Tag: technology

China Escalates Cyberattacks That Are Increasingly Hard To Detect

AChinese hacking group is reportedly behind a significant espionage campaign targeting U.S. technology firms and legal services, highlighting a worrisome escalation in China’s cyber “Cold War” with the United States.

Since March 2025, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group and its cybersecurity subsidiary, Mandiant, have tracked suspicious activities, delivered over a backdoor malware known as “BRICKSTORM.” This sophisticated campaign is targeting a variety of sectors, including law firms, software-as-a-service providers, and other technology companies. Following extensive monitoring and analysis, Google has linked these hacking efforts to UNC5221, a long-suspected Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, alongside other “threat clusters” associated with China.

The BRICKSTORM campaign is especially disturbing for two primary reasons. Firstly, it was crafted to ensure “long-term stealthy access” by embedding backdoors into targeted systems, enabling hackers to dodge conventional detection and response methods. The stealth campaign has proven so adept that, on average, these intruders remain undetected in targeted systems for nearly 400 days, as revealed by a Google report.

Secondly, the motivations behind these cyberattacks transcend the theft of trade secrets and national security data. Google suspects that these hackers are also probing for “zero-day vulnerabilities targeting network appliances,” as well as “establishing pivot points for broader access” to additional victims. This indicates a strategy to gather intelligence that could be pivotal to the Chinese military should tensions escalate between the U.S. and China.

Xi Jinping, the leader of Communist China, has consistently expressed his ambition for the nation to become a “cyber superpower.” With this goal in mind, the Chinese government has invested significant resources in building a formidable cyber army.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) considers cyber warfare to be a crucial aspect of both its defensive and offensive strategies, alongside traditional military forces. Cyberattacks are viewed as a cost-effective means to undermine an opponent’s will to fight by targeting its economic, political, scientific, and technological systems.

Thus, the PLA reportedly employs as many as 60,000 cyber personnel, ten times larger than the U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber Mission Force. Additionally, a higher proportion of the PLA’s cyber force is dedicated to offensive operations compared to the United States (18.2 percent versus 2.8 percent).

Alongside China’s official cyber force, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security have adopted a “pseudo-private” contractor model that allows them to hire civilian hackers to conduct cyber espionage abroad while obscuring the Chinese government’s involvement.

Over time, the Communist regime has also significantly advanced its cyber operation capabilities. Today, China’s cyber operations are increasingly sophisticated, utilizing advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures to infiltrate victim networks, according to a U.S. government report.

The BRICKSTORM attack is part of a long series of high-profile cyberattacks originating from China in recent years. Between 2023 and 2024, Salt Typhoon, a Chinese hacking group linked to the Ministry of State Security accessed U.S. wireless networks operated by companies such as AT&T and Verizon, “as well as systems used for court-appointed surveillance.” This breach resulted in the compromise of telecommunication data for over a million American users, including individuals involved in both Trump’s and then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaigns.

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From AI to TikTok to TV, This Pro-Israel Billionaire Is Expanding Power in US

Larry Ellison’s name isn’t always mentioned alongside more public-facing megabillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg. But as he vaults to the top of the U.S. power elite after a string of high-profile corporate deals, that’s about to change.

Ellison, the founder of the tech giant Oracle, is quickly emerging as the new face of oligarchic power in the U.S. Oracle has become an AI powerhouse at the same time Ellison and his son David have acquired Paramount and its vast media empire. With Donald Trump’s recent executive order, Ellison and Oracle will also now oversee TikTok’s algorithms, shaping a platform that reaches 150 million U.S. users.

What’s more alarming than Ellison’s sheer wealth — in September, he briefly surpassed Musk as the world’s richest person — is that he’s building his concentrated power and control in collaboration with the Trumpian project of attacking so-called “wokeness,” all while supercharging the corporate expansion of artificial intelligence and tech surveillance.

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Scientists Discover a New Form of Ice That Shouldn’t Exist

Researchers at the European XFEL and DESY are investigating unusual forms of ice that can exist at room temperature when subjected to extreme pressure.

