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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In an announcement released Thursday, Fujifilm said it will invest roughly 10 billion yen (about $63 million) to increase its production capacity fivefold for an unlikely beneficiary of the AI era: magnetic tape. Fujifilm attributes the surge in archiving demand to the spread of generative AI, which the company remarked is producing "exponential growth" in data needs worldwide. The 5x increase in production capacity will be measured against fiscal year 2025 production levels. The investment in Fujifilm's Kanagawa Factory, Odawara site will make it "the largest investment Fujifilm has made to date in dedicated LTO tape facilities." The project will run from fiscal years 2026 through 2028 to fund manufacturing expansion and additional personnel, primarily to produce the latest-generation "FUJIFILM LTO Ultrium10" tape. [...] According to Fujifilm, "major cloud service and data center operators" have been expanding their use of magnetic tape because it can store large data volumes at relatively low cost. Tape backups can be easily disconnected and stored in a drawer, a vault, or a separate facility. Fujifilm highlights the ability to air-gap tape cartridges as a last defense for user data: "Given the sophistication of cyberattacks, magnetic tape is attracting increasing attention as a means of protecting data from threats such as ransomware."

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Google will disable AI tools by default for K-12 students early next year unless school administrators explicitly enable them, but schools that choose to block AI entirely will also lose student access to Google Search. The New York Times reports: Executives at the tech giant said they wanted to be responsive to educators and parents who have asked for more control in how children interact with A.I. But there is a catch: Schools that choose to restrict A.I. entirely will also lose access to Google search. A.I. features are now a standard part of Google's commercially available search engine. "Search and A.I. are deeply integrated," said Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google. If a school has banned A.I., he added, students "will not have access to search, and they'll see a message from their school that indicates it's not available." [...] The company's new strategy underscores Google's powerful role in American education. If school leaders want continued student access to search within the company's ecosystem, they will be forced to embrace Google's A.I.

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SUSE plans to cut roughly 10% of its 1,900-person workforce, with CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen saying "automation and AI" are reducing the need for some roles and allowing the open source software company to operate with less overhead and flatter management structures. "We are announcing a reduction of SUSE's global workforce of approximately 10 percent," said Van Leeuwen in an email. "These decisions are painful for our people, our culture, and our open source community, but they are necessary for us to adapt and build a sustainable, resilient SUSE for the long term." The Register reports: Van Leeuwen says the business, bought by Swedish private equity provider EQT, decided to cut jobs after scrutinizing its "future strategy, required capabilities, and team structures." The rest of the organization will get a look at the fiscal year 2027 strategy on November 16. He said in the message to staff: "What is clear is that automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate. AI capabilities are advancing exponentially, forcing us to radically reimagine our work. We have seen this trend already both inside our sector and in the wider economy. This means that the organizational design and cost base that SUSE is built on today will not carry us forward successfully. "We are adapting. Across SUSE, modern tooling is already changing our daily workflows, enabling teams to move faster with less operational overhead and flatter reporting lines. The requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished. Other roles will evolve over the next few years. This means we are accelerating investments in high priority areas, and deprioritizing others. These are hard, painful decisions to make, but necessary for our future." [...] The specific roles at risk of redundancy were not outlined but SUSE claims it has considered where the people in those positions are "able to evolve, what they can stop doing, what they need to do more of - and decisions have been made on that basis." Staff caught up in the redundancies will be informed by November 4, employee representatives nominated the following day, and one to one meetings will begin at the start of next week. Van Leeuwen says in the internal memo that the job cuts are a "reflection of shifting organizational needs, not your talent or commitment. You have tackled hard infrastructure and open source challenges that power critical enterprise systems around the world. "Any organization will be fortunate to have your expertise."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) reported today that they used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra language model to raise a small, open source Qwen model's math score roughly sixfold by directly editing its weights -- the numerical parameters that govern its behavior. Rikiya Takehi, Jayden Teoh, Alex Zhang and Omar Khattab described their work in a research blog post published November 2. They call the approach "weight-space programming" and tested Astra's ability to interpret and alter networks without using conventional training procedures to generate the edits. In the strongest language-model example, Astra's intervention raised Qwen3.5-0.8B's MATH-500 score from 7.9% to 48.1% while touching approximately 0.016% of its weights. The improvement came primarily from correcting repetitive reasoning—a distinction that shaped both the technical findings and the debate over their implications. Their experiments explored a broader possibility: AI systems that inspect, repair and construct other neural networks by working directly on their internal machinery. "This is cool as heck!" wrote Yuchen Jin, a technical staffer at Databricks and former co-founder and CTO of Hyperbolic Labs who was unaffiliated with the research, on X. "Imagine using a large LLM to directly edit a smaller model's weights and dramatically improve its capabilities. It's like gene editing for neural networks. Even cooler than distillation!" Voyage AI staff researcher Chandan Singh, formerly of Microsoft AI, also reacted to the findings: "For anyone questioning whether this post is overhyped, I think they are actually *underselling* the approach."

