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Analysis

  • April OODA Member Monthly Meeting Generates Unique Insights Into Issues Associated With The Rise of China

    The business environment in China has changed over the last year. Changes in China’s behaviors include new approaches to diplomacy, new aggressive moves by the Chinese military, new compliance requirements for companies seeking to do business with China, and increased punishment of corporations that are seen to be behaving in ways not supportive of China’s…

  • When It Comes to Political Warfare, China is at the Head of the Class

    Beijing appears to be engaging in political warfare where it is attempting to fester animosity between foreign governments that show favor to Taiwan, a threat to the long-standing policy of “One Country, Two Systems” with regard to the island.  In a recent instance, a fake announcement appeared to be from Taiwan’s Presidential Office on Facebook…

  • Max de Groen of Bain Capital PE on the Megatrends Driving Future Tech Enabled Investments

    Max de Groen is a managing director at Bain Capital Private Equity (one of the world’s leading PE firms with over $130 billion of assets under management), where he focuses on investments in infrastructure, cybersecurity, and application software as well as internet and digital media. This means is is well positioned to help us understand…

  • Cyber Retaliation Needs to Be Decisive, Swift, and Meaningful

    On 15 April the Biden Administration formally attributed the Solar Winds attacks to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR.  Soon thereafter they issued several directives implementing sanctions against Russia and some Russian related business leaders. The fall out from these actions is still underway and we will continue to track and assess how these matters…

  • History Made: Government Hacks Your Systems To Remove Malware

    For those of us practitioners in the cybersecurity space who have tracked policy concepts, one that has been around forever is the idea that good guys from government may one day need to take action in privately owned computers. Since the late 1990’s, concepts have been considered like the idea of a self propagating piece…

  • What’s the China-Arab State Data Security Pact Really Mean?

    Beijing’s March 2021 China and Arab States Data Security Agreement is supposed to strengthen cooperation in communications and information technology. While details have yet been published, the document focuses on ensuring the integrity of data and production chains that drive the digital economy. This is not the first time that China and the Arab nations…

  • C-Suite Considerations Regarding Current Geopolitical Tensions

    Something is different in the geopolitical situation today. The reasons are probably a combination of factors that include the pandemic, the rise of the global grid of cyberspace, plus the payoff of years of planning and strategic moves by our adversaries. But whatever the reasons, the world today is more complicated and more dangerous than…

  • Quantum Key Distribution on Land and in Space

    Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an exciting application of quantum technologies that has exploded in the past decade.  QKD is used to share encryption keys across an established optical link or network. QKD can be used to generate a secure, shared secret key between two users. This key is then used in an algorithm to…

  • As Their Ties Strengthen, Will Iran and Russia Coordinate Their Influence Campaigns?

    Iran and Russia have a relationship that has wavered between strong mutual support and contention.  Currently, the two have drawn closer having the same strategic goal – offsetting U.S. influence in the Middle East.  Russia provides Iran with significant economic and military support. With sanctions applied against Iran by the United States and Europe, Tehran…

  • Navy’s New Unmanned Campaign Framework

    The Navy and Marine Corps recently released their long-awaited Unmanned Campaign Framework.  This is a continuation of the drop-down documents spawned by the National Defense Strategy and meant to bolster the Naval Service’s commitment to shift their attention to “near-peer competitors”.

  • This is How They Tell Me Cyber Peace is Achieved

    The well-worn martial cliché says that no matter how elegant your plans, it is important to remember that the enemy gets a vote in how successful they are. The transition of military and intelligence activities to cyberspace didn’t change that, but it got more complicated because the traditional calculus rarely incorporated non-state actors and their…

  • NIST on a CHIP – Driving A Revolution In Measurement Science With Quantum Solutions

    A new NIST program makes creative use of quantum technologies to deliver advanced measurement solutions to users in commerce, medicine, defense and academia. This delivery of measurement standards in a chip format is known as NIST on a CHIP (NOAC).  The time for leaders to think of how this may change your business model is…

  • OODA Monthly Meeting: Members gather online for trust based networking

    OODA Network members are invited to participate in a monthly video call to discuss items of common concern to our membership. These highly collaborative sessions are great ways for our members to meet and interact with each other while talking about items of common interest. We also use these sessions to help better focus our…

  • Updated Executive’s Guide To Quantum Safe Security: Take these steps to make your enterprise quantum proof