Ice comes in many forms, even when made of nothing but water molecules. Scientists have now identified more than 20 unique solid structures, or “phases,” of ice, each with its own molecular arrangement. These variations are labeled with Roman numerals, such as ice I, ice II, and ice III.

In a recent breakthrough, an international team of researchers led by scientists from the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has discovered a completely new phase known as ice XXI. Using advanced X-ray facilities at the European XFEL and PETRA III, the team captured and analyzed this previously unknown structure. Their findings have been published in Nature Materials.

Ice XXI is unlike any other form of ice observed so far. It develops when liquid water is subjected to rapid compression, creating what scientists call “supercompressed water” at room temperature. This phase is metastable, meaning it can persist for a time even though another type of ice would normally be more stable under the same conditions. The discovery provides valuable new insights into how ice behaves and transforms under extreme pressure.

Water or H2O, despite being composed of just two elements, exhibits remarkable complexity in its solid state. The majority of the phases are observed at high pressures and low temperatures. The team has learned more about how the different ice phases form and change with pressure.

“Rapid compression of water allows it to remain liquid up to higher pressures, where it should have already crystallized to ice VI,” KRISS scientist Geun Woo Lee explains. Ice VI is an especially intriguing phase, thought to be present in the interior of icy moons such as Titan and Ganymede. Its highly distorted structure may allow complex transition pathways that lead to metastable ice phases.

Because most ice variants exist only under extreme conditions, the researchers created high-pressure conditions using diamond anvil cells. The sample – in this case, water – is placed between two diamonds, which can be used to build up very high pressure due to their hardness. Water was examined under pressures of up to two gigapascals, which is about 20,000 times more than normal air pressure. This causes ice to form even at room temperature, but the molecules are much more tightly packed than in normal ice.

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These Are The Five States Leading America’s Data Center Boom

Most of the rapid growth in new data center capacity is happening in established (“incumbent”) markets – places like Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, and Iowa, while new or smaller states (“emerging markets”) are starting to attract data center development, though on a smaller scale so far.

Goldman analysts, led by Hongcen Wei, cited new current project schedules from Aterio data that showed US data center capacity is projected to reach 46 GW by October 2025, marking a 37% year-over-year increase. He found that most of this increase comes from incumbent markets. 

Here are the key takeaways from the report:

  • Top states (Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, Iowa) account for 7.6 GW of the 12.4 GW added year-to-date.
  • Virginia remains dominant with 33% yoy growth, while Texas and Georgia lead in acceleration, each up 57% yoy.
  • 31 states have added capacity in 2025 (versus 22 in 2024), highlighting broader national expansion, though most new entrants remain modest in scale.
  • PJM (Mid-Atlantic), ERCOT (Texas), and the Southeast (mainly Georgia) together account for 64% of new US capacity.
  • TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is the least competitive region due to power constraints.

Looking ahead:

  • Another 4 GW of capacity is expected by year-end 2025, primarily from top markets.
  • Beyond that, 63 GW in new projects are announced for the next few years.
  • Rapid growth in data centers is expected to push major US power markets – CAISO, MISO, and PJM – toward critical tightness in coming years.

Data center buildouts are entering hypergrowth (read “circle jerk“).

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Google’s ex-CEO Eric Schmidt shares dire warning of homicidal AI models

Talk about a killer app.

Artificial intelligence models are vulnerable to hackers and could even be trained to off humans if they fall into the wrong hands, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned.

The dire warning came Wednesday at a London conference in response to a question about whether AI could become more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

“There’s evidence that you can take models, closed or open, and you can hack them to remove their guardrails. So, in the course of their training, they learn a lot of things. A bad example would be they learn how to kill someone,” Schmidt said at the Sifted Summit tech conference, according to CNBC.

“All of the major companies make it impossible for those models to answer that question,” he continued, appearing to air the possibility of a user asking an AI to kill.

“Good decision. Everyone does this. They do it well, and they do it for the right reasons,” Schmidt added. “There’s evidence that they can be reverse-engineered, and there are many other examples of that nature.”

The predictions might not be so far-fetched.

In 2023, an altered version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT called DAN – an acronym for “Do Anything Now” – surfaced online, CNBC noted.

