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The future and all that is possible was on full display this week at MWC Barcelona 2024 in Hall Six of Gran Via, the site of an innovation zone that featured hands-on and immersive demos of things ranging from devices that enhance the growing of fruit to what has been described as the “world’s first flying car.”

Called Journey to the Future, the venue was described by show organizer GSMA as the place “where we pay homage to technology’s transformational impact on tomorrow’s industries, communities and citizens.” It focused on five key areas:

Sustainability:  On display was Agerpix’s precision agriculture quad, which uses computer vision, artificial intelligence (AI) and data mining advances to gather and generate global data on fruit production. According to a release, “integrated with intelligent sensors capable of detecting the amount of fruit on a tree with a 95 per cent accuracy rate, the quad is helping to achieve smarter and more sustainable harvests in the fresh fruit industry.”

Hovering Solutions demonstrated its autonomous flying drones, which it said are being used to create 3D models of GPS-denied infrastructure, leading to safer, faster and more accurate maintenance of difficult-to-reach areas. “Mapping cities’ most underground inaccessible areas in a safe and efficient way, our robots are able to fly fully autonomously from one location to another through sewage tunnels, providing geolocated data of the interior of the infrastructure, such as panoramic high-resolution images and georeferenced 3D point clouds,” the company says.

“Our patented technology enables navigation in complex environments with no light, no pilot or any communication, generating georeferenced point-clouds and high resolution geolocated images.”

Health: The “Next Healthcare” space hosted exhibitors that the GSMA said are “revolutionizing the way medical practitioners diagnose and treat patients, as well as those disrupting the health tech space with new and emerging technologies.”

Among them, was ISDIN, which showcased its latest UV camera offering, which provided a “real-time demonstration of the protective barrier sunscreen creates against UV light – paving the way for more effective detection of skin diseases.”

Attendees were also able to discover Cortical Labs’ biological intelligence offerings. The company says it “harnesses the energy and information sampling efficiency of biological intelligence for computing devices. We do this by growing stem-cell derived neurons into silicon chips and program them to perform intelligence tasks in a simulation that they are embedded in.”

Artificial Intelligence: The zone’s dedicated AI track included an exhibition from the Catalonian Police Force, the Mossos d’Esquadra.

The Mossos, a release stated, uses AI-enabled offerings to “support operations in a number of areas, and its stand will spotlight some of the technology’s many applications in law enforcement – featuring a fixed-wing drone integrated with AI systems that enable automated data capture, allowing the service to detect, classify and track moving targets.”

Mobility: Prior to the conference, the GSMA in a release said, “pop culture has led many of us to picture hoverboards and flying cars when we think of the future and, as part of its attendance at Journey to the Future, Alef Aeronautics will bring part of this vision to life – hosting the first real flying car at its booth for all visitors to see.

“The Model A is a two-seat, all-electric vehicle designed to both drive on the street and take off vertically when needed and fly above traffic – with a flight range of 110 miles. The vehicle uses proprietary technology that elevates the vehicle without the need for runways thanks to eight propellers housed within its body, providing attendees with a glimpse into the faster and easier commutes of the future.”

Retail: This track featured a self-driving Coffee Vehicle from Rhea. According to a fact sheet, “powered by renewable energy sources, the barista vehicle allows users to order their coffee through an app which will then be delivered by the unmanned vehicle – transforming the traditional go-to-shop model and giving an insight into the industry’s convenience-led and sustainable future. “

The four-day conference, which concluded today, drew an estimated 93,000 delegates.

The post MWC 2024: A wild Journey to the Future in Hall 6 first appeared on IT World Canada.

In an interview with IT World Canada, consulting giant Deloitte highlighted the importance of an ecosystem-based approach to tackle issues around digital equity in Canada and service delivery challenges in the public sector.

“Our strong view is that the people of Canada benefit when there’s effective collaboration between public and private organizations, including on critical government programs and services,” said Jaimie Boyd, Canada’s national digital government leader, Deloitte. “When we collaborate effectively, it allows us to mobilize the experience, the expertise, the contextual knowledge, leading practices globally.”

The government’s IT systems recently came under scrutiny at the House of Commons for the barrage of modernization challenges it currently faces. At the same time, members of parliament questioned the big contracts given to third party contractors.

“I do definitely recognize we are the largest professional services firm in Canada,” said Boyd, when asked about the concerns of the MPs. “And with that comes a responsibility that we are proud to carry. We’re proud to serve the people of Canada and perform our work in strict accordance with professional standards. And we’re absolutely committed to upholding the utmost standards of trust.”

She also acknowledged that there are “really high expectations” around digital service delivery and “significant barriers”, adding, “I would just really advocate for anything that we can do as a community to build these ecosystem-based approaches, build that collaboration and tackle some of these thorny issues together.”

A top priority in the government right now, she noted, is whether the investments are in alignment with service imperatives, and whether they are making lives better for Canadians.

“A relentless focus on human impact and elevating the human experience is the thing I am the most concerned about,” she added. 

