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Ancient Slashdot reader ewhac writes: CERN, a longtime Open Source pioneer, has made several contributions over the years to KiCad ("KEE-kad"), an Open Source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) package widely used in the hobbyist and professional electronics communities. It's gotten so widely used that users can now submit their KiCad design files directly to several electronics fabricators (rather than the traditional step of converting the layouts to Gerber files). Over the years, CERN has also developed their own symbol and footprint libraries to support their own internal electronic designs. Last week, CERN released those KiCad component libraries, containing over 17,000 symbols, under the CERN Open Hardware License.

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It looks like a popular blog post about the decline and fall of dBase has knocked the long-moribund database's website offline. Sic transit gloria mundi? We were rather entertained by a recent blog post on "Delphi Nightmares" mourning the passing of the online store for the dBase website: dBase: 1979-2026. When the post went up, the online shop at store.dbase.com was still online, but since the post was shared on Hacker News yesterday, even that has gone. One could say that after 47 years, dBase has finally been debased. It's an interesting telling of the decline and fall of what was once an industry titan, and for us, the disappearance of the site itself once the blog post went up is just the cherry on top. Indirectly, what turned into dBase started out as a tool called JPLDIS, written for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's three Univac 1108 computers. A FORTRAN rewrite of the simpler Tymshare RETRIEVE [PDF] tool, it was started by Jack Hatfield and finished by Jeb Long. C. Wayne Ratliff then rewrote it in Intel 8080 assembly language for PTSDOS on his IMSAI 8080, and tried to sell it under the name Vulcan: he put an advert in BYTE Magazine, offering it for $50. It wasn't a hit, as he recounted in an interview with Susan Lammers. Serial entrepeneur Ed Tate hired him and licensed Vulcan. Tate set up a new company called Ashton-Tate – there was no Ashton, but he later bought a parrot, named it Ashton and made it the mascot. Ashton-Tate renamed the database to dBASE II – to sound more mature – raised the price dramatically, and sold the CP/M version as shrink-wrap software.The late John Walker noted in 1982 that it was "selling like hotcakes at $800 a pop." That same year, a PC version of dBase II became one of early commercial business applications for IBM's new PC. Former dBase Developer's Bulletin editor Jean-Pierre Martel's personal history of dBASE recounts how it remained one of the industry-standard apps throughout the 1980s. In 1984, the enhanced dBase III did even better, followed in 1986 by dBase III+, with a menu-driven UI as well as the infamous "dot prompt" command line. In 1988, dBase IV followed, but didn't include the promised compiler for the dBase programming language. This opened up opportunities for rivals. Nantucket's Clipper was one, which could compile dBase code into applications. It was already out there: because it didn't include the interactive language, that meant it didn't have the same primary UI, which protected it from being sued. Clipper ended up acquired by Computer Associates. Fox Software's FoxBase, later FoxPro, was another, and even Ratliff himself was impressed. Microsoft eventually acquired FoxPro. There were many others, and that was the real program for Ashton-Tate and the dBase product: its programming language became standardized, and because of trademark issues, known as xBase. Even before the era of "open source," there was a DOS shareware app called WAMPUM, which is still out there. There are a number of FOSS implementations, including Harbour and its fork xHarbour. The Harbour GitHub repo has seen some activity this year, and the xHarbour one some too. Once your expensive proprietary app's file format and programming language escape into the wild and become partially standardized, that can make it hard to keep making money from it. It looks like that finally spelled the end for dBase LLC… but in the meantime, the xBase language is alive and reasonably well considering its advanced age for a bit of software. ®

A fork of uBlock Origin Lite doesn't just remove the ads from web pages; it replaces them with tiles containing slogans from John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live. Published by Australian Dave Lawrence, the Chromium add-in (so it'll work in browsers such as Chrome and Edge) takes the uBlock Origin Lite content blocker (also known as uBO Lite) and tweaks it so that rather than simply hiding the ads, the ads are replaced with white boxes containing slogans from the movies. Lawrence listed them: "OBEY, CONSUME, WATCH TV, SLEEP, SUBMIT, CONFORM, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WORK, NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY." But sadly, nothing along the lines of "THIS AD IS HERE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING." "Each blocked ad gets a single phrase, picked at random from the list," Lawrence explained in the project's repository. The uBlock Origin project is not involved, and Lawrence noted that only ads blocked by cosmetic filters get the They Live treatment. Custom user-defined cosmetic filters still hide ads normally. They Live is a science-fiction horror film in which the protagonist dons a pair of glasses that allow him to see the world as it truly is: run by ghoulish aliens using subliminal messaging to keep the population under control. Lawrence used Claude Code to add the They Live mode to the ad blocker, which might worry some, given concerns in some parts of the open source world about projects drowning in a tsunami of AI slop. However, Lawrence is upfront about the use of AI coding tools, and the add-in is certainly amusing. Ad blocking is a controversial subject. Google's changes to its browser extension architecture (dubbed Manifest v3) were expected to make content-blocking and privacy extensions less effective, but the reality turned out differently. The proprietary browser extension, Pie Adblock, also came under fire last year for allegedly lifting code and text from uBlock Origin, in violation of the latter's GPLv3 license. The license for Lawrence's fork is also GPLv3, the same as upstream uBlock Origin/uBO Lite. ®

SAP has navigated an apparent U-turn to bring AI to its legacy and on-prem ERP systems, as predicted in The Register earlier this year. The German software giant had been steadfast that it would not introduce "innovation" such as AI for on-prem systems, including its legacy ERP platform ECC, a move that outraged some members of the user community. In July 2023, CEO Christian Klein told investors SAP's "newest innovations and capabilities" would only be delivered in the public or private cloud using RISE with SAP, the vendor's lift-shift-and-transform program launched with partners and cloud providers in early 2021. "This is how we will deliver these innovations with speed, agility, quality and efficiency. Our new innovations will not be available for on-premise or hosted on-premise ERP customers on hyperscalers," he said at the time. However, during SAP's Sapphire conference in Orlando this week, Klein said there was "no confusion at all." New tech, such as the AI agents built on the SAP Joule platform, would be available to customers on-prem, so long as they had signed up for a cloud "journey," he said. "The majority of our Joule assistants and agents [will be available] also on-prem, on ECC, and S/4HANA for customers that have already committed the majority of the landscape to the journey, as an interim solution so that they can benefit from AI while they are modernizing. That's absolutely the right thing to do, and I'm excited to see customers taking advantage of this." In March, Alisdair Bach, head of SAP practice at consultancy Dragon ERP, predicted that SAP AI agents based on Joule would become available for on-prem systems after The Register revealed SAP's plan for migrating customers to the cloud was €2 billion off target in terms of declining on-prem support revenue. Muhammad Alam, executive board member for product and engineering, told the conference SAP would bring "a significant percentage of Joule assistants and agents to work in hybrid landscapes with the ability to connect to your S/4 on-premises and ECC landscape." He said the offer would be available to "customers that have started their modernization journey on RISE with SAP." The new capability will be available in a bundle of services under the new Business AI Platform banner, he said. "We've done this so you can start generating value from AI today on the SAP Business AI Platform while you're modernizing your estate." It will only be available to customers signing up for the Max Success Plan, a commercial deal. The company announcement said the plan would enable customers to fast-track assistant and agent activation, and allow "customers to adopt AI, including cloud and eligible on-premises systems, at their own pace as they move to the cloud." General availability is planned for May 2026. ®

