Jerome Pesenti has a few reasons to celebrate Meta’s decision last week to release Llama 3, a powerful open source large language model that anyone can download, run, and build on. Pesenti used to be vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta and says he often pushed the company to …
Read More »The US Government Has a Microsoft Problem
When Microsoft revealed in January that foreign government hackers had once again breached its systems, the news prompted another round of recriminations about the security posture of the world’s largest tech company. Despite the angst among policymakers, security experts, and competitors, Microsoft faced no consequences for its latest embarrassing failure. …
Read More »Roku Breach Hits 567,000 Users
After months of delays, the US House of Representatives voted on Friday to extend a controversial warrantless wiretap program for two years. Known as Section 702, the program authorizes the US government to collect the communications of foreigners overseas. But this collection also includes reams of communications from US citizens, …
Read More »How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI
If you’ve ever posted something to the internet—a pithy tweet, a 2009 blog post, a scornful review, or a selfie on Instagram—it has most likely been slurped up and used to help train the current wave of generative AI. Large language models, like ChatGPT, and image creators are powered by …
Read More »Identity Thief Lived as a Different Man for 33 Years
It’s been a week since the world avoided a potentially catastrophic cyberattack. On March 29, Microsoft developer Andres Freund disclosed his discovery of a backdoor in XZ Utils, a compression tool widely used in Linux distributions and thus countless computer systems worldwide. The backdoor was inserted into the open source …
Read More »You Should Update Apple iOS and Google Chrome ASAP
It’s time to check your software updates. March has seen the release of important patches for Apple’s iOS, Google’s Chrome, and its privacy-conscious competitor Firefox. Bugs have also been squashed by enterprise software giants including Cisco, VMware, and SAP. Here’s what you need to know about the security updates issued …
Read More »Security News This Week: Russian Hackers Stole Microsoft Source Code—and the Attack Isn’t Over
For years, Registered Agents Inc.—a secretive company whose business is setting up other businesses—has registered thousands of companies to people who appear to not exist. Multiple former employees tell WIRED that the company routinely incorporates businesses on behalf of its customers using what they claim are fake personas. An investigation …
Read More »Here Are the Google and Microsoft Security Updates You Need Right Now
It’s the shortest month of the year, but February updates have been hitting the ground at lightning speed, with Microsoft, Ivanti, and Fortinet all patching zero-day flaws in their products. Zoom and Cisco also just squashed serious bugs, so it’s a good idea to check your software versions and update …
Read More »Intel’s AI Reboot Is the Future of US Chipmaking
Call it a comeback—with consequences not just for Intel but also the US government’s hopes of maintaining a lead in artificial intelligence. The troubled chipmaker’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, announced today that Intel is relaunching and expanding its foundry business, which manufactures chip designs for other companies. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella …
Read More »AI Is Rewiring Coders’ Brains. Yours May Be Next
Many people—like, say, journalists—are understandably antsy about what generative artificial intelligence might mean for the future of their profession. It doesn’t help that expert prognostications on the matter offer a confusing cocktail of wide-eyed excitement, trenchant skepticism, and dystopian despair. Some workers are already living in one potential version of …
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