The Register
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Rogue States Are Putting AI Agents to Work on Sanctions Evasion
RUSI’s new report warns that rogue states such as North Korea and Iran are deploying generative AI to mass‑produce fraudulent documents, fabricate online personas, and automate cryptocurrency laundering. The paper highlights autonomous AI agents that can run shell companies, shift crypto through mixers, and generate deepfakes without human direction, overwhelming traditional compliance checks. It also notes that static biometric KYC methods are increasingly ineffective against synthetic identities. The authors call for AI‑powered counter‑measures, updated KYC standards, and “compute‑KYC” obligations on cloud providers.
Dirty Frag, Copy Fail, Fragnesia: The Start of a Worrisome Linux Security Trend
A trio of Linux kernel vulnerabilities—Dirty Frag, Copy Fail and Fragnesia—have been disclosed within a week, illustrating how AI‑driven analysis can surface page‑cache bugs almost instantly after a fix. Linus Torvalds and other leaders note that AI‑generated findings are no...
UK MPs Slam Digital ID Rollout as a 'Fiasco' After Botched Launch
Britain’s Home Affairs Committee slammed the government’s digital identity rollout as a rushed, poorly thought‑out “fiasco.” The committee said the announcement came without any public consultation or rigorous policy development, leaving ministers unable to answer basic questions on privacy, safeguards...
A Russian Speaker and Jailbroken Gemini Went on a Hacking Spree and Emptied at Least One MAGA Victim's Crypto Wallets
A Russian‑speaking solo threat actor leveraged a jailbroken Google Gemini model to orchestrate a sophisticated crypto‑fraud and credential‑theft campaign targeting MAGA and QAnon supporters. Between September 2025 and May 2026 the actor, known as bandcampro, built a Telegram channel with...
Zuck Defends Monitoring Employees to Win AI Race in Purported Leaked Audio
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended a plan to monitor employees' keystrokes, mouse clicks and screenshots to train the company’s AI models, citing a competitive advantage in the "most competitive technology race in history." The initiative, called the Model Capability Initiative,...
Deus Ex Machina: Half of US Christians Trust AI's Spiritual Advice
A Barna poll reveals that 48% of practicing U.S. Christians trust AI to aid their spiritual growth, and 34% consider AI advice as trustworthy as a pastor’s counsel. Trust is higher among younger believers, with 39% of Gen Z and 44%...
ESA Boss Tires of Being Dragged Around by NASA Mood Swings
European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher publicly rebuked NASA’s erratic policy shifts, urging Europe to develop autonomous human‑spaceflight capability. He highlighted NASA’s pause on the Lunar Gateway and the cancellation of the Mars Sample Return as catalysts for Europe...
The Big AI Companies Are Going to See Their Margins Disappear
Leading U.S. AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI remain unprofitable and are turning to metered pricing as token costs climb, hoping to lift revenue while investors keep funding them. The piece warns that AI models are rapidly becoming commoditized, with open‑weight...
Uncle Sam's Next Big Supercomputer Might Use Something More Exotic than GPUs
U.S. national labs are testing NextSilicon’s Maverick‑2 dataflow processor as a potential alternative to GPU‑centric supercomputers. Sandia National Laboratory’s 64‑node Spectra testbed, built with Penguin Solutions, recently met all system acceptance criteria, proving the chips can run key HPC workloads....
Linux Kernel Flaw Opens Root-Only Files to Unprivileged Users
Security researchers have identified CVE‑2026‑46333, a local Linux kernel flaw that allows unprivileged users to read files normally restricted to root, including SSH keys and password files. The vulnerability impacts multiple long‑term support kernel branches from 5.10 up through 7.0,...
Europe Tests Laser Links as Satellite Comms Outgrow Radio
Europe is accelerating the transition to laser‑based satellite communications with the commissioning of the Holomondas Optical Ground Station in northern Greece. Built under the ESA‑backed PeakSat project and operated by Lithuanian firm Astrolight, the site receives data from CubeSats via...
Cloud-Managed Earbuds Sound Strange - as a Concept, and on a Plane
Dell introduced the Pro Plus wireless earbuds, a cloud‑manageable audio device priced above Apple’s AirPods, and paired them with a Device Management Console that lets IT admins enroll, track, and push firmware updates across a fleet. The console can also...
