Category: Technology

The White House is holding a two-day international conference starting Wednesday to combat ransomware computer attacks on business operations across the globe that cost companies, schools and health services an estimated $74 billion in damages last year. U.S. officials are meeting on Zoom calls with their counterparts from at least 30 countries to discuss ways to combat the clandestine attacks. Russia, a key launchpad for many of the attacks, was left off the invitation list as Washington and Moscow officials engage directly on attacks coming from Russia. This year has seen an epidemic of ransomware attacks in which hackers from distant lands remotely lock victims’ computers and demand large extortion payments to allow normal operations to resume. Ransomware payments topped $400 million globally in 2020, the United States says, and…

Brain computer interfaces, where computers analyze brain signals and help paralyzed people to write and carry out other actions, is a burgeoning area of research. VOA’s Deana Mitchell has the story of one breakthrough. ...

A tech body backed by the Australian units of Facebook, Google and Twitter said on Monday it has set up an industry panel to adjudicate complaints over misinformation, a day after the government threatened tougher laws over false and defamatory online posts.  Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week labeled social media "a coward's palace,” while the government said on Sunday it was looking at measures to make social media companies more responsible, including forcing legal liability onto the platforms for the content published on them.    The issue of damaging online posts has emerged as a second battlefront between Big Tech and Australia, which last year passed a law to make platforms pay license fees for content, sparking a temporary Facebook blackout in February.    The Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI), which represents the…

Facebook, in the aftermath of damning testimony that its platforms harm children, will be introducing several features including prompting teens to take a break using its photo sharing app Instagram, and "nudging" teens if they are repeatedly looking at the same content that's not conducive to their well-being.   The Menlo Park, California-based Facebook is also planning to introduce new controls on an optional basis so that parents or guardians can supervise what their teens are doing online. These initiatives come after Facebook announced late last month that it was pausing work on its Instagram for Kids project. But critics say the plan lacks details, and they are skeptical that the new features would be effective.   The new controls were outlined on Sunday by Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president for global affairs, who…

Congress appears poised to pass a bipartisan, $1 trillion plan that would be the largest federal investment in infrastructure in more than a decade. History shows that investing in infrastructure can transform the United States, changing how Americans move, bolstering economic prosperity, and significantly improving the health and quality of life for many.    “When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, we changed the way we moved forever, opening up the entire country and from the way humans had moved previously for thousands of years by animal to machine,” Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), told VOA via email. “[And] I think we all would agree that construction of the interstate highway system changed America in ways that greatly contributed to our economic prosperity.”  In 1956, President…

Ten years ago, Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at 56. He played a huge role in making Apple one of the most successful companies in the world. But what does Apple’s future look like? Karina Bafradzhian has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. ...

Mustang Panda is a Chinese hacking group that is suspected of attempting to infiltrate the Indonesian government last month. The reported breach, which the Indonesians denied, fits the pattern of China's recent cyberespionage campaigns. These attacks have been increasing over the past year, experts say, in search of social, economic and political intelligence from Asian countries and other nations across the globe. "There's been an upswing," said Ben Read, director of cyberespionage analysis at Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, in an interview with VOA. Cyber operations stemming from China are "pretty extensive campaigns that haven't seemed to be restrained at all," he said. 'Large-scale and indiscriminate' For years, China was considered the United States' main cyber adversary, having coordinated teams both inside and outside the government conducting cyberespionage campaigns that were…

Facebook confirmed on Friday that some users were having trouble accessing its apps and services, days after the social media giant suffered a six-hour outage triggered by an error during routine maintenance on its network of data centers.  Some users were unable to load their Instagram feeds, while others were not able to send messages on Facebook Messenger.  "We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience," Facebook said in a tweet. People swiftly took to Twitter to share memes about the second Instagram disruption this week.  Web monitoring group Downdetector showed there were more than 36,000 incidents of people reporting issues with photo-sharing platform Instagram on Friday.…

Nearly all Americans agree that the rampant spread of misinformation is a problem. Most also think social media companies, and the people that use them, bear a good deal of blame for the situation. But few are very concerned that they themselves might be responsible, according to a new poll from The Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Ninety-five percent of Americans identified misinformation as a problem when they're trying to access important information. About half put a great deal of blame on the U.S. government, and about three-quarters point to social media users and tech companies. Yet only 2 in 10 Americans say they're very concerned that they have personally spread misinformation.   More — about 6 in 10 — are at least somewhat…

