ICT news

• Vast Pedophile Network Shut Down In Europol's Largest CSAM Operation

  02-04-2025 23:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Europol has shut down one of the largest dark web pedophile networks in the world, prompting dozens of arrests worldwide and threatening that more are to follow. Launched in 2021, KidFlix allowed users to join for free to preview low-quality videos depicting child sex abuse materials (CSAM). To see higher-resolution videos, users had to earn credits by sending cryptocurrency payments, uploading CSAM, or "verifying video titles and descriptio
  
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• Global Scam Industry Evolving at 'Unprecedented Scale' Despite Recent Crackdown

  02-04-2025 23:01 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Online scam operations across Southeast Asia are rapidly adapting to recent crackdowns, adopting AI and expanding globally despite the release of 7,000 trafficking victims from compounds along the Myanmar-Thailand border, experts say. These releases represent just a fraction of an estimated 100,000 people trapped in facilities run by criminal syndicates that rake in billions through investment schemes and romance scams targeting victims worldwide, CNN reports.
  "Billions of dollars are being inve
  
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• European Commission Takes Aim At End-to-End Encryption and Proposes Europol Become an EU FBI

  02-04-2025 22:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The European Commission has announced its intention to join the ongoing debate about lawful access to data and end-to-end encryption while unveiling a new internal security strategy aimed to address ongoing threats. From a report: ProtectEU, as the strategy has been named, describes the general areas that the bloc's executive would like to address in the coming years although as a strategy it does not offer any detailed policy proposals. In what the Commission called "a changed security environm
  
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• Microsoft Urges Businesses To Abandon Office Perpetual Licenses

  02-04-2025 21:41 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft is pushing businesses to shift away from perpetual Office licenses to Microsoft 365 subscriptions, citing collaboration limitations and rising IT costs associated with standalone software. "You may have started noticing limitations," Microsoft says in a post. "Your apps are stuck on your desktop, limiting productivity anytime you're away from your office. You can't easily access your files or collaborate when working remotely."
  In its pitch, the Windows-maker says Microsoft 365 include
  
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• Cybersecurity Professor Faced China Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing

  02-04-2025 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The FBI searched two homes of Indiana University Bloomington data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang last week, following months of university inquiries into whether he received unreported research funding from China, WIRED reported Wednesday.
  Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, was terminated on March 28 via email from the university provost. The university had contacted Wang in December regarding a 2017
  
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• AI Masters Minecraft: DeepMind Program Finds Diamonds Without Being Taught

  02-04-2025 20:30 via slashdot.org
  
  An AI system has for the first time figured out how to collect diamonds in the hugely popular video game Minecraft -- a difficult task requiring multiple steps -- without being shown how to play. Its creators say the system, called Dreamer, is a step towards machines that can generalize knowledge learned in one domain to new situations, a major goal of AI. From a report: "Dreamer marks a significant step towards general AI systems," says Danijar Hafner, a computer scientist at Google DeepMind in
  
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• Amazon Said To Make a Bid To Buy TikTok in the US

  02-04-2025 18:59 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has put in a last-minute bid to acquire all of TikTok, the popular video app, as it approaches an April deadline to be separated from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the United States, according to three people familiar with the bid.
  Various parties who have been involved in the talks do not appear to be taking Amazon's bid seriously, the people said. The bid came via an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Howard Lutnick, the comme
  
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• 95% of Code Will Be AI-Generated Within Five Years, Microsoft CTO Says

  02-04-2025 18:11 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott has predicted that AI will generate 95% of code within five years. Speaking on the 20VC podcast, Scott said AI would not replace software engineers but transform their role. "It doesn't mean that the AI is doing the software engineering job.... authorship is still going to be human," Scott said.
  According to Scott, developers will shift from writing code directly to guiding AI through prompts and instructions. "We go from being an input master (prog
  
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• Alleged Deel Spy Confesses To Coordinating with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz

  02-04-2025 17:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Newcomer: Keith O'Brien, the man who allegedly spied for Deel while working at Rippling, is apparently clearing his conscience, according to a sworn Irish affidavit. O'Brien says in the affidavit that Deel paid him to spy on Rippling and that he coordinated directly with Deel's CEO, Alex Bouaziz.
  For some background, Alex Bouaziz is Deel's CEO and Philippe Bouaziz is his father, Deel's CFO. Rippling, which competes directly with Deel, has sued Deel over the alleged spying. O'Brien says in the af
  
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• Lawmakers Propose Cap on Credit Card Interest Rates

  02-04-2025 16:43 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Anna Paulina Luna introduced bipartisan legislation in March to cap credit card interest rates at 10% annually as Americans' debt hits record levels. "Credit cards with high interest rates regularly trap working people in endless cycles of debt," Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.
  Credit card debt has reached $1.2 trillion in Q4 2024, up from $720 billion in the same quarter of 2004, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Average annual p
  
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• Nintendo Switch 2 Arrives on June 5, Priced at $450

  02-04-2025 16:08 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Nintendo's Switch 2, priced at $450, launches June 5 with a 7.9-inch LCD screen offering 1080p resolution, HDR support, and 120Hz refresh capability. The device maintains the original Switch's 13.99mm thickness while increasing internal storage to 256GB from the previous 32GB.
  The console outputs at 4K/60fps when docked, with the dock featuring a built-in cooling fan. Two USB-C ports handle accessories and charging. The system supports microSD Express cards but not original Switch microSD cards.
  
