A group of U.S. lawmakers preparing to fight a legislative attack on encrypted communications is trying to establish what happened when encryption was subverted at a Silicon Valley maker of networking gear. From a report: Democrat Ron Wyden, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the 2015 incident at Sunnyvale-based Juniper Networks could shed light on the risks of compromised…
Tag: reuters
Obscure Indian Cyber Firm Spied On Politicians, Investors Worldwide
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A little-known Indian IT firm offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over a period of seven years. New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services targeted government officials in Europe, gambling tycoons in the Bahamas, and well-known investors in the United States including private equity giant KKR and…
Self-Driving Cars Would Only Prevent a Third of America’s Crashes, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Self-driving cars, long touted by developers as a way to eliminate road deaths, could likely only prevent a third of all U.S. road crashes, according to a study released on Thursday. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a research group financed by U.S. insurers, found the remaining crashes were caused by mistakes that self-driving systems are…
UK Halts Hydroxychloroquine Trial, Calling It ‘Useless’ for Covid-19 Patients
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: British scientists halted a major drug trial on Friday after it found that the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine, touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential “game changer” in the pandemic, was “useless” at treating COVID-19 patients. “This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn’t work,” Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the…
Putin Declares State of Emergency After Massive Fuel Leak Pollutes River in the Arctic Circle
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency in the city of Norilsk after a massive oil spill in the Arctic region. An estimated 20,000 tons of fuel from a power plant spilled onto a road, and a large part made its way into an river on May 29. From a report: A “considerable amount” of the oil seeped into…
GM Plans Electric Van for Business Users in Bid To Pre-empt Tesla
General Motors is developing an electric van aimed at business users, joining a growing list of carmakers planning EVs for the same segment which includes customers such as Amazon.com and United Parcel Service, Reuters reported Thursday. From the report: That multibillion-dollar strategy could enable GM, Ford Motor and at least two EV startups to build and deliver more electric vehicles at…
Germany Bans Digital Doppelganger Passport Photos
Germany will outlaw the morphing of passport photos, in which pictures of two people are digitally combined, making it possible to assign multiple identities to a single document. Reuters reports: Morphing can trick artificial intelligence used at passport control into recognizing different individuals. The government on Wednesday backed a law requiring people to either have their photo taken at a passport…
Huawei Hid Business Operation in Iran After Reuters Reported Links To CFO
China’s Huawei acted to cover up its relationship with a firm that had tried to sell prohibited U.S. computer gear to Iran, after Reuters in 2013 reported deep links between the firm and the telecom-equipment giant’s chief financial officer, newly obtained internal Huawei documents show. From the report: Huawei has long described the firm — Skycom Tech — as a separate…
Google Faces $5 Billion Lawsuit In US For Tracking ‘Private’ Internet Use
Google was sued on Tuesday in a proposed class action accusing the internet search company of illegally invading the privacy of millions of users by pervasively tracking their internet use through browsers set in “private” mode. Reuters reports: The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion, accusing the Alphabet unit of collecting information about what people view online and where they do…
Zoom’s New, Stronger Encryption May Only Protect Paying Clients
“Zoom plans to strengthen the encryption of its service for paying customers,” reports Newsweek, “but the upgrade will not be available to users of its free service.”
Zoom security consultant Alex Stamos later confirmed the details of the reported move in an interview with Reuters, which first reported the changes on Friday. But he also told the news outlet that Zoom’s plans…