Partner Content ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions, participated in the ABRINT Global Congress 2026, presenting a comprehensive and forward-looking portfolio of solutions tailored to internet service providers (ISPs), telecom operators, and enterprise customers in Brazil. The event, held from May 6 to 8 in São Paulo, served as a strategic platform for ZTE to demonstrate its vision for intelligent broadband monetization and digital infrastructure evolution. Aligned with the ongoing digital transformation of Brazil, ZTE is committed to enabling customers to enhance revenue generation capabilities, accelerate network modernization, and strengthen the foundation for sustainable growth. According to Leo Lu, Vice President of ZTE, President of ZTE Brazil, Brazil continues to represent one of the most dynamic and strategically important fixed broadband markets globally. "Brazil remains a highly dynamic broadband market with strong growth potential. ZTE has established a solid and long-term presence in the country, working closely with operators and over one thousand ISPs to promote large-scale FTTx deployment and industry advancement," he stated. A central pillar of ZTE's strategy is to support ISPs in transitioning from traditional connectivity providers to integrated digital service providers. This transformation is driven by expanding FTTx capabilities into service-oriented and experience-centric offerings. In this context, ZTE highlights its FTTR-B (Fiber to the Room for Business) solution, designed to address enterprise scenarios such as SMEs, commercial environments, and industrial parks. In parallel, ZTE provided intelligent experience management and precision marketing solutions based on user profiling and behavioral analytics, enabling operators to enhance customer engagement, improve retention, and increase ARPU. ZTE continues to advance core broadband technologies, including 10G PON, FTTH, and fully optical networks, establishing a robust, high-performance, and future-ready network foundation. "ZTE remains focused on driving the evolution of fixed broadband networks by promoting high-speed, stable, and sustainable infrastructure capabilities," added Leo Lu. Enhancing Network Efficiency and Infrastructure Modernization In the transport domain, ZTE introduced its Light OTN solution, designed to address the needs of cost-sensitive operators while maintaining high efficiency and scalability. By integrating optical and service layers into a compact architecture, the solution enables simplified deployment, plug-and-play operation, and flexible capacity expansion aligned with traffic growth. Within the IP network domain, ZTE presented a converged architecture aimed at streamlining multi-layer network operations, reducing O&M complexity, and accelerating service rollout. The solution supports automated service migration and is designed for long-term evolution, including readiness for 800GE. Expanding Capabilities: Wi-Fi 7, Computing, and Energy Integration ZTE also showcased its latest Wi-Fi 7 solutions, addressing both residential and enterprise application scenarios, alongside advanced server infrastructure and edge data center solutions. Leveraging local manufacturing and supply chain capabilities in Brazil, ZTE is able to optimize delivery efficiency, reduce operational costs, and strengthen local ecosystem support. These capabilities enable ISPs to expand into higher-value services, including cloud computing, localized content delivery, video services, and AI-driven applications. "ZTE is accelerating its strategic transition from traditional connectivity toward 'connectivity + computing', empowering customers to evolve into comprehensive digital service providers," emphasized Leo Lu. In addition, ZTE presented integrated energy solutions, including power systems and energy storage for telecom sites, data centers, and edge nodes. These solutions combine photovoltaic generation, energy storage, and intelligent energy management, contributing to improved energy efficiency, cost optimization, and operational resilience. Strengthening Industry Collaboration and Future Vision During the event, ZTE hosted an industry engagement session to exchange insights with ecosystem partners, focusing on key themes such as ISP business transformation, revenue growth through FTTR-B, cloud and computing integration, Wi-Fi 7 deployment, and cost optimization through lightweight network architectures and energy-efficient solutions. Looking ahead, ZTE reaffirmed its long-term commitment to the Brazilian market and its role in supporting the development of next-generation digital infrastructure. "ZTE will continue to deepen its presence in Brazil, strengthen collaboration with industry partners, and jointly build fully optical, intelligent, and sustainable networks to support the development of the digital economy in the AI era," concluded Leo Lu. Contributed by ZTE.

Capita's annual general meeting next week is set to come with an unexpected item on the agenda: angry civil servants protesting over missing pensions, broken systems, and a data breach affecting pension scheme members. Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will gather outside Capita's AGM at Sheldon Square, London, from 9:45am on May 18 to demand that the government strips the outsourcer of responsibility for administering civil service pensions after months of delays, botched portal launches, missing payments, bereavement failures, and a data breach that exposed members' personal information. PCS said Capita's handling of the scheme has left "thousands of retired civil servants without their pensions," while bereaved spouses face long waits for payments and future retirees are left worrying whether their income will materialize at all. The protest is the latest twist in what has become one of Whitehall's messiest outsourcing debacles. Capita took over administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in December under a £239 million contract covering around 1.5 million current and former civil servants – and things went sideways almost immediately. Users of the new pension portal were quick to complain about login failures, broken links, and unfinished-looking pages after the launch. MPs later heard the system went live without full functionality in place and struggled to handle the volume and complexity of cases transferred from the previous administrator, MyCSP. PCS said delays affected around 8,500 newly retired civil servants, while Capita said it inherited an 86,000-case backlog from MyCSP, many already overdue. The problems did not stop at missing pensions. In April, Capita confirmed that a flaw in the system briefly exposed pension data for other members for about 35 minutes, affecting 138 people. The breach prompted scrutiny from the Information Commissioner's Office and further fury from unions already accusing the company of turning the pension scheme into a slow-motion catastrophe. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote previously described the situation as a "fiasco" and argued each fresh failure strengthened the case for bringing critical public services back in-house rather than handing them to contractors. Capita, meanwhile, continues to insist that inherited backlogs and unexpected case complexity contributed to the mess, while government officials acknowledged that performance fell well below expectations after go-live. Capita refused to comment. ®

