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Mozilla fears wiring an AI API into Chrome will make the web less open

Mozilla has reiterated its opposition to Google's decision to build AI plumbing into its Chrome browser, though rather belatedly now that the technology, known as the Prompt API, is already being tested in Chrome and Microsoft Edge.…

KnowBe4 says 86% of phishing it tracked used AI, and inboxes are only the start

KnowBe4 says 86% of phishing it tracked used AI, and inboxes are only the start

Give a man a phishing kit and he might get lucky a couple of times; teach an AI to phish and it'll change the landscape, if KnowBe4's latest phishing trends report is accurate.…

RightsCon, one of the world's largest digital human rights conferences, was suddenly postponed by Zambia's government just days before it was scheduled to begin in Lusaka. Officials cited unresolved speaker clearances and "thematic issues," while Access Now said it had not yet received formal communication and was seeking an urgent meeting with the government. 404 Media reports: Minister of Technology and Science Felix Mutati first announced the postponement on April 28, saying that Zambia needed more time to ensure the conference "fully [aligns] with national procedures, diplomatic protocols, and the broader objective of fostering a balanced and consensus-driven platform for dialogue." "In particular, certain invited speakers and participants remain subject to pending administrative and security clearances, which have not yet been concluded," he added, according to the Lusaka Times. [...] On a popular listserv for academics, many of whom are attending RightsCon, a board member of Access Now wrote "I am told I can leak that RightsCon has been canceled. Message from [Access Now] following shortly" in a thread about what attendees were planning on doing. And in an email, AccessNow wrote: "It is with heavy hearts that we share: RightsCon will not proceed in Zambia or online. We understand this news is deeply upsetting for our community and while we know everyone has questions, our goal right now is to notify you of the event's status because many of you have imminent travel plans. We do not recommend registered participants travel to Lusaka for RightsCon. Over the last 48 hours we have experienced an overwhelming surge of support from civil society, government representatives, sponsors, and our community as a whole. For this, we wholeheartedly thank you. We'll communicate more information soon."

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One alleged cyber contractor was extradited to the US over the weekend

One alleged cyber contractor was extradited to the US over the weekend

China's "hacker-for-hire ecosystem has gotten out of control," according to Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several times in the last couple of decades, Microsoft has released source code for the original MS-DOS operating system that kicked off its decades-long dominance of consumer PCs. This week, the company has reached further back than ever, releasing "the earliest DOS source code discovered to date" along with other documentation and notes from its developer. Today's source release is so old that it predates the MS-DOS branding, and it includes "sources to the 86-DOS 1.00 kernel, several development snapshots of the PC-DOS 1.00 kernel, and some well-known utilities such as CHKDSK," write Microsoft's Stacey Haffner and Scott Hanselman in their co-authored post about the release. [...] This source code is old enough that it hadn't been stored digitally. "A dedicated team of historians and preservationists led by Yufeng Gao and Rich Cini," calling itself the "DOS Disassembly Group," painstakingly transcribed and scanned in code from paper printouts provided by Paterson. This process was made even more difficult because modern OCR software struggled with the quality of the decades-old printout.

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Analyst says handsets now stay in pockets for 4.2 years on average

Analyst says handsets now stay in pockets for 4.2 years on average

Remember the early days of the smartphone revolution when, even after six months, your phone felt outdated? Not anymore. Smartphone replacement cycles are getting longer as discretionary household budgets come under pressure from inflation, with demand for new devices expected to fall for the rest of this year.…

Networking kit arrives just in time for Nvidia's 1.6 Tbps ConnectX-9 NICs

Networking kit arrives just in time for Nvidia's 1.6 Tbps ConnectX-9 NICs

If you thought 800 Gbps Ethernet was fast, just wait. Celestica's latest switches cram 64 1.6 Tbps ports into a single chassis.…

Reuters reports that Charles Lieber, the former Harvard scientist convicted of lying to U.S. authorities about payments and ties to China, is now leading China's state-funded i-BRAIN lab in Shenzhen, where he has access to advanced nanofabrication tools and primate research facilities for brain-computer interface work. From the report: Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world's leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as ALS and restoring movement in paralyzed patients. But it also has potential military applications: Scientists at China's People's Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting mental agility and situational awareness, according to the U.S. Defense Department. Lieber was found guilty by a jury and convicted in December 2021 of making false statements to federal investigators about his ties to a Chinese state program to recruit overseas talent, and tax offenses related to payments he received from a Chinese university. He served two days in prison and six months under house arrest, and was fined $50,000 and ordered to pay $33,600 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. During the case, his defense said he was suffering from an incurable lymphoma, which was in remission, and he was fighting for his life. Three years after he was sentenced, Reuters has learned that Lieber is now overseeing China's state-funded i-BRAIN, or the Institute for Brain Research, Advanced Interfaces and Neurotechnologies, with access to dedicated nanofabrication equipment and primate research infrastructure unavailable to him at Harvard. The lab is an arm of the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation, or SMART. "I arrived on April 28, 2025 with a dream and not much more, maybe a couple bags of clothes," Lieber said of his move to China at a Shenzhen government conference in December. "Personally, my own goals are to make Shenzhen a world leader." SMART last year appointed Lieber as an investigator, according to a post on i-BRAIN's website dated May 1, 2025. That news was covered by some media outlets. The same day, i-BRAIN said Lieber had also been appointed its founding director -- an announcement that went unreported at the time. This story is the most comprehensive account of Lieber's activities since he moved to China. Reuters is reporting for the first time that his lab has access to dedicated primate research facilities and chip-making equipment; that it sits within a sprawling ecosystem of state-backed institutions bankrolled by billions of dollars in government funding; and that it is housed within an institution that is luring top scientific talent back from the United States.

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This CVSS 10.0 RCE vuln has been patched, automatically for some, so better check those workflows

This CVSS 10.0 RCE vuln has been patched, automatically for some, so better check those workflows

If you use Gemini CLI, watch out: Google has patched a CVSS 10.0 vulnerability in its command-line AI tool and is warning anyone running it in headless mode, or through GitHub Actions, to review their workflows.…

Two computer crime allegations follow up to 18M lines of data surfacing online

Two computer crime allegations follow up to 18M lines of data surfacing online

French prosecutors say police detained a 15-year-old on April 25 over the alleged theft of millions of records from France Titres (ANTS), the agency handling secure documents.…

Team wins praise for adding 'disable all AI features' setting for devs who want a code editor to be only a code editor

Team wins praise for adding 'disable all AI features' setting for devs who want a code editor to be only a code editor

The Rust-built Zed editor has reached version 1.0, released yesterday, with development led by former members of the Atom team at GitHub.…

A new poll shows a slim majority of Swiss voters now support a June 14 referendum to cap the country's population at 10 million by 2050. Under the proposal backed by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), "the permanent resident population must not exceed 10 million before 2050, and Switzerland should abandon its freedom of movement agreement with the EU," reports Reuters. From the report: Switzerland's population is now more than 9 million, with official data showing foreign nationals accounted for more than 27% by 2024. The survey, conducted on April 22 and 23 and published in newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, showed 52% of 16,176 respondents in favor of the proposal or leaning that way, while 46% took the opposite view. The rest gave no opinion. A previous poll from early March had shown 45% backing the initiative and 47% against it, the newspaper said, flagging the latest result as unusual in that Swiss referendum proposals generally lose support as the voting day comes closer. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When you can't get 'em with a 'transformation plan,' supply chain pain will do the job