Sci-Tech news

• More than 746,000 NHS phishing emails blocked in a month

  06-02-2018 18:03 via bbc.co.uk
  The NCSC has brought down the UK's share of global phishing attacks by securing government systems.
  
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• Google & Voltus Team Up To Create A “Virtual Power Plant”

  05-06-2026 04:52 via technocracy.news
  
  This is one step away from outright theft of energy from the private sector, to reallocate it to the power-hungry AI data centers. The next step will be to float an “energy sharing” narrative across the nation. The first two requirements of Technocracy in the 1930s were: “1. Register on a continuous 24-hour-per-day basis the total net conversion of energy, and 2. By means of the registration of energy converted and consumed, make possible a balanced load.” Sound familiar?
  
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• 'It would be good for the world' to slow down AI sprints, Anthropic says

  05-06-2026 01:46 via theregister.com
  
  It would be “good for the world” to slow down the pace of AI development, according to a blog post from Anthropic, which this week began the process of going public with a confidential IPO filing. “We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” stated a blog post written by Anthropic co-founder (and former
  
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• Mangrove forests are healing after decades of human destruction

  05-06-2026 01:11 via bbc.com
  
  Swampy mangrove forests are staging a surprise comeback - which is good news for coastal communities and the climate.
  
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• Dumped animal carcasses in rivers 'shameful' say litter pickers

  05-06-2026 01:00 via bbc.com
  
  Figures show there were almost 150 animal dumping incidents in Northern Ireland since 2020.
  
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• Pink is the latest goon squad to use fake helpdesk calls to steal creds

  05-06-2026 00:16 via theregister.com
  
  A new extortion brand called Pink uses voice phishing and fake help-desk calls to gain initial access to organizations’ IT environments, steal their sensitive data, and threaten to leak it unless the victims pay a ransom demand. Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 first spotted the gang, which it tracks as cluster CL-CRI-1147, and its data-leak site, which went live on May 31. “Pink uses vishing and IT impersonation to phish credentials/MFA, then exfiltrates enterprise cloud storage and prod
  
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• Canada wants to make its own AI, break free from US bots

  04-06-2026 23:56 via theregister.com
  
  We’re a month shy of the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence, and another close ally has decided to celebrate by declaring independence from American tech, AI in particular. The Canadian government on Thursday announced a new "AI for All" national strategy that will see Ottawa direct CA$1 billion ($719 million) toward expanding AI adoption and supporting Canada's AI sector. The plan includes CA$500 million through an AI financing program to help small and medium-size
  
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• Las Vegas struck by house-shaking earthquake as thousands are left rattled

  04-06-2026 23:35 via dailymail.com
  
  Las Vegas has been struck by an earthquake felt by thousands throughout the major tourist destination.
  
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• OpenAI's agent chained decade-old DoS attacks to crash web servers in seconds

  04-06-2026 21:08 via theregister.com
  
  The next threat your server faces may have been helped along by a bot. OpenAI's Codex agent helped uncover a remote denial-of-service (DoS) exploit that can be launched from a single machine to render vulnerable web servers inaccessible in seconds, according to Calif security researchers. The attack works on default HTTP/2 configurations of major web servers including nginx, Apache HTTP Server, Microsoft IIS, Envoy, and Cloudflare Pingora. As of Thursday, Microsoft IIS and Cloudflare Pingora sti
  
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• Swarms of 'killer mosquitoes' released on innocent Americans reveal secret Pentagon files

  04-06-2026 21:05 via dailymail.com
  
  Unearthed files from the Pentagon reveal the existence of a secret project aimed at turning common pests into a deadly disease-carrying army.
  
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• 'Ominous blob' spotted in Gulf of America threatens multiple US states

  04-06-2026 20:29 via dailymail.com
  
  A massive blob of storms has developed in the Gulf of America, threatening multiple US states starting Friday.
  
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• Secret Pentagon files reveal US Army tested swarms of 'killer mosquitoes' as biological warfare weapons

  04-06-2026 20:02 via dailymail.com
  
  Unearthed files from the Pentagon reveal the existence of a secret project aimed at turning common pests into a deadly disease-carrying army.
  
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• AI heavyweights warn their tech could help terrorists develop bioweapons

  04-06-2026 18:48 via theregister.com
  
  The world’s AI luminaries love to warn us of impending planetary demise thanks to their creations, and they’re back with a new warning: Rapidly improving frontier AI models, combined with readily available synthetic nucleic acids, could lower barriers to biological weapons development. The open letter, published this week, calls on lawmakers to make screening of orders for synthetic nucleic acids and the equipment used to produce them mandatory. It also backs recordkeeping for synthe
  
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• Benevolent dictator Zuck will give Meta staff 30-minute breaks from keylogging privacy assault

  04-06-2026 18:28 via theregister.com
  
  Meta is reportedly backtracking on, or at least weakening, its plans to implement enhanced employee workplace monitoring following staff protests. According to the latest internal memo on the matter, first reported by Reuters, Meta is still planning to capture employees’ keystrokes as previously understood, but it will allow Metalings to switch off the monitoring for 30-minute periods, and request a total exemption. The memo was distributed to staff on Tuesday by Stephane Kasriel, veep at
  
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• Musk's SpaceX share sale: Four things you need to know

  04-06-2026 18:18 via bbc.com
  
  From next week individual investors can take a stake in Musk's rockets-to-AI company.
  
