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Fancy a taste? The version based on Debian 'Trixie' is nearly ready, but not all the changes may be entirely welcome

The new Debian-13 version of MX Linux, version 25, is looking very close to ready for release. A big change may divide its audience, though.…

mrspoonsi writes: The US Secret Service says it has dismantled a network of more than 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards in the New York area that were capable of crippling telecom systems. The devices were "concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the UN General Assembly now under way in New York City" and an investigation has been launched, it adds in a press statement. The Secret Service says the dangers posed included "disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks, and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises."

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Secret Service seizes 300-server network allegedly tied to nation-state hackers

The US Secret Service has dismantled a network of SIM farms in and around New York City it claims was behind multiple incidents targeting senior government officials and had enough power to disrupt entire cellular networks.…

Old hotel scam gets an AI facelift, leaving travellers’ card details even more at risk

Kaspersky has raised the alarm over the resurgence of hotel-hacking outfit "RevengeHotels," which it claims is now using artificial intelligence to supercharge its scams.…

40% of U.S. employees have received "workslop" -- AI-generated content that appears polished but lacks substance -- in the past month, according to research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab. The survey of 1,150 full-time workers found recipients spend an average of one hour and 56 minutes addressing each incident of workslop, costing organizations an estimated $186 per employee monthly. For a 10,000-person company, lost productivity totals over $9 million annually. Professional services and technology sectors are disproportionately affected. Workers report that 15.4% of received content qualifies as workslop. The phenomenon occurs primarily between peers at 40%, though 18% flows from direct reports to managers and 16% moves down the hierarchy. Beyond financial costs, workslop damages workplace relationships -- half of recipients view senders as less creative, capable, and reliable, while 42% see them as less trustworthy.

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Foundations say billions of downloads rely on registries running on fumes – and someone's gotta pay the bills

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has had enough of being the unpaid janitor of the world's software supply chain.…

AI companies like OpenAI have been quick to unveil plans for spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers, but they have been slower to show how they will pull in revenue to cover all those expenses. Now, the consulting firm Bain & Co. is estimating the shortfall could be far larger than previously understood. Bloomberg: By 2030, AI companies will need $2 trillion in combined annual revenue to fund the computing power needed to meet projected demand, Bain said in its annual Global Technology Report released Tuesday. Yet their revenue is likely to fall $800 billion short of that mark as efforts to monetize services like ChatGPT trail the spending requirements for data centers and related infrastructure, Bain predicted. The report is set to raise further questions about the AI industry's valuations and business model. The increasing popularity of services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, as well as AI efforts by companies across the planet, means demand for computing capacity and energy is rising at a rapid clip. But the savings provided by AI and companies' ability to generate additional revenue from AI is lagging behind that pace.

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Hundreds of compromised packages pulled as registry shifts to 2FA and trusted publishing

GitHub, which owns the npm registry for JavaScript packages, says it is tightening security in response to recent attacks.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: MediaTek is launching a mobile processor more capable of handling agentic AI tasks on devices, positioning to better compete with Qualcomm. The new Dimensity 9500 will provide users with better summaries of calls and meetings, improved output from AI models and superior 4K photos, the Taiwanese company said in a statement. The chip is made using an advanced 3-nanometer process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to MediaTek, and handsets carrying the new chip will become available in the fourth quarter. Xiaomi is set to launch its latest handset range powered by Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon processor later this week, and the Chinese smartphone maker is aiming to benchmark its upcoming devices against Apple Inc.'s iPhone 17. MediaTek's processor, meanwhile, is expected to give Xiaomi's rivals including Vivo a boost in the premium segment. [...] Separately, the Taiwanese company is preparing to place chip orders for automotive and more sensitive applications with TSMC's Arizona plant as some US customers have security concerns, according to the executives.

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President to announce details on Big Red’s storage and security deal for Chinese social media phenomenon later this week

The White House has promised that all US user data on TikTok will be stored on Oracle servers in the United States, according to a deal to be announced later this week.…

With no idea when engines restart, families gear down on spending ahead of Christmas

Jaguar Land Rover is extending the shutdown of its production plants another week in a move that experts say could cost the business in the multiple billions.…

Not as bad as other interference, but maybe it's time for a wired connection

Houseplants could be slowing down your Wi-Fi, according to Broadband Genie, which reckons surfers can increase broadband speeds by almost 40 percent just by moving their router away from any greenery.…

Instead of job offers, victims get MiniJunk backdoor and MiniBrowse stealer

Suspected Iranian government-backed online attackers have expanded their European cyber ops with fake job portals and new malware targeting organizations in the defense, manufacturing, telecommunications, and aviation sectors.…

Init system update arrives behind schedule while desktop overhaul adds app and HDR polish

There are fresh new releases of two of the more controversial and divisive projects in the Linux world for everyone to argue about… and then adopt anyway.…

Meanwhile Lotus Notes still lurks in some Office of National Statistics systems, for now

A flagship Office for National Statistics project to share data across the UK government appears to be ending several years before its time after failing to make enough progress, getting a "Red" risk rating two years in a row, and never appointing a program director.…

Reeves points finger at Moscow in interview when authorities reckon it's local lads

UK chancellor Rachel Reeves is blaming Moscow for Britain's latest cyber woes, an attribution that seems about as solid as wet cardboard given the trail of evidence pointing to attackers much closer to home.…

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: Scientists have developed a new multi-layered metalens design that could revolutionize portable optics in devices like phones, drones, and satellites. By stacking metamaterial layers instead of relying on a single one, the team overcame fundamental limits in focusing multiple wavelengths of light. Their algorithm-driven approach produced intricate nanostructures shaped like clovers, propellers, and squares, enabling improved performance, scalability, and polarization independence. [...] Mr Joshua Jordaan, from the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), said the ability to make metalenses to collect a lot of light will be a boon for future portable imaging systems. "The metalenses we have designed would be ideal for drones or earth-observation satellites, as we've tried to make them as small and light as possible," he said. The findings have been published in the journal Optics Express.

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The corpse of Lotus Notes keeps twitching

Some software is more difficult to kill than a horror movie villain, it seems, as Domino and Notes versions 9.0.x and 10.0.x are now set to limp on until the end of this decade.…

Messy ruling details a perfect storm of NAO, MoD, and Aquila contract failures

Managed service provider Node4 has won a £2.4 million (c $3.2 million) damages award against the founder of Microsoft Dynamics consultancy Tisski, after the High Court ruled the company was sold with problematic contracts that were collapsing as the deal was being finalized.…

Stargates or black holes? Risks and rewards from the B(r)itbarn boom

Comment The UK has bitterly expensive power, an energy minister who sees electricity as bad, a lethargic planning system, and a grid with a backlog for connections running to 2039.…