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A coalition of security firms working with Japan's National Police Agency has disrupted a botnet of more than 1.3 million Android devices across 200+ countries. "We assess with high confidence that the backdoor and botnet were intentionally developed, deployed, and operated for financial gain by Videostrong Technology," the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a blog post. The Register reports: Videostrong Technology is a hardware manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China. It builds Android devices, including home TV boxes and projectors. According to Google, Videostrong deliberately embedded the XCPE backdoor in device firmware and sold access to criminal affiliates, allowing them to install additional malware modules on devices shipped to unsuspecting customers. When buyers connected these devices to their home networks, the preinstalled backdoor allowed operators to create proxy networks and hide malicious traffic using the customers' internet connections without their knowledge. The firmware's pre-installed management agent purported to be a standard remote-management client, according to TrendAI. It pulled updates from a GitHub page, and connected to a Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) server that gave the operator full remote control of each box, allowing them to install and remove apps, change settings, and push updates to the infected devices. Between June 3 and October 1, TrendAI documented more than 3.8 million distinct home and mobile IP addresses connected to the operation. The coalition also disrupted the command-and-control domains used to manage the affiliate modules. "Because these affiliates each have diversified distribution channels for their modules beyond XCPE, we assess that taking down their C2 domains will sever access to at least 10 million additional compromised devices," according to GTIG. Google said it had since cut ties with Videostrong, and banned the OEM from making devices with preloaded Google apps.

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At the Seventh Manned Spaceflight Conference in Beijing, Chinese space officials publicly outlined the most detailed roadmap yet for landing astronauts on the Moon "before 2030." Ars Technica reports: China's lunar landings will involve a lunar-orbit rendezvous similar to what NASA did in the 1960s and early 1970s with the Apollo program. However, lacking a rocket as powerful as the Saturn V vehicle, the crew and lunar lander will launch separately to the Moon. According to slides shared on social media, the current plan involves: - An uncrewed test of the Long March 10A rocket (a single-stick variant, with no boosters) and the Mengzhou spacecraft to low-Earth orbit. Target: early 2027 - An uncrewed test of the larger Long March 10 rocket (a core stage with two boosters) and the Lanyue lunar lander, including descent/ascent from Moon's surface. Target: 2028 - A concurrent launch of two Long March 10 rockets, one carrying uncrewed Mengzhou and the other the Lanyue vehicle; they will dock in lunar orbit. Target: 2029 - Dual launch of Long March 10 rockets, this time with crew on the Mengzhou spacecraft, leading to crewed landing mission. Target: "Before 2030" The public release of this new information provides a timeline for gauging China's technical progress in its efforts to land humans on the Moon before 2030 and beat NASA and the United States back to the lunar surface. Notably, the plan (for now, at least) omits a mission similar to Apollo 8 or Artemis II, which involved a crew flying out to the Moon and either entering orbit or passing close by before returning to Earth. The Mengzhou vehicle should still get a workout closer to Earth with humans on board as part of missions carrying astronauts to Tiangong, China's space station in low-Earth orbit.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The world's leading EV maker is showing no signs of slowing down. BYD sold 490,168 new energy vehicles (NEVs) in October, up 11% from the prior year and the company's highest monthly total in 2026. BYD's battery electric vehicles drove the growth, with a record 305,743 units sold, up 37% year over year and marking the first time its EV sales have crossed the 300,000 mark. To put that into perspective, just over 262,500 EVs were sold in the US in the entire third quarter combined, according to Kelley Blue Book estimates. By the end of the year, BYD expects overseas shipments to reach about 2 million vehicles. "In 2027, that number is expected to rise to more than 2.5 million vehicles," adds Electrek.