The company, in fact, today released the first installment of Deloitte Canada’s Future Role of Government article series that aims to rethink government response in tackling issues around digital equity in Canada. The article provides the following recommendations:

Align federal, provincial and territorial governments’ approaches to digital skills development and measurement
Enforce cross-jurisdictional regulation and enforcement of competition in Canada to foster a stronger tech sector and provide more digital choice for citizens. Currently, competition policy is only within federal jurisdiction, which limits Canada’s ability to regulate anti-competitive behaviour
Continue to expand connectivity to close the gap in underserved populations
Ensure equitable access to technology such as smartphones and computers — they’re needed today for work, education, or essential online activities. The Minister of Finance, for instance, could introduce a targeted tax credit for internet-enabled devices for underserved groups, similar to the pandemic-era remote-work tax deduction for devices needed for work or education.
Protect Canadians from online harms; adopt an approach of ongoing public consultation to position Canada as a global leader in privacy protections; update online safety laws to balance protection from harm with respecting freedom of expression; invest further in research initiatives for cybersecurity and in digital infrastructure to protect citizens; implement an accessible and user-friendly reporting mechanism; legislative obligations should also be flexible so that they are not quickly outdated.
Shift the approach to digital policymaking to one that is agile, experimental, and closely aligned with the development and risks of new technologies. Examples are policy labs, regulatory sandboxes, and greater collaboration between regulators and innovators, the EU Policy Lab, the U.K. government’s Policy Lab, and Denmark’s MindLab.
Carry out a coordinated effort by federal and provincial governments to establish a digital credential ecosystem and build trust through public consultations.

Boyd also warned against rushing to get new technologies out, and being transparent about that process, especially when taxpayers resources are involved.

“People have traditionally talked about technology cultures, and they say, ‘Oh, you have to, you know, move fast and break things.’ And I would say quite the opposite in a public sector context. You need to move slowly and thoughtfully to build things. You need to build empowering experiences that do right by Canadians.”

In the following weeks, Deloitte Canada will be unveiling the remaining installments of the Future Role of the Government series that will span topics like reskilling, natural resources security, international relations, supply chain, health and social equity, indigenous sovereignty and more.

The post Are federal IT systems supporting the targeted service outcomes? Deloitte examines the future role of the government first appeared on IT World Canada.

The company behind Pornhub and other popular pornographic sites broke Canadian privacy law by allowing intimate images to be shared on its websites without the direct knowledge or consent of everyone depicted, the federal privacy commissioner has ruled.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s (OPC) investigation into Aylo (formerly MindGeek), one of the world’s largest operators of pornographic sites, was launched in 2020 after a woman discovered that her ex-boyfriend had uploaded an intimate video and other images of her to Aylo websites without her consent.

Under its normal practice at the time, MindGeek didn’t seek the complainant’s consent to collect, use, and disclose her intimate images, the report says. Instead, the company relied exclusively on her ex-boyfriend to attest that she had consented to the video being distributed on MindGeek’s websites.

The investigation found that Aylo had a legal obligation under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) to obtain the complainant’s consent, and had failed to do so.

The OPC made a number of recommendations that Aylo should follow to improve its processes for dealing with uploaded content. However, so far Aylo has not committed to implementing any of the recommendations.

“While Aylo made changes to its consent practices in recent years,” the commission said in a statement, “the company has not provided the OPC with evidence that it is obtaining meaningful consent directly from everyone appearing in images and videos that are posted on its websites.”

The OPC report was ready to be released last May. However, Aylo went to court and tried to block its release. It lost the challenge, which is why the report was released today.

“In its response to our preliminary report, MindGeek expressly disagreed with our findings,” the final report says, and the OPC agreed to add new facts and legal arguments from MindGeek. But, the final report says, “ultimately, MindGeek did not accept responsibility and take the necessary corrective measures to redress the significant privacy harms that we uncovered in our investigation, and has yet to offer any commitments in response to our recommendations.”

The investigation uncovered significant problems that allowed highly sensitive and intimate content to be posted online without individuals’ knowledge or permission. This has led to severe impacts on victims, including social stigmatization, psychological damage, financial loss, and even attempted suicide, the OPC says.

“The inadequate privacy protection measures on Pornhub and other Aylo sites have led to devastating consequences for the complainant and other victims of non-consensual disclosure of intimate images,” said Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne.

MindGeek was founded in Montreal, and still has about 1,000 employees there. In March, 2023 it was bought by Ethical Capital Partners, a Canadian private equity firm. The company’s name changed to Aylo six months later.

The incident is an example of why Canadian law needs to be updated. While MindGeek did take down the images after the woman complained, however, says the report, the content, which could be easily downloaded by users at the click of a button, continued to be re-uploaded, both on MindGeek and on other websites (including sites unrelated to pornography). Various strangers from around the world, who had seen the video online, contacted her on Facebook using information contained in the video’s title and tags, such as her name, mother’s maiden name, university and sorority, the report says.

Ultimately, the woman had to hire a professional takedown service, which led to the removal of more than 700 instances of her intimate images on more than 80 websites. The material continued to resurface on several websites until at least 2020, and is likely still available online.