    This is an update to our Executive’s Guide to Quantum Safe Security, based on a new round of research that has included interviews of OODA Network experts, technology providers and senior executives in enterprises. Quantum Computers will bring new power to adversaries. But when? And what can you do now to mitigate that threat? This…

  • Updating Defense Intelligence Agency’s Data Base

    The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) currently uses an old system called the Modernized Intelligence Database (MIDB) to store and retrieve information on foreign intelligence – everything from Country order-of-battles (tanks, airplanes, etc.), infrastructures (runways, ports, etc.) to general foreign military capabilities. They will replace it with a system called the Machine-Assisted Analytic Rapid-Repository System (MARS).…

Briefs

  • Fear of China, Russia and Iran is Driving Weapons Sales: Report

    The aggressive postures of disruptive states drove arms sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia during the past five years. Russia’s war in Ukraine contributed to a doubling of arms purchases in Europe in 2019-23 relative to 2014-18, with Ukraine becoming the largest regional importer and fourth-largest in the world. Arms exports to Asia…

  • Dispute Over Gaza War Heats Up Between Biden and Netanyahu

    A day after President Biden asserted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu dismissed that contention as “wrong.” The sparring comes amid a mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with the United Nations and aid agencies warning of looming famine in the besieged enclave of 2.2 million. The Biden…

  • Ukraine Could Deploy F-16s as Soon as July, but Only a Few

    Countries promised the fighter jets last year, but delivering them and training pilots have proved complex. It’s still unclear when Ukrainian pilots will begin training at the center, at the Fetesti air base in southeast Romania, which NATO allies also are using to get schooled on the fighter jets. That is not to say that…

  • As Israel’s Ties to Arab Countries Fray, a Strained Lifeline Remains

    The United Arab Emirates has maintained its links to Israel throughout the war in Gaza, but the relationship, built on a U.S.-brokered deal, is under pressure as anger against Israel grows. Neither the Emirates nor Israel is likely to walk away from the deal, analysts say: It remains a diplomatic lifeline for Israel while its…

  • Critical Vulnerability Allows Access to QNAP NAS Devices

    Over the weekend, Taiwan-based QNAP Systems announced patches for multiple vulnerabilities impacting its products, including a critical-severity bug leading to unauthenticated device access. QNAP is known for its NAS and professional network video recorder (NVR) products. According to QNAP, the issue impacts its QTS, QuTS hero, and QuTScloud products, essentially exposing network-attached storage (NAS) devices…

  • CISA Outlines Efforts to Secure Open Source Software

    The US cybersecurity agency CISA has laid out key actions for securing open source software (OSS). Steps that CISA will take include promoting the Principles for Package Repository Security, a framework outlining security maturity levels for package repositories, and a new effort to enable collaboration and information sharing with open source software infrastructure operators. “Open…

  • Microsoft Says Russian Gov Hackers Stole Source Code After Spying on Executive Emails

    Microsoft says the Russian government-backed hacking team that broke into its corporate network group may still be poking around its internal network after stealing source code. In what is being described as an “ongoing attack,” the world’s largest software maker says it has evidence the hacking group “is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate…

  • Unless You’re Nvidia, the AI Chip Business Is Complicated

    Investors have been treating Broadcom like the next Nvidia. They forgot about the iPhone. Broadcom’s market value has more than doubled over the past year, and its stock has been the third-biggest gainer on the PHLX Semiconductor Index in that time behind Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices AMD. Surging demand for systems to power generative…

  • How AI will revolutionize supply chains

    Even the sturdiest supply chains are vulnerable to seismic shocks, whether due to groundbreaking technological advancements, geopolitical shifts, or global crises. Amid these sources of turbulence, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a game-changer, offering a source of rapid response and sustainable solutions to keep supply chains strong. Recently, a panel of experts convened to discuss…

  • Dozens of Top Scientists Sign Effort to Prevent A.I. Bioweapons

    Dario Amodei, chief executive of the high-profile A.I. start-up Anthropic, told Congress last year that new A.I. technology could soon help unskilled but malevolent people create large-scale biological attacks, such as the release of viruses or toxic substances that cause widespread disease and death. Senators from both parties were alarmed, while A.I. researchers in industry…

  • AI-Powered Humanoid Robots Are Coming—If We Insist On Building Them

    Human-like robots infused with the transformative power of artificial intelligence: It’s a sci-fi staple that is now within the realm of possible—but just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should. What does it mean for humans to want to create artificial life that’s modeled after both our bodies and our minds? The endeavor already…

