Tag: black box

Police Turn To Car Data To Destroy Suspects’ Alibis

In recent years, investigators have realized that automobiles — particularly newer models — can be treasure troves of digital evidence. Their onboard computers generate and store data that can be used to reconstruct where a vehicle has been and what its passengers were doing. From a report: They reveal everything from location, speed and acceleration to when doors were opened and…

Oracle’s Hidden Hand Is Behind the Google Antitrust Lawsuits

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: With great fanfare last week, 44 attorneys general hit Google with two antitrust complaints, following a landmark lawsuit the Justice Department and 11 states lodged against the Alphabet Inc. unit in October. What’s less known is that Oracle Corp. spent years working behind the scenes to convince regulators and law enforcement agencies in…

How Do US Government Agencies Verify Security Software from Private Contractors?

A recent article at Politico argues that the U.S. government “doesn’t do much to verify the security of software from private contractors. And that’s how suspected Russian hackers got in.” The federal government conducts only cursory security inspections of the software it buys from private companies for a wide range of activities, from managing databases to operating internal chat applications. That…

Black Box review: Smart sci fi plays with identity, fate and death

Black Box is an intelligent and melancholy sci-fi film in which a man who loses his memory in a car crash takes extreme steps to get his life back, writes Simon Ings Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833050-600-black-box-review-smart-sci-fi-plays-with-identity-fate-and-death/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

AI Can Make Music, Screenplays, and Poetry. What About a Movie?

Want a movie where a protagonist your age, race, sexuality, gender, and religion becomes an Olympic swimmer? You got it. Want a movie where someone demographically identical to your boss gets squeezed to death and devoured by a Burmese python? Your wish is its command. From a report: Want to leave out the specifics and let fate decide what never-before-imagined movie…

CIA Declassifies Cold War-Era Plans for a ‘Nuclear Bird Drone’

“During the Cold War, the CIA considered building a bird-sized drone designed to spy on the communist bloc,” reports Popular Mechanics. “The drone would carry ‘black box’ spy packages into Russia and China, as well as take secret photographs — all while hiding in plain sight disguised as a bird…” The project envisioned a fleet of 12 bird-shaped drones, powered by…

Millions of Android Phones At Risk Due to ‘Achilles’ Flaw in Qualcomm Chips

“Researchers have found that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, one of the most widely used in Android phones, has hundreds of bits of vulnerable code that leaves millions of Android users at risk,” reports Gizmodo:
To back up a bit, Qualcomm is a major chip supplier to several well-known tech companies. In 2019, its Snapdragon series of processors could be found on nearly 40%…

Facebook Announces Results of ‘Deepfake Detection Challenge’: 65% Accuracy

An anonymous reader quotes Engadget:
In September of 2019, Facebook launched its Deepfake Detection Challenge — a public contest to develop autonomous algorithmic detection systems to combat the emerging threat of deepfake videos. After nearly a year, the social media platform announced the winners of the challenge, out of a pool of more than 2,000 global competitors… Facebook spent around $10 million…

Google’s Black Box Algorithm Controls Which Political Emails Land in Your Main Inbox

Adrianne Jeffries, Leon Yin, and Surya Mattu, reporting for The Markup: Pete Buttigieg is leading at 63 percent. Andrew Yang came in second at 46 percent. And Elizabeth Warren looks like she’s in trouble with 0 percent. These aren’t poll numbers for the U.S. 2020 Democratic presidential contest. Instead, they reflect which candidates were able to consistently land in Gmail’s primary…