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Snap has settled a lawsuit brought by two teenagers who alleged Snapchat was deliberately designed to be addictive and contributed to their mental health problems, avoiding a trial that was scheduled to begin this week. Snap was the last defendant to settle after Meta, Alphabet and TikTok resolved claims in the same case. CBS News reports: The teenage plaintiffs, identified in court documents as S.J. and K.D.B., had alleged in the suit that Snapchat was designed to be addictive and that using the platform from a young age contributed to their mental health issues. "We are glad to reach resolution for our clients," Mark Lanier, founder of The Lanier Law Firm and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement to CBS News. "We believe this jury would have found the companies' conduct reprehensible." Snap was the last social media company named in the lawsuit to settle the case, which was set for opening arguments this week. Meta resolved claims last week, while Alphabet and TikTok, the other defendants, each also resolved the allegations. Terms of the Snap settlement were undisclosed [...]. Earlier this year, a jury found Meta and Google-owned YouTube liable in a landmark social media addiction lawsuit, awarding $6 million in damages to a young woman who alleged the platforms' addictive features harmed her mental health. In August, Meta also agreed to pay up to $18 billion in settlements and introduce new child-safety measures to resolve claims from dozens of U.S. states that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children while misleading the public about their risks.

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SystemD creator Lennart Poettering left Red Hat for Microsoft in 2022, but 10 months ago left to co-found Amutable a company that aims to build cryptographically verified Linux systems that stay trusted over time. It's FOSS calls it "a read-only, image-based system where every machine produces signed reports of its own state" — and signups are now open for a private preview: Before announcing this Linux-based implementation, Amutable had released two open source tools. tine, a Buck2-based build system that composes OS images; available under MPL-2.0, and Quarry, a TUF-based tool that distributes those images to machines; available under Apache-2.0. What Amutable Foundations brings to the table is a service where Amutable runs the images, update repositories, control plane and vulnerability fixes for organizations and individuals who operate their own systems. No license has been stated for those company-run parts, and the preview announcement does not say how much of Foundations beyond tine and Quarry will be open source. Software and configuration both ship as signed images, and a machine boots only what is signed. Because there is no package manager and no SSH or interactive shell, a change means giving every machine in your fleet a new signed image. Its images are reproducible, come with a software bill of materials (SBOM) and are built from pinned inputs of whichever distribution you pick, with tine being able to import packages from Fedora or CentOS Stream. Each machine sends a signed report that records what it booted, from the firmware and boot loader up to the kernel and OS, plus the configuration it runs... Amutable's control plane verifies reports from systemd-report, an experimental command in systemd 260 that the company helped build. It compares each one with the declared state and flags machines that deviate. A rollout only continues while machines can show they are in a good state... Amutable is signup formlooking for teams that manage Linux fleets and need to show what state each machine is in. It expects to start bringing the first 'design partners,' as it calls them, on board over the coming weeks.

