Submission + - Samsung reportedly cuts some U.S. jobs (cnbc.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: Samsung Electronics has cut jobs at its U.S. display, phone and other consumer electronics operations — affecting workers mainly in New Jersey and Texas, according to documents and two people familiar with the matter.

The South Korean tech giant said on Sunday in a statement to Reuters that 739 roles in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, have been affected by plans by Samsung Electronics America (SEA) — which is focused on consumer electronics and does not include chips — to move its headquarters to Texas.

A majority of people affected have received relocation offers, but others were let go, it added without elaborating.

Submission + - How Microsoft's "Little Workaround" Created a Major Pentagon Threat (propublica.org)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: ProPublica Reporter Renee Dudley heard Microsoft was running tech support for the U.S. Defense Department through China, the country’s biggest cybersecurity adversary.

The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.

Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.

National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.

Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.

“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.

In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.

It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.

Submission + - South Korea To Launch Universal Basic AI Chatbot (theregister.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: South Korea’s government has posted a tender seeking suppliers to build a universal basic AI chatbot, and an AI agent for government services. The “AI for everyone” plan calls for private entities to create and operate the AI systems under contracts that expire in the year 2031. Bid documents reveal that Seoul will provide up to 256 Nvidia B200 GPUs to successful bidders. Winners must match government funding.

The aim of the policy is to ensure that every resident of South Korea can access a free-to-use quality AI chatbot, a tool Seoul has decided no local should be without. The tender also calls for creation of an agentic system that allows citizens to interact with government services. South Korea’s government wants to ensure that residents can always access a locally hosted and operated service, to reduce reliance on overseas providers and ensure that AI services reflect local culture. Successful bidders must therefore use locally developed AI models as the foundation for the services. Bidders have until August 11th to file their proposals. South Korean media reports suggest local tech giants Kakao, Naver, SK Telecom, and LG are all keen to participate.

Submission + - AI "Pervert Glasses" attracting public backlash

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes:

Influencers, mostly men, have been using the glasses to inconspicuously — and non-consensually — capture footage of themselves approaching women and attempting to hit on them, interactions they've then posted online for content. Some wearers have even attempted to extort victims of covert recordings for cash. That's on top of serious allegations of alleged privacy breaches by Meta itself.

And then, of course, there's the simple fact that a lot of people just really don't like the idea of the world's largest and most powerful social media giant, which has a history of misusing biometric information and other data, facilitating abuse and surveillance in this way — especially as Meta has taken highly controversial steps to infuse facial recognition capabilities into the tech.

Article continues on Futurism here.

Submission + - Negative news about alleged rapist Graham Platner was suppressed by Big Tech (nypost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two of the most popular news-aggregating services systematically suppressed scores of articles about disgraced former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner for months during his ill-fated campaign, until the weight of his scandals finally became too much to ignore, a shocking new study has found.

Media Research Center (MRC) revealed that both Apple News and Google News published exactly zero stories between last November and May covering controversies, including Platner's Nazi tattoo and his offensive Reddit posts.

The study also found that the tech giants failed to promote "at least 112" news stories published by conservative-leaning outlets that investigated Platner's disturbing history during that November-May period.

MRC President David Bozell went so far as to accuse the tech platforms of running a "protection racket" for Platner by memory-holing unflattering coverage as it slowly became obvious the left had erred in holding him up as a blue-collar "everyman" in his campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins.

The MRC study said the coverage blackout began after a poll released in October called Platner the Democrat with the best chance to defeat the incumbent, and didn't let up until the New York Times' May 30 report about him sexting women outside his marriage.

Submission + - SpaceXAI and Starlink X Accounts Hacked, Abused to Promote scams (spamreports.report)

Submitted by D,Petkow
D,Petkow writes: Another day, another twitter/X scam, but this time involving the official gold-verified accounts of both SPACEX and STARLINK, and another gold-verified account, which is now suspended.