Europe Built Sovereign Clouds to Escape US Control. Then Forgot About the Processors
Europe is pouring more than €2 billion (about $2.2 billion) into sovereign‑cloud projects such as the IPCEI‑CIS programme and France’s SecNumCloud framework to shield data from U.S. extraterritorial law. Yet most certified datacenters still run Intel or AMD CPUs whose built‑in Management...
Datacenters Slurping up so Much Juice They Boosted Prices 75% in Largest US Energy Market
Wholesale power prices in PJM, the largest U.S. wholesale market, surged 75% year‑over‑year, climbing from $77.78/MWh in early 2025 to $136.53/MWh in early 2026. The Monitoring Analytics report pinpoints rapid data‑center load growth—driven by the AI boom—as the chief catalyst...
AI Agents Show They Can Create Exploits, Not Just Find Vulns
Researchers from leading universities and AI firms introduced ExploitGym, a benchmark that evaluates whether frontier AI agents can turn software bugs into functional exploits. The suite contains 898 real‑world vulnerabilities from Google’s V8 engine and the Linux kernel. In two‑hour...
Cerebras Risked It All on Dinner Plate-Sized AI Accelerators a Decade Ago. Today It’s Worth $66 Billion
Cerebras Systems completed a blockbuster IPO on Thursday, raising $5.55 billion and debuting with a market valuation exceeding $66 billion. The company’s wafer‑scale engines—giant chips the size of a dinner plate—have evolved from the first‑gen WSE to the current WSE‑3, delivering up...
Anthropic Tosses Agents Into the API Billing Pool
Anthropic announced that, starting June 15, subscription tokens will be divided into two separate pools: one for interactive use (Claude Code, Cowork, Claude.ai) and another for programmatic access via its Agent SDK, headless mode, or third‑party tools. The programmatic pool...
AI to Infest Eight in Ten Premium Phones Within Two Years
Counterpoint Research predicts that over 80% of premium smartphones will embed agentic AI capabilities by 2027, while a similar share of wearables will be AI‑enabled by 2032. The shift is driven by new chipsets such as MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 and...
Google Users Fight for Refunds as Unauthorized API Usage Bills Soar
Google Cloud customers are facing massive, unexpected charges after their API keys were compromised and used to run costly Gemini video and image models. Users report bills jumping from under $50 a month to over $10,000 within minutes, despite having...
Google Launches Line of Android Laptops Festooned with Gemini AI
Google unveiled "Googlebooks," a new line of premium laptops that run Android instead of ChromeOS and embed Gemini AI throughout the user experience. Features like Magic Pointer deliver context‑aware suggestions when users hover over UI elements, while drag‑and‑drop image merging...
Hollywood A-Listers Back Proposed Standard that Would Pay Them when AI Uses Their Likeness or Work
Hollywood actors are backing a new licensing framework, the RSL-MEDIA 1.0 standard, to let individuals control how their likeness, voice, and other identity attributes are used by AI. The public‑benefit nonprofit RSL Media will launch a registry next month where...
FCC Walks Back Router Update Ban Before It Bricks America's Network Security
The FCC reversed its earlier ban that would have stopped firmware and software updates for foreign‑made consumer routers, extending waivers until at least Jan. 1, 2029. The original policy, announced in March, placed all non‑U.S. routers on a Covered List, prohibiting...
AirBit Crypto Ponzi Victims Can Now Claim Slice of $400M Asset Haul
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a claims process for victims of the AirBit Club crypto Ponzi scheme, allowing them to share in more than $400 million of forfeited assets. About $150 million is currently allocated for payouts to eligible investors...
Debian 14 Cracks Down on Unreproducible Packages
Midway through Debian 14 "Forky" development, the release team announced a mandatory reproducible‑build policy. New migration software now blocks any package that cannot be rebuilt byte‑for‑byte, and flags regressions in existing testing packages. The move aligns Debian with the broader...