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"David Durman, a nontheistic humanist, recently secured a religious exemption from using AI in the workplace," reports TechCrunch. Durman, a University of Kentucky administrator, told TechCrunch that humanism centers on "human well-being and flourishing, both individually and collectively ... and implores a person to try to improve both their well-being and their flourishing as well as the others around them." He believes that using the technology runs counter to his beliefs. "The way we become moral actors for ourselves and for others is through the active application of our minds, and the diminishing of that [through AI use] is going to necessarily have a negative impact on our ability to do so," he said, reflecting on how overreliance on AI might affect critical thinking...." [Humanism] tends to appeal to people who are skeptical of a god or other supernatural power yet still seek a scientific and moral framework to ground themselves in. [Alexandria Huiskens, staff attorney at the American Humanist Association, told TechCrunch] "Concern about AI and human dignity can run through several different faiths and traditions, whether that's Catholic teachings, or Universalism, or Humanism, and we want Humanists or nontheists to know that they fall into these categories — that they are also protected by the law at work...." In Durman's administrative role, in which he supports researchers applying for grants, he has not been required to use AI at work. Like many workers across fields, some of his colleagues and leadership have recommended that employees try out these tools, so he sought to secure his exemption now, in case the suggestion becomes a mandate in the future. "I hope that if [others] have similar feelings, that they feel encouraged to pursue some kind of resolution," Durman said. A University of Kentucky spokesperson told TechCrunch they "determined that an accommodation could be provided while allowing the employee to continue performing the essential functions of their position." (They added that "As technology and job responsibilities evolve, accommodations may be reviewed to ensure they remain reasonable and workable.")

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"On a Git commit basis, the Linux 7.4 merge window has been the busiest on record," writes Phoronix," with 19,671 commits since Linux 7.3: As of this morning in Linux Git ahead of v7.4-rc1, the kernel source tree is up to 41,605,120 lines. That's from 5,193,578 blank lines, 4,993,604 lines of comments, and 31,417,938 lines of detected code. Or nearly half a million lines of code added during the Linux 7.4 merge window, ignoring comments and blank lines [as detected by cloc ]. A historical graph of commits shows a clear spike for Linux 7.4, which Phoronix argues shows the definite recent uptick due to AI/LLM activity." With Linux kernel maintainers being "completely overwhelmed" due to both AI generated bug reports and patches/fixes, the Git commit activity has been surging as a result... The upward trend has continued building the past several kernel releases. Typically the merge windows saw 13~14k commits or less and now we are pushing 20k.... Linux 6.14: 10,034 Linux 6.15: 13,568 Linux 6.16: 13,805 Linux 6.17: 12,289 Linux 6.18: 12,910 Linux 6.19: 13,229 Linux 7.0: 12,468 Linux 7.1: 13,963 Linux 7.2: 14,395 Linux 7.3: 16,267 Linux 7.4: 19,671 And "we could still see a few more trickle in today for Linux 7.4 ahead of the expected Linux 7.4-rc1 kernel release later in the day."

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CNBC reports: A month after President Donald Trump ordered that "super intelligence" replace the term artificial intelligence within executive branch departments and agencies, his leading tech allies, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, followed suit on earnings calls. Their fellow tech CEOs were less eager to do the same... SpaceX and Tesla adhered to Trump's wishes on earnings calls last week after Musk, earlier in October, changed the name of his rocket company's AI division to SpaceXSI. Speaking on Tesla's call about his work on humanoid robots, Musk said, "Some of them look very impressive, but they're not really using any kind of advanced AI or SI." Zuckerberg was equally compliant on Meta's earnings call on Oct. 21, emphasizing his company's "goal of delivering personal superintelligence to everyone." However, Meta was already using the term, having created a unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs last year.... [Some other tech CEOs are holding out.] Amazon CEO Andy Jassy peppered his call with use of "AI" on Thursday, uttering the abbreviation well over a dozen times in his introductory remarks. A day earlier, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said one of the company's three points of focus is "designing AI to empower people." And Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai was seconds into his quarterly earnings commentary when he said the search giant's "AI investments are driving increased usage and overall user growth...." Trump's preferred term is seeping into other correspondence and documents. Microsoft's annual report, filed last week, included eight mentions of "super intelligence," starting at the top of the letter to shareholders... IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who didn't attend Trump's September lunch, used "SI" alongside "AI" during his company's earnings call last week.... Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of chipmaker Intel, said Thursday the supply shortage the chip industry is navigating has been "driven by the unprecedented demand for super intelligence." Some in the tech industry have been explicit in their support of Trump's terminology ahead of their forthcoming earnings reports next month. Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora repeatedly referred to "SI" on CNBC, and posted on X on Sept. 30, "The meeting at the WH on SI was an epic moment...." Like Arora, [Nvidia CEO Jensen] Huang took to X after last month's AI meeting to praise the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence."