  • Whistleblowers call out AI’s flaws

    Tech firms pushing to deploy AI fast are facing mounting pushback from whistleblowers who say that generative AI products aren’t ready or safe for broad distribution. Previous high-profile whistleblowers in tech — from Edward Snowden to Frances Haugen — have mostly taken aim at mature technologies in widespread use, but generative AI is facing challenges…

  • Gaza Ceasefire Talks End in Cairo with ‘No Substantial Answer or Solution’

    Hamas says its delegation has left Egypt but talks on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will continue next week until an agreement is reached with Israel. Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Israel had been “thwarting” efforts to conclude a ceasefire mediated by Qatar and Egypt during four days of talks in the…

  • North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Orders Heightened War Preparations

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered heightened readiness for war after inspecting troops at a major military operations base in the country’s west. Kim’s visit took place as forces from the United States and South Korea continued their annual Freedom Shield large-scale military exercises. The drills, expected to involve 48 field exercises including…

  • U.S. Military to Build Floating Pier to Ferry Gaza Aid, White House Says

    On Thursday, the United States announced plans for a temporary port in the Mediterranean Sea that would allow hundreds of truckloads of aid to reach Gazans on the brink of starvation. This plan would make the United States more directly involved in delivering aid. Briefing reporters, officials said it could take more than 30 to…

  • Cybercriminals Spoof US Government Organizations in BEC, Phishing Attacks

    Since at least 2021, organizations in the US have faced targeted phishing and business email compromise (BEC) campaigns by a threat actor known as TA4903, as revealed by Proofpoint. The attacks aimed to harvest corporate credentials for BEC activities like invoice fraud or payroll redirect, with the threat actor frequently creating new domains spoofing government…

  • Nigerian BEC Scammer Pleads Guilty in US Court

    Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, a Nigerian national residing in South Africa at the time, pleaded guilty in a US court to participating in a business email compromise (BEC) fraud scheme, which operated between February and July 2017. Echefu and his co-conspirators, including individuals in Maryland, gained unauthorized access to email accounts, spoofed email addresses, and instructed…

  • FBI: Cybercrime Losses Exceeded $12.5 Billion in 2023

    The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its 2023 annual report, showing a nearly 10% increase in cybercrime complaints compared to the previous year. With over 880,000 complaints filed in the United States, losses totaled over $12.5 billion, a 22% increase from 2022, and reaching $37.4 billion over five years. Phishing remains the top…

  • Cryptography Firm Zama Raises $73 Million for FHE Solution

    France-based Zama, an open-source cryptography company, announced raising $73 million in a Series A funding round, led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, among others. Zama specializes in fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), allowing processing of encrypted data without decryption. Their focus is on making FHE accessible to developers through open-source libraries, enabling end-to-end encryption without…

  • Hugging Face is launching an open source robotics project led by former Tesla scientist

    Hugging Face, the New York City-startup that maintains the popular open source repository of machine learning and AI code of the same name and the open source ChatGPT-rival Hugging Chat, is launching a new robotics project under former Tesla staff scientist Remi Cadene, according to a post from Cadene on X this morning. Fittingly, Cadene…

  • Elon Musk may yet hold OpenAI to account — unlike its board

    The plaintiff is conflicted. The legal arguments appear tenuous. And, in places, the 35-page lawsuit that Elon Musk filed last week with the Superior Court of California against OpenAI reads like a mash-up between a science fiction film script and a letter from a jilted lover. But Musk’s submission that OpenAI has breached its founding…

  • Inflection AI’s friendly chatbot tops 1 million daily users

    ChatGPT rival Pi, from Inflection, now performs “neck and neck with” OpenAI’s GPT-4 thanks to a new model, according to data first shared with Axios. Why it matters: Inflection faces a crowded field in the market for AI-based assistants, competing against better-heeled rivals including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, among others. Inflection is announcing Thursday that Pi…

  • The Integral Role Of Robotics, AI And Automation In Healthcare

    With the advent of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence (AI), we are not merely witnessing a change in how healthcare is delivered; we are at the dawn of a new era where the boundaries of what is possible are being redefined. As a senior executive of an organization delivering intelligent engineering and technology solutions to…