An account called "Sam Catman" somehow obtained an official SpaceXAI-affiliated *gold* badge and posted promotion for a new meme coin on Robinhood Chain.
Shortly afterward, the verified @SpaceXAI and Starlink accounts reposted it, giving the scam instant credibility to millions of followers.
The token pumped hard before the expected rug pull. The original posts have since been deleted.
As of now, there has been zero official acknowledgment or statement from SpaceXAI, Starlink, or Elon Musk about how a high-profile corporate account cluster was compromised so easily — or how the "official affiliate" badge system was abused.

Full story

As a result more than 120 000 USD have been stolen and laundered (so far), how convenient.
Classic reminder that even the biggest names in tech can get owned by a cartoon cat shilling a concurrency "memecoin". The gold badge was apparently worth its weight in rug residue.

The lack of transparency also says plenty, as if never of this ever happened.

Submission + - Apple Sues OpenAI, Accusing It of Stealing Company Secrets (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple on Friday accused OpenAI of stealing secrets about products still in development, setting up a legal face-off between two of the world’s biggest tech companies. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the consumer tech giant said that OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence that has a new hardware business, had asked job candidates from Apple to share details about secret projects and to bring device components and prototypes to their interviews. Apple also accused an OpenAI employee of downloading internal documents from a laptop owned by the iPhone maker. OpenAI used the confidential information to approach Apple’s manufacturing partners, including asking one partner to demonstrate Apple’s technique for finishing metal on its devices, the lawsuit says. Apple sent a letter to OpenAI in February to raise concerns that confidential information could be “making its way to OpenAI’s business improperly,” according to the suit. OpenAI did not respond, Apple said. “OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” Apple wrote in its lawsuit.

[...] In its lawsuit Friday, Apple accused Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former Apple executive, of coaching his hires from Apple on how to evade Apple’s security processes for departing employees. Apple accused another former employee, Chang Liu, of using a former colleague’s Apple-owned laptop to access and download technical documents while working at OpenAI. Mr. Liu told that Apple employee what information about unannounced products she should study before job interviews, Apple said. Mr. Liu also planned to access internal documents through an Apple-owned laptop that he didn’t return when he left the company, according to the lawsuit. OpenAI had misled the manufacturing company it approached to learn about the metal finishing technique to believe it had Apple’s permission to view it, according to the lawsuit. Apple is seeking an injunction that would prevent OpenAI from possessing, using or sharing Apple’s trade secrets, as well as an order requiring OpenAI to return Apple’s intellectual property.

Submission + - Disable Autoplay and Infinite Scroll or Risk Massive Fines, EU Tells Meta (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The European Union is ramping up pressure on Meta to make big changes to Facebook and Instagram after the European Commission preliminarily found that features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and highly personalized content recommendations were addictive. On Thursday, the EC said its investigation indicated that “Meta did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults.” “These features fuel the user’s urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,’ contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,” the commission said.

Over the next few months, Meta will have an opportunity to dispute the claims, and it has already taken a defensive stance. Meta’s spokesperson, Ben Walters, told Reuters that Meta disagrees with the commission’s preliminary findings, which supposedly “don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens.” “Since this investigation began, we rolled out Teen Accounts that automatically protect teens and put parents in control—allowing them to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time at just 15 minutes,” Walters said. However, the EC emphasized that Meta’s current mitigation efforts, including time management tools activated by default for teens, “failed to effectively tackle the risks stemming from its addictive design.” Additionally, parental controls were deemed “only effective if parents and guardians possess adequate technical expertise” and dedicated “effort and time to understand them effectively.” “This undermines the efficiency of such measures in addressing the inherent risks posed by Instagram and Facebook’s addictive design,” the EC said, particularly for minors.

At this stage, the EC recommended that Meta consider “disabling key addictive features such as ‘autoplay’ and ‘infinite scroll’ by default, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks,’ and adapting its recommender system to make it less engagement-oriented.” If Meta fails to make changes to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, the company risks fines up to 6 percent of its global annual turnover when the EC makes its final decision in the coming months. “Our starting point is that, based on our findings, this design is too addictive and changes need to be made,” Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s tech chief, told Reuters. “The next step is either that Meta changes its design or a non-compliance decision will follow,” she said, noting in the press release that the EU’s priority is “protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans.”

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