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Inside Higher Ed reports: In September, Emory University removed a dozen license plate-reading cameras from its campus in Atlanta and declined to renew its contract with Flock Safety, the company that sells and operates the automatic license plate readers and other mass-surveillance technology. For the coalition of Emory students and employees who had spent months pushing the university to "de-Flock," this was a victory... "We made it very clear that these cameras were unneeded surveillance considering we already have regular security cameras," [said Tony Torres, a sophomore biology major]... Through campus protests, petitions, meetings and teach-ins during the spring and summer, DeFlock Emory broadcast their concerns about the devices: Opaque data-sharing agreements could leave undocumented students vulnerable, the cameras could be hacked, institutions could use them to retaliate against student protesters and they could make students who fear being surveilled less likely go to class, see their friends or seek medical attention when they need it. Such concerns aren't unique to DeFlock Emory. College students across the country — including at Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Florida and the University of North Georgia — are mobilizing to de-Flock their campuses. And like Emory, other institutions are nixing their contracts. Cornell University announced last week it had not renewed its contract with Flock Safety and would be removing the cameras. Pennsylvania State University officials also announced earlier this month plans to end their contract with Flock. An Emory spokesperson told Inside Higher Edthat eliminating Flock's cameras "retains institutional control over our safety infrastructure." But the article also includes a quote from media/technology studies professor Torin Monahan at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He's spoken with campus police officers about how they're using Flock's cameras, and learned police departments have upgraded surveillance efforts in recent years. "They have an elaborate arsenal in place of high-tech surveillance equipment that really seems overpowered for what their day-to-day needs are, and also incredibly expensive."

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Generative AI was recently banned in America's two largest school districts, just weeks after OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens. But forging ahead, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org — now renamed CodeAI — has named OpenAI the "Lead Partner" for its 2026 Hour of AI (which last year replaced its signature event, "the Hour of Code"). Long-time Slashdot reader theodp explains: In August, OpenAI announced a new signature partnership with CodeAI to "prepare the first AI generation", explaining that "through the Hour of AI, OpenAI and CodeAI will introduce millions of students to the basics of using AI thoughtfully and responsibly." The updated Hour of AI website also listed OpenAI's investor/partner Microsoft as one of two "supporters" for the Hour of AI. Now, Microsoft is calling all K-12 teachers around the globe to register for What's working now: Making AI literacy joyful for every learner, a November 17th Microsoft Teams webinar where it will unveil its Minecraft-branded "Hour of AI experience." "Discover how AI literacy can be engaging, approachable, and joyful for students... and hear practical ideas from educators bringing AI learning into their schools and classrooms." Speakers include a marketing lead for Microsoft's AI training initiative plus the head of marketing for Microsoft Minecraft Education.

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The Guardian reports: Meta staff discussed deploying a "whisper strategy" to undermine the influential US academic whose work has inspired a global social media crackdown, according to court documents. Employees at the parent group of Facebook and Instagram sought to discredit Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation, a book that helped tip the debate about online safety towards more stringent measures such as the under-16 ban in Australia. Minutes of internal meetings contained in a recent legal filing in the US showed that staff discussed how to "get the academic community to disavow Haidt". They appear in a document titled "Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes", which refers to discussions of how Meta could "turn other academics against Haidt" and to a "whisper strategy" aimed at achieving that goal. It also mentions "debunking" his work. Minutes from a meeting on 8 March 2023 mention "Curtiss", an apparent reference to Meta's then vice-president of research, Curtiss Cobb. It states: "Curtiss's goal for this work: how do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt. Can't co-opt them, so how do we enrage them ... so the media finds him not credible." It then adds: "Not thinking about this as a loud strategy. A below-the-line campaign...." The minutes were produced before Haidt published his book in 2024 and discuss responding to a Substack post written by the academic in which he reviews "a bunch of articles". "It is not clear whether Meta acted on the ideas outlined in the minutes."