The permanent loss of control over her intimate images has had a devastating effect on the complainant, says the report, who alleged that it caused her to withdraw from her social life, lose an employment opportunity, and live in a constant state of fear and anxiety.

The government this week announced a proposed Online Harms Act that would give a Digital Safety Commission the power to order such images be removed from designated web sites within 24 hours or face large financial penalties.

Parliament is also in the middle of debating an overhaul of PIPEDA called the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA, also known as Bill C-27) that would give the OPC broader powers.

The OPC recommended:

— Aylo stop allowing the upload of intimate content without first obtaining meaningful consent directly from each individual appearing in that content;

— delete all content that it previously collected without obtaining such consent;

— implement a privacy management program to ensure that it is accountable for information under its control.

— and recommended that Aylo agree to enter into a compliance agreement with the OPC and to be subject to oversight by an independent third-party reporting to the office for five years.

MORE TO COME

The post Pornhub operator broke Canadian privacy law, watchdog rules first appeared on IT World Canada.

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Google’s recent troubles in AI may not be that easy to fix, the U.S. government buys data instead of spying on its citizens and realizes that other governments can do the same thing and two gangs of cybercrooks that law enforcement thought they had disrupted are back with a vengeance. 

All this and more on the “some days you just can’t win” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and TechNewsDay in the US.

Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, has been taking a lot of criticism online and seems to have been caught in the culture wars. 

After a couple of false starts with errors and accusations of altering a video to exaggerate its AI, Google had been counting on Gemini to put it back into a leadership position in AI. Gemini came to market with technical achievements like its ability to a much larger prompt than its rival ChatGPT, but one of its key advantages was supposed to be its superiority in multi-modal work – audio, video and image generation and analysis from simple text prompts. 

They even came to market with a solution that had plagued image creation – the bias in the data. 

AI tools are trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, which contains inherent biases. Google’s attempt to correct these biases with Gemini has led to responses that many find absurd due to the lack of nuance that humans instinctively understand but AI systems do not.

For instance, Gemini created an image of the US Founding Fathers that inaccurately included a black man. It depicted German soldiers from World War Two featuring a black man and an Asian woman. 

In response, Google prevented its AI from showing pictures of people. This was a huge embarrassment.

But it turns out the problems were not restricted to images. 

There was controversy about Gemini’s text responses, such as stating there was “no right or wrong answer” to a question comparing Elon Musk’s meme posting on X (formerly Twitter) to Hitler’s actions during World War Two. 

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, has acknowledged that some of Gemini’s responses have offended users and shown bias, which he deemed “completely unacceptable.” His embarrassment showed in an internal leaked memo where he talked about the need to work day and night to fix this problem. 

Pichai’s frustration is understandable. Google’s AI development problems have resulted in many embarrassing moments. In the launch of Gemini’s predecessor, Bard, the AI made a simple and obvious mistake during the launch, one that was caught by everyone – except the embarrassed Google team and its AI.

A subsequent video demo which supposedly showed how the AI could interpret and create images from even unclear instructions or drawings was found to have been altered to speed it up and make the results look more appealing than they did in real life. Once again, this was caught and publicized heavily.

Google was a pioneer in AI development, and it largely invented the transformer architecture that gave us generative AI. But after ChatGPT took the public attention, Google seems unable to launch a successful AI offering. 

No matter what they do in terms of technical advancement, they seem to always make a significant mistake.

So it’s no wonder that Pichai wants this fixed, quickly. But according to some experts, it may not be easy to do. 

Many believe that there is no easy fix for these issues, as correcting bias in AI outputs is a complex task that has been a focus of the AI ethics community for years. 

So, do they go back to biased data or do they persevere and take the delays? There are times when you are damned If you do and damned if you don’t.

Sources include: BBC

We’ve covered stories in the past about how the U.S. government doesn’t have to conduct surveillance to get information about its citizens – they can simply buy information from data brokers. There are real debates about whether this is appropriate and there will undoubtedly be guidelines restricting some of this activity by the U.S. government.

But what about other governments who don’t play by the rules? It turns out that instead of spying on U.S. citizens they can simply buy the data as well – unless a new government restriction is put in place.

President Joe Biden is reported to be set to issue an executive order aimed at limiting the mass sale of Americans’ personal data to “countries of concern,” including Russia and China. 

This executive order specifically targets the bulk sale of geolocation, genomic, financial, biometric, health, and other personally identifying information. A senior administration official highlighted that the sale of such data to these countries poses a national security risk, pointing out that buying data through data brokers is currently legal in the United States. 

The executive order will prohibit data brokers and other companies from selling large troves of Americans’ personal information to countries or entities in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, either directly or indirectly. This includes additional restrictions on companies’ ability to sell data as part of cloud service contracts, investment agreements, and employment agreements.

While the White House has described this step as “the most significant executive action any President has ever taken to protect Americans’ data security,” the specifics of how the new policies will be enforced within the Justice Department remain unclear. A Department of Justice (DoJ) official mentioned that the executive order would require data brokers to perform due diligence to vet their clients, similar to how companies adhere to US sanctions.

