ICT news

• #StopRansomware: Cuba Ransomware 

  01-12-2022 15:53 via us-cert.cisa.gov
  Original release date: December 1, 2022
  Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and CISA released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) #StopRansomware: Cuba Ransomware to provide network defenders tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with Cuba ransomware. FBI investigations identified these TTPs and IOCs as recently as August 2022. This CSA updates the December 2021 FBI Flash: Indicators of Compromise Associated with Cuba Ransomw
  
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• Galileo's Handwritten Notes Discovered in a Medieval Astronomy Text

  01-03-2026 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  In a library in Florence, Italy, historian Ivan Malara noticed handwritten notes on a book printed in the 1500s — and recognized the handwriting as Galileo's. The finding "promises new insights into one of the most famous ideological transitions in the history of science," writes Science magazine — since the book Galileo annotated was a reprint of Ptolemy's second-century work arguing that the earth was the center of the universe.Galileo's notes, perhaps written around 1590, or rough
  
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• Some Linux LTS Kernels Will Be Supported Even Longer, Announces Greg Kroah-Hartman

  01-03-2026 12:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the blogIt's FOSS:Greg Kroah-Hartman has updated the projected end-of-life (EOL) dates for several active longterm support kernels via a commit. The provided reasoning? It was done "based on lots of discussions with different companies and groups and the other stable kernel maintainer." The other maintainer is Sasha Levin, who co-maintains these Linux kernel releases alongside Greg. Now, the updated support schedule for the currently active LTS kernels
  
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• Anthropic's Claude Leaps to #2 on Apple's 'Top Apps' Chart After Pentagon Controversy

  01-03-2026 09:34 via slashdot.org
  Anthropic's Claude AI assistant "jumped to the No. 2 slot on Apple's chart of top U.S. free apps late on Friday," reports CNBC:
  The rise in popularity suggests that Anthropic is benefiting from its presence in news headlines, stemming from its refusal to have its models used for mass domestic surveillance or for fully autonomous weapons... OpenAI's ChatGPT sat at No. 1 on the App Store rankings on Saturday, while Google's Gemini was at No. 3... On Jan. 30, [Claude] was ranked No. 131 in the U.S.
  
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• Silicon Valley's Ideas Mocked Over Penchant for Favoring Young Entrepreneurs with 'Agency'

  01-03-2026 06:34 via slashdot.org
  In a 9,000-word expose, a writer for Harper's visited San Francisco's young entrepreneurs in September to mockingly profile "tech's new generation and the end of thinking."There's Cluely founder Roy Lee. ("His grand contribution to the world was a piece of software that told people what to do.") And the Rationalist movement's Scott Alexander, who "would probably have a very easy time starting a suicide cult..."Alexander's relationship with the AI industry is a strange one. "In theory, we think t
  
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• Sam Altman Answers Questions on X.com About Pentagon Deal, Threats to Anthropic

  01-03-2026 03:39 via news.slashdot.org
  Saturday afternoon Sam Altman announced he'd start answering questions on X.com about OpenAI's work with America's Department of War — and all the developments over the past few days. (After that department's negotions had failed with Anthropic, they announced they'd stop using Anthropic's technology and threatened to designate it a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security". Then they'd reached a deal for OpenAI's technology — though Altman says it includes OpenAI's own similar prohib
  
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• Duolingo Grows, But Users Disliked Increased Ads and Subscription Pushes. Stock Plummets Again

  01-03-2026 00:25 via slashdot.org
  Friday was "a horrible day" for investors in Duolingo, reports Fast Company. But Friday's one-day 14% drop is just part of a longer story.
  Since last May, Duolingo's stock has dropped 81%. Yes, the company faced a social media backlash that month after its CEO promised they'd become an "AI-first" company (favoring AI over human contractors). And yes, Duolingo did double its language offerings using generative AI. But more importantly, that summer OpenAI showed how easy it was to just roll your o
  
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• New 'Star Wars' Movies Are Coming to Theatres. But Will Audiences?

  28-02-2026 22:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  "The drought of upcoming Star Wars movies is coming to an end soon," writes Cinemablend. In May the The Mandalorian and Grogu opens, and one year later there's the release of the Ryan Gosling-led Star Wars: Starfighter.
  But "there are some insiders who already believe that Starfighter will be a bigger hit than The Mandalorian and Grogu..."According to unnamed sources who spoke with Variety, there's a "sense" that Star Wars: Starfighter, which is directed by Deadpool & Wolverine's Shawn Levy,
  
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• US Threatens Anthropic with 'Supply-Chain Risk' Designation. OpenAI Signs New War Department Deal

  28-02-2026 21:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  It started Friday when all U.S. federal agencies were ordered to "immediately cease" using Anthropic's AI technology after contract negotiations stalled when Anthropic requested prohibitions against mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. But later Friday there were even more repercussions...In a post to his 1.1 million followers on X.com, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth criticized Anthropic for what he called "a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook cas
  