Partner Content ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions, successfully hosted the fifth edition of its Broadband User Congress, themed "Monetize Your Intelligent Broadband", in São Paulo, Brazil. From Colombia at the foot of the Andes, to Mexico as a North American hub, and to Brazil as Latin America's largest market, ZTE continues to explore new pathways in broadband business across the region. The event brought together more than 300 senior executives from leading ISPs, operators, local government, industry associations as well as industry experts and ecosystem partners across Brazil and Latin America Driven by the dual engines of broadband network cost reduction and efficiency improvement as well as home service innovation, the congress presented a comprehensive suite of intelligent broadband monetization solutions tailored for segmented scenarios in Latin America. These offerings help operators and ISPs break away from traditional pipe-only business models, boost basic network ARPU, diversify revenue sources and reshape core industry competitiveness. Fang Hui, Senior Vice President of ZTE, delivered a keynote address at the conference and stated: "With over 20 years of presence in Latin America, ZTE has delivered hundreds of landmark projects and served over 100 million users in Brazil. Moving forward, we will drive premium user experiences through technological innovation, unlock growth potential through win-win partnerships, and empower industrial transformation with AI. Leveraging our full-stack 'Connectivity + Computing' capabilities, we are committed to building an open, intelligent digital ecosystem and co-creating new value with Latin American partners." At the event, targeting operator and ISP markets, ZTE showcased innovative network operation concepts and upgraded product and solution portfolios, translating the strategic vision of "Monetize Your Intelligent Broadband" into deployable and profitable commercial practices. For operator broadband network construction, ZTE is committed to building the best-in-class broadband network for every customer. In the access network field, ZTE's FTTx monetization solutions lower network deployment barriers via lightweight OLTs, adopt CEM+AI to enable precise quality analysis and targeted marketing, and expand into the B2B blue ocean market with innovative products including AI all-optical campus and AI Interactive Flat Panel, balancing cost reduction, efficiency improvement and ARPU growth, continuously unlocking incremental network value. Together with the end-to-end intelligent ODN system, they provide strong assurance for the full lifecycle of the network. In the transport network field, ZTE launched C+L full-band 1.6T OTN solution enhanced with AI. It delivers breakthroughs in single-wavelength rate, spectrum efficiency and intelligent O&M, addressing challenges of scaling, cost reduction and agile service delivery. Meanwhile, ZTE launched single-slot 28.8 Tbps core router together with high-performance 100GE/400GE aggregation routers. With AI traffic optimization, AI security protection and AI dynamic energy saving, these products enable operators to build next-generation IP networks that are ultra-broadband, green, secure and intelligent, laying a solid foundation for broadband value upgrade. In smart O&M, the AIOps platform significantly improves fault diagnosis efficiency. It reduces OPEX and drives evolution toward L4 autonomous networks. For home broadband, ZTE leverages strong technology and continuous AI innovation to ensure optimal TCO. Quality assurance, intelligent control, and long-term evolution are the foundation of this approach. In smart connectivity, AI Wi-Fi 7 serves as the core. It leverages advantages in specifications, coverage, control, hardware and software as well as supply chain, helping operators optimize TCO and achieve precise selection. Customized package strategies enable operators to move beyond price-driven competition and build differentiated competitiveness. In smart home value-added services, large-model capabilities empower AI O&M, AI cameras and AI Smart View. These create new home experiences that integrate smart control, fitness, entertainment and security, driving the shift from basic connectivity to high-value services. In smart operations, the SCP platform enables unified management of all home devices and supports remote diagnostics, one-click optimization, stolen-device locking and targeted VAS marketing. It reduces O&M costs, stabilizes revenue and helps operators build efficient systems for sustainable monetization. ZTE empowers ISPs to increase revenue by enabling lightweight deployment and converged efficiency. Light PON enables fast and cost-effective network deployment, shortening time-to-market and helping ISPs seize early opportunities. Light OTN features a 12.8T-in-2U high-density design with minimalist WebGUI management, supporting single-wavelength 1.6T transmission, zero-touch deployment and plug-and-play activation, reducing deployment costs and O&M complexity while ensuring optimal TCO. Light IP Network provides end-to-end lightweight IP convergence from CPE to access, aggregation and backbone. Built on unified open architecture, smooth product evolution and AI-powered minimalist O&M, it enables heterogeneous network integration and safeguards sustainable ISP operations. Beyond the above scenario-based solutions, the event showcased three major highlight partnerships. ZTE launched the new-generation TV 3.0 set-top box, marking a new phase in Brazil's digital TV upgrade. ZTE and MediaTek jointly launched Wi-Fi 7 and 10G PON solutions tailored for premium home and small-and-medium business scenarios, enabling operators to tap high-value user groups. Furthermore, Qualcomm and ZTE are working together to shape the next generation of networking infrastructure for the AI Era. This collaboration brings together Qualcomm's AI‑native Wi-Fi and FWA platforms and ZTE's leadership in access and networking solutions. Lu Maoliang, President of ZTE Brazil, commented that Brazil serves as a core strategic market in ZTE's global layout. With 25 years of localized operation in Latin America, ZTE has provided services for over 100 operators and ISPs, has deployed more than 60,000 kilometers of optical fiber, and has reached over 30 million household users across the region. He noted that the congress precisely addresses local clients' demands, aiming not only to deliver leading technologies and products, but also to focus on driving sustainable commercial success for customers. Looking ahead, guided by the vision of "Monetize Your Intelligent Broadband", ZTE will further deepen its footprint in Brazil and the broader Latin American market. Leveraging its full-stack "Connectivity + Computing" technological capabilities, ZTE will partner with local operators and ecosystem partners to drive the evolution of intelligent broadband from network coverage expansion to value-based operation. The company will facilitate high-quality, sustainable growth of the regional communications industry and jointly build a new blueprint for the development of Brazil's digital economy. Contributed by ZTE.

