers reported on Thursday. ARS TECHNICA This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by […]
In late January, the wife of a cryptocurrency exchange founder testified that her husband inadvertently took at least $137 million of customer assets to the grave when he died without giving anyone the password to his encrypted laptop. Now outraged investors want to exhume the founder’s body to make sure he’s really dead. ARS TECHNICA […]
You’ve probably been hearing the hype about lightning-fast 5G for years now. And while the new wireless networks still aren’t ubiquitous in the United States, 5G is slowly cropping up in cities from Boston and Seattle to Dallas and Kansas City. With the faster connection speeds will come increased security and privacy protections for users, […]
The world of cryptocurrency has no shortage of imaginary investment products. Fake coins. Fake blockchain services. Fake cryptocurrency exchanges. Now five men behind a company called BitClub Network are accused of a $722 million scam that allegedly preyed on victims who thought they were investing in a pool of bitcoin mining equipment. Federal prosecutors call […]
An important leap for artificial intelligence in recent years is machines’ ability to teach themselves, through endless practice, to solve problems, from mastering ancient board games to navigating busy roads. But a few subtle tweaks in the training regime can poison this “reinforcement learning,” so that the resulting algorithm responds—like a sleeper agent—to a specified […]
The cofounder of WhatsApp and the Signal Foundation thinks the use of encrypted communications tools will only increase in the future. “There’s a global education that’s happening,” says Brian Acton, who left WhatsApp in 2018 and now chairs the nonprofit Signal Foundation, which promotes open source, end-to-end encryption in messaging. “Back in the ‘90s, we […]
America’s national security depends on the government getting access to the artificial intelligence breakthroughs made by the technology industry. So says a report submitted to Congress on Monday by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. The group, which includes executives from Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon, says the Pentagon and intelligence agencies need a […]