This executive order represents a significant move to regulate the largely unregulated multibillion-dollar data broker industry, which has been warned by researchers and privacy advocates as posing national security risks. 

However, once again, this may be easier said than done as the order does not address the bulk sale of Americans’ data to countries or companies not deemed to be a security risk. The White House has urged Congress to pass comprehensive bipartisan privacy legislation, especially to protect children’s safety.

Sources include: Engadget 

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting the manufacturing industry with ransomware attacks, according to a report by operational technology security firm Dragos. 

In its 2023 year-in-review report, Dragos found that 70 percent of all industrial organization ransomware infections affected manufacturing companies, impacting 638 entities across 33 unique manufacturing subsectors.

The report suggests that the manufacturing sector’s early adoption of digital transformation, including IoT and connected machines, without parallel investments in security, has made it a relatively easy target for cybercriminals. 

Manufacturing organizations’ systems are richer targets due to their significant role in revenue generation. When these systems are hit, the impact on the company’s bottom line prompts faster and more substantial ransom payments.

Dragos CEO Robert Lee highlighted that manufacturing’s struggle with network segmentation. This lack of effective network defenses allows intruders to move across systems and environments more freely.

The report also touches on the broader issue of supply-chain attacks, where exploiting vulnerabilities in commonly used software or equipment can enable mass targeting of organizations for ransomware infections—or worse. 

The report underscores the need for enhanced security measures in the manufacturing sector to protect against these growing cyber threats.

Sources include: The Register

Lockbit, a notorious cybercrime gang known for its use of ransomware to extort victims, has announced its return online after being targeted by an international law enforcement operation. The operation, described as unprecedented, led to the arrest and indictment of its members. Despite these efforts, Lockbit claims to have restored its servers and is back in business.

The gang’s darkweb site, used for leaking data stolen from its victims, was reportedly hacked by law enforcement using a vulnerability in the PHP programming language. Lockbit’s statement, posted in English and Russian on a new version of its darkweb site, asserts that servers with backup blogs not using PHP remain unaffected and will continue to release data from attacked companies.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) of Britain, which spearheaded the international effort to dismantle Lockbit’s operations, stated that the group “remains completely compromised.” The NCA acknowledged the possibility of Lockbit attempting to regroup and rebuild their systems but emphasized that a significant amount of intelligence about the gang and its associates had been gathered. The agency remains committed to targeting and disrupting Lockbit’s activities.

The new Lockbit darkweb site features a gallery of company names, each accompanied by a countdown clock indicating the deadline for the required ransom payment. 

Sources include: The Register 

Despite the FBI’s efforts in December to disrupt BlackCat’s operations by taking down its Tor negotiation and leak sites, the gang has managed to “unseize” their sites and continue their criminal activities. This resilience underscores the challenges faced by law enforcement in permanently dismantling such cybercrime networks.

FBI, CISA, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have issued a warning to U.S. healthcare organizations about targeted ransomware attacks by the ALPHV/Blackcat group. 

The gang had been linked to over 60 breaches and had reportedly accumulated at least $300 million in ransoms from more than 1,000 victims by September 2023, and apparently, the group has shown resilience and adaptability in the face of law enforcement actions.

The recent surge in attacks against the healthcare sector, with nearly 70 leaked victims since mid-December 2023, appears to be a direct response to an operational action against the group and its infrastructure in early December 2023. The ALPHV Blackcat administrator’s encouragement for affiliates to target hospitals highlights a deliberate and malicious focus on exploiting vulnerabilities within critical healthcare infrastructure.

The U.S. State Department’s offer of rewards for information leading to the identification or location of BlackCat gang leaders, as well as tips on individuals linked to the group’s ransomware attacks, shows how seriously they are taking the pursuit of this group.  

Remember those horror movies where at the very end the villain comes back from the dead or reaches up from the grave? 

Listeners who want even more cybersecurity stories may want to subscribe to our sister podcast CyberSecurity today. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. 

Sources include: Bleeping Computer

And that’s our show for today.

Hashtag Trending goes to air five days a week with daily newscast and a weekend interview show that we creatively called – the weekend edition. 

Remember if any of you want to connect with Dalikoo, remember to mention us. We need sponsors to pay for the work it takes to produce this show. www.dalikoo.com

Love your comments. 

Send us a note at jlove@itwc.ca or drop us a comment under the show notes at itworldcanada.com/podcasts – look for Hashtag Trending. 

Thanks for listening and have a Thrilling Thursday.

The post Hashtag Trending Feb.29- Google’s troubles with AI; New U.S. executive order to regulate data broker industry; Lockbit announces return first appeared on IT World Canada.

New figures from GSMA Intelligence (GSMAi) released today at MWC Barcelona 2024 reveal that 5G connections are expected to represent over half (51 per cent) of mobile connections by 2029.

Authors of the report note that 5G has been the fastest mobile generation rollout to date, surpassing one billion connections by the end of 2022, rising to 1.6 billion connections at the end of 2023 and projected to reach 5.5 billion by 2030.

