Tech News
Data Breach Reveals Catwatchful 'Stalkerware' Is Spying On Thousands of Phones
yro - Posted On:2025-07-02 23:45:01 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A security vulnerability in a stealthy Android spyware operation called Catwatchful has exposed thousands of its customers, including its administrator. The bug, which was discovered by security researcher Eric Daigle, spilled the spyware app's full database of email addresses and plaintext passwords that Catwatchful customers use to access the data stolen from the phones of their victims. [...] According to a copy of the database from early June, which TechCrunch has seen, Catwatchful had email addresses and passwords on more than 62,000 customers and the phone data from 26,000 victims' devices. Most of the compromised devices were located in Mexico, Colombia, India, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia (in order of the number of victims). Some of the records date back to 2018, the data shows. The Catwatchful database also revealed the identity of the spyware operation's administrator, Omar Soca Charcov, a developer based in Uruguay. Charcov opened our emails, but did not respond to our requests for comment sent in both English and Spanish. TechCrunch asked if he was aware of the Catwatchful data breach, and if he plans to disclose the incident to its customers. Without any clear indication that Charcov will disclose the incident, TechCrunch provided a copy of the Catwatchful database to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. The stalkerware operation uses a custom API and Google's Firebase to collect and store victims' stolen data, including photos and audio recordings. According to Daigle, the API was left unauthenticated, exposing sensitive user data such as email addresses and passwords. The hosting provider temporarily suspended the spyware after TechCrunch disclosed this vulnerability but it returned later on HostGator. Despite being notified, Google has yet to take down the Firebase instance but updated Google Play Protect to detect Catwatchful. While Catwatchful claims it "cannot be uninstalled," you can dial "543210" and press the call button on your Android phone to reveal the hidden app. As for its removal, TechCrunch has a general how-to guide for removing Android spyware that could be helpful. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Proposed Budget Seeks To Close Mauna Loa Observatory's Climate CO2 Study
news - Posted On:2025-07-02 22:15:00 Source: slashdot
"Slashdot regularly posts milestones on CO2 levels reported by the Mauna Loa Observatory," writes longtime Slashdot reader symbolset, pointing to a new article highlighting how the Trump administration's proposed budget would eliminate funding for the lab's carbon dioxide monitoring. "Continuous observation records since 1958 will end with the new federal budget as ocean and atmospheric sciences are defunded." From a report: [I]t's the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump's climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2's upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year. The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data. Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii. The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document (PDF) to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Foxconn Mysteriously Tells Chinese Workers To Quit India and Return To China
apple - Posted On:2025-07-02 21:45:00 Source: slashdot
Apple's expansion in India has hit a snag as Foxconn has sent over 300 Chinese workers back to China, potentially reducing production efficiency just as mass manufacturing of the iPhone 17 begins. AppleInsider reports: It's not known why Foxconn has done this, nor is it clear whether workers have been laid off or redeployed to the company's facilities in China. The move, though, does follow Beijing officials reportedly working to prevent firms moving away from China. Those officials are said to have been verbally encouraging China's local governments and regulatory bodies to curb exports of equipment or technologies to India and Southeast Asia. Overall, China has been making it harder for skilled labor to leave the country. It's not clear how any changes have specifically affected Chinese workers who had already left.What is clear is that Foxconn has used many experienced Chinese engineers as it attempts to rapidly expand in India. It's said, too, that Chinese managers have been vital in training Foxconn staff in India. Since that training has been ongoing for some years, and since at least most of Foxconn's production lines have been set up, it's said that there will not be an impact on the quality of manufacturing. But one source said the changes will impact efficiency on the production line. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hacker With 'Political Agenda' Stole Data From Columbia, University Says
news - Posted On:2025-07-02 21:00:00 Source: slashdot
A politically motivated hacker breached Columbia University's IT systems, stealing vast amounts of sensitive student and employee data -- including admissions decisions and Social Security numbers. The Record reports: The hacker reportedly provided Bloomberg News with 1.6 gigabytes of data they claimed to have stolen from the university, including information from 2.5 million applications going back decades. The stolen data the outlet reviewed reportedly contains details on whether applicants were rejected or accepted, their citizenship status, their university ID numbers and which academic programs they sought admission to. While the hacker's claims have not been independently verified, Bloomberg said it compared data provided by the hacker to that belonging to eight Columbia applicants seeking admission between 2019 and 2024 and found it matched. The threat actor reportedly told Bloomberg he was seeking information that would indicate whether the university continues to use affirmative action in admissions despite a 2023 Supreme Court decision prohibiting the practice. The hacker told Bloomberg he obtained 460 gigabytes of data in total -- after spending two months targeting and penetrating increasingly privileged layers of the university's servers -- and said he harvested information about financial aid packages, employee pay and at least 1.8 million Social Security numbers belonging to employees, applicants, students and their family members. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Intel's New CEO Explores Big Shift In Chip Manufacturing Business