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Clocks "fall back" one hour tonight to end Daylight Saving Time — though many Americans want to end the twice-yearly clock change, reports Axios. But the U.S. Congress "remains deadlocked about how to make that happen." The clocks are falling back despite a bipartisan House vote in July to make daylight saving time permanent and Trump's subsequent push for Senate action... While most Americans want to end the twice-yearly clock changes, they don't necessarily favor Trump's solution. Gallup found 48% of Americans support permanent standard time the entire year, compared with 24% who prefer permanent daylight saving time, as Trump wants... In 1974, the U.S. experimented with year-round daylight saving time but reversed course amid concerns about children going to school in the dark>. Experts still debate whether permanent DST is good for people. Supporters argue that permanent daylight saving time would provide more afternoon and evening sunlight, encouraging outdoor activities. But sleep experts warn that darker mornings and lighter evenings can disrupt sleep cycles, while permanent daylight saving time could force millions of children to travel to school in the dark. The bottom line: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says it prefers permanent standard time because it better aligns with natural sleep cycles. "Hawaii and most of Arizona don't observe daylight saving time, so their clocks won't change," the article points out, adding that eliminating it for the rest of America "still faces opposition in the Senate and isn't expected to be considered by the end of the year. But "the upcoming midterms could change the balance of power in Congress, potentially shifting the debate."

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Should generative AI be used for videogame development? Brandon Stirrup, a strategy manager at Xbox, claims Xbox is already using AI, reports Engadget. And he also says that those who say they aren't are merely "pretending." Stirrup deactivated his social media account shortly after (though his posts have been archived elsewhere), igniting conversations about what role generative AI actually has or should have in game development. In some ways, it would be unsurprising to learn that Xbox is using AI to the extent that Stirrup implies. Xbox recently announced the formation of Xbox Labs at least in part as a response to a rising trend of AI-coded game ports; the announcement heavily implied that the new team would use AI as well but didn't say it outright. Xbox owner Microsoft is also a major player in AI development... Developers including Capcom, Square Enix, Sega, Nexon and Activision have all either used AI in their games or pledged to do so. Fortnite developer Epic Games has been particularly up-front about its AI use, and CEO Tim Sweeney has aggressively promoted it on social media... On the other hand, there are large pockets of the game industry vocally opposed to generative AI. Notably, these tend to be smaller, independent studios without shareholders to impress by touting the cost-savings of AI. These studios include Tunic publisher Finji, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe and Clickolding developer Strange Scaffold, among many more. Due to the sheer number and variety of game studios, it's impossible to say just how much of the industry actually uses AI at this point, but claims that "everyone" is using it are clearly false. There's a similar divide among players about whether generative AI should be embraced or avoided at all costs. While some simply accept AI as part of games going forward, others have pledged to avoid games that use the technology outright due to its environmental costs, labor issues or pure aesthetic preference. That's led to the popularity of tools like a browser extension that makes Steam's AI disclosures more visible and grassroots efforts by developers to implement labels certifying their games as AI-free... Many players and developers alike justify the use of AI in generating code, even if they're opposed to it in other areas. "Gaming is the only industry slow-walking the transition," Xbox's Stirrup allegedly said, "because users have negative sentiment. Everyone else accepts reality." "Gaming is the only industry pretending to not use AI."