Findings showed that, as of last month, 261 operators in 101 countries had launched commercial 5G services, and more than 90 operators from 64 markets have committed to rollouts.

Of the 261 commercial 5G services available, 47 are provided on 5G Standalone (SA) networks, with a further 89 planned deployments near-term that will take advantage of network slicing, ultra-reliable low-latency communications support, and the simplified 5G SA network architecture.

Peter Jarich, the head of GSMAi, said, “the early success of 5G was driven by enhanced mobile broadband (EMBB) and EMBB-related network traffic requirements. Yet, while consumer requirements will continue their trajectory, we are now seeing use cases beyond that.

“Opportunities are now appearing in areas including API monetization and 5G RedCap for enterprise IoT – all supported by 5G-Advanced and 5G SA networks. 5G SA brings home 5G’s early promise, particularly where slicing, low-latency and massive IoT capabilities tied to enterprise service needs can be met. 5G-Advanced will only extend that further.”

A release issued by the GSMAi indicates that the growth of available 5G Standalone (SA) networks, and improved support for private and dedicated networks, will support a massive number of connected devices and help to realize the global IoT vision for the enterprise.

“GSMAi data shows the enterprise segment now counts 10.7 billion IoT connections (versus 10.5 billion consumer connections) and this momentum is expected to continue, with enterprise connections more than doubling to 38.5 billion by 2030 and smart buildings and smart manufacturing accounting for 34 per cent and 16 per cent of total enterprise connections respectively.”

The release states that beyond 5G SA, “the availability of 5G-Advanced with 3GPP Release 18 will be another key 5G milestone in IoT delivery, providing the catalyst for new 5G investment throughout 2024 and into 2025. GSMAi data shows over half of operators expect to begin deploying 5G-Advanced within a year after commercial availability of 5G-Advanced solutions, driven by priority use cases such as 5G multicast services and low-cost IoT support.”

GSMAi predicts a fourfold rise in mobile data traffic between now and 2030 with expansions in 5G coverage and capacity playing a prominent role, showcasing the importance of continued infrastructure investments. It is predicted that monthly global mobile data traffic per connection will grow from 12.8 GB in 2023 to 47.9 GB in 2030.

The increasing use of Generative AI (GenAI) – 56 per cent of operators are currently testing applications – will also likely fuel this growth, the release said. This will be driven by applications including the use of GenAI-enabled chatbots for customer service efforts and the continued growth of AI-generated video and music content, it added.

Authors of the report say that 5G is expected to “benefit all economic sectors of the global economy, although some industries will benefit more than others due to their ability to incorporate 5G use cases in their business. Over the next seven years, 36 per cent of benefits are expected to originate from the manufacturing sector, 15 per cent from public administration and 10 per cent from services, driven by applications in smart factories, smart cities and smart grids.”

The post MWC 2024: 5G momentum on a roll with 1.6 billion connections worldwide first appeared on IT World Canada.

Intel yesterday launched its commercial line of Intel Core Ultra processors featuring NPUs (neural processing units) to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) at MWC Barcelona 2024. The processors, whose consumer versions were announced in December, include the new Intel vPro platform that the company said, offers productivity gains as well as enhanced security and new manageability features.

This year, Intel said in a release, partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell Technologies, Dynabook, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft Surface, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung and VAIO will deliver more than 100 notebook, 2-in-1, entry, and workstation designs using the technology.

Compared to a three-year-old PC, users can expect up to 47 per cent better productivity with office applications, noted Jen Larsen, general manager, commercial segments at Intel, during a briefing, up to 36 per cent processor power reduction vs the previous generation for video conferencing, and up to 2.2 times AI performance, gen over gen, for video editing.

Intel has been working with the application software ecosystem to optimize performance even more, added Carla Rodriguez, vice president and general manager, client software ecosystem.

“On the productivity side, we’ll work with players like Teams, Zoom, etc. so that there’s a better collaboration experience – many things that we take for granted today [like background blur and noise cancellation],” she said. “But the reality is, that’s only possible through the unlocking of that hardware benefit with software applications.”

On the security front, Intel has designed its threat detection technology to take advantage of the NPU to improve performance while freeing the CPU for other tasks and reducing power consumption. A new Intel Silicon Security Engine, for example, authenticates system firmware. Larsen said that Intel has enabled some ISVs (independent software vendors) to make use of the NPU, but not in isolation.

“We have this xPU strategy; we have a CPU, a GPU and an NPU, and they’re able to leverage all of them, depending on what the workload looks like.”

Manageability is a key feature of vPro and, the company said in a release, it has added more to the platform to help IT departments manage their fleets. These include:

Intel Device Discovery – a new way for cloud-based tools to receive the information they need to take appropriate actions on a given PC.

Intel Device Health with VMware and Eclypsium – helps IT organizations gain visibility into fleet patching requirements and deliver end-to-end device management.

Intel noted that it also “continues to invest in hardware-based remote management, both for on-premises solutions leveraging endpoint management technology and cloud-native (offerings) like VMware Workspace ONE.”

The post MWC 2024: Intel adds AI processors, launches the new vPro platform first appeared on IT World Canada.

Bluewaves Mobility Innovation (BMI), a North York-based startup that specializes in ORAN (open radio access networks) solutions, this week announced a partnership with Intel at MWC 2024 in Barcelona.

ORAN is a nonproprietary version of the Radio Access Network (RAN) system that allows interoperation between various pieces of cellular network equipment provided by different vendors, including the radio unit (RU), the distributed unit (DU) and the centralized unit (CU).

BMI builds Open RAN RUs, where the radio frequency signals in a network are transmitted, received, amplified and digitized.

The company is embedding Intel’s Agilex FPGA (field-programmable gate array) products in its radio designs for accelerated performance and increased power efficiency. An FPGA is a reprogrammable chip that can be customized to accelerate key workloads.

“The telecom industry is at a tipping point. ORAN is creating a multitude of new opportunities as leading mobile operators seek to disaggregate their networks and reap the benefits of ORAN” said Darron Enright, director of business development at BMI. “With Intel’s Agilex silicon components embedded, BMI ORUs will assist operators to meet their ORAN objectives in reducing the overall TCO of their networks as well as those for environmental sustainability.”

Enright added that BMI has set up its radio manufacturing in the greater Toronto area, and is acquiring partners like Intel to create a robust, resilient and secure North American ORAN supply chain.

The post MWC 2024: Ontario startup collaborates with Intel to advance Open RAN solutions first appeared on IT World Canada.

At MWC 2024 in Barcelona, a number of companies joined forces to form the AI-RAN (AI-radio access network) alliance, a new initiative to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into cellular technology.

The founding members include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Arm, DeepSig, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Northeastern University, Nvidia, Samsung, SoftBank and T-Mobile.

The group says that its mission is to “enhance mobile network efficiency, reduce power consumption, and retrofit existing infrastructure, setting the stage for unlocking new economic opportunities for telecommunications companies with AI, facilitated by 5G and 6G.”

Specifically, the alliance will focus on three main areas of research:

AI for RAN – advancing RAN capabilities through AI to improve spectral efficiency.
AI and RAN – integrating AI and RAN processes to utilize infrastructure more effectively and generate new AI-driven revenue opportunities.
AI on RAN – deploying AI services at the network edge through RAN to increase operational efficiency and offer new services to mobile users.

Alliance members said they will test and implement these technologies, developed through collective research efforts of member companies and universities.

“With the software transformation of RAN using cloud computing, there is a tremendous opportunity for mobile operators to collect all kinds of data at various layers of the stack,” explained Jan Hofmeyr, vice president at AWS.

This data, he added, acts as fuel for AI, offering the telecom industry the ability to not only optimize operations of RAN deployments but revolutionize how consumers, enterprises, and industries interact with mobile networks.

Microsoft, for instance, has announced the following updates to its Azure for Operators portfolio, in a bid to accelerate telco transformation in the era of AI:

Public preview of Azure Operator Call Protection, a new service that uses AI to help protect consumers from scam calls.
Public preview of Azure Programmable Connectivity (APC), which provides a unified, standard interface across operators’ networks.
Limited preview of Copilot in Azure Operator Insights, a generative AI capability enabling engineers to interact with network insights using natural language, and resolve network issues quickly to improve customer satisfaction

AI continues to be a big focus for Microsoft this week, having announced an investment of US$16 million in Mistral AI, US$5.6 billion in AI data centre infrastructure in Spain and Germany, as well as AI skilling programs. 

Further, Microsoft published ‘AI Access Principles’, designed to foster innovation and competition, create a self-regulatory initiative, and continue to advance a broad array of partnerships.

However, the company says that the principles are, “in no way meant to suggest a lack of respect for the rule of law or the role of regulators,” who have been investigating the partnerships made between tech goliaths and AI startups, notably between Microsoft and OpenAI.

As part of the fifth principle, Microsoft said, “We understand that Microsoft must respond fully and cooperatively to regulatory inquiries so that we can have an informed discussion with regulators about the virtues of various approaches. We need to be good listeners and constructive problem solvers in sorting through issues of concern and identifying practical steps and solutions before a new product is completed and launched.”

The post AWS, Microsoft, Ericsson, Nvidia and more form new alliance to integrate AI in cellular technology first appeared on IT World Canada.

Thousands of subdomains abused for phishing, the latest ransomware news and more.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Wednesday, February 28th, 2024. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com and TechNewsday.com in the U.S.

Over 8,000 sub-domains owned by or affiliated with big brands have been hijacked and used to send millions of malicious emails a day. That’s according to researchers at Guardio. Victim firms include Microsoft MSN, VMware, McAfee, CBS, Marvel, eBay Cornell University, The Economist and more. The tactic is called “SubdoMailing.” It works like this: Say a company named Acme wants a domain on MSN. The domain is “acme[dot]msn[dot]com.” Later it creates a subdomain to offer a game for customers — say that subdomain is “acme[dot]games[dot]msn[dot]com.” Then Acme abandons that subdomain. That leaves it open for a threat actor to buy the abandoned subdomain and use it to launch mass phishing campaigns by linking it to hundreds of IP addresses. Phishing messages appear to come from msn.com. To users — and more importantly to email gateways — it looks like a legitimate address. In fact, the report says 22 years ago home designer Martha Stewart created a subdomain when she ran a sweepstakes, then abandoned the subdomain. Now its being used by a scammer. Guardio suspects there’s one threat actor behind this phishing campaign. I’ve simplified the tactic. But what website owners need to do is regularly check their domains for signs of compromise and remove unused subdomains and associated DNS records.

The cyberattack that hit American prescription processor Change Healthcare last week is ransomware according to two news reports. Reuters and TechCrunch say the BlackCat/AlphV ransomware strain was involved. On the other hand SCMagazine.com says it was a strain of the LockBit ransomware. Regardless, the result of the attack is that many U.S. pharmacies, hospitals and healthcare providers are unable to process prescriptions. According to TechCrunch, the U.S. military’s health insurance provider says the attack is impacting all military pharmacies around the world. SCMagazine.com says the attacker exploited a vulnerability in ConnectWise ScreenConnect application for help desks. That vulnerability was publicly reported on February 19th.

Last December law enforcement agencies took down an AlphV gang’s website. According to The Record, after that a message was spotted apparently from the gang promised to start allowing its affiliates to attack previously forbidden targets like hospitals.

The Record also reports that ransomware is behind a cyber attack on Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital. The Rhysida ransomware gang has listed this hospital as one of its victims. To learn more about this group check out the background report on Rhysida released last week by researchers at eSentire. This is the gang that last year hit Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns 16 hospitals and 166 outpatient clinics in the U.S, and the British Library. Full restoration of services at the British Library may not happen until the end of the year.

WordPress administrators with systems that use the LiteSpeed Cache plugin are urged to update the app as soon as possible. Researchers at Patchstack say the plugin has a vulnerability that could allow any unauthenticated user to get in and steal sensitive website information.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has released version 2 of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. This framework is used by organizations around the world to design their cybersecurity practices and strategy. The new version is aimed at organizations of any size, not just those in critical sectors. It also has a new focus on governance, which is how organizations make and carry out decisions on cyber strategy, as well as securing supply chains.

Finally, the U.S. National Cyber Director is urging application developers to improve the security of their software by switching to memory-safe programming languages. Many application holes are caused by memory vulnerabilities created in languages like C and C++. There are dozens of better languages to use including C#, Go, Java, Python, Rust and Swift. The report also urges developers to take other action to improve application security and quality

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The post Cyber Security Today, Feb. 28, 2024 – Thousands of subdomains abused for phishing, the latest ransomware news and more first appeared on IT World Canada.

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MUSIC UP

OpenAI says the New York Times “hacked” ChatGPT to generate misleading evidence. Apple pulls the plug on its electric car. Wendy’s experiments with “surge pricing”. Meta is monitoring and collecting data on users of its Quest headset. And Your Voice is Power teaches indigenous youth about coding, music and their history and culture.

OpenAI has requested a federal judge dismiss parts of a copyright lawsuit filed by the New York Times, alleging that the newspaper “hacked” its ChatGPT and other AI systems to generate misleading evidence for the case. 

According to OpenAI’s filing in Manhattan federal court, the Times manipulated the technology to reproduce its material using “deceptive prompts” that violate OpenAI’s terms of use. 

OpenAI criticized the Times for not adhering to its “famously rigorous journalistic standards” and claimed that the newspaper paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products, though it did not specify who was hired or accuse the Times of breaking any anti-hacking laws.

The New York Times’ attorney, Ian Crosby, countered OpenAI’s claims, stating that what OpenAI describes as ‘hacking’ was merely the use of OpenAI’s products to seek evidence of copyright infringement by OpenAI. The lawsuit, filed by the Times against OpenAI and its largest financial backer, Microsoft, in December, accuses them of using millions of the newspaper’s articles without permission to train chatbots. This lawsuit is part of a broader trend of copyright owners suing tech companies over the alleged misuse of their work in AI training.

The tech industry argues that AI systems make fair use of copyrighted material and that these lawsuits could hinder the growth of the AI sector, potentially worth trillions of dollars. 

Courts have yet to decide whether AI training constitutes fair use under copyright law, and so far, judges have dismissed some infringement claims over the output of generative AI systems due to insufficient evidence that AI-created content resembles copyrighted works.

Sources include: Reuters 

Apple has officially canceled its plans to release an autonomous, electric vehicle, a project that has been in development for over a decade with millions of dollars invested. The announcement was made by Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams to approximately 2,000 employees working on the Apple Car, catching many by surprise.

Many of those involved in the car project will be moved to Apple’s artificial intelligence division to work on generative AI under AI chief John Giannandrea. However, with a number of hardware engineers and car designers on the team, there will inevitably be layoffs.