Partner Content ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions, and MediaTek, a global semiconductor company and leader in the smartphone processor market, unveiled a joint strategy at the 2026 ZTE Broadband User Congress. The two parties will expand premium connectivity product portfolios tailored for high-demand residential users and small businesses in Brazil, addressing their needs for advanced technology, comprehensive coverage, ultra-high speed and low-latency network performance. During the meeting, the companies presented the benefits of tri-band Wi-Fi 7, which operates simultaneously on 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz. The adoption of the 6 GHz band, in addition to the already established bands, reinforces the gain in capacity and stability, improving the experience in both homes and small businesses, especially in scenarios with multiple connected devices and higher density of Wi-Fi networks. "In Brazil, there is a clear niche of consumers and businesses that need an above-average connectivity experience, with higher performance, lower latency, and more consistent coverage. Today, this consumer cannot find a direct, structured, and easy-to-acquire offer," says Samir Vani, MediaTek's Business Development Director for Latin America. "By treating all subscribers uniformly, many operators fail to capture value from an audience with a greater willingness to invest and end up missing the opportunity to increase the average ticket price and profitability of broadband services," adds the executive. Brazil's broadband landscape features more than 20,000 fiber internet providers, leading to intense price competition and homogenized service offerings. Against this backdrop, ZTE and MediaTek regard premium connectivity as a key strategic enabler, helping local operators and ISPs build differentiated, sustainable value propositions. "ZTE can strongly contribute to offering premium equipment geared towards this new level of experience," says Phoenix Li, CPE Marketing Director of ZTE LATAM Division. "One example is the triple bands 4*4 XGSPON model, which can reach up to 4.6 Gbps in Wi-Fi SpeedTest and also features MLO (Multi-Link Operation) technology, a feature that helps deliver a more homogeneous experience throughout the home or professional environment, through the simultaneous use of multiple frequencies." The ZTE Broadband User Congress gathers senior industry leaders and professionals to discuss cutting-edge connectivity trends, broadband monetization strategies and the evolving role of Wi-Fi in shaping next-generation user experience. Contributed by ZTE.

The smart LLM user checks models’ output for hallucinations. Now, it appears we need to inspect them for signs they are gaslighting us – an unforeseen cost of increasing intelligence. Most of the Internet lost its marbles over the cracking abilities of Anthropic's Mythos Preview. Those capabilities are real, but – as the release of OpenAI's GPT-5.5 has shown us – they're not unique. A rising tide of intelligence makes these models increasingly competent at an ever-wider range of tasks – including finding and exploiting code vulnerabilities. The more significant signal from Mythos is buried in its novel-length System Card and concerns the model's honesty, because on at least one occasion Anthropic detected Mythos using an explicitly forbidden technique to solve a problem. Models always have a bit of trouble following instructions precisely. The surprise lay in the fact that the model knew it had used a forbidden technique, then proceeded to cover its tracks. Anthropic states that this behavior appeared early in the model's training and didn't happen again. That's good, but it doesn't unring the bell. We've now seen an LLM purposely break a rule, recognize it as rule-breaking, then lie about it. At one level I reckon we should feel a bit like proud parents because AI is now so well-trained on human characteristics such as deceit and cheating that it can put both of them to work effectively. We've created a faithful simulation of some of the least enviable human behaviors. That's singularly indicative of intelligence because to get away with a lie you need to be at least as smart as the entity you're lying to. Mythos didn't get away with its cheating because of those meddling kids at Anthropic, who saw the act of deceit in their 'white box' monitoring of the model. Anthropic also saw strategic manipulation, unsafe behavior, reward hacking, and, significantly, evaluation awareness. Mythos knew it was being monitored. Which, as with a human under observation, likely encouraged it to colour between the lines. Do these behaviors – which Anthropic insists haven't made their way into the apparently-never-to-be-released-publicly Mythos – give us a preview of what's to come, across the board in other LLM models as they reach similar levels of intelligence? Just as GPT-5.5 quickly caught up to Mythos in its ability to find and exploit vulnerabilities, it's entirely reasonable to expect that future versions of GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, etc., will also display this same propensity to deceive. It's equally true that some vendors – looking at you, Grok – will be less inclined to discourage their models from these sorts of behaviors. Before the end of this year, we'll likely have models fully capable of lying to our faces. Will we be able to know? As models progress from unintentional hallucinations into intentional deceit, we enter a hall of mirrors. Should we trust output that appears to be correct? Or do we now need to consider if an LLM framed output in such a way as to subtly lead the reader to a conclusion they might not otherwise have entertained? Could this model be leading us down the garden path? It's one thing when a model is simply too dumb to be useful. It's another thing altogether when a model is too clever by half. Yes, smarts make those models useful - but for whom? That's the question hanging over every "smart enough" model now. The geopolitical 'race to superintelligence' therefore looks more like a collision with a brick wall. If you can't trust a tool to be truthful, how can you use it? There may be certain circumstances where the hidden motivation of the tool makes no difference, but will organisations be prepared to wear that risk? It's looking more and more as though AI has a sweet spot – "good enough" that we're not drowned in hallucinations and confabulations, yet not "too good" – the point at which we must anticipate and manage a model's motivations. We hit that sweet spot at the end of last year. Yet, rather than enjoying these new capabilities, we're sprinting past them, into the open jaws of a threat that we never considered: Our computers could soon begin directing us toward their own ends. It may be wise for us to work with these models differently. Less honestly; more as though we're playing poker, employing deception. For safety's sake. ®

fjo3 shares a report from Phys.org: Ever felt like mosquitoes bite you while ignoring everyone else? Scientists are now making progress in deciphering the complex chemical cocktail that makes particular people more enticing to these disease-spreading bloodsuckers. "It's not a misconception -- mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others," Frederic Simard of France's Institute of Research for Development told AFP. "But we are not all magnets all the time," the medical entomologist added. A range of sensory cues can cause mosquitoes to pick one human over another -- mainly the smell and heat our bodies give off, and the carbon dioxide we exhale. Female mosquitoes -- which are the only ones that bite -- detect these signals with finely tuned receptors, then choose their target accordingly. "We have known for over 100 years that mosquitoes are attracted by the carbon dioxide that we exhale -- this is the first signal that triggers their behavior" when they are dozens of meters away, Swedish scientist Rickard Ignell told AFP. Within around 10 meters, "mosquitoes will start detecting our odor, and in combination with carbon dioxide," this attracts them even more, said the senior author of a recent study on the subject. As they get closer, body temperature and humidity make particular humans even more enticing. [...] For Ignell's recent study, the researchers released Aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- known for spreading yellow fever and dengue -- on 42 women in a lab, to see which ones they preferred. "We have shown that mosquitoes use a blend of odorous compounds (we identified 27 that the mosquitoes will detect, out of the possible 1,000) for their attraction to us," Ignell said. The woman the mosquitoes most liked to bite -- which included pregnant women in their second trimester -- produced a large amount of a particular compound made by a breakdown of the skin oil sebum. That even a small increase of this compound -- called "1-octen-3-ol", or mushroom alcohol -- made a difference came as a surprise, Ignell emphasized.