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• AMD takes a third of server CPU market as shipments grow

  04-06-2026 17:49 via theregister.com
  
  Processor shipments declined by more than six percent during the first quarter of 2026, at least for the x86 world, with server CPUs bucking the trend and AMD in particular showing strong performance. These are the latest figures from Mercury Research’s PC Processor report, which tracks the ins and outs of the component markets. The firm says that the total volume of x86 processor chips shipped was lower during this quarter than the previous one, which is seasonally typical, but the magnit
  
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• Mysterious triangular aircraft spotted over Area 51 sparks secret tech theories

  04-06-2026 17:25 via dailymail.com
  
  A mysterious aircraft has been spotted near the highly classified Area 51 base in Nevada, raising questions about what secret technology may be taking to the skies.
  
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• The football emoji has had a makeover! Classic black and white design is replaced with a colourful ball ahead of the World Cup

  04-06-2026 16:36 via dailymail.com
  
  The standard football emoji features a classic design, with black and white hexagons stitched together. But if you send the emoji on WhatsApp from today, you'll see an entirely new ball.
  
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• Kushner-backed luxury resort plan sparks protests in Albania

  04-06-2026 16:33 via bbc.com
  
  Demonstrators say the project backed by Donald Trump's son-in-law would harm a protected environment.
  
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• 'Please do not vibe f$%& up this software': Broken backups spark AI coding row in rsync project

  04-06-2026 15:45 via theregister.com
  
  Incremental backups started failing for some rsync users after a recent update, and what they found in the project's commit history quickly turned a routine bug hunt into yet another fight over AI-generated code. The controversy centers on rsync 3.4.3, a security-focused release published earlier this year to fix multiple vulnerabilities. Shortly after the upgrade, some users reported that incremental backup workflows were no longer behaving as expected, with one user saying their backup system
  
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• 'Please do not vibe f--- up this software': Broken backups spark AI coding row in rsync project

  04-06-2026 15:45 via theregister.com
  
  Incremental backups started failing for some rsync users after a recent update, and what they found in the project's commit history quickly turned a routine bug hunt into yet another fight over AI-generated code. The controversy centers on rsync 3.4.3, a security-focused release published earlier this year to fix multiple vulnerabilities. Shortly after the upgrade, some users reported that incremental backup workflows were no longer behaving as expected, with one user saying their backup system
  
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• Bathing warning lifted after pollution investigation

  04-06-2026 15:23 via bbc.com
  
  Officials say the water at Portstewart Strand does not pose a risk to the public.
  
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• Intel's mysterious new datacenter GPU is what Nvidia's Rubin CPX nearly was

  04-06-2026 15:00 via theregister.com
  
  COMPUTEX 2026 Intel offered new insights into its next-gen datacenter GPU codenamed Crescent Island. Alongside supporting enterprise AI deployments, the GPU could fill the void left by Nvidia's Rubin CPX GPUs, which were seemingly shelved late last year following its acquisition of Groq. As datacenter GPUs go, Intel's Crescent Island is certainly an odd duck. It'll ship in a PCIe form factor when most high-end GPUs are now using socketed designs. It also won't use HBM or even GDDR memory. Instea
  
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• Flesh-eating parasite that devours victims alive detected in US for first time in 60 years

  04-06-2026 14:44 via dailymail.com
  
  A deadly flesh-eating parasite has been detected in the US for the first time since 1966, sparking fears of a looming outbreak.
  
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• Palantir wins £9M contract to run UK firearms licensing: CIA-backed biz to hold gun, bomb, and poison records

  04-06-2026 14:30 via theregister.com
  
  Palantir has secured a £9 million ($12 million) government contract to provide software for managing firearms licensing across the UK. The US spy-tech biz will also handle Home Office licensing for explosives, explosive precursors, and poisons. The contract covers a replacement for the National Firearms Licensing Management System (NFLMS), which has been in use since the mid-2000s. According to a recently published procurement notice, the new system will help 43 Police Forces in England an
  
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• Shocking twist after America's top exorcist claims UFOs are actually demons

  04-06-2026 14:05 via dailymail.com
  
  One of America's most prominent Catholic exorcists has found himself at the center of a growing controversy after claiming that many UFO sightings are demons.
  
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• Five Eyes: Watch out for odd LinkedIn connection requests, China's back on the hunt for state secrets

  04-06-2026 13:57 via theregister.com
  
  MI5 and its international allies are once again warning that China is shopping for state secret leakers on popular recruitment platforms, including LinkedIn, Indeed, and Upwork. In a fresh advisory published on Wednesday evening, the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence agency said China is using an increasing number of platforms to recruit those who have access to classified or privileged information. Chinese military intelligence officers specifically target security clearance holders, inc
  
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• Duo who sold car crash victims' data must repay £118k

  04-06-2026 13:13 via theregister.com
  
  Two former RAC workers in the UK have three months to pay more than £118,000 ($158,500) collectively after being convicted of selling crash victims’ data, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Debbie Okparavero and Maliha Islam, of Salford and Manchester respectively, were sentenced to six-month prison stints, suspended for 18 months, and 150 hours’ unpaid work in 2024, after being found guilty of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Dat
  
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• Trust celebrates birth of rare lemur quadruplets

  04-06-2026 13:11 via bbc.com
  
  The trust says the quadruplets are incredibly rare, occurring in fewer than 6% of births worldwide.
  
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• Who will win the World Cup? Scientists calculate the chances for all 48 teams - with Spain the clear favourites to take home the trophy

  04-06-2026 12:53 via dailymail.com
  
  Experts from the University of Innsbruck have calculated the chances of winning for all 48 participating teams. And their findings will come as good news for Spain fans.
  
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