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• Antarctica's Massive Neutrino Observatory Gets an Upgrade

  28-02-2026 20:34 via science.slashdot.org
  There's already 5,000 sensors embedded in Antarctica's ice to look for evidence of neutrinos, reports the Washington Post. But in November scientists drilled six new holes at least a mile and a half deep and installed cables with hundreds more light detectors — an upgrade to the massive 15-year-old IceCube Neutrino Observatory to detect the charged particles produced by lower-energy neutrinos interacting with matter:When they do, the neutrinos produce charged particles that travel through
  
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• 'World's Largest Battery' Soon At Google Data Center: 100-Hour Iron-Air Storage

  28-02-2026 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Interesting Engineering reports:US tech giant Google announced on Tuesday that it will build a new data center in Pine Island, Minnesota. The new facility will be powered by 1.9 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy from wind and solar, coupled with a 300-megawatt battery, claimed to be the 'world's largest', with a 30-gigawatt-hour (GWh) capacity and 100-hour duration... The planned battery would dwarf a 19 GW lithium-ion project in the UAE...
  Form Energy's batteries work very differently from most la
  
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• After US-Israel Attacks, 90 Million Iranians Lose Internet Connectivity

  28-02-2026 18:35 via news.slashdot.org
  CNN reports that images from Iran's capital "have shown cars jammed along Tehran's street, with heavy traffic on major roads after today's wave of attacks by the US and Israel." And though Iran has a population of 93 million, the attacks suddenly plunged Iran into "a near-total internet blackout with national connectivity at 4% of ordinary levels," according to internet monitoring experts at NetBlocks.
  CNN reports:Since Iran's brutal crackdown earlier this year, the regime has made progress to a
  
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• America's Teenagers Say AI Cheating Has Become a Regular Feature of Student Life

  28-02-2026 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Tuesday Pew Research announced their newest findings: that 54% of America's teens use AI help with schoolwork:
  One-in-five teens living in households making less than $30,000 a year say they do all or most of their schoolwork with AI chatbots' help. A similar share of those in households making $30,000 to just under $75,000 annually say this. Fewer teens living in higher-earning households (7%) say the same."
  "The survey did not ask students whether they had used chatbots to write essays or gene
  
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• Startup Plans April Launch for a Satellite to Reflect Sunlight to Earth at Night

  28-02-2026 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  A start-up called Reflect Orbital "proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night," reports the Washington Post, "with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight...."
  Slashdot noted their idea in 2022 — but Reflect Orbital now expects to launch its first satellite in April, according to the article. "But its grand vision is largely 'aspirational,' as its young founde
  
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• Startup Plans April Launch for a Satellite Reflect Sunlight to Earth at Night

  28-02-2026 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  A start-up called Reflect Orbital "proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night," reports the Washington Post, "with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight...."
  Slashdot noted their idea in 2022 — but Reflect Orbital now expects to launch its first satellite in April, according to the article. "But its grand vision is largely 'aspirational,' as its young founde
  
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• Google Quantum-Proofs HTTPS

  28-02-2026 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google on Friday unveiled its plan for its Chrome browser to secure HTTPS certificates against quantum computer attacks without breaking the Internet. The objective is a tall order. The quantum-resistant cryptographic data needed to transparently publish TLS certificates is roughly 40 times bigger than the classical cryptographic material used today. Today's X.509 certificates are about 64 bytes in size, and comprise six elliptic curve signa
  
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• Rubin Observatory Has Started Paging Astronomers 800,000 Times a Night

  28-02-2026 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  On February 24th, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory activated its automated alert system, sending out roughly 800,000 real-time notifications flagging asteroids, supernovae, flaring black holes and "other transient celestial events," reports Scientific American. And this is only the beginning -- that number is projected to climb into the millions as it continues scanning the ever-changing sky. From the report: The astronomical observatory equipped with world's largest camera hit a key milestone on F
  
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• Southern California Air Board Rejects Pollution Rules After AI-Generated Flood of Comments

  28-02-2026 08:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Southern California's air quality board rejected proposed rules to phase out gas-powered appliances after receiving more than 20,000 opposition comments generated through CiviClick, "the first and best AI-powered grassroots advocacy platform." Phys.org reports: A Southern California-based public affairs consultant, Matt Klink, has taken credit for using CiviClick to wage the opposition campaign, including in a sponsored article on the website Campaigns and Elections. The campaign "left the staff
  
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• OpenAI Fires an Employee For Prediction Market Insider Trading

  28-02-2026 04:30 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: OpenAI has fired an employee following an investigation into their activity on prediction market platforms including Polymarket, WIRED has learned. OpenAI CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, disclosed the termination in an internal message to employees earlier this year. The employee, she said, "used confidential OpenAI information in connection with external prediction markets (e.g. Polymarket)." "Our policies prohibit employees from using confidenti
  
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• Human Brain Cells On a Chip Learned To Play Doom In a Week