Russia appears to be getting more aggressive and more successful as the nation's hackers launch a growing number of cyberattacks against the United States and other nations, according to a new report by Microsoft.  Microsoft's 2021 Digital Defense Report warns that what it labels as "Russian nation-state actors" are responsible for 58% of all nation-state cyberattacks, and that they are now successful almost one out of every three times.  "Russia-based activity groups have solidified their position as acute threats to the global digital ecosystem," the report said, cautioning that Russian cyber actors have been adaptable, getting better at using open-source tools "that make them increasingly difficult to detect."  Microsoft also said Russia's most frequent target was the United States, followed by Ukraine and Britain, and that the focus seems to be…

Google plans to invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years to ensure access to fast and cheaper internet and will back startups to support the continent's digital transformation, it said on Wednesday. The unit of U.S. tech company Alphabet Inc made the announcement at a virtual event where it launched an Africa Investment Fund, through which it will invest $50 million in startups, providing them with access to its employees, network and technologies. Nitin Gajria, managing director for Google in Africa told Reuters in a virtual interview that the company would among others, target startups focusing on fintech, e-commerce and local language content. "We are looking at areas that may have some strategic overlap with Google and where Google could potentially add value in partnering with some…

Amazon.com Inc.'s livestreaming e-sports platform Twitch said Wednesday that it had been hit by a data breach. It gave no details. An anonymous hacker claimed to have leaked Twitch data, including information related to the company's source code, clients and unreleased games, according to Video Games Chronicle, which first reported the news of the hack. Twitch confirmed the breach and said its "teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this." The company declined to comment further and said ((https://twitter.com/Twitch/status/1445770441176469512)) it would "update the community as soon as additional information is available." Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The hacker's motive was to "foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space," according to the Video Games Chronicle report. About 125GB of…

The United States is taking new steps to make sure the country's air and surface transportation sectors will not be crippled by ransomware or cyberattacks. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the measures Tuesday at a virtual cybersecurity conference, warning that recent incidents such as the SolarWinds hack and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack showed that "what is at stake is not simply the way we communicate or the way we work, but the way we live." The new security directives target what the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration describe as "higher risk" rail companies, "critical" airport operators, and air passenger and air cargo companies. Cybersecurity coordinators Mayorkas said that going forward, the rail companies will have to name a cybersecurity coordinator who will report any…

Facebook is in the hot seat again. A recent Wall Street Journal report cites internal knowledge of its harmful effects and the company's reticence to act. A whistleblower, a former Facebook employee, came out in public this week to testify against the social media company, only adding to the scrutiny. Tina Trinh reports.  Produced by: Tina Trinh   ...

Key U.S. lawmakers pilloried social media giant Facebook on Tuesday after Frances Haugen, an inside whistleblower who once worked at the company, alleged that Facebook's products are harming young people, undermining democracy and helping to divide the country politically.  Haugen, who worked as a Facebook project manager for less than two years, held Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg responsible for prioritizing concerns about company profits over controlling online content on its various platforms, including Instagram.  Haugen testified before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection a day after Facebook had encountered hourslong technical issues that left millions of users wondering why they could not access the site and its other platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp.  "I don't know why it went down," Haugen said, "but I know that for…

Facebook took another pounding in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday and a senator called on federal regulators to investigate accusations by a whistleblower that the company pushed for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety. In an opening statement to a Senate Commerce subcommittee, chair Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said that Facebook knew that its products were addictive, like cigarettes. "Tech now faces that big tobacco jawdropping moment of truth," he said. He called for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the committee, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the social media company. "Our children are the ones who are victims. Teens today looking in the mirror feel doubt and insecurity. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in…

An outage has left millions of people around the world unable to use Facebook along with its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms to connect with friends, family and others. “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” the company tweeted Monday. The outage appears to have started around 11:45 a.m. Eastern time. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that internal Facebook documents showed the company knows about the negative effects of its products yet does little to counter potentially harmful consequences. CBS’s “60 Minutes” program Sunday broadcast an interview with a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, who aired her grievances about the social media giant. Haugen is expected to testify…

The whistleblower who shared a trove of Facebook documents alleging the social media giant knew its products were fueling hate and harming children's mental health revealed her identity Sunday in a televised interview, and accused the company of choosing "profit over safety."  Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, has worked for companies including Google and Pinterest, but said in an interview with CBS news show "60 Minutes" that Facebook was "substantially worse" than anything she had seen before.   She called for the company to be regulated.  "Facebook over and over again has shown it chooses profit over safety. It is subsidizing, it is paying for its profits with our safety," Haugen said.  "The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world," she added.  The…