technology - Posted On:2025-07-02 20:15:01 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Intel's new chief executive is exploring a big change to its contract manufacturing business to win major customers, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a potentially expensive shift from his predecessor's plans. The new strategy for Intel's foundry business would mean offering outside customers a newer generation of technology, the people said. That next-generation chipmaking process, analysts believe, will be more competitive against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co in trying to land major customers such as Apple or Nvidia. Since taking the company's helm in March, CEO Lip-Bu Tan has moved fast to cut costs and find a new path to revive the ailing U.S. chipmaker. By June, he started voicing that a manufacturing process known as 18A, in which prior CEO Pat Gelsinger had invested heavily, was losing its appeal to new customers, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. To put aside external sales of 18A and its variant 18A-P, manufacturing processes that have cost Intel billions of dollars to develop, the company would have to take a write-off, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Industry analysts contacted by Reuters said such a charge could amount to a loss of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Intel declined to comment on such "hypothetical scenarios or market speculation." It said the lead customer for 18A has long been Intel itself, and it aims to ramp production of its "Panther Lake" laptop chips later in 2025, which it called the most advanced processors ever designed and manufactured in the United States. Persuading outside clients to use Intel's factories remains key to its future. As its 18A fabrication process faced delays, rival TSMC's N2 technology has been on track for production. Tan's preliminary answer to this challenge: focus more resources on 14A, a next-generation chipmaking process where Intel expects to have advantages over Taiwan's TSMC, the two sources said. The move is part of a play for big customers like Apple and Nvidia, which currently pay TSMC to manufacture their chips. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nintendo Locked Down the Switch 2's USB-C Port, Broke Third-Party Docking
hardware - Posted On:2025-07-02 19:30:00 Source: slashdot
Two accessory manufacturers have told The Verge that Nintendo has intentionally locked down the Switch 2's USB-C port using a new encryption scheme, preventing compatibility with third-party docks and accessories. "I haven't yet found proof of that encryption chip myself -- but when I analyzed the USB-C PD traffic with a Power-Z tester, I could clearly see the new Nintendo Switch not behaving like a good USB citizen should," writes The Verge's Sean Hollister. From the report: If you've been wondering why there are basically no portable Switch 2 docks on the market, this is the reason. Even Jsaux, the company that built its reputation by beating the Steam Deck dock to market, tells us it's paused its plans to build a Switch 2 dock because of Nintendo's actions. It's not simply because the Switch 2 now requires more voltage, as was previously reported; it's that Nintendo has made things even more difficult this generation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Grammarly Acquires AI Email Client Superhuman
slashdot - Posted On:2025-07-02 19:00:00 Source: slashdot
Grammarly has acquired the AI email client Superhuman to enhance its AI-driven productivity suite and expand AI capabilities within email communication. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra and his team will be joining the AI writing company. TechCrunch reports: Superhuman was founded by Rahul Vohra, Vivek Sodera, and Conrad Irwin. The company raised more than $114 million in funding from backers including a16z, IVP, and Tiger Global, with its last valuation at $825 million, according to data from venture data analytics firm Traxcn. "With Superhuman, we can deliver that future to millions more professionals while giving our existing users another surface for agent collaboration that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Email isn't just another app; it's where professionals spend significant portions of their day, and it's the perfect staging ground for orchestrating multiple AI agents simultaneously," Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly, said in a statement. With this deal, CEO Vohra and other Superhuman employees are moving over to Grammarly. "Email is the main communication tool for billions of people worldwide and the number-one use case for Grammarly customers. By joining forces with Grammarly, we will invest even more in the core Superhuman experience, as well as create a new way of working where AI agents collaborate across the communication tools that we all use every day," Rahul Vohra, CEO of Superhuman, said in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Everything that could go wrong with X’s new AI-written community notes
AI - Posted On:2025-07-02 18:15:00 Source: arstechnica
Elon Musk's X arguably revolutionized social media fact-checking by rolling out "community notes," which created a system to crowdsource diverse views on whether certain X posts were trustworthy or not.
