Lifeboat Foundation

Schmidt has become an indispensable adviser to government, even as some of his investments have won federal contracts.

Eric Schmidt isn’t shy about his wealth and power: The former Google CEO recently won an auction for a superyacht seized from a Russian oligarch, he owns a big stake in a secretive and successful hedge fund and he spent $15 million for the Manhattan penthouse featured in Oliver Stone’s sequel to Wall Street.

He has also leveraged his $27 billion fortune to build a powerful influence machine in Washington that’s allowed him to shape public policy to reflect his worldview and benefit the industries in which he’s deeply invested — most recently, artificial intelligence. When senators meet next week to hear from tech executives and experts about how AI should be regulated, Schmidt will be at the table.

China-backed hackers stole a digital skeleton key allowing access to US government emails.

To recap, Microsoft disclosed in July that hackers it calls Storm-0558, which it believes are backed by China, “acquired” an email signing key that Microsoft uses to secure consumer email accounts like Outlook.com. The hackers used that digital skeleton key to break into both the personal and enterprise email accounts of government officials hosted by Microsoft. The hack is seen as a targeted espionage campaign aimed at snooping on the unclassified emails of U.S. government officials and diplomats, reportedly including U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.

How the hackers obtained that consumer email signing key was a mystery — even to Microsoft — until this week when the technology giant belatedly laid out the five separate issues that led to the eventual leak of the key.

New details of the previously reported incident underscore how dependent the U.S. government has become on a company that once had to fight in court to become part of the Washington establishment.

A new facility will be able to produce battery capacity to power 130,000 homes on a daily basis using renewable energy.

Zinc halide batteries touted as a low-cost alternative to battery energy storage system (BESS) have received a significant boost in the US after the Department of Energy (DOE) offered a $400 million loan to help scale production and reduce manufacturing costs, a press release said. The offer will cover setting up of four production lines at battery maker Eos’ facility in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania.

Lithium-ion batteries are a crucial component of our attempts to switch to a greener economy powered by renewable energy. Although the technology is ubiquitous these days and powers everyday devices like smartphones and even electric vehicles (EVs), it is still very expensive.

China plans to broaden a ban on the use of iPhones in sensitive departments to state companies and government-backed agencies. Tom Mackenzie reports on Bloomberg Television.
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The United States government said today that a multinational law enforcement operation has destroyed Qakbot, also known as QBot, an infamous botnet and malware loader that was responsible for losses that amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars all over the globe, and that they have confiscated more than $8.6 million in illegal cryptocurrencies.

During a news conference held on Tuesday to announce the takedown of the botnet, United States Attorney Martin Estrada referred to the investigation as “the most significant technological and financial operation ever led by the Department of Justice against a botnet.” Duck Hunt was headed by the FBI. For one thing, the federal government developed some software that, when installed on computers that were infected with Qbot, would make the virus useless.

Continue reading “How FBI remotely deleted QBot malware from 700K computers worldwide” »

Finally approved for public release, Baidu’s Ernie Bot app now needs to make itself valuable for new users.

As I reported last week, Baidu became the first Chinese tech company to roll out its large language model—called Ernie Bot—to the general public, following a regulatory approval from the Chinese government. Previously, access required an application or was limited to corporate clients.

I have to admit the Chinese public has reacted more passionately than I had expected.

Sending an email with a forged address is easier than previously thought, due to flaws in the process that allows email forwarding, according to a research team led by computer scientists at the University of California San Diego.

The issues researchers uncovered have a broad impact, affecting the integrity of email sent from tens of thousands of domains, including those representing organizations in the U.S. government—such as the majority of U.S. cabinet email domains, including state.gov, as well as security agencies. Key financial service companies, such as Mastercard, and major news organizations, such as The Washington Post and the Associated Press, are also vulnerable.

It’s called forwarding-based spoofing and researchers found that they can send email messages impersonating these organizations, bypassing the safeguards deployed by email providers such as Gmail and Outlook. Once recipients get the spoofed email, they are more likely to open attachments that deploy malware, or to click on links that install spyware on their machine.

Ensuring security in the software market is undeniably crucial, but it is important to strike a balance that avoids excessive government regulation and the burdens associated with government-mandated legal responsibility, also called a liability regime. While there’s no question the market is broken with regards to security, and intervention is necessary, there is a less intrusive approach that enables the market to find the right level of security while minimizing the need for heavy-handed government involvement.

Imposing a liability regime on software companies may go too far and create unintended consequences. The downsides of liability, such as increased costs, potential legal battles, and disincentives to innovation, can hinder the development of secure software without necessarily guaranteeing improved security outcomes. A liability regime could also burden smaller companies disproportionately and stifle the diversity and innovation present in the software industry.

Instead, a more effective approach involves influencing the software market through measures that encourage transparency and informed decision-making. By requiring companies to be fully transparent about their security practices, consumers and businesses can make informed choices based on their risk preferences. Transparency allows the market to drive the demand for secure software, enabling companies with robust security measures to potentially gain a competitive edge.