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• Zelle Is Shutting Down Its App

  02-04-2025 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Zelle is shutting down its stand-alone app on Tuesday, according to a company blog post. This news might be alarming if you're one of the over 150 million customers in the U.S. who use Zelle for person-to-person payments. But only about 2% of transactions take place via Zelle's app, which is why the company is discontinuing its stand-alone app.Most consumers access Zelle via their bank, which then allows them to send money to their phone conta
  
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• Brain Interface Speaks Your Thoughts In Near Real-time

  02-04-2025 12:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader backslashdot writes: Commentary, video, and a publication in this week's Nature Neuroscience herald a significant advance in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, enabling speech by decoding electrical activity in the brain's sensorimotor cortex in real-time. Researchers from UC Berkeley and UCSF employed deep learning recurrent neural network transducer models to decode neural signals in 80-millisecond intervals, generating fluent, intelligible speech tailored to e
  
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• James Webb Space Telescope Reveals That Most Galaxies Rotate Clockwise

  02-04-2025 10:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed that a surprising majority of galaxies rotate clockwise, challenging the long-held belief in a directionally uniform universe; this anomaly could suggest either our universe originated inside a rotating black hole or that astronomers have been misinterpreting the universe's expansion due to observational biases. Smithsonian Magazine reports: The problem is that astronomers have long posited that galaxies should be evenly split between rotating in one d
  
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• Why Watts Should Replace mAh as Essential Spec for Mobile Devices

  02-04-2025 09:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Tech manufacturers continue misleading consumers with impressive-sounding but less useful specs like milliamp-hours and megahertz, while hiding the one measurement that matters most: watts. The Verge argues that the watt provides the clearest picture of a device's true capabilities by showing how much power courses through chips and how quickly batteries drain. With elementary math, consumers could easily calculate battery life by dividing watt-hours by power consumption. The Verge: The Steam De
  
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• OpenAI Accused of Training GPT-4o on Unlicensed O'Reilly Books

  02-04-2025 06:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A new paper [PDF] from the AI Disclosures Project claims OpenAI likely trained its GPT-4o model on paywalled O'Reilly Media books without a licensing agreement. The nonprofit organization, co-founded by O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly himself, used a method called DE-COP to detect copyrighted content in language model training data.
  Researchers analyzed 13,962 paragraph excerpts from 34 O'Reilly books, finding that GPT-4o "recognized" significantly more paywalled content than older models like G
  
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• Cheap TVs' Incessant Advertising Reaches Troubling New Lows

  02-04-2025 05:30 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed from Ars Technica's Scharon Harding: TVs offer us an escape from the real world. After a long day, sometimes there's nothing more relaxing than turning on your TV, tuning into your favorite program, and unplugging from the realities around you. But what happens when divisive, potentially offensive messaging infiltrates that escape? Even with streaming services making it easy to watch TV commercial-free, it can still be difficult for TV viewers to avoid ads wit
  
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• Nuclear Is Now 'Clean Energy' In Colorado

  02-04-2025 04:10 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  With the signing of HB25-1040 on Monday, Colorado now defines nuclear as a "clean energy resource" since it doesn't release large amounts of climate-warming emissions. "The category was previously reserved for renewables like wind, solar and geothermal, which don't carry the radioactive stigma that's hobbled fission power plants following disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima," notes Colorado Public Radio. From the report: In an emailed statement, Ally Sullivan, a spokesperson for the governor'
  
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• Substack Says It'll Legally Defend Writers 'Targeted By the Government'

  02-04-2025 02:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Substack has announced it will legally support foreign writers lawfully residing in the U.S. who face government targeting over their published work, partnering with the nonprofit FIRE to expand its existing Defender program. The Verge reports: In their announcement, Substack and FIRE mention the international Tufts University student who was arrested by federal agents last week. Her legal team links her arrest to an opinion piece she co-wrote for the school's newspaper last year, which criticiz
  
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• Stablecoin Issuer Circle Files For IPO

  02-04-2025 02:10 via slashdot.org
  
  Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an IPO aiming for a $5 billion valuation. It marks the company's second attempt at going public amid renewed momentum in the crypto sector and signs of recovery in tech IPO markets. CNBC reports: A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance, including the announcement la
  
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• YouTube Could Be Worth $550 Billion as Analyst Crowns Platform 'New King of All Media'

  02-04-2025 01:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  MoffettNathanson has crowned YouTube the "New King of All Media" as the Alphabet-owned video platform has become a major force in Hollywood, dominating time spent watching TV. From a report: The firm estimates that YouTube as a standalone business could be worth as much as $550 billion -- or nearly 30% of the tech giant's current valuation. The figure is based on the firm's analysis of enterprise value as a multiple of revenue in 2024 for Netflix (10.5x revenue), Meta (8.8x), Roku (2.4x), Warner
  
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• Mozilla To Launch 'Thunderbird Pro' Paid Services

  02-04-2025 00:50 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Mozilla plans to introduce a suite of paid professional services for its open-source Thunderbird email client, transforming the application into a comprehensive communication platform. Dubbed "Thunderbird Pro," the package aims to compete with established ecosystems like Gmail and Office 365 while maintaining Mozilla's commitment to open-source software.
  The Pro tier will include four core services: Thunderbird Appointment for streamlined scheduling, Thunderbird Send for file sharing (reviving t
  
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• Donkey Kong Champion Wins Defamation Case Against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst

  02-04-2025 00:10 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A professional YouTuber in Queensland has been ordered to pay $350,000 plus interest and costs to the former world record score holder for Donkey Kong, after the Brisbane district court found the YouTuber had defamed him "recklessly" with false claims of a link between a lawsuit and another YouTuber's suicide. William "Billy" Mitchell, an American gamer who had held world records in Donkey Kong and Pac-Man going back to 1982, as recognized b
  
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