But now, the platform plans to allow AI to write community notes, and that could potentially ruin whatever trust X users had in the fact-checking system—which X has fully acknowledged.
In a research paper, X described the initiative as an "upgrade" while explaining everything that could possibly go wrong with AI-written community notes.
TikTok is being flooded with racist AI videos generated by Google’s Veo 3
AI - Posted On:2025-07-02 18:15:00 Source: arstechnica
The release of Google's Veo 3 video generator in May represented a disconcerting leap in AI video quality. While many of the viral AI videos we've seen are harmless fun, the model's pixel-perfect output can also be used for nefarious purposes. On TikTok, which may or may not be banned in the coming months, users have noticed a surplus of racist AI videos, courtesy of Google's Veo 3.
According to a report from MediaMatters, numerous TikTok accounts have started posting AI-generated videos that use racist and antisemitic tropes in recent weeks. Most of the AI vitriol is aimed at Black people, depicting them as "the usual suspects" in crimes, absent parents, and monkeys with an affinity for watermelon. The content also targets immigrants and Jewish people. The videos top out at eight seconds and bear the "Veo" watermark, confirming they came from Google's leading AI model.
The compilation video below has examples pulled from TikTok since the release of Veo 3, but be warned, it contains racist and antisemitic content. Some of the videos are shocking, which is likely the point—nothing drives engagement on social media like anger and drama. MediaMatters reports that the original posts have numerous comments echoing the stereotypes used in the video.
NYT To Start Searching Deleted ChatGPT Logs After Beating OpenAI In Court
yro - Posted On:2025-07-02 18:15:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week, OpenAI raised objections in court, hoping to overturn a court order requiring the AI company to retain all ChatGPT logs "indefinitely," including deleted and temporary chats. But Sidney Stein, the US district judge reviewing OpenAI's request, immediately denied OpenAI's objections. He was seemingly unmoved by the company's claims that the order forced OpenAI to abandon "long-standing privacy norms" and weaken privacy protections that users expect based on ChatGPT's terms of service. Rather, Stein suggested that OpenAI's user agreement specified that their data could be retained as part of a legal process, which Stein said is exactly what is happening now. The order was issued by magistrate judge Ona Wang just days after news organizations, led by The New York Times, requested it. The news plaintiffs claimed the order was urgently needed to preserve potential evidence in their copyright case, alleging that ChatGPT users are likely to delete chats where they attempted to use the chatbot to skirt paywalls to access news content. A spokesperson told Ars that OpenAI plans to "keep fighting" the order, but the ChatGPT maker seems to have few options left. They could possibly petition the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for a rarely granted emergency order that could intervene to block Wang's order, but the appeals court would have to consider Wang's order an extraordinary abuse of discretion for OpenAI to win that fight. In the meantime, OpenAI is negotiating a process that will allow news plaintiffs to search through the retained data. Perhaps the sooner that process begins, the sooner the data will be deleted. And that possibility puts OpenAI in the difficult position of having to choose between either caving to some data collection to stop retaining data as soon as possible or prolonging the fight over the order and potentially putting more users' private conversations at risk of exposure through litigation or, worse, a data breach. [...] Both sides are negotiating the exact process for searching through the chat logs, with both parties seemingly hoping to minimize the amount of time the chat logs will be preserved. For OpenAI, sharing the logs risks revealing instances of infringing outputs that could further spike damages in the case. The logs could also expose how often outputs attribute misinformation to news plaintiffs. But for news plaintiffs, accessing the logs is not considered key to their case -- perhaps providing additional examples of copying -- but could help news organizations argue that ChatGPT dilutes the market for their content. That could weigh against the fair use argument, as a judge opined in a recent ruling that evidence of market dilution could tip an AI copyright case in favor of plaintiffs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Ordered To Pay $315 Million for Taking Data From Idle Android Phones
yro - Posted On:2025-07-02 17:30:00 Source: slashdot
A California jury has ordered Google to pay $314.6 million to Android smartphone users in the state after finding the company liable for collecting data from idle devices without permission. The San Jose jury ruled Tuesday that Google sent and received information from phones while idle, creating "mandatory and unavoidable burdens shouldered by Android device users for Google's benefit." The 2019 class action represented an estimated 14 million Californians who argued Google consumed their cellular data for targeted advertising purposes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AT&T rolls out Wireless Account Lock protection to curb the SIM-swap scourge
Biz & IT - Posted On:2025-07-02 17:00:01 Source: arstechnica
AT&T is rolling out a protection that prevents unauthorized changes to mobile accounts as the carrier attempts to fight a costly form of account hijacking that occurs when a scammer swaps out the SIM card belonging to the account holder.
The technique, known as SIM swapping or port-out fraud, has been a scourge that has vexed wireless carriers and their millions of subscribers for years. An indictment filed last year by federal prosecutors alleged that a single SIM swap scheme netted $400 million in cryptocurrency. The stolen funds belonged to dozens of victims who had used their phones for two-factor authentication to cryptocurrency wallets.
A separate scam from 2022 gave unauthorized access to a T-Mobile management platform that subscription resellers, known as mobile virtual network operators, use to provision services to their customers. The threat actor gained access using a SIM swap of a T-Mobile employee, a phishing attack on another T-Mobile employee, and at least one compromise of an unknown origin.
Rice could be key to brewing better non-alcoholic beer
Science - Posted On:2025-07-02 17:00:01 Source: arstechnica
There is increasing consumer demand for low- or non-alcoholic beers, and science is helping improve both the brewing process and the flavor profiles of the final product. One promising approach to better non-alcoholic beer involves substituting barley malt with milled rice, according to two recent papers—one published in the International Journal of Food Properties and the other published in the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists.
The chemistry of brewing beer is a very active area of research. For instance, earlier this year, we reported on Norwegian scientists who discovered that sour beers made with the sugars found in peas, beans, and lentils had similar flavor profiles to your average Belgian-style sour beer, yet the brewing process was shorter, with simpler steps. The pea-sugar beers had more lactic acid, ethanol, and flavor compounds than those brewed without them, and they were rated as having fruitier flavors and higher acidity. And sensory panelists detected no trace of undesirable "bean-y" flavors that have limited the use of pea-based ingredients in the past.
But replacing barley malt with rice still might strike some beer aficionados as sacrilege. In Germany, "purity laws" dictate that any beverage classified as a beer—including non-alcoholic beers—must only be made from malted barley, hops, water, and yeast. This produces non-alcoholic beers that have more "worty" flavors (due to higher levels of aldehyde) than might ideally be desired. But not every country is as stringent as Germany. The US is much more flexible when it comes to selecting raw materials, including rice, for brewing beers. In fact, Arkansas just passed a bill this spring creating incentives for using rice (grown in Arkansas, of course) in the production of sake and beer.
New evidence that some supernovae may be a “double detonation”
Science - Posted On:2025-07-02 17:00:01 Source: arstechnica
Type Ia supernovae are critical tools in astronomy, since they all appear to explode with the same intensity, allowing us to use their brightness as a measure of distance. The distance measures they've given us have been critical to tracking the expansion of the Universe, which led to the recognition that there's some sort of dark energy hastening the Universe's expansion. Yet there are ongoing arguments over exactly how these events are triggered.
There's widespread agreement that type Ia supernovae are the explosions of white dwarf stars. Normally, these stars are composed primarily of moderately heavy elements like carbon and oxygen, and lack the mass to trigger additional fusion. But if some additional material is added, the white dwarf can reach a critical mass and reignite a runaway fusion reaction, blowing the star apart. But the source of the additional mass has been somewhat controversial.
But there's an additional hypothesis that doesn't require as much mass: a relatively small explosion on a white dwarf's surface can compress the interior enough to restart fusion in stars that haven't yet reached a critical mass. Now, observations of the remains of a supernova provide some evidence of the existence of these so-called "double detonation" supernovae.
Amazon To Shut Down Its Freevee App Next Month
entertainment - Posted On:2025-07-02 17:00:01 Source: slashdot
Amazon plans to shut down its standalone Freevee app in August, according to an in-app notice to users. From a report: The free, ad-supported streaming service is directing viewers to continue watching Freevee content on Prime Video. "Prime Video is the new exclusive home for Freevee Tv show, movies, and Live TV," the notice to readers states. "The Freevee app will be accessible until August 2025. Continue watching your favorite Free Originals and our library of hit movies, shows, and live TV on Prime Video for free, no subscription needed. Download Prime Video to get started and sign-in with your Amazon account." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
China's Giant New Gamble With Digital IDs
yro - Posted On:2025-07-02 16:15:00 Source: slashdot
China will launch digital IDs for internet use on July 15th, transferring online verification from private companies to government control. Users obtain digital IDs by submitting personal information including facial scans to police via an app. A pilot program launched one year ago enrolled 6 million people. The system currently remains voluntary, though officials and state media are pushing citizens to register for "information security." Companies will see only anonymized character strings when users log in, while police retain exclusive access to personal details. The program replaces China's existing system requiring citizens to register with companies using real names before posting comments, gaming, or making purchases. Police say they punished 47,000 people last year for spreading "rumours" online. The digital ID serves a broader government strategy to centralize data control. State planners classify data as a production factor alongside labor and capital, aiming to extract information from private companies for trading through government-operated data exchanges. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI Note Takers Are Increasingly Outnumbering Humans in Workplace Video Calls
slashdot - Posted On:2025-07-02 15:30:00 Source: slashdot
AI-powered note-taking apps are increasingly attending workplace meetings in place of human participants, creating situations where automated transcription bots outnumber actual attendees. Major platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet now offer built-in note-taking features that record, transcribe and summarize meetings for invited participants who don't attend. The technology operates under varying legal frameworks, with most states requiring only single-party consent for recording while California, Florida, and Pennsylvania mandate all-party approval. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
US Probes Whether Negotiator Took Slice of Hacker Payments
yro - Posted On:2025-07-02 15:00:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader shares a report: Law enforcement officials are investigating a former employee of a company that negotiates with hackers and facilitates cryptocurrency payments during ransomware attacks, according to a statement from the firm, DigitalMint. DigitalMint President Marc Jason Grens this week told organizations it works with that the US Justice Department is examining allegations that the then-employee struck deals with hackers to profit from extortion payments, according to a person familiar with the matter. Grens did not identify the employee by name and characterized their actions as isolated, said the person, who spoke on condition that they not be identified describing private conversations. DigitalMint is cooperating with a criminal investigation into "alleged unauthorized conduct by the employee while employed here," Grens said in an email to Bloomberg News. The Chicago-based company is not the target of the investigation and the employee "was immediately terminated," Grens said, adding that he can't provide more information because the probe is ongoing. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tesla Q2 2025 sales dropped more than 13% year over year
Cars - Posted On:2025-07-02 14:30:00 Source: arstechnica
Tesla sold 384,122 electric vehicles during the months of April, May, and June of this year. That's a double-digit decline compared to the same three months of last year—itself no peach of a quarter for a car company with a stratospheric valuation based on the supposition of eternal sales growth.
The automaker faces a number of problems that are getting in the way of that perpetual growth. In some regions, CEO Elon Musk's right-wing politics have driven away customers in droves. Another issue is the company's small, infrequently updated model lineup, which is a problem even in parts of the world that care little about US politics.
Most Tesla sales are of the Model 3 midsize electric sedan and the Model Y, its electric crossover. For Q2 2025, Tesla sold 373,728 of the Models 3 and Y across North America, Europe, China, and its other markets. But that's an 11.5 percent decrease compared to the 422,405 Models 3 and Y that Tesla sold in Q2 2024, a quarter that itself saw a year-on-year decline.
Medical groups warn Senate budget bill will create dystopian health care system
Health - Posted On:2025-07-02 14:30:00 Source: arstechnica
Medical organizations are blasting the Senate's budget bill in the wake of its narrow passage Tuesday, warning of the dystopian health care system that will arise from the $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other federal health programs if it is passed into law. The bill has moved back to the House for a vote on the Senate's changes.
Over the weekend, an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 11.8 million people would lose their health insurance over the next decade due to the cuts to Medicaid and other programs. Those cuts, which are deeper than the House's version of the bill, were maintained in the Senate's final version of the bill after amendments, with few concessions.
Organizations representing physicians, pediatricians, medical schools, and hospitals were quick to highlight the damage the proposal could cause.