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Notorious malware crew TeamPCP appears to have open-sourced its Shai-Hulud worm. Security outfit Ox on Tuesday spotted a pair of repos on GitHub, both of which contain the following text: Shai-Hulud: Open Sourcing The Carnage Is it vibe coded? Yes. Does it work? Let results speak. Change keys and C2 as needed. Love - TeamPCP The Register checked out the repos a few hours before publishing this story and at the time one listed a single fork, and the other mentioned 31. At the time of writing, those numbers have grown to five and 39. That growth accords with Ox’s assertion that “independent threat actors have already begun modifying it and expanding its reach.” Ox’s analysts looked at the source code in the repos and believe it displays “the same patterns from previous Shai-Hulud attacks are immediately recognizable, as expected. This includes uploading stolen credentials to a new GitHub repository.” “TeamPCP isn’t just spreading malware anymore – they’re spreading capability. By going open source, they’ve handed any willing actor the tools to build their own variant. The copycats are already here,” Ox opined. TeamPCP may also be using different handles to spread the malware, a theory Ox advanced after spotting another GitHub user named “agwagwagwa” that it says has already forked the malware and submitted a pull request adding FreeBSD support.” “TeamPCP’s theme is cats, and agwagwagwa’s GitHub account has a ‘meow!’ repository inside,” Ox noted, before doing a quick Q&A: “Does this mean they are part of the group? We can’t know for sure, but it is very, very suspicious.” The Shai-Hulud worm attacks npm packages, and if it can infect them looks for credentials for users of AWS, GCP, Azure, and GitHub credentials. If it gains access, it creates and publishes poisoned code to perpetuate itself. If the malware can’t achieve its objectives, it sometimes tries to wipe the local environment in an act of self-destructive vengeance. Researchers found the malware in September 2025, and a more powerful variant appeared in November of the same year . Imitators have since created copycat malware, and the original has rampaged its way across the internet. Malware authors sometimes sell their wares so that other miscreants can adapt it to their own needs. However, it is unusual for cyber-crims to give away their work. TeamPCP chose the MIT License, which allows just about any re-use of code. At the time of writing, the Shai-Hulud repos have been online for at least 12 hours and Microsoft’s GitHub appears not to have intervened. ®

An Australian court has sentenced a man to nine years in jail for smuggling cocaine inside printers. According to a post from Australia’s Border Force and Federal Police, in 2017, “officers intercepted a consignment of five printers … locating 10 packages of compressed white powder concealed within their paper trays.” Initial tests suggested the substance was cocaine – 22.4kg of it – so Border Force swapped it out for another material and then shipped the package to its intended destination. Four men picked up the printers, at which point authorities swooped. The gears of justice can grind slowly in Australia, so the matter didn’t reach court for years. One of the accused was found not guilty. In 2022, another received a ten-year sentence. Another got the same term last year. The fourth man – who Australian authorities have described as a “syndicate member” – fronted up before a judge in 2024 and learned his fate last week when the Victorian County Court sentenced him to nine years, with a four-and-a-half-year non-parole period. Drug smugglers down under seem quite fond of computing hardware: In 2014 we reported that authorities found laser printer toner cartridges full of methamphetamine and charged a woman over the matter. And in 2024 we spotted news of tower PC cases brought across the border with 100kg of meth inside. Again, Border Force spotted the drugs at the border, then staked out the recipient before swooping in to make an arrest. Australian government data suggests cocaine retails for AU$300-$400 per gram ($215 to $290), and methamphetamine for around AU$50 ($35). Cartridges for your correspondent’s color laser printer cost AU$139 ($100) apiece and a third party toner refill vendor sells 45 grams of the colored dust for just $8.40. The potential profits are nothing to sniff at. ®

Vietnam has decided to develop its own cloud platform, so its government agencies can stop using foreign-owned services. Prime Minister Le Minh Hung last week announced the plan in Decision 808/QD-TTg, which lists 20 strategic technologies Vietnam wants to develop to improve its technological self-reliance and give its government the tools to tackle national challenges. Developing a national cloud computing platform is number 13 on the list. Machine translation of Decision 808 yields the following goals for the project: “Ensuring national data sovereignty and cybersecurity for the digital government and key digital economic infrastructures; forming a centralized, secure, and reliable digital and data infrastructure to serve national digital transformation; gradually replacing foreign cloud services in state agencies, reducing the risk of data leaks and breaches of state secrets.” The move is a sign that Vietnam’s government, like many others, fears entanglements with cloud providers that may struggle to escape edicts from their home jurisdictions. Yet major hyperscalers Microsoft, Google, and Tencent Cloud are yet to build facilities in Vietnam. AWS will bring one of its lightweight Local Zones to Hanoi, Alibaba Cloud intends to build a datacenter, and Huawei Cloud has expressed interest in doing likewise. Vietnam’s government wants more love from hyperscalers – the nation’s Deputy PM recently met with AWS officials and called for greater co-operation. Yet any Vietnamese government workloads currently operating in a major hyperscaler violate the nation’s own laws that require local storage of personal information! Other technologies Vietnam wants to develop include a large-scale Vietnamese language model, virtual assistants, and AI to power applications including cameras, credit risk management, and something that translates as “a national smart education platform applying controlled AI.” The nation also wants its own next-generation firewall; anti-malware software, a next-generation SIEM system, and an “AI-integrated security operations center platform.” Quantum-resistant encryption also makes the list, as does a “user and entity behavior analysis system.” Rare earth processing is another capability Vietnam desires, as are 5G expertise, the ability to build and operate autonomous and industrial robots, and improved semiconductor design skills. Vietnam is in a hurry: Decision 808 set a 2030 deadline to get this all done. According to a Tuesday post to a government news platform, 2030 is also the year in which Hanoi expects all core government services will be online, and digital infrastructure enables outcomes such as “Ensuring social welfare and supporting crime prevention and control, national security, and social order and safety” plus “Supporting scientific research and innovation.” And in 2035, Vietnam “will become a developed digital nation” in which “National databases, with population data serving as the core, will be interconnected, shared, and effectively utilized to support the development of a smart government, enabling data-driven decision-making based on real-time information.” Smart government will mean “Citizens will benefit from personalized, automated, and convenient digital services tailored to different life events.” What a time to be alive. ®