Twitter has appealed a French court decision that ordered it to give activists full access to all of its relevant documents on efforts to fight hate speech, lawyers and a judicial source said on Saturday.   In July, a French court ordered Twitter to grant six French anti-discrimination groups full access to all documents relating to the company's efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applied to Twitter's global operation, not just France.   Twitter has appealed the decision and a hearing has been set for December 9, 2021, a judicial source told AFP, confirming information released by the groups' lawyers.   Twitter and its lawyers declined to comment.   The July order said that Twitter must hand over "all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents" detailing…

Since China’s government declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal last week and banned citizens from working for crypto-related companies, the price of bitcoin went up despite being shut out of one of its biggest markets. Experts say large-scale Chinese miners of cryptocurrency — the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum — will take their high-powered, electricity-guzzling servers offshore. Exchanges of the digital money and the numerous Chinese startups linked to the trade also are expected to rebase offshore after dropping domestic customers from their rosters. The shift highlights how virtual currencies can evade government regulation. “The exchanges have been pushing offshore anyways, and with the exchange business you need cloud infrastructure, you need developers, you need management to move things in the right direction, and so whether that is sitting in Taipei,…

During the three-day World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, China, this week, the country's biggest tech tycoons rushed to show their support for Beijing's "common prosperity" initiative. Their enthusiasm for the initiative comes amid a yearlong crackdown on the country's tech industry, where several high-profile companies have faced investigations and fines. Formerly high-flying celebrity CEOs are now keeping a low profile. Daniel Zhang, CEO at e-commerce giant Alibaba group, said his company's donation of $15 billion to the initiative over the next five years represented its willingness to help China achieve its goal of prosperity for all. Zhou Hongyi, billionaire entrepreneur and chairman and CEO of the country's largest Internet security firm, Qihoo 360, said his company will donate an as yet undisclosed sum to the initiative and step up…

A popular Chinese-manufactured phone has a built-in censorship tool that can blacklist search terms on the web, according to research by the Lithuanian government, which is urging owners of the phones to replace them.  The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense analyzed three popular Chinese-made phones currently sold in Europe: the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G; the Huawei P40 5G; the OnePlus 8T 5G. It reported finding a censorship tool built into the Xiaomi phone that can block certain search terms, including "Long live Taiwan’s independence,” "Free Tibet," "Democratic Movement," and "Voice of America.”    “It is very, very worrying that there is a built-in censorship tool and of keywords, which filters or could filter your search on the web,” Lithuanian Vice Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius told VOA.   Xiaomi    Xiaomi is…

A popular Chinese-made phone has a built-in censorship tool that can blacklist search terms on the web, according to research by the Lithuanian government. The country is urging owners of the phones to replace them, as Henry Ridgwell reports. ...

A company in suburban Washington, D.C., is using cutting-edge technology to create lifelike video avatars to drop into music and training videos, games and other immersive environments. It’s an entry point to the so-called metaverse, as VOA’s Arzouma Kompaoré discovered while touring Avatar Dimension’s new studio. ...

YouTube will ban any video that claims vaccines are ineffective or dangerous, including those that question vaccines for measles and chickenpox, the company announced Wednesday.   “Specifically, content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed,” the Google-owned company said in a blog post announcing the new enforcement measures. The company said “vaccines in particular have been a source of fierce debate over the years, despite consistent guidance from health authorities about their effectiveness.”   “Today, we're expanding our medical misinformation policies on YouTube with new guidelines on currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by…

A bunch of new technologies are popping up that could help bring global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050, and all need investment. Governments worldwide are having to decide which one suits their geography and how much they can spend on a given technology. More with VOA’s Mariama Diallo. Produced by: Kimberlyn Weeks     ...

Facebook is putting its Instagram Kids project on hold amid growing concerns about potential harmful effects on young people, including anxiety and depression. The idea is to provide youngsters with the Instagram social media experience but with no ads, more parental control and age-appropriate content. U.S. lawmakers and advocacy groups have urged Facebook to scrap the plan entirely for safety concerns. "Today is a watershed moment for the growing tech accountability movement and a great day for anyone who believes that children's wellbeing should come before Big Tech's profits," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, an advocacy group focused on children. "We commend Facebook for listening to the many voices who have loudly and consistently told them that Instagram Youth will result in significant harms to children." Golin vowed…

A top executive of Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies has resolved criminal charges against her as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that could pave the way for her to return to China.  The deal with Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of the company's founder, was disclosed in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday. It calls for the Justice Department to dismiss the case next December, or four years after her arrest, if she complies with certain conditions.  The deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, resolves a yearslong legal and geopolitical tussle that involved not only the U.S. and China but also Canada, where Meng has remained since her arrest there in December 2018. Meng appeared via videoconference at Friday's hearing.  The…