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"We've now replenished 90% of the stolen assets, and we're committed to covering the remaining 10%," Binance co-CEO Richard Teng posted on X, adding that "Our users will not bear the financial impact of this incident." "Binance said it was able to replace the funds taken in the record hack by using company money to buy new tokens," reports NBC News: The remaining 10% consists of tokens that are less liquid, meaning they may take longer to buy, it said in a statement posted on X... Binance said it has set aside around $6.34 billion of company funds internally to cover the losses. The money spent re-buying tokens came from using part of its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users, a bitcoin reserve it holds to protect customers in the event of security breaches, as well as some of its Futures Insurance Fund, and the company's own corporate treasury, it said on X. NBC News reports that the FBI blames the breach on a North Korea-sponsored group known as TraderTraitor: Members of [TraderTraitor] were observed by law enforcement converting stolen assets into the cryptocurrency ethereum, the FBI said in a statement, adding that it expects "further laundering" of the assets through the use of related technology... After the hack, the exchange stopped allowing customers to withdraw their funds, but it said Saturday it was still on track to reopen withdrawals Sunday. CNBC reports: The world's largest crypto exchange initially said the hack may involve "a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions." However, Co-CEO Richard Teng later said the attack involved a more complex process rather than the misuse of a single engineer's permissions. The New York Times describes what happened when Binance first spotted "a multibillion-dollar deluge of digital coins" pouring out of its accounts: As the news spread, Binance's top executives put together an informal war room on Wea, the company's internal messaging system, with about 100 participants, including specialized cryptocurrency tracers and security personnel. They eventually transitioned to a mass conference call, with 100 boxes on the screen, where employees took turns muting and then unmuting, communicating in a mixture of English and Chinese. Among them was He Yi, Binance's co-chief executive, who is seven months pregnant, and worked through the night from her base in Abu Dhabi, taking a call at 3 a.m. local time.... Much of the drama played out in public. Almost all crypto transactions are recorded on the blockchain, a ledger of money movements that anyone can look up. That meant crypto analysts could see funds leaving Binance in real time... North Koreans have targeted crypto companies for years, using the proceeds of those thefts to fund its nuclear program, according to Western officials. The hackers have developed increasingly complex strategies to steal crypto and launder the proceeds, a painstaking endeavor that can take months to complete. In a blog post on Friday, Chainalysis said the attackers had deployed "laundering patterns we have not seen before," conducting thousands of transactions over a short period, probably with the help of automation. At the same time, Binance's colleagues in the industry mobilized to intercept some of the laundered crypto. Certain digital coin issuers can freeze funds, allowing them to halt a money-laundering operation in its tracks. Soon after the hack, Tether and Circle, two major issuers, announced that they had frozen stashes of their own coins that the hackers had seized from Binance, a combined total of more than $2 billion in crypto. Binance is now working to gain access to those funds, the company said. But $2.4 billion in crypto is already "beyond any issuer's reach," according to [blockchain intelligence firmm] TRM. The article also includes President Trump's reaction when asked Friday about the breach. "I've always felt it was a little bit dangerous. But they say they have it pretty much under control. We'll see."