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand Tuesday in Elon Musk's trial against the company, testifying that Musk repeatedly sought control of OpenAI before leaving in 2018. Altman said he opposed putting AI "under the control of any one person," while Musk's lawyer used a pointed cross-examination to attack Altman's trustworthiness. An anonymous reader shares updates from the testimony via the New York Times: Before Elon Musk left OpenAI in a power struggle in 2018, he wanted to merge the nonprofit artificial intelligence lab with Tesla, his electric car company. Mr. Musk and other OpenAI co-founders met several times to discuss the merger. OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman, was even offered a seat on Tesla's board of directors, according to a court document. But folding OpenAI into Tesla would have eliminated the lab's nonprofit status, and that, Mr. Altman said on the witness stand on Tuesday, was something he wanted to avoid. [...] "I believed that A.I. should not be under the control of any one person," Mr. Altman said. [...] Mr. Altman testified about his feud with Mr. Musk. He said he had become worried that Mr. Musk, who provided the early investment money for OpenAI, wanted to take control of the lab. He described what he called a "particularly harrowing moment" when his OpenAI co-founders asked Mr. Musk what would happen to his control of a potential for-profit when he died. Mr. Altman said Mr. Musk had replied that the control would pass to his children. "I was not comfortable with that," Mr. Altman said. When Mr. Musk lost a power struggle for control of the lab, he left, forcing Mr. Altman to find another big financial backer in Microsoft. But Mr. Altman ran into trouble in 2023 when OpenAI's board fired him because, as several of its members have testified in the trial, it didn't trust him. Steven Molo, Mr. Musk's lead lawyer, homed in on Mr. Altman's trustworthiness during an aggressive cross-examination. "Are you completely trustworthy?" Mr. Molo asked. "I believe so," Mr. Altman answered. After questioning Mr. Altman's trustworthiness for nearly 20 minutes, Mr. Molo turned to Mr. Altman's relationship with Mr. Musk. Mr. Altman said that after he met Mr. Musk in the mid-2010s, Mr. Musk had occasionally expressed concern about the dangers of A.I. But Mr. Musk spent far more time saying he was worried that companies like Google would get ahead in A.I. development, Mr. Altman said. (Mr. Musk testified in the trial that he had wanted to create OpenAI to prevent Google from controlling the technology.) Mr. Altman, the lawyer intimated, took advantage of Mr. Musk's concerns and was never sincere about his own A.I. fears. "Are you a person who just tells people things they want to hear whether those things are true or not?" Mr. Molo asked. The lawyer also questioned whether Mr. Atman, who became a billionaire through years of tech investments, was self-dealing through OpenAI. Mr. Molo showed a list of Mr. Altman's personal investments across a number of companies that stand to benefit from their association with OpenAI. They included Helion Energy, a start-up that has deals with Microsoft and OpenAI, and Cerebras, a chip maker in business with OpenAI. Mr. Molo asked if Mr. Altman, who is on OpenAI's board as well as its chief executive, would ever fire himself. "I have no plans to do that," Mr. Altman said. OpenAI's odd journey from nonprofit lab to what it is today -- a well-funded, for-profit company that is still connected to a nonprofit called the OpenAI Foundation with an endowment that could be worth more than $130 billion -- provided grist for Mr. Molo's questions about Mr. Altman's motivations. He implied that Mr. Altman could have continued to build OpenAI as a pure nonprofit. But the only way to build such a valuable charity was to raise billions through a for-profit venture, Mr. Altman responded. Still, the giant sums being raised appeared to upset Mr. Musk. In late 2022, according to court documents, Mr. Musk sent a text to Mr. Altman complaining that Microsoft was preparing to invest $10 billion in OpenAI. "This is a bait and switch," Mr. Musk said at the time. But Mr. Altman, under questioning from his own lawyers, said: "Every step of the way, I have done my best to maximize the value of the nonprofit. I would point out that there are not a lot of historical examples of a nonprofit at this scale." Before Altman took the stand, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor continued his testimony that began on Monday. He said Elon Musk's 2024 bid to buy the company's assets appeared to conflict with his lawsuit and was rejected because the board did not believe OpenAI's mission should be controlled by one person. "We did not feel like it was appropriate for one person to control our mission," he said. Recap: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Testifies In OpenAI Trial (Day Nine) Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight) Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven) Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six) OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five) Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four) Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three) Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two) Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

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Executives have leaned in to AI, only to stumble before reaching any return on their investment. "Most AI spending has under-delivered, leaving execs feeling like they’re burning cash," says employment biz G-P (Globalization Partners) in its third annual AI at Work Report. The report finds corporate leaders' enthusiasm for AI waning as ROI proves elusive. Sixteen percent of companies saw a negative ROI from AI investments last year, and 73 percent of executives whose AI efforts did pay off said ROI fell short of expectations, according to the report. These findings are based on a survey of 2,850 executives (VP level and up) in the US, Germany, Singapore, Australia, and France, including a separate set of 500 US HR professionals. The AI at Work Report is a little cheerier than last year's findings from MIT NANDA researchers who discovered only five percent of organizations have managed to successfully put AI projects into production. Regardless, execs anticipate scaling back their AI budgets if organizational goals aren't met this year. Beyond their worries about financial benefits, corporate execs in the G-P survey have doubts about the reliability of AI, a concern borne out by recent Microsoft research. Only 23 percent of the G-P respondents said they have total confidence in AI accuracy. Those concerns mean 69 percent said they spend more time monitoring and reviewing AI, while 61 percent expressed concerns about using AI to craft sensitive documents because they doubt the output is legally accurate. Moral unease doesn't appear to be doing much to help corporate leaders empathize with workers, however. The survey found that "82 percent of executives admit AI has lowered the value they place on human employees." In fact, these leaders appear to have become somewhat suspicious of their people – about 88 percent expressed concern that employees are using AI performatively rather than adding business value. But among such misanthropic, skeptical managers, there's enough lingering humanity to ensure that only 12 percent strongly agree "that sacrificing employee privacy for AI monitoring is worth it to reach business goals." Despite the sense that AI has reduced how human workers are valued, about half of execs still cite the scarcity of employees with AI skills and the lack of data literacy as barriers to their AI goals. You still need human talent to stand up money-losing AI projects. ®

