The Insider News

Ars Technica[^]:

Amazon- and Google-approved apps turned both voice-controlled devices into "smart spies."

Bleeping Computer[^]:

Microsoft introduced a new range of devices called Secured-core PCs which come with built-in protection against firmware attacks that have been increasingly used by state-sponsored hacking groups.

Quote:

Last March, Chinese researchers announced an ingenious and potentially devastating attack against one of America’s most prized technological assets—a Tesla electric car.

The team, from the security lab of the Chinese tech giant Tencent, demonstrated several ways to fool the AI algorithms on Tesla’s car. By subtly altering the data fed to the car’s sensors, the researchers were able to bamboozle and bewilder the artificial intelligence that runs the vehicle.

In one case, a TV screen contained a hidden pattern that tricked the windshield wipers into activating. In another, lane markings on the road were ever-so-slightly modified to confuse the autonomous driving system so that it drove over them and into the lane for oncoming traffic.

Tesla’s algorithms are normally brilliant at spotting drops of rain on a windshield or following the lines on the road, but they work in a way that’s fundamentally different from human perception. That makes such “deep learning” algorithms, which are rapidly sweeping through different industries for applications such as facial recognition and cancer diagnosis, surprisingly easy to fool if you find their weak points.

Leading a Tesla astray might not seem like a strategic threat to the United States. But what if similar techniques were used to fool attack drones, or software that analyzes satellite images, into seeing things that aren’t there—or not seeing things that are?

New Scientist[^]:

Forget protective covers – there are now skin-like phone cases that respond to being pinched and tickled.

CNBC[^]:

It’s time for the government to step in and regulate big tech companies, says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Red Hat Developer[^]:

.NET Core 3.0 brings many exciting new features, including a new major release of C#, improved performance and support for building Windows desktop applications (on Windows).

Computer History[^]:

To mark Unix’s 50th anniversary, the CHM Software History Center is delighted to make publicly accessible for the first time some of the earliest source code produced in the Unix story.

Tech Spot[^]:

Though Windows built-in security systems were once the subject of quite a bit of criticism, today's incarnation of Windows Defender is able to hold its own against other major antivirus programs.

Ars Technica[^]:

Buffer overflow can be triggered in Realtek Wi-Fi chips, no user interaction needed.

I Programmer[^]:

The Mersenne Twister is a very common random number generator. It is used in C, Python, Mathematica, Excel, PHP, Ruby ... A new paper suggests it shouldn't be.

Yahoo Finance[^]:

Equifax used the word “admin” as both password and username for a portal that contained sensitive information, according to a class action lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia.