The Cross Heads

T-Mobile users can try Starlink-enabled phone service for free during beta

“While not yet ready for full commercial service, T-Mobile Starlink was turned on temporarily to provide a critical communication option for those without any other means to reach emergency responders and loved ones during Hurricanes Helene and Milton,” the carrier said. “Even without the full constellation in place, customers with capable devices were able to […]

December 16, 2024 | Biz & IT, Policy, t-mobile starlink | No comments

Yearlong supply-chain attack targeting security pros steals 390K credentials

Screenshot showing a graph tracking mining activity. Credit: Checkmarx But wait, there’s more On Friday, Datadog revealed that MUT-1244 employed additional means for installing its second-stage malware. One was through a collection of at least 49 malicious entries posted to GitHub that contained Trojanized proof-of-concept exploits for security vulnerabilities. These packages help malicious and benevolent […]

December 13, 2024 | Biz & IT, credential theft, cryptomining, GitHub, npm, Security, supply chain attacks | No comments

Twirling body horror in gymnastics video exposes AI’s flaws

On Wednesday, a video from OpenAI’s newly launched Sora AI video generator went viral on social media, featuring a gymnast who sprouts extra limbs and briefly loses her head during what appears to be an Olympic-style floor routine. As it turns out, the nonsensical synthesis errors in the video—what we like to call “jabberwockies”—hint at […]

December 13, 2024 | AI, AI confabulation, AI hallucination, AI jabberwocky, Ai video generator, Biz & IT, confabulation, gymnastics, hallucination, jabberwocky, machine learning, Olympics, openai, Sora, video synthesis | No comments

Critical WordPress plugin vulnerability under active exploit threatens thousands

Thousands of sites running WordPress remain unpatched against a critical security flaw in a widely used plugin that was being actively exploited in attacks that allow for unauthenticated execution of malicious code, security researchers said. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-11972, is found in Hunk Companion, a plugin that runs on 10,000 sites that use the […]

December 12, 2024 | Biz & IT, CMS, exploits, plugins, Security, vulnerabilities, wordpress | No comments

OpenAI introduces “Santa Mode” to ChatGPT for ho-ho-ho voice chats

On Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT users can now talk to a simulated version of Santa Claus through the app’s voice mode, using AI to bring a North Pole connection to mobile devices, desktop apps, and web browsers during the holiday season. The company added Santa’s voice and personality as a preset option in ChatGPT’s […]

December 12, 2024 | AI, Biz & IT, machine learning | No comments

Russia takes unusual route to hack Starlink-connected devices in Ukraine

“Microsoft assesses that Secret Blizzard either used the Amadey malware as a service (MaaS) or accessed the Amadey command-and-control (C2) panels surreptitiously to download a PowerShell dropper on target devices,” Microsoft said. “The PowerShell dropper contained a Base64-encoded Amadey payload appended by code that invoked a request to Secret Blizzard C2 infrastructure.” The ultimate objective […]

December 11, 2024 | backdoors, Biz & IT, nation state hacking, phishing, Security, turla | No comments

Google goes “agentic” with Gemini 2.0’s ambitious AI agent features

On Wednesday, Google unveiled Gemini 2.0, the next generation of its AI-model family, starting with an experimental release called Gemini 2.0 Flash. The model family can generate text, images, and speech while processing multiple types of input including text, images, audio, and video. It’s similar to multimodal AI models like GPT-4o, which powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT. […]

December 11, 2024 | agentic AI, AI, AI agents, Biz & IT, ChatGPT, chatgtp, Gemini 2.0, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Google, Google Gemini, large language models, machine learning, openai, Project Astra | No comments

AI company trolls San Francisco with billboards saying “stop hiring humans”

Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack defended the campaign’s messaging in an interview with SFGate. “They are somewhat dystopian, but so is AI,” he told the outlet in a text message. “The way the world works is changing.” In another message he wrote, “We wanted something that would draw eyes—you don’t draw eyes with boring messaging.” So […]

December 10, 2024 | agi, AI, AI and jobs, AI human replacement, AI workers, Arisan.ai, Artisan, Biz & IT, bluesky, Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, machine learning | No comments

AMD’s trusted execution environment blown wide open by new BadRAM attack

If a VM has been backdoored, the cryptographic attestation will fail and immediately alert the VM admin of the compromise. Or at least that’s how SEV-SNP is designed to work. BadRAM is an attack that a server admin can carry out in minutes, using either about $10 of hardware, or in some cases, software only, […]

December 10, 2024 | AMD, Biz & IT, cloud computing, Security, sev-snp | No comments

Reddit debuts AI-powered discussion search—but will users like it?

The company then went on to strike deals with major tech firms, including a $60 million agreement with Google in February 2024 and a partnership with OpenAI in May 2024 that integrated Reddit content into ChatGPT. But Reddit users haven’t been entirely happy with the deals. In October 2024, London-based Redditors began posting false restaurant […]

December 9, 2024 | Advance Publications, AI, Biz & IT, ChatGPT, chatgtp, Conde Nast, machine learning, openai, Perplexity, Perplexity.ai, reddit, Reddit Answers | No comments

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