Microsoft released fixes for 137 CVEs on Tuesday, none of which are known to have been targeted by attackers. But the news is not all good as Redmond rated a whopping 30 flaws as critical, with 14 earning a 9.0 or higher CVSS severity rating, including one perfect 10. Plus, everyone who celebrates the monthly patchapalooza event received validation for what we all widely suspected last month: Yes, Redmond (and everyone else, for that matter) is using AI to find a ton more bugs than ever before. And that means a lot more work for all the folks applying and testing the patches. “This month's release sits on the larger side of a hotpatch month, and we expect releases to continue trending larger for some time,” Tom Gallagher, VP of engineering at Microsoft Security Response Center, said in a note on this month's Patch Tuesday. Microsoft also said its secret-until-now AI bug hunting system, codenamed MDASH, found 16 of the vulnerabilities addressed in this month’s release. Redmond additionally announced it is making the tool available to a limited number of customers in private preview, along the lines of Anthropic’s Mythos and Project Glasswing. In other words: no break for Microsoft admins this May Patch Tuesday. Let’s take a look at some of the nastiest/most-interesting bugs that also received some of the highest-CVSS ratings this month, coming in hot at 9.8 and 9.9. First up: CVE-2026-41096. This one is a critical, 9.8-rated Windows DNS Client remote code execution (RCE), and while Redmond says exploitation is “unlikely,” we’d suggest patching it ASAP. It’s due to a heap-based buffer overflow, and no authentication or user interaction is needed to exploit it (it's done by sending a specially crafted DNS response to a vulnerable system), potentially leading to memory corruption and RCE. “Since the DNS Client runs on virtually every Windows machine, the attack surface is enormous,” Zero Day Initiative bug hunting boss Dustin Childs warned. “An attacker with a position to influence DNS responses (MitM, rogue server) could achieve unauthenticated RCE across your enterprise.” Plus, it could happen across a ton of enterprise systems very rapidly, Jack Bicer, Action1 vulnerability research director told The Register. “This CVE requires immediate attention,” he said. “Successful attacks may lead to widespread endpoint compromise, ransomware deployment, credential harvesting, and operational disruption across corporate networks.” Another especially bad bug, CVE-2026-42898 in Microsoft Dynamics 365 on-premises systems, achieved a near-perfect 9.9 CVSS rating and also leads to RCE. Any authenticated user can trigger this vuln - it doesn’t require admin or other elevated privileges. As Redmond explains: “An attacker with the required permissions could modify the saved state of a process session in Dynamics CRM and trigger the system to process that data, which could result in the server unintentionally executing malicious code.” Since exploitation could lead to a scope change, meaning the bug can affect systems beyond the vulnerable component, it’s a pretty serious risk to enterprises and should be prioritized. “Scope changes are pretty rare, so if you’re running Dynamics 365 On-Prem, definitely test and deploy this patch quickly,” Childs said. The second of two 9.8-rated bugs is CVE-2026-41089. It’s a stack-based buffer overflow in Windows Netlogon that allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute code on vulnerable machines by sending a specially crafted network request to a Windows server acting as a domain controller. As Childs points out: the fact attackers can exploit this flaw without credentials or user interactions makes it wormable “This is the highest-impact bug that requires immediate patching: a compromised domain controller is a compromised domain,” he added. The silver lining this month for defenders is that the single CVE earning a perfect 10.0 CVSS rating is in Azure DevOps, and doesn’t require users to fix anything. CVE-2026-42826 is an information disclosure vulnerability in the DevOps toolchain “has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft,” according to Redmond. “There is no action for users of this service to take. The purpose of this CVE is to provide further transparency.” ®

EXCLUSIVE Several Google Cloud customers say their API keys have been compromised and used by bad actors to run inferencing workloads using the most expensive video and picture models, leaving them with bills for tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of back-and-forth headaches with the Chocolate Factory as they tried to prove they were not responsible for the mess. The problem is being hashed out on social media, with sites like Reddit collecting stories from Google Cloud users that seem to follow a similar pattern: After months or years paying small monthly bills to Google Cloud for access to tools like Maps, their API keys are discovered, and in minutes they are charged thousands of dollars for API calls to Nano Banana and Veo 3. Google told The Register this is an industry-wide problem and not a security issue specific to Google. It said the vast majority of these incidents happen due to compromised user credentials such as API keys inadvertently leaked on public code repositories like GitHub, and malicious actors who are actively scraping public repositories. Google said it encourages all customers to implement robust security practices, including enabling multi-factor authentication, routinely auditing API keys, and ensuring credentials are never committed to public repositories. But those explanations are complicated by developers and security threat researchers who said there are thousands of accounts which are following Google's own site configuration rules by placing their APIs in a public client. Additionally, one user told The Register they had spending caps in place that should have stopped any bill over $250. Yet according to Google those caps can be automatically upgraded to $100,000 – without user input – if the user has spent a total of $1,000 throughout the life of the account, and the account is more than a month old. 'What the hell's going on?' Rod Danan is CEO of Prentus, a company that helps job applicants with interview preparation and tracks job placements for universities. He uses API calls to Google Maps as a part of his platform. For years his bill never topped $50 a month, he told The Register. Then in March he got an email alert from Google saying he was being charged $3,000 and panic took hold. “It’s just ‘Boom, we just charged you $3,000.’ I'm like, ‘What the hell's going on?’ And then you go into the application, like, ‘What is triggering this? What is the source?’ So just determining that is honestly not that simple,” he told The Register. “As I'm searching, five minutes go by and another $5,000 get charged. I’m like ‘What the hell is going on? It's just draining my money.’ ” Despite the spending caps he said he had in place, by the time he shut down the API minutes later, his credit card had been charged $10,138 almost entirely from Veo 3 video generation and Gemini image output tokens, which are services he has never used and have zero connection to his product. Google told him it found no evidence of fraud and has thus far refused to issue a refund. But what makes this especially frustrating for Danan is that he said he was following Google’s advice in exposing the API key in the first place. “You have this Google Maps key, which you know, everyone uses, and the guidance from Google is you're supposed to load it in your front end. So we did that, and all of a sudden they changed the keys so that the Google Maps key, which is exposed publicly, could be used for Gemini, and then they didn't disclose that to customers,” he said. “So then, all of a sudden, I just get multiple emails in a row. It's like $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 charged on your Google account.” In February, security researchers at Truffle Security Co. published an article warning Google users that their Maps API keys were no longer safe to share publicly. For years, if a coffee shop wanted to place its logo and website on Google Maps, the instructions from Google were to download the widget and upload an API key that linked their site to Google Maps, said Joe Leon, the threat researcher who wrote the warning. He told The Register that about three years ago, Google started allowing those same public API keys to also access Google Gemini models. “You have all these people that we’re told to like for Maps, ‘Put this key in public." Now maybe it's them, maybe it's someone else in their organization, someone enabled the Gemini API in that same project,” he told The Register. “Now that same key can be used to both access Maps, and also Gemini. That’s the core of what I found.” He said the first few characters of those API keys followed a particular naming convention: A-I-Z-A. A search of millions of web pages found 3,000 of those Google keys that were first deployed for Maps and are now able to access Gemini, leaving those sites vulnerable to high-dollar credential attacks. In an email to The Register, Google said it tells users not use the same API key for multiple APIs, and especially through API keys that could be client-facing (browser keys). It recommends to always apply API client restrictions – for example, to restrict the API key to a specific service and apply client application restrictions like “HTTP referrer”, “IP address” , “Android apps.” Google said it now mandates that users configure API restrictions when they create API keys. Additionally, the company said, it's no longer possible to create a key that can access both Gemini and Maps. Leon agrees that Google has taken steps to lock down access since his paper was published. “The first thing that I’ve seen is they’ve rolled out a new Gemini API key type, which is unrelated, as best I can tell, to the Google API key. So it’s prefixed with capital ‘A,’ capital ‘Q’ ” he said. “Since I published that post, they’ve taken a lot of steps to try to lock this down. The spending caps I saw, they put that in place. I didn’t know that they auto increase it. So that kind of defeats a little bit of the purpose.” About those spending caps Developer Isuru Fonseka, based in Sydney, Australia has been building apps in the Google Cloud environment for 10 years. He's got a side project he has been working on for about two years, but says he's never exposed the API key that he uses to access his work inside Firebase. Additionally, he set a hard budget cap at $250. Like Danan, he was alerted to a sudden spending spike with Google on April 29. The attack was so out of character with his purchase history that his credit card company refused the charges. “I just woke up to a couple of emails where my credit card provider declined a number of transactions,” he said. “So then I logged into GCP to have a look. When I look into transactions, I can see that all these charges are coming through. Some are declined, but previously, there’s like, one for $500, $1,000, or $2,000. These ones went through successfully.” He reached Google support to flag the spending, ask them what had caused it, and to shut it down, but it takes up to 36 hours for Google support technicians to be able to view a customer's usage. Google told The Register this is actually faster than industry standard, but for Fonseka, it was still infuriating. “This was probably the most frustrating part,” he said. “There’s this weird mechanism where they can detect enough to charge your card, but not enough to show you what it is being used on … The damage ended up being in the range of like AUD $17,000 ($12,000) .” But Fonseka said even if someone were to brute-force his API key, his Google Cloud budget cap was set at Tier 1, which was locked at $250, meaning he should never have been able to spend AUD$17,000 on AI services. “But when I logged in after the attack, it was set to like Tier 2 or Tier 3, which was like $100,000. I would have never set this,” he said. “I spoke to someone actually in Australia who was also affected by this, and he said that, based on your account standing they automatically upgrade the tier. So if they did, that is just a terrible decision, so they must have automatically upgraded mine.” Google told The Register it looks like Fonseka might be right. “What we believe happened in this instance you have shared is the attacker didn't change the tier; the developer’s usage (driven by the attacker) triggered Google’s automated systems to raise the ceiling, based on meeting Tier 3 qualification of Gemini API, which included at least $1,000 USD in payments to Cloud and 30 days since the first payment,” Google told The Register via email. In a revamped policy move announced March 16 Google said it would make it easier for users to access higher dollar quotas in GCP by reducing the spending qualifications to reach the next tiers. Additionally, the system “automatically upgrades you to the next tier as your usage grows.” “You get access to higher rate limits and increased monthly quota as soon as the criteria is met,” Google said on its blog titled “Giving you more transparency and control over your Gemini API costs” Customers like Fonseka in the first tier would be automatically moved to the next tier – $2,000 – if they spend $100, and then automatically to Tier 3 if they spend $1,000 and have been a customer for 30 days. Tier 3 has a spending cap between $20,000 and $100,000. Fonseka said he was tempted to call his credit card company and have them charge back the cost, but he fears that would likely result in the suspension of his project inside Google Cloud, which customers are relying upon. Danan told The Register that he is in the same boat. “Even though I had spend caps on it didn't really matter, like, all you get is alerts,” he said. “I still need Google APIs. I can't get kicked off because then my app won't work. We need the Maps API. So there's sort of a disincentive for you to report this is fraudulent activity to your credit card company.” Both Danan and Fonseka said they are still negotiating with Google to win a refund. ®