  • Google employee charged with stealing AI trade secrets

    A Google employee was charged Tuesday with stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets from the tech giant while secretly working with two Chinese-based companies in the AI industry. Linwei Ding, who also goes by Leon Ding, is charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for…

  • Three killed in first fatal Houthi attack on Red Sea shipping, CENTCOM says

    On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the killing of three seafarers on board a merchant ship in the Red Sea via a Houthi missile attack. These deaths mark the first fatalities reported as a result of the Iranian proxy group strikes in the Red Sea. The attack itself set a Greek-owned ship with a…

  • Ukrainian drones strike Russian iron ore plant

    On Wednesday, two Ukrainian drones hit one of Russia’s largest iron ore plants. The two drones attacked the fuel facilities of the plant. Just two hours after announcing the first strike, Roman Starovoit the governor of Kursk announced a second attack on the facilities. The drone strikes hit the Mikhailovsky GOK iron ore plant. Metalloinvest…

  • Exit Scam: BlackCat Ransomware Group Vanishes After $22 Millon Payout

    Threat actors behind the Blackcat ransomware are suspected of pulling an exit scam after uploading a law enforcement seizure notice and shutting down their darknet website. This shutdown occurred after the actors behind BlackCat allegedly received a $22 million ransom payment. The ransom was paid by UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare unit (Optum) and the threat actors…

  • Apple Blunts Zero-Day Attacks with iOS 17.4 Update

    On Tuesday, Apple revealed an urgent software update to patch several security flaws in the iOS platform. These updates come with a warning of potential zero-day exploits in the system. Apple released several iOS updates including iOS 17.4, iPad 17.4, and iOS 16.7.6 as a means of patching potential security defects. The release of the…

  • Ex-Google Engineer Arrested for Stealing AI Technology Secrets for China

    On March 6, The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted a 38-year-old California resident and Chinese national for allegedly stealing proprietary information from Google. Linwei Ding (aka Leon Ding) is accused of having pilfered over 500 files regarding information on Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) trade secrets. The former Google engineer is said to have lifted…

  • Alert: GhostSec and Stormous Launch Joint Ransomware Attacks in Over 15 Countries

    Cybercrime group ChostSec was linked to a ransomware family of the Golang variant called GhostLocker. Attacks conducted by the group have targeted a myriad of counties and sectors including Cuba, Poland, China, Lebanon, Israel, India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia to name a few. Targeted sectors include government, critical infrastructure, education, and manufacturing. According to a…

  • China steps up grey-zone warfare to exhaust Taiwan, defense report says

    According to a Taiwan defense ministry report on Thursday, China has stepped up grey-zone warfare against Taiwan. The report states that China’s goal is to make the areas around Taiwan “saturated” with balloons, civilian boats, and drones. This report comes after years of Taiwan’s complaints regarding China’s escalation in grey-zone conflict tactics as a means…

  • Russia’s FSB says it shoots dead a man planning an ‘act of terrorism’ – RIA

    On Thursday, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced it shot a Belarusian man dead who was planning “an act of terrorism” on Ukraine’s behalf. The RIA state news agency reported that the shooting took place in the northern Russian region of Karelia. Russian media reportedly identified the man as Nikolai Alekseev, a 49-year-old activist. The…

  • Senegal president announces March election

    Senegal president announces March election The government of Senegal has announced that the country’s presidential election will be held on March 24th, following tensions sparked by President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone the original February poll. This move led to widespread protests, with opponents accusing him of attempting a constitutional coup. Senegal, known for its…

  • At least 18 Syrian truffle hunters killed in suspected IS attack

    Suspected Islamic State (IS) gunmen have killed at least 18 people and left over 50 missing in an attack on truffle hunters in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zour province, according to reports from monitoring groups and media outlets. The attack occurred in the desert area of Kobajib, with conflicting reports on the exact number of casualties.…

  • Haiti gang leader threatens ‘civil war’ if PM does not resign

    Amid escalating violence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier has issued a threat of “civil war” if Prime Minister Ariel Henry does not resign. The situation has led to a humanitarian crisis, with thousands displaced and over 1,000 killed since the start of the year. The United States has urged Henry to…

  • Explosions hit Odesa as Zelensky meets Greek PM

    Deadly explosions struck Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa during a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Ukraine’s navy reported five fatalities, but no injuries to either delegation were reported. Russia claimed responsibility for targeting a maritime drone facility in a commercial port area, prompting Zelensky to accuse Moscow of reckless…