This news follows earlier rumors that Apple had scaled back its ambitions for a fully driverless car, opting instead to focus on an electric vehicle with fewer self-driving features, aiming for a release around 2026. These plans have now been shelved entirely.

The Apple Car project, first rumored in 2014, has faced numerous challenges, including changes in leadership and project direction due to internal strife. Despite efforts to scale down the project while still aiming to produce a viable car, senior Apple executives recently decided to wind down the project.

Sources include:   MacRumours 

Wendy’s is set to introduce Uber-like surge pricing, a practice known as “dynamic pricing,” starting in 2025. This initiative is part of a $20 million investment in new digital menu boards across its U.S. restaurants, enabling price adjustments based on demand. 

The CEO of Wendy’s, Kirk Tanner, mentioned that the new digital menus would allow the company to test dynamic pricing and day-part offerings alongside AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling. 

Dynamic pricing is not new and is commonly used in industries like sports and concert tickets, as well as ride-hailing services like Uber, which adjust prices based on demand. However, its application in the restaurant sector has been limited due to the manual labour required to change menus. With the advent of apps and digital menus, fast food chains like Wendy’s can now easily update prices, making dynamic pricing a more feasible option.

Wendy’s digital transformation includes a $15 million upgrade to its app, reflecting the company’s expectation that digital order sales will reach $2 billion this year. McDonald’s has also experimented with dynamic pricing and new order-suggestion capabilities at some of its drive-thrus and on its app.

The introduction of surge pricing in the fast-food industry could mark a turning point, according to Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business. However, there are risks associated with fluctuating prices, especially during busy times, which could lead to customer backlash. Wendy’s will need to navigate these challenges carefully as it implements dynamic pricing.

Sources include: CNN

Meta is set to begin “collecting anonymized data” from users of its Quest headsets, a move that will see the company aggregating information about hand, body, and eye tracking; camera information; “information about your physical environment”; and details about “the virtual reality events you attend.” This initiative was announced in an email to Quest users, indicating that starting with the next software update, Meta will collect and aggregate “anonymized data about… device usage” from Quest users. The company states that this data will be used for purposes such as building better experiences and improving Meta Quest products for everyone.

The data collection will encompass a wide range of personal information as outlined in the “Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Privacy Policy,” including audio data for animating avatars, data about hand, body, and eye tracking, fitness-related information, details about the physical environment, voice interactions, and activity in virtual reality. While Meta emphasizes that the data is anonymized and does not identify individuals, there are concerns about the potential for “anonymous” data to be linked back to personally identifiable information.

Meta’s help page mentions that users can opt out of sharing a small subset of “additional data” with the company, but there’s no option to opt out of the new anonymized data collection policies entirely. This policy applies to users who access their Quest headsets with a Meta account, subject to Meta’s broader data-collection policies. Users with a legacy Oculus account are subject to a separate privacy policy with similar but more limited data-collection practices.

This development raises questions about privacy and the use of personal data in the context of virtual reality, echoing concerns that have been present since Meta’s VR division was known as Oculus. The move to collect more detailed usage data from Quest users reflects the growing interest in leveraging user data to enhance product development and user experiences, while also highlighting the ongoing debate over data privacy and anonymity in the digital age.

Sources include: ArsTechnica

“Your Voice is Power” is an innovative educational program and remix competition that combines computer science, coding skills, and social justice education, focusing on the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis experience in Canada. This initiative, launched by Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon Music, and TakingITGlobal, aims to engage 20,000 Canadian middle and high school students in 2024, building on the success of reaching over 15,000 students in 2023.

The program addresses the underrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in tech-related employment and industries in Canada. By introducing students from underrepresented communities to STEM education early, “Your Voice is Power” seeks to inspire future academic and career possibilities in technology.

The curriculum, available at no cost for grades 7 through 12, was developed by TakingITGlobal with extensive collaboration with the Cloud Innovation Centre at the University of British Columbia. It features eight modules that teach coding basics while engaging students in discussions about significant topics such as Residential Schools, the Sixties Scoop, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.

Students are encouraged to remix music from Indigenous artists Jayli Wolf, Dakota Bear, Samian, Twin Flames, and, new for 2024, Juno-nominated artist Aysanabee, using EarSketch, a free online code editor available in English, French, Ojibwe, and Inuktitut. Participants can submit their remixes to a competition, with two winners (one Indigenous and one identifying as an ally) receiving $5,000 scholarships. The deadline for the 2024 competition is May 31, with winners selected in June.

Aysanabee, an Oji-Cree singer-songwriter with three 2024 Juno Award nominations, will provide music for the curriculum and join the judging panel for the student competition.

For more information or to explore interview opportunities with Indigenous Artist Dakota Bear or Anishinaabe educator Christine M’Lot, coordination can be provided.

And Amazon music listeners in Canada can listen to a special Your Voice is Power playlist of these and more incredible indigenous artists. 

For further details, visit Your Voice is Power.

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The post Hashtag Trending Feb.28- OpenAI says New York Times hacked ChatGPT; Apple cancels plans to release electric car; Your Voice is Power teaches indigenous youth about coding first appeared on IT World Canada.