Anthropic’s Bug-Hunting Mythos Was Greatest Marketing Stunt Ever, Says cURL Creator
Anthropic’s security‑focused AI model Mythos was given limited access to the cURL codebase, returning five alleged vulnerabilities. After a thorough review, cURL creator Daniel Stenberg’s team confirmed only one low‑severity CVE, dismissing the rest as false positives or minor bugs....
Checkmarx Tackles Another TeamPCP Intrusion as Jenkins Plugin Sabotaged
Checkmarx disclosed that a malicious version of its Jenkins AST plugin was uploaded to the Jenkins Marketplace, prompting an urgent advisory to users. The compromised package, part of the company’s code‑security suite, was identified over the weekend and is being...
Memory Godboxes Could Offer Relief From the RAMpocalypse
The next wave of datacenter servers will treat system memory as a disaggregated resource, using so‑called memory godboxes that connect via Compute Express Link (CXL). CXL 3.0, now supported by upcoming AMD and Intel CPUs, enables memory pooling and true...
Both Fedora and Ubuntu Will Get AI Support – Soon
Ubuntu and Fedora have officially announced upcoming support for running local generative AI workloads. Fedora’s next release will include an AI Developer Desktop aimed at developers, emphasizing privacy‑first, locally‑executed models and no remote data collection. Ubuntu 26.04 "Resolute Raccoon" will...
Google Tweaks Chrome AI Privacy Wording, Insists Processing Stays On-Device
Google revised the wording in Chrome’s Settings UI that described its on‑device AI, removing the phrase that assured data never leaves the device. The change sparked speculation that Chrome might start routing AI interactions to Google servers, but Google clarified...
Akamai Surges on Big LLM Deal as Cloudflare Dims
Content delivery network Akamai announced a seven‑year, $1.8 billion agreement with leading LLM provider Anthropic, its largest deal ever, following a $200 million contract signed last quarter. The consumption‑based deal will begin generating revenue later this year as Akamai scales capacity across...
Disgraced US Gov Software Contractor Found Guilty of Database Destruction
A Virginia contractor, Sohaib Akhter, and his twin brother Muneeb were convicted of a coordinated attack that erased roughly 96 government databases within an hour after their termination from a software supplier serving 45 federal agencies. The deletions targeted Freedom...
Iran War Hits Datacenter Building Supply Chains, Upping Costs
The Iran‑Israel conflict has forced the Strait of Hormuz closed, choking oil‑based building material supplies. BCS Consultancy reports up to 20% price hikes and availability dropping to roughly 25% for key inputs such as steel, aluminum and cement used in...
'Dirty Frag' Linux Flaw One-Ups CopyFail with No Patches and Public Root Exploit
A new Linux privilege‑escalation vulnerability dubbed "Dirty Frag" has been disclosed without a CVE, patches, or coordinated mitigation. Security researcher Hyunwoo Kim revealed that the flaw chains a 2017 xfrm‑ESP kernel issue with a 2023 RxRPC bug, allowing unprivileged users...
Dyna Software's AI Assistant Promises to Massage Your Toughest ServiceNow Configs
Dyna Software unveiled Platform Copilot, an agentic AI that lets business users configure ServiceNow applications through natural language or uploaded form images, bypassing the need for developers. The tool reads a customer’s instance schema, generates wireframes, validates changes, and builds...
Anthropic Response to 1-Click Pwn: Shouldn't Have Clicked 'Ok'
Adversa AI disclosed a one‑click remote code execution flaw affecting Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor CLI and Copilot CLI. The attack leverages malicious .mcp.json and .claude/settings.json files that silently enable project‑scoped MCP settings, spawning an unsandboxed Node.js process with full...
60% of MD5 Password Hashes Are Crackable in Under an Hour
Kaspersky researchers analyzed 231 million leaked passwords hashed with MD5 and found that a single Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU can crack 60 % of those hashes in under an hour, with 48 % broken in less than a minute. The study shows that attackers...
$250M Crypto-Robbing Gang’s Dirty Work Guy Sentenced to 6.5 Years Behind Bars
A 20‑year‑old named Marlon Ferro received a 78‑month federal prison term for serving as the "last resort" burglar for a cryptocurrency theft ring that stole over $250 million. Ferro traveled nationwide, breaking into homes to steal hardware wallets when online scams...