  28-02-2026 03:02 via games.slashdot.org
  Researchers at Cortical Labs used living human neurons grown on a chip to learn how to play Doom in about a week. "While its performance is not up to par with humans, experts say it brings biological computers a step closer to useful real-world applications, like controlling robot arms," reports New Scientist. From the report: In 2021, the Australian company Cortical Labs used its neuron-powered computer chips to play Pong. The chips consisted of clumps of more than 800,000 living brain cells gr
  
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• Hyperion Author Dan Simmons Dies From Stroke At 77

  28-02-2026 02:25 via news.slashdot.org
  Author Dan Simmons, best known for the epic sci-fi novel Hyperion and its sequels, has died at 77 following a stroke. Ars Technica's Eric Berger remembers Simmons, writing: Simmons, who worked in elementary education before becoming an author in the 1980s, produced a broad portfolio of writing that spanned several genres, including horror fiction, historical fiction, and science fiction. Often, his books included elements of all of these. This obituary will focus on what is generally considered
  
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• CISA Replaces Bumbling Acting Director After a Year

  28-02-2026 01:45 via yro.slashdot.org
  New submitter DeanonymizedCoward shares a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is reportedly in crisis following major budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs under the Trump administration, says TechCrunch. The agency has now replaced its acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, after a turbulent year marked by controversy and internal turmoil. During his tenure, Gottumukkala allegedly mishandled sensitive information by uploading government documents
  
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• Perplexity Announces 'Computer,' an AI Agent That Assigns Work To Other AI Agents

  28-02-2026 01:02 via slashdot.org
  joshuark shares a report from Ars Technica: Perplexity has introduced "Computer," a new tool that allows users to assign tasks and see them carried out by a system that coordinates multiple agents running various models. The company claims that Computer, currently available to Perplexity Max subscribers, is "a system that creates and executes entire workflows" and "capable of running for hours or even months."The idea is that the user describes a specific outcome -- something like "plan and exec
  
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• Perplexity Announces 'Computer,' an AI Agent That Assigns Work To Other AI Agent

  28-02-2026 01:02 via slashdot.org
  joshuark shares a report from Ars Technica: Perplexity has introduced "Computer," a new tool that allows users to assign tasks and see them carried out by a system that coordinates multiple agents running various models. The company claims that Computer, currently available to Perplexity Max subscribers, is "a system that creates and executes entire workflows" and "capable of running for hours or even months."The idea is that the user describes a specific outcome -- something like "plan and exec
  
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• South Korea Set To Get a Fully Functioning Google Maps

  28-02-2026 00:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  South Korea has reversed a two-decade policy and approved the export of high-precision map data, paving the way for a fully functional Google Maps in the country. Reuters reports: The approval was made "on the condition that strict security requirements are met," the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Kore
  
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• Trump Orders Federal Agencies To Stop Using Anthropic AI Tech 'Immediately'

  27-02-2026 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  President Donald Trump has ordered all U.S. federal agencies to "immediately cease" using Anthropic's AI technology, escalating a standoff after the company sought limits on Pentagon use of its models. CNBC reports: The company, which in July signed a $200 million contract with Pentagon, wants assurances that the Defense Department will not use its AI models will not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance of Americans. The Pentagon had set a deadline of 5:01 p.m. ET F
  
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• US Military Accidentally Shoots Down Border Protection Drone With Laser

  27-02-2026 23:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a "seemingly threatening" drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said. The case of mistaken identity prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to close additional airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of El Paso. The military is required to formally notify the FAA wh
  
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• White House Stalls Release of Approved US Science Budgets

  27-02-2026 22:25 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Weeks after the U.S. Congress rejected unprecedented cuts to science budgets that the administration of US President Donald Trump had sought for 2026, funding to several agencies that award research grants is still not freely flowing.
  One reason is that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been slow to authorize its release. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has so far not received approval to spend any of the research funding al
  
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• 'The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming is Minutes Away From Being Obsolete'

  27-02-2026 21:51 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a column: I'm going to take the diplomatic hat off here and say with brutal honesty: basically everybody in the music business hates Spotify except for the people who work there. It's a platform that sucks artists for everything they have, it actively prevents community building, and, despite all of that, the platform still struggles to maintain a healthy profit margin.
  The streaming business model is fundamentally broken. And eventually, its demise will become more an
  
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• AI Mistakes Are Infuriating Gamers as Developers Seek Savings

  27-02-2026 21:10 via games.slashdot.org
  The $200 billion video game industry is caught between studios eager to cut ballooning development costs through AI and a player base that has grown openly hostile to the technology after a string of visible blunders.
  As Bloomberg news, Arc Raiders, a surprise hit from Stockholm-based Embark Studios that sold 12 million copies in three months, was briefly vilified online for its robotic-sounding auto-generated voices -- even as CEO Patrick Soderlund insists AI was only used for non-essential ele
  
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