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Real companies using Linux!
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- Debian Bookworm: DSA-5954-1 critical: sudo local privilege escalation
Rich Mirch discovered that sudo, a program designed to provide limited super user privileges to specific users, does not correctly handle the host (-h or --host) option. Due to a bug the host option was not restricted to listing privileges only and could be used when running a
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- Apple Loses Bid To Dismiss US Smartphone Monopoly Case
Apple must face the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit accusing the iPhone maker of unlawfully dominating the U.S. smartphone market, a judge ruled on Monday. From a report: U.S. District Judge Julien Neals in Newark, New Jersey, denied Apple's motion to dismiss the lawsuit accusing the company of using restrictions on third-party app and device developers to keep users from switching to competitors and unlawfully dominate the market. The decision would allow the case to go forward in what could be a years-long fight for Apple against enforcers' attempt to lower what they say are barriers to competition with Apple's iPhone.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Senate GOP Budget Bill Has Little-Noticed Provision That Could Hurt Your Wi-Fi
An anonymous reader shares a report: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a plan for spectrum auctions that could take frequencies away from Wi-Fi and reallocate them for the exclusive use of wireless carriers. The plan would benefit AT&T, which is based in Cruz's home state, along with Verizon and T-Mobile. Cruz's proposal revives a years-old controversy over whether the entire 6 GHz band should be devoted to Wi-Fi, which can use the large spectrum band for faster speeds than networks that rely solely on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would require spectrum to be auctioned off for full-power, commercially licensed use, and the question is where that spectrum will come from. When the House of Representatives passed its so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill," it excluded all of the frequencies between 5.925 and 7.125 gigahertz from the planned spectrum auctions. But Cruz's version of the budget reconciliation bill, which is moving quickly toward a final vote, removed the 6 GHz band's protection from spectrum auctions. The Cruz bill is also controversial because it would penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence. Instead of excluding the 6 GHz band from auctions, Cruz's bill would instead exclude the 7.4-8.4 GHz band used by the military. Under conditions set by the bill, it could be hard for the Commerce Department and Federal Communications Commission to fulfill the Congressional mandate without taking some spectrum away from Wi-Fi.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Apple Weighs Using Anthropic or OpenAI To Power Siri in Major Reversal
Apple is considering using AI technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri, according to Bloomberg, sidelining its own in-house models in a potentially blockbuster move aimed at turning around its flailing AI effort. From the report: The iPhone maker has talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, according to people familiar with the discussions. It has asked them to train versions of their models that could run on Apple's cloud infrastructure for testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. If Apple ultimately moves forward, it would represent a monumental reversal. The company currently powers most of its AI features with homegrown technology that it calls Apple Foundation Models and had been planning a new version of its voice assistant that runs on that technology for 2026. A switch to Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT models for Siri would be an acknowledgment that the company is struggling to compete in generative AI -- the most important new technology in decades. Apple already allows ChatGPT to answer web-based search queries in Siri, but the assistant itself is powered by Apple.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- VP.net Promises "Cryptographically Verifiable Privacy"
TorrentFreak spotlights VP.net, a brand-new service from Private Internet Access founder Andrew Lee (the guy who gifted Linux Journal to Slashdot) that eliminates the classic "just trust your VPN" problem by locking identity-mapping and traffic-handling inside Intel SGX enclaves.The company promises 'cryptographically verifiable privacy' by using special hardware 'safes' (Intel SGX), so even the provider can't track what its users are up to. The design goal is that no one, not even the VPN company, can link "User X" to "Website Y." Lee frames it as enabling agency over one's privacy: "Our zero trust solution does not require you to trust us - and that's how it should be. Your privacy should be up to your choice - not up to some random VPN provider in some random foreign country."The team behind VP.net includes CEO Matt Kim as well as arguably the first Bitcoin veterans Roger Ver and Mark Karpeles. Ask Slashdot: Now that there's a VPN where you don't have to "just trust the provider" - arguably the first real zero-trust VPN - are trust based VPNs obsolete?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- WordPress CEO Regrets 'Belongs to Me' Comment Amid Ongoing WP Engine Legal Battle
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said he regrets telling the media that "WordPress.org just belongs to me personally" during a new interview about his company's legal dispute with hosting provider WP Engine. The comment has been "taken out of context so many times" and represents "the worst thing ever," Mullenweg said in a new podcast interview with The Verge. The dispute began when Mullenweg accused WP Engine of "free-riding" on WordPress's open-source ecosystem without contributing adequate resources back to the project. Mullenweg filed a lawsuit against WP Engine while cutting off the company's access to core WordPress technologies. WP Engine countersued, and Automattic was forced to reverse some retaliatory measures. The controversy triggered significant internal upheaval at Automattic. The company offered "alignment" buyouts to employees who disagreed with the direction, reducing headcount from a peak of 2,100 to approximately 1,500 people. Mullenweg said this was "probably the fourth big time" WordPress has faced such community controversy, though the first in the current media landscape. WordPress powers 43% of websites globally. Mullenweg said he wants to return to "the most collaborative version of WordPress possible" but noted the legal proceedings continue with both sides spending "millions of dollars a month on lawyers."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- In China, Coins and Banknotes Have All But Disappeared
China's transition to digital payments has reached the point where physical cash has nearly vanished from daily commerce, with WeChat and Alipay now handling transactions from supermarkets to public transportation across the world's second-largest economy. Many businesses no longer maintain traditional cash registers and instead scan QR codes presented by customers, while numerous taxis refuse cash payments entirely. The widespread adoption has given tech giants Tencent and Alibaba immense power over routine financial transactions, prompting China's central bank to develop a competing digital yuan currency.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft's New AI Tool Outperforms Doctors 4-to-1 in Diagnostic Accuracy
Microsoft's new AI diagnostic system achieved 80% accuracy in diagnosing patients compared to 20% for human doctors, while reducing costs by 20%, according to company research published Monday. The MAI Diagnostic Orchestrator queries multiple leading AI models including OpenAI's GPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Meta's Llama, and xAI's Grok in what the company describes as a "chain-of-debate style" approach. The system was tested against 304 case studies from the New England Journal of Medicine using Microsoft's Sequential Diagnosis Benchmark, which breaks down each case into step-by-step diagnostic processes that mirror how human physicians work. Microsoft CEO of AI Mustafa Suleyman called the development "a genuine step toward medical superintelligence."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft Authenticator Will Stop Supporting Passwords
Avantare writes: Microsoft Authenticator houses your passwords and lets you sign into all of your Microsoft accounts using a PIN, facial recognition such as Windows Hello, or other biometric data, like a fingerprint. Authenticator can be used in other ways, such as verifying you're logging in if you forgot your password, or using two-factor authentication as an extra layer of security for your Microsoft accounts.In June, Microsoft stopped letting users add passwords to Authenticator, but here's a timeline of other changes you can expect, according to Microsoft: July 2025: You won't be able to use the autofill password function.August 2025: You'll no longer be able to use saved passwords.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose
Companies deliberately design customer service friction to discourage refunds and claims, according to research into a practice academics call "sludge." The term, coined by legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein and economist Richard H. Thaler in their updated version of "Nudge," describes tortuous administrative demands, endless wait times, and excessive procedural fuss that impede customers. ProPublica reported in 2023 that Cigna saved millions of dollars by rejecting claims without having doctors read them. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Toyota's motor-financing arm to pay $60 million for alleged misdeeds including deliberately setting up dead-end hotlines for canceling products and services. The 2023 National Customer Rage Survey found that the percentage of American consumers seeking revenge for customer service hassles had tripled in three years.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Apple Plans First Sub-$999 MacBook Using iPhone Chip, Analyst Says
Apple plans to release a cheaper MacBook powered by the A18 Pro chip used in the iPhone 16 Pro line, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The laptop will be priced below $999 -- first time for a MacBook Air -- and go into production in late 2025 or early 2026 on the new laptop, the analyst noted. The device will feature the same 13-inch screen as the current MacBook Air, with the chip representing the primary difference between models. The A18 Pro chip delivers single-core performance around 3,500 on Geekbench, trailing the M4 chip only slightly, though multicore performance lags significantly at approximately 8,780 versus 15,000 for the M4. The A18's multicore performance matches the original 2020 M1 chip.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Xbox Founding Team Member Says Xbox Hardware Is 'Dead'
A founding member of the Xbox team says she believes Xbox hardware is "dead" and that Microsoft appears to be planning a "slow exit" from the gaming hardware business. Microsoft recently announced partnerships with external hardware companies including the ROG Xbox Ally, which runs Windows and functions as a portable PC that can run games from external stores like Steam. Laura Fryer, one of Microsoft Game Studios' first employees who worked as a producer on the original Gears of War games and served as director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, called the partnerships evidence of Microsoft's inability to ship hardware. "Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead. The plan appears to be to just drive everybody to Game Pass," Fryer said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Nintendo Pulls Products From Amazon US Site
Nintendo pulled its products from Amazon's US site after a disagreement over unauthorized sales, meaning the e-commerce company missed out on the recent debut of Nintendo's Switch 2 -- the biggest game console launch of all time. From a report: The Japanese company stopped selling on Amazon after noticing that third-party merchants were offering games for sale in the US at prices that undercut Nintendo's advertised rates, according to a person familiar with the situation. Enterprising sellers were buying Nintendo products in bulk in Southeast Asia and exporting them to the US, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential information. Nintendo product listings started disappearing from Amazon's US site last year, gaming news outlets reported at the time. The listings had previously appeared as "Sold by Amazon," which typically denotes merchandise the online retailer buys directly from brands. Some Nintendo products remained on the site, but they were listed by independent merchants who sell their goods on Amazon's sprawling online marketplace.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- UV-C Light Kills Nearly Everything - Except This Unusual Organism
"Earth's ozone layer blocks the Sun's shortest wave radiation, called UV-C, which is so damaging to cells in high doses that it's a go-to sterilizer in hospitals," writes Slashdot reader sciencehabit. "UV-C is such a killer, in fact, that scientists have questioned whether life can survive on worlds that lack an ozone layer, such as Mars or distant exoplanets. "But research published this month in Astrobiology suggests one hardy lichen, a hybrid organism made of algae and fungi, may have cracked the UV-C code with a built-in sunscreen, despite never experiencing these rays in its long evolutionary history." Science magazine explains:When scientists brought a sample of the species, the common desert dweller Clavascidium lacinulatum, back to the lab, graduate student Tejinder Singh put the lichen through the wringer. First, Singh dehydrated the lichen, to make sure it couldn't grow back in real time and mask any UV damage. Then he placed the lichen a few centimeters under a UV lamp and blasted it with radiation. The lichen seemed just fine. So Singh purchased the most powerful UV-C lamp he could find online, capable of sending out 20 times more radiation than the amount expected on Mars. When he tested the lamp on the most radiation-resistant life form on Earth, the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, it died in less than a minute. After 3 months—likely the highest amount of UV-C radiation ever tested on an organism—Singh pulled the sample so he could finish his master's thesis in time. About half of the lichen's algal cells had survived. Then, when the team ground up and cultured part of the surviving lichen, about half of its algal cells sprouted new, green colonies after 2 weeks, showing it maintained the ability to reproduce. The species may provide a blueprint for surviving on Mars or exoplanets, which don't have an ozone layer to protect them.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- In Last-Minute Move, Canada Rescinds Digital Services Tax, Restarts Negotiations
"Canada and the United States have resumed trade negotiations," reports Newsweek, "after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to rescind the country's digital services tax on U.S. technology companies."The development follows President Donald Trump's announcement on Friday that he was suspending all trade talks with Canada "effective immediately" over the tax policy... Canada's quick reversal signals the high stakes involved in maintaining trade relationships with the United States, particularly given the countries' deeply integrated economies. Carney's office confirmed on Sunday that both leaders have agreed to restart negotiations after Canada committed to abandoning the 3 percent levy targeting major U.S. tech giants including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, and Airbnb. The tax was scheduled to take effect Monday and would have applied retroactively, creating an estimated $2 billion bill for American companies. The conflict escalated rapidly after Canada's Finance Department confirmed Friday that companies would still be required to make their first digital tax payments Monday, despite ongoing negotiations. The tax targeted revenue generated from Canadian users rather than corporate profits, making it particularly burdensome for technology companies operating internationally... Canada's decision to rescind the tax came "in anticipation" of reaching a broader trade agreement, according to government officials. With negotiations resuming, both countries will likely focus on addressing broader trade issues beyond the digital services tax.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- After 45 Years, 74-Year-Old Spreadsheet Legend/EFF Cofounder Mitch Kapor Gets His MIT Degree
Mitch Kapor dropped out of MIT's business school in 1979 — and had soon cofounded the pioneering spreadsheet company Lotus. He also cofounded the EFF, was the founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation, and is now a billionaire (and an VC investor at Kapor Capital). 45 years later, when the 74-year-old was invited to give a guest lecture at MIT's business school last year by an old friend (professor Bill Aulet), he'd teased the billionaire that "there's only one problem, Mitch, I see here you haven't graduated from MIT." The Boston Globe tells the story...After graduating from Yale in 1971 and bouncing around for almost a decade as "a lost and wandering soul," working as a disc jockey, a Transcendental Meditation teacher, and a mental health counselor, Kapor said he became entranced by the possibilities of the new Apple II personal computer. He started writing programs to solve statistics problems and analyze data, which caught the attention of Boston-area software entrepreneurs Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, who co-created VisiCalc, one of the first spreadsheet programs. They introduced Kapor to their California-based software publisher, Personal Software. Midway through Kapor's 12-month master's program, the publisher offered him the then-princely sum of about $20,000 if he'd adapt his stats programs to work with VisiCalc. To finish the project, he took a leave from MIT, but then he decided to leave for good to take a full-time job at Personal. Comparing his decision to those of other famed tech founder dropouts, like Bill Gates, Kapor said he felt the startup world was calling to him. "It was just so irresistible," he said. "It felt like I could not let another moment go by without taking advantage of this opportunity or the window would close...." When Aulet made his joke on the phone call with his old friend in 2024, Kapor had largely retired from investing and realized that he wanted to complete his degree. "I don't know what prompted me, but it started a conversation" with MIT about the logistics of finally graduating, Kapor said. By the time Kapor gave the lecture in March, Aulet had discovered Kapor was only a few courses short. MIT does not give honorary degrees, but school officials allow students to make up for missing classes with an independent study and a written thesis. Kapor decided to write a paper on the roots and development of his investing strategy. "It's timely, it's highly relevant, and I have things to say," he said. One 77-page thesis later, Kapor, donning a cap and gown, finally received his master's degree in May, at a ceremony in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge, not far from where he founded Lotus.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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- Want a job? Just put 'AI skills' on your resume
It could just be the new 'proficient with MS Word'
ai-pocalypse For job seekers wondering which AI skills to bone up on, the answer appears to be simple based on a look at the past year of employment data: Just learn to use it. …
- AIs have a favorite number, and it's not 42
Ask a model to guess a number from 1 to 50 and it's likely to answer 27
Asked to guess a number between 1 and 50, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4, Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash, and Meta's Llama 4 all provided the same answer: 27.…
- VMware must support crucial Dutch govt agency as it migrates off the platform, judge rules
Court says State arm cannot be left without maintenance, patches and upgrades because of Broadcom's new licensing model
Broadcom's VMware subsidiary must provide a Dutch government organization with continued software support for at least two years while it manages a migration to an alternative platform, according to a court ruling, or else face fines up to €25 million ($29 million).…
- Sinaloa drug cartel hired a cybersnoop to identify and kill FBI informants
Device compromises and deep-seated access to critical infrastructure exposed surveillance vulnerabilities in agency's work
A major Mexican drug cartel insider grassed on his fellow drug-peddlers back in 2018, telling the FBI that a cartel "hacker" was tracking a federal official and using their deep-rooted access to the country's critical infrastructure to kill informants.…
- Arm muscles into server market – but can't wrestle control from x86 just yet
Server shipments surge 70% in 2025, still shy of datacenter dominance goal
Arm-based servers are rapidly gaining traction in the market with shipments tipped to jump 70 percent in 2025, however, this remains well short of the chip designer's ambitions to make up half of datacenter CPU sales worldwide by the end of the year.…
- Cloud lobby warns EU: Clamp down on water rules and we'll evaporate
CISPE floats reforms to avoid new costs, fragmentation, and infrastructure flight
The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body has put forward recommendations for the EU's Water Resilience Strategy, perhaps mindful that datacenters are perceived as hugely wasteful of precious water resources.…
- Don't pay for AI support failures, says Gradient Labs CEO
Paying for successful problem resolution is a better business model, argues Dimitri Masin
interview Dimitri Masin, CEO of Gradient Labs, argues that companies using AI agents for customer support should only pay when the bot does its job.…
- It's 2025 and almost half of you are still paying ransomware operators
PLUS: Crooks target hardware crypto wallets; Bad flaws in Brother printers; ,O365 allows takeover-free phishing; and more
Infosec in Brief Despite warnings not to pay ransomware operators, almost half of those infected by the malware send cash to the crooks who planted it, according to infosec software slinger Sophos.…
- How Broadcom is quietly plotting a takeover of the AI infrastructure market
When AI is a nesting doll of networks, so why reinvent the wheel when you can license it instead
feature GPUs dominate the conversation when it comes to AI infrastructure. But while they're an essential piece of the puzzle, it's the interconnect fabrics that allow us to harness them to train and run multi-trillion-parameter models at scale.…
- Uncle Sam wants you – to use memory-safe programming languages
'Memory vulnerabilities pose serious risks to national security and critical infrastructure,' say CISA and NSA
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) this week published guidance urging software developers to adopt memory-safe programming languages.…
- Fed chair Powell says AI is coming for your job
AI will make 'significant changes' to economy, labor market
ai-pocalypse It may not happen today or even tomorrow, but US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is confident that someday soon AI is going to seriously change the US economy and labor market. …
- Palantir jumps aboard tech-nuclear bandwagon with software deal
The AI boom needs power, and startup The Nuclear Company aims to help build
Palantir has become the latest tech company to jump on the nuclear power bandwagon - not by making a datacenter deal like Microsoft or Amazon, mind you, but by providing its data analytics software to a startup aiming to help build nuclear plants faster and cheaper.…
- Cisco punts network-security integration as key for agentic AI
Getting it in might mean re-racking the entire datacenter and rebuilding the network, though
Cisco is talking up the integration of security into network infrastructure such as its latest Catalyst switches, claiming this is vital to AI applications, and in particular the current vogue for "agentic AI."…
- Aloha, you’ve been pwned: Hawaiian Airlines discloses ‘cybersecurity event’
'No impact on safety,' FAA tells The Reg
update Hawaiian Airlines said a "cybersecurity incident" affected some of its IT systems, but noted that flights are operating as scheduled. At least one researcher believes Scattered Spider, which previously targeted retailers and insurance companies, could be to blame.…
- US Department of Defense will stop sending critical hurricane satellite data
No replacement in the wings for info streamed from past their prime rigs, 'termination will be permanent'
updated Satellite data used for hurricane forecasting was to be abruptly cut off from the end of June due to "recent service changes," but the department in charge has now put the date off another month.…
- So you CAN turn an entire car into a video game controller
Pen Test Partners hijack data from Renault Clio to steer, brake, and accelerate in SuperTuxKart
Cybersecurity nerds figured out a way to make those at-home racing simulators even more realistic by turning an actual car into a game controller.…
- Before the megabit: A trip through vintage datacenter networking
When it was all about the baud rate
The world of datacenter networking is crammed with exotic technology and capabilities beyond the imaginings of administrators charged with running big iron decades ago. However, while it might have been a slower and more proprietary time, it was also perhaps a little simpler.…
- The network is indeed trying to become the computer
Masked networking costs are coming to AI systems
Analysis Moore's Law has run out of gas and AI workloads need massive amounts of parallel compute and high bandwidth memory right next to it – both of which have become terribly expensive. If it weren't for this situation, the beancounters of the world might be complaining about the cost of networking in the datacenter.…
- Fresh UK postcode tool points out best mobile network in your area
Pick a provider based on how good their local 4G and 5G coverage is
The UK's telecoms regulator has released an overhauled tool comparing mobile coverage and performance across the country, claiming this will help the millions of Brits missing out on the best local network.…
- Don't shoot me, I'm only the system administrator!
When police come to investigate tech support, make sure you have your story straight
On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's Friday column that celebrates the frolicsome fun that readers have experienced when asked to deliver tech support.…
- HPE customers on agentic AI: No, you go first
But like cloud computing and digital transformation, this may be a buzzword they can't ignore forever
HPE Discover 2025 HPE envisions a future where customer systems are filled with its agentic AI products, but reactions from the HPE Discover show floor in Las Vegas this week suggest the company has a way to go to convince folks to buy in.…
- More trouble for authors as Meta wins Llama drama AI scraping case
Authors are having a hard time protecting their works from the maws of the LLM makers
Updated Californian courts have not been kind to authors this week, with a second ruling going against an unlucky 13 who sought redress for use of their content in training AI models.…
- FBI used bitcoin wallet records to peg notorious IntelBroker as UK national
Pro tip: Don't use your personal email account on BreachForums
The notorious data thief known as IntelBroker allegedly broke into computer systems belonging to more than 40 victims worldwide and stole their data, costing them at least $25 million in damages, according to newly unsealed court documents that also name IntelBroker as 25-year-old British national Kai West.…
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