  • Cloud Security Firm Sweet Security Raises $33 Million, 6 Months After Emerging From Stealth

    Sweet Security, a Tel Aviv-based cloud runtime security firm, has secured a $33 million Series A funding round led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Munich Re Ventures and Glilot Capital Partners. The funding comes just six months after the company emerged from stealth with an initial $12 million seed funding. Sweet Security plans…

  • Anatomy of a BlackCat Attack Through the Eyes of Incident Response

    In a recent cyberattack case, incident response firm Sygnia intervened when a company faced a ransomware attack orchestrated by BlackCat. The attack, initiated through a supply chain breach, targeted misconfigured Apache Hadoop, Confluence, Docker, and Redis instances. Sygnia advised the victim to disconnect from the internet, preventing the attackers from encrypting the entire environment and…

  • Linux Malware Campaign Targets Misconfigured Cloud Servers

    Cado Security has issued a warning about a cryptojacking campaign leveraging Linux malware, which targets misconfigured Apache Hadoop, Confluence, Docker, and Redis instances with innovative malicious payloads. The attackers employ four new Golang payloads to automate the discovery and exploitation of vulnerable hosts, alongside a reverse shell and multiple user-mode rootkits to conceal their activities.…

  • Fresh $100 Million Claroty Funding Brings Total to $735 Million 

    Claroty, a cybersecurity firm specializing in securing cyber-physical systems, has secured $100 million in strategic growth funding, bringing its total investment to $735 million. The funding round saw participation from Delta-v Capital, AB Private Credit Investors at AllianceBernstein, Standard Investments, Toshiba Digital Solutions, SE Ventures, Rockwell Automation, and Silicon Valley Bank. The company plans to…

  • Something Like Fire

    Machines can now talk with us in ways that aren’t preprogrammed. They can draw pictures, write passable (if generic) college essays, and make fake videos so convincing that you and I can’t tell the difference. The first time I used ChatGPT, I almost forgot that I was communicating with a machine. Artificial intelligence is like nothing…

  • Klarna’s AI Assistant Is Doing The Job Of 700 Workers, Company Says

    The challenge for high-flying tech unicorns is how to keep growing in a belt-tightening environment, due to inflation and uncertain economic conditions. It’s even harder when the tech darlings don’t generate sufficient profits to maintain their market capitalization. The likelihood of investors continually funding companies amid high interest rates and economic headwinds dwindles, as there…

  • Agility Robotics’ new CEO is ‘focused on the here and now’

    There was nothing else like Digit on the ProMat floor last year. The manufacturing supply chain event has gradually morphed into a tech show in recent years. Many of the biggest names in the space were present, showcasing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), bin picking arms and automated storage and retrieval systems. But Agility’s small army…

  • Salesforce aims to blaze new generative AI trail for developers with Einstein 1 Studio

    Salesforce is continuing its generative AI push with the availability today of the company’s Einstein 1 Studio, timed to coincide with the company’s TrailblazerDX developer conference. Einstein 1 Studio provides a set of tools that can enable developers to customize the Salesforce Einstein Copilot gen AI assistant, which became available as a beta release last…

  • Microsoft engineer warns company’s AI tool creates violent, sexual images, ignores copyrights

    On a late night in December, Shane Jones, an artificial intelligence engineer at Microsoft, felt sickened by the images popping up on his computer. Jones was noodling with Copilot Designer, the AI image generator that Microsoft debuted in March 2023, powered by OpenAI’s technology. Like with OpenAI’s DALL-E, users enter text prompts to create pictures. Creativity…

  • Microsoft’s Mistral deal beefs up Azure without spurning OpenAI

    Microsoft’s multiyear deal with French AI company Mistral signaled that the company wants longevity in the space. The company invested €2 billion ($2.1 billion) into Mistral and announced it would bring Mistral’s newest AI model, Mistral Large, to Azure. But the investment into Mistral, mainly a developer of open-source AI models, doesn’t mean Microsoft lost faith…

  • Cloudflare announces new defensive AI products for protecting LLMs and companies from attack

    Cloudflare Inc., a global cloud connectivity provider company, today announced the development of Firewall for AI to provide companies a layer of protection for artificial intelligence large language models, with an aim to identify potential attacks before they can tamper with critical functionality or access sensitive data. The company also announced a suite of new defensive…

