News Briefs

French Court Orders Google, Cloudflare, Cisco to Poison DNS in Anti-Piracy Crackdown

In a significant escalation against piracy, a French court has ordered Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to tamper with their DNS resolvers to block access to approximately 117 pirate sports streaming domains. more

British Airways Issues Apology for Cyberattack Affecting Hundreds of Thousands of Customers

British Airways issued an apology today after the credit card details of hundreds of thousands of its customers were stolen over a two-week period in the most serious attack on its website and app. more

Study Finds GDPR Has Had Minimal Impact on Spam and Domain Registrations

Contrary to concerns regarding the effect of GDPR, "not only has there not been an increase in spam, but the volume of spam and new registrations in spam-heavy generic top-level domains (gTLDs) has been on the decline." more

Apple’s New Benchmark, ‘GSM-Symbolic,’ Highlights AI Reasoning Flaws

A recent study conducted by Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) researchers has raised significant concerns about the reliability of large language models (LLMs) in mathematical reasoning tasks. Despite the impressive advancements made by models like OpenAI's GPT and Meta's LLaMA, the study reveals fundamental flaws in their ability to handle even basic arithmetic when faced with slight variations in the wording of questions. more

EU Presidency Pushing Other Member States for Substantial Internet Surveillance

A leaked document by Statewatch reveals the current EU Presidency (Estonia) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. more

Japan Post Launches Digital Codes to Replace Traditional Addresses

Japan Post said Monday that it has launched a "digital address" system that links seven-digit combinations of numbers and letters to physical addresses. more

Cord-Cutting on Continued Rise - New Findings Suggest Quarter of US Households Now Without Cable

One-Quarter of US Households Live Without Cable, Satellite TV Reception, according to new GfK Study: "New findings from GfK show that US TV households are embracing alternatives to cable and satellite reception. Levels of broadcast-only reception and Internet-only video subscriptions have both risen over the past year, with fully one-quarter (25%) of all US TV households now going without cable and satellite reception. more

Malaysia Plans Internet “Kill Switch” to Curb Online Abuse

Malaysia is advancing legislation for an internet “kill switch” aimed at curbing online abuse and illegal activities. This initiative, spearheaded by the country’s Law and Institutional Reform Minister Azalina Othman Said, seeks to hold social media and messaging platforms accountable for content disseminated through their services. more

Global 5G Connections Expected to Reach 1.9 Billion by End of 2023 and 5.9 Billion by End of 2027

The fifth generation of wireless cellular networks, "5G", has seen remarkable growth in the last year, reports industry trade organization 5G Americas. more

Former ICANN Security VP Joins CAUCE Board of Directors

The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) has announced that Dave Piscitello, formerly VP of Security at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has joined the CAUCE Board of Directors. more

Group of Engineers Have Created a Way to Detect Dangerous Objects in Baggage Using Public Wifi

Report describes a technique with which public wifi can be used to identify in-baggage dangerous objects in public spaces that don't typically have affordable screening options. more

EU Privacy Case Could Backfire, Turn EU into Data Island, Say Experts

Experts fear European Union court case attempting to keep personal data private could backfire and prove damaging to Europe. more

Quantifying Internet Shutdowns: ISOC Introduces the NetLoss Calculator

In light of the ongoing Internet shutdowns, such as the recent government-ordered Internet disruption in Algeria aimed at curbing cheating during national exams, the Internet Society (ISOC) has unveiled a tool, the NetLoss Calculator. This tool calculates the economic costs of internet shutdowns, a feat that has been a significant challenge until now. more

ICANN Postpones Amazon Domain Decision, Crusade Continues Between Amazon Nations and Amazon Inc.

ICANN on Monday extended the deadline to April for Amazon basin nations to reach a deal with the tech giant Amazon Inc in their seven-year battle over the .amazon domain name. more

Cryptominers Infected 10x More Organizations Than Ransomware in 2018

A new security report reveals cryptominers infected ten times more organizations than ransomware in 2018, but only one in five IT security professionals were aware their company's networks had been infected by mining malware. more