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CNN reports: The popular theory that comets were crucial in kick-starting life on Earth billions of years ago may not hold up, according to new computer simulations that counter decades of scientific thinking. The finding suggests the fragile organic molecules supposedly carried by the icy objects would have been destroyed on impact, upending an established origin of life theory that dates back to at least 1961 [with earlier versions postulated in 1908]... Early in its history — over 4 billion years ago — Earth may have experienced a period of heavy bombardment from more than 100,000 comets larger than 100 meters (328 feet), according to the new study, published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports. Those impacts, however, were mostly too heavy for life-starting molecules to withstand. The team used the latest models of comet formation and evolution to simulate this early planetary period 100,000 times. "Given what we know about surface environments on the early Earth, on average, our simulations found that there were no successful impacts," said lead study author Richard Anslow, who conducted the research while completing his doctorate at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom... "The typical velocities of these comets when they impact the Earth meant that actually very few, if any, would have been able to deliver intact organic molecules, so comets actually don't seem to be as useful for prebiotic chemistry as was previously thought," Anslow said. More precisely, 54% of the simulations showed no impact at all, while the remaining 46% had at least one and a "tiny minority" returned up to three collisions, Anslow said. "We can't rule out confidently that there was never a successful impact — there could have been one of these fluke impacts." However, such flukes had to occur in a "perfect location" that already met several important conditions, including the presence of liquid water and other chemicals needed to support life. That combination makes the overall process unlikely, he added. The article notes his argument that even if a successful impact occurred, it's unlikely an important chemical like hydrogen cyanide (HCN) could survive the impact, and would've dissolved in an ocean impact. Plus, "many other precursor molecules are also needed, such as compounds that contain phosphorus and sulfur, but these are not routinely found in comets, Anslow said." An alternative cosmic source of organic material could have been asteroids, which typically struck Earth more slowly and in greater numbers. Anslow pointed to recent findings on samples from asteroids Bennu and Ryugu, which contain the majority of protein-building amino acids. The recent study also raises another intriguing possibility: While Earth may not have had the ideal conditions to foster HCN from comet impacts, ancient Mars might have been better suited. "Because Mars is much smaller than Earth and further away from the sun, the typical impact velocity of comets is much lower, so while these impacts on Earth were destroying most of the HCN, this wasn't the case so much for Mars," Anslow said. This idea could add another dimension to the long-standing question of whether the red planet once supported life. While the authors closely analyzed how HCN could have survived comet impact, the chemical may have undergone reactions before the icy bodies entered Earth's atmosphere, said Queenie Chan, an associate professor of Earth sciences at Royal Holloway University of London, who was not involved with the study. This process could have created biologically important compounds, such as those protein building blocks, that are less volatile and more likely to survive.

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BBS-era "door" games are preserved by the site Break Into Chat, along with their history. Now the site's actually traced the origins of several ANSI art screens in the 1980s and "how different people later transformed the original images," starting from one of the most popular bulletin board systems in St. Louis, Missouri. Slashdot reader Kirkman14 writes: "Fire Escape" was curator of the authoritative list of bulletin board systems in St. Louis's area code and sysop of the area's most popular board. Like many sysops of that time, Fire Escape enlivened her bulletin board by finding and repurposing older ANSI art. Eventually her BBS had 18 different logon screens in its rotation, many of which featured flames or mushroom clouds or made liberal use of red and yellow. Break Into Chat follows the trail: Some, maybe even most, of Fire Escape's logon screens had actually been adapted from old school "public domain" ANSI art drawn in the late 1980s and early 1990s by folks such as Michael C. Ling, Lora Ruffner (aka "Ebony Eyes") and Violet Stymacks.... Stymacks was unusually generous with her ANSI art. When she first began drawing, she combed through Fidonet node lists looking for bulletin boards with interesting or inspiring names. When she found one, she would draw an ANSI screen that fit the board's theme, then send it to the sysop. Eventually, sysops began seeking her out, too. By late 1990, she claimed that 500 bulletin boards were using her screens. Three years later, that total had tripled, according to Boardwatch . I believe it — I have located more than 1,100 of her pieces so far. She was so prolific that it would be surprising if she hadn't reused or remixed her own work over the years... [D]id they intend for other people to do so? Or would they have considered such borrowing or adapting as "ripping" or just plain "stealing"? These questions have dogged the BBS, ASCII art, and ANSI art scenes from the beginning. A freelance writer named Patrick Grote grappled with this ethical dilemma in 1990. He had begun to publish archives of ANSI art that he had collected from various public messageboards and networks. But what were people allowed to do with the ANSI screens in these collections? Was it okay to modify them? "Tough call," Grote said. "I know some people copyright their screens by inserting a little '(C)' on it," Grote wrote in a README file included in these collections. "Is this 'true' copyrighting? I would say yes, but then again, I don't feel like having any legal action taken against me for using an ANSI screen. In my opinion, I would say leave the ones that say '(C)' alone, but make every effort to contact the artist and ask for permission...." When I corresponded with Fire Escape this year, she admitted her memory wasn't what it used to be, but felt certain that she had not asked any artists for permission because she didn't know who they were or how to reach them. "I figured if anyone had an issue, I'd just remove the screen," she said. "But no one ever said anything about it."

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