  • Bitcoin Soars to New All-Time High Above $69K

    The price of bitcoin (BTC) has set a record high, rising above $69,000 on crypto exchange Coinbase, a level first touched on Nov. 10, 2021. A continuing massive wave of buying by the newish U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs is the likely catalyst behind what’s now a historic run higher. The price of bitcoin sat at…

  • AMD Hits US Roadblock in Selling AI Chip Tailored for China

    Advanced Micro Devices Inc. hit a US government roadblock in attempting to sell an artificial intelligence chip tailored for the Chinese market, according to people familiar with the matter, part of Washington’s crackdown on the export of advanced technologies to the country. AMD had hoped to gain a green light from the Commerce Department to…

  • AI Talent Is in Demand Even as Tech Layoffs Mount

    U.S. companies are ramping up recruitment of artificial-intelligence professionals and paying a premium for talent. Firms in the tech sector and beyond went on a hiring spree after the onset of the pandemic before pivoting to a focus on efficiency through layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. The market for AI-related roles has proved resilient, job-listings…

  • Middle East Leads in Deployment of DMARC Email Security

    After stricter email handling mandates by Google and Yahoo, organizations have adopted a trio of email authentication technologies, and organizations in the Middle East are adopting them as quickly, or faster than, the global average. 73% of global organizations have adopted the email authentication technologies. 90% of organizations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and…

  • German Authorities Take Down ‘Crimemarket’ Cybercrime Website

    Authorities in Germany announced the shutdown of the cybercrime marketplace called “crimemarket” along with the arrest of six people believed to be involved with its operations. According to authorities, the site was the biggest illegal online trading platform that spoke German. The platform was used to trade narcotics, weapons, cybercrime tools and illegal services. The…

  • China sets ambitious 2024 economic target

    China set an ambitious growth target of approximately 5% for this year. The announcement was made by Premier Li Qiang at the opening of the annual National People’s Congress on Tuesday. Mr Li acknowledged that China’s economic performance has faced difficulties and China is struggling to reinvigorate its once-booming economy. A series of other measures…

  • US sanctions Zimbabwe president Emmerson Mnangagwa over alleged abuses

    The US has sanctioned Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa along with his wife and senior government officials due to their alleged involvement with corruption and human rights abuses. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions after a review of the sanctions program that had been in place since 2003. The sanctions targeted…

  • Philippines says ship damaged in South China Sea incident with Chinese boat

    The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has reported that one of its boats suffered minor structural damage when Chinese ships tried to block a resupply mission in the South China Sea. This was the latest confrontation in the disputed waters. The incident took place early on Tuesday morning near Second Thomas Shoal where a small group…

  • PyRIT: Open-source framework to find risks in generative AI systems

    PyRIT has been battle-tested by Microsoft’s AI red team. It started as a collection of individual scripts used during the team’s initial foray into red teaming generative AI systems in 2022. As they engaged with various generative AI systems and explored different risks, they incorporated new features they deemed beneficial. The tool should not be seen…

  • The Big Questions Raised by Elon Musk’s Lawsuit Against OpenAI

    From Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Washington, the blockbuster case that Elon Musk filed against OpenAI and its C.E.O., Sam Altman, has become Topic A. It is the business world’s hottest soap opera. But among lawyers, the case has become something of a fascination for a different reason: It poses a series of unique and…

  • Humanoid Robots at Amazon Provide Glimpse of an Automated Workplace

    Employees at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse near Seattle recently got a glimpse of the future of work: a 5-foot-9-inch robot that resembles a human, walks like a bird and has glowing white eyes. Called Digit, the machine is configured for one basic task: plucking empty yellow bins off a shelf and ferrying them several feet…

  • China offers AI computing ‘vouchers’ to its underpowered start-ups

    China is taking steps to level the playing field for its artificial intelligence start-ups, as the country’s tech giants hog AI-training computing resources already squeezed by US chip restrictions. At least 17 city governments, including the largest, Shanghai, have pledged to provide “computing vouchers” to subsidise AI start-ups facing rising data centre costs as supplies…

  • A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Challenges OpenAI and Google With New Chatbot

    The high-profile A.I. start-up Anthropic released a new version of its Claude chatbot on Monday, saying it outperforms other leading chatbots on a range of standard benchmark tests, including systems from Google and OpenAI. Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive and co-founder, said the new technology, called Claude 3 Opus, was particularly useful when analyzing scientific…