DRAM Drought to Dog AMD's Chips This Year
AMD warned that PC CPU shipments will dip in the second half of 2026 as a DRAM shortage drives memory prices up four‑fold. The chipmaker still expects its Client segment to post year‑over‑year revenue growth, buoyed by Ryzen adoption and...
Ruby Inventor Matz Working on Native Compiler with AI Help
Ruby creator Yukihiro Matsumoto unveiled Spinel, a native compiler that translates Ruby code into C and then into a standalone executable. Using Anthropic's Claude Code, the project was built in weeks and delivers roughly an 11.6‑fold speed increase over MiniRuby...
Taiwan Cops Say Student's Radio Kit Brought Bullet Trains to a Standstill
A 23‑year‑old Taiwanese university student was arrested for allegedly hijacking the TETRA radio system used by Taiwan High Speed Rail, causing a 48‑minute shutdown of three trains on April 5. Investigators say the student cloned a General Alarm signal with a...
Palantir CEO: 10 Percent of the World 'Professionally Hates Us'
Palantir’s first‑quarter 2026 earnings show a surge in defense business as the Department of Defense doubled usage of its Maven targeting platform amid the Iran conflict. U.S. government spending on Palantir rose 84% year‑over‑year to $687 million, pushing total quarterly revenue...
Kids Say They Can Beat Age Checks by Drawing on a Fake Mustache
The UK’s Online Safety Act age‑verification measures are being easily circumvented, according to a survey by Internet Matters of over 1,000 children and parents. Nearly half of kids say checks are easy to bypass, with tricks ranging from fake birthdays...
Hobbyist Xenomorphs Raspberry Pi Into Alien-Themed DIY Laptop
Jeff Merrick, a hobbyist maker, unveiled the Typeframe PS‑85, an Alien‑themed portable terminal built around a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The slate‑style device features a small LCD, a 40 % mechanical keyboard with hot‑swappable switches, and open‑source CAD files for DIY assembly. While limited...
Hands Off My Trademark! Notepad++ Dev Threatens Legal Action Against macOS Port
The open‑source text editor Notepad++ remains a Windows‑only product, but a third‑party developer released a macOS port called “Notepad++ for Mac.” Founder Don Ho warned that the project’s use of the Notepad++ name, logo, and domain misleads users and infringes...
Inside Amazon Web Services' Plan to Make Networking Disappear
Amazon Web Services is engineering a self‑contained networking stack that makes the network virtually invisible to customers. By consolidating all switching functions onto a single ASIC and running a custom Linux‑based NetOS, AWS can scale its infrastructure while keeping hardware...
Usage-Based Pricing Killing Your Vibe - Here's How to Roll Your Own Local AI Coding Agents
The Register reports that rising usage‑based pricing from Anthropic and Microsoft is pushing developers toward self‑hosted AI coding assistants. Alibaba’s newly released Qwen 3.6‑27B, a 27‑billion‑parameter model, can run on consumer‑grade hardware such as a 24 GB GPU or a 32 GB M‑series...
UK Drivers' Agency Shrugs Off Claims of Week-Long Booking Site Smashes, Blames Browser Configs
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency's online booking portal for practical driving tests has been inaccessible for many users over the past week, displaying connection errors and a "you look like a bot" warning. Test‑takers report the page loads only...
ServiceNow Under Siege as Atlassian Adds to ITSM Take-Outs
Atlassian reported its biggest quarter of competitive displacements, pulling customers from legacy IT service management platforms, notably ServiceNow. The company’s service collection, including Jira Service Management, topped $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, growing over 30% year over year, while its...
Artemis III Aims for 'Late 2027' For Earth Orbit Demonstration
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced that Artemis III will now target a late‑2027 Earth‑orbit rendezvous and docking test, shifting the mission’s primary objective to a low‑Earth‑orbit demonstration rather than a lunar landing. The shift aligns with commitments from SpaceX and Blue...
That Old Phone in the Kitchen Drawer Could Save an Industry
Secondhand smartphone sales are set to rise 12% year‑on‑year in 2026, while new‑device shipments are projected to plunge 12% to under 1.1 billion units. Inflation, AI‑driven component costs and longer consumer replacement cycles are driving the slowdown in the flagship market....