Apple today launched a new tool for iPhones to help reduce what a thief with your phone and passcode can access. The feature, called Stolen Device Protection, adds extra layers of protection to your iPhone when someone tries to access or change sensitive settings on your device. If someone tries …
Read More »Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face—and Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It
In 2017, detectives working a cold case at the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department got an idea, one that might help them finally get a lead on the murder of Maria Jane Weidhofer. Officers had found Weidhofer, dead and sexually assaulted, at Berkeley, California’s Tilden Regional Park in …
Read More »Cryptographers Are Getting Closer to Enabling Fully Private Internet Searches
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. We all know to be careful about the details we share online, but the information we seek can also be revealing. Search for driving directions, and our location becomes far easier to guess. Check for a password in a trove …
Read More »Security News This Week: US Agencies Urged to Patch Ivanti VPNs That Are Actively Being Hacked
A major coordinated disclosure this week called attention to the importance of prioritizing security in the design of graphics processing units (GPUs). Researchers published details about the “LeftoverLocals” vulnerability in multiple brands and models of mainstream GPUs—including Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD chips—that could be exploited to steal sensitive data, such …
Read More »Fujitsu Bugs That Sent Innocent People to Prison Were Known ‘From the Start’
Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known "right from the very start of deployment," a Fujitsu executive told a public inquiry today. "All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from …
Read More »How to Opt Out of Comcast’s Xfinity Storing Your Sensitive Data
Your internet service provider could have a good idea of who you’re planning to vote for in the 2024 election as well as the gender of the last person you slept with—and it’s saving that information for later. Major internet providers, like Comcast’s Xfinity, stockpile more revealing data than users …
Read More »‘Stablecoins’ Enabled $40 Billion in Crypto Crime Since 2022
Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable value like the US dollar, were created with the promise of bringing the frictionless, border-crossing fluidity of Bitcoin to a form of digital money with far less volatility. That combination has proved to be wildly popular, rocketing the total value of stablecoin transactions since …
Read More »How a 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin’s Anonymity
Just over a decade ago, Bitcoin appeared to many of its adherents to be the crypto-anarchist holy grail: truly private digital cash for the internet. Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s mysterious and unidentifiable inventor, had stated in an email introducing Bitcoin that “participants can be anonymous.” And the Silk Road dark-web …
Read More »The Sad Truth of the FTC’s ‘Historic’ Privacy Win
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement last week with an American data broker known to sell location data gathered from hundreds of phone apps to the US government, among others. According to the agency, the company ignored in some cases the requests of consumers not to do …
Read More »A Flaw in Millions of Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm GPUs Could Expose AI Data
As more companies ramp up development of artificial intelligence systems, they are increasingly turning to graphics processing unit (GPU) chips for the computing power they need to run large language models (LLMs) and to crunch data quickly at massive scale. Between video game processing and AI, demand for GPUs has …
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