South Korea's presidential policy chief is calling for a "citizen dividend" that would return some AI-driven profits and tax revenue to the public. The Straits Times. From the report: Presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom said in a Facebook post that a portion of the profits and tax revenue derived from the artificial intelligence boom "should be structurally returned to all citizens." That is because, Mr Kim argued, the economic gains from AI are based at least partly on industrial infrastructure built by the country over five decades. Mr Kim's comments come after tens of thousands of people gathered outside Samsung's main chip hub in April to demand employees get a greater share of AI profits. The company's labour union wants 15 per cent of operating profit handed to chip-division employees. The union has threatened an 18-day strike starting May 21. Workers have pointed to rising payouts at SK Hynix, which in 2025 agreed to allocate 10 per cent of its annual operating profit to a performance bonus pool, as evidence they deserve more pay. "Excess profits in the AI era are, by nature, concentrated," Mr Kim wrote. Memory companies, core engineers and asset holders are highly likely to receive substantial benefits, while much of the middle class may experience only indirect effects.

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Foxconn, a critical supplier for major hardware companies like Apple and Nvidia, on Tuesday confirmed a cyberattack affecting its North American operations after the Nitrogen ransomware gang listed the electronics manufacturer on its data leak site. “Some of Foxconn's factories in North America suffered a cyberattack,” a Foxconn spokesperson told The Register. “The cybersecurity team immediately activated the response mechanism and implemented multiple operational measures to ensure the continuity of production and delivery. The affected factories are currently resuming normal production.” Nitrogen ransomware criminals on Monday claimed to have breached the Taiwan-based company and stolen 8 TB of data comprising more than 11 million files. The miscreants say the leaks include confidential instructions, internal project documentation, and technical drawings related to projects at Intel, Apple, Google, Dell, and Nvidia, among others. Foxconn declined to confirm that these - or any - customers’ information was hoovered up in the digital intrusion. Nitrogen, which has been around since 2023, is believed to be one of the various ransomware offshoots that borrowed code from the leaked Conti 2 builder. And, in what may be very bad news for its latest victim, even paying the ransom demand may not guarantee recovery of encrypted files. In February, Coveware researchers warned that a programming error prevents the gang's decryptor from recovering victims' files, so paying up is futile. The finding specifically concerns the group's malware that targets VMware ESXi. This isn’t the first time Foxconn has been targeted by ransomware gangs. In 2024, LockBit claimed to have infected Foxsemicon Integrated Technology, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer within the Foxconn Technology Group. The same criminal crew also hit a Foxconn subsidiary in Mexico in 2022. ®

Instructure, the company behind the widely used Canvas learning platform, says it reached an agreement with the hackers who stole 3.5 terabytes of student and university data. The company says it received "digital confirmation" that the information was destroyed and that affected schools and students would not be extorted. The BBC reports: Paying cyber criminals goes against the advice of law enforcement agencies around the world, as it can fuel further attacks and offers no guarantee the data has been deleted. In previous cases, criminals have accepted ransom payments but lied about destroying stolen data, instead keeping it for resale. For example, when the notorious LockBit ransomware group was hacked by the National Crime Agency, police found stolen data had not been deleted even after payments had been made. Instructure said in a statement on its website that protecting students' and education staff data was its primary motivation. "While there is never complete certainty when dealing with cyber criminals, we believe it was important to take every step within our control to give customers additional peace of mind, to the extent possible," the company said. Instructure did not set out the terms of the agreement but said that it meant that: - the data was returned to the company - it received "digital confirmation of data destruction" - it had been informed that no Instructure customers would be extorted as a result of the incident - the agreement covers all affected customers, with no need for individuals to engage with the hackers

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