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The Sun Is Setting on Solar Scamming As A Real End to 47 Years of Taxpayer Subsidies Is Finally on the Horizon

“Solar construction firm Blue Ridge Power issues mass worker layoff in North Carolina,” read the article in pv magazine. “The utility-scale solar engineering, procurement and construction firm filed a WARN act with the state, cutting over 500 jobs.”

Much of the rooftop solar industry is in liquidation mode, and now the central station “utility scale” solar industry is in trouble. Expect more of the same in the next months as solar subsidies and local opposition (the environmental grassroots) grows. The delayed end of the Investment Tax Credit (30 percent credit) and the Production Tax Credit (2.8 cents/kWh) will cause a rush to the exits before the credits expire at the end of 2027 (with credits at risk for projects not started by July 4, 2026).

Blue Ridge is a primary industrial solar installer in South and North Carolina, with 8,000 MW installed and 1,200 MW under construction in 14 states. Some quotations from Ryan Kennedy‘s September 23, 2025, recap:

“Blue Ridge Power has experienced market headwinds similar to those impacting the entire renewable energy industry, requiring Pine Gate Renewables to dedicate significant resources to support the organization. After reviewing numerous options to find a path forward, Pine Gate made the difficult decision to conduct an orderly wind-down of Blue Ridge Power,” said Pine Gate Renewables in a statement.

And on the macro situation:

E2 research shows that since January 2025, businesses cancelled more than $22 billion of planned clean energy factories and projects that were expected to create 16,500 jobs. Analysis by Energy Innovation suggests that more than 830,000 jobs could be lost due to policy rollbacks created by the Trump Administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The U.S. clean energy workforce now stands at 3.56 million. In 2024, 7% of all new jobs in the United States were in clean energy, and clean energy represented 82% of all new energy sector jobs. However, approximately 50,000 fewer jobs were created in 2024 as compared to 2023.

“What these numbers show is that this was one of the hottest and most promising job sectors in the country at the end of 2024,” said Bob Keefe, E2’s executive director. “Now, clean energy job growth is at serious risk – and with it, our overall economy.”

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NSW Flood Relief Data Breach: Contractor Uploads Personal Details of Thousands to ChatGPT

Thousands of flood survivors in New South Wales, Australia, have had their personal details exposed after a former contractor to the NSW Reconstruction Authority uploaded sensitive data to ChatGPT.

The breach involves the Northern Rivers Resilient Homes Program, which was created to support residents impacted by the 2022 floods.

Through the program, the government offered options such as voluntary home buybacks, financial help to rebuild, or property upgrades aimed at improving resilience.

Now, applicants who sought relief through this initiative may be dealing with the consequences of a serious privacy failure.

Central to the incident is an Excel spreadsheet containing more than 12,000 rows of data.

The document, which was uploaded to ChatGPT between March 12 and 15, is believed to include information on as many as 3,000 people.

The compromised data includes names, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and some health-related information. According to the government, the upload was carried out without authorization.

Despite taking place over six months ago, the breach was not made public until this week, during a public holiday in NSW.

The delay in disclosure is a reminder of ongoing concerns around the speed and transparency of mandatory breach notifications.

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Grassley calls out judges for using AI to draft error-filled rulings

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to two federal judges regarding their alleged use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to draft court orders with little to no human verification. Grassley’s oversight inquiry follows public  that U.S. District of Mississippi Judge Henry T. Wingate and U.S. District of New Jersey Judge Julien Xavier Neals issued court orders containing serious factual inaccuracies, prompting allegations of AI use.

“As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am committed to safeguarding litigants’ rights and ensuring that every party in federal court receives fair treatment and careful review by the Article III judges confirmed by the Senate,” Grassley wrote.

“No less than the attorneys who appear before them, judges must be held to the highest standards of integrity, candor, and factual accuracy. Indeed, Article III judges should be held to a higher standard, given the binding force of their rulings on the rights and obligations of litigants before them,” Grassley continued.

Grassley is asking Wingate and Neals to explain whether they, their law clerks, or any court staff used generative AI – or entered non-public case information into generative AI tools – in preparing their decisions. Further, Grassley called on the district judges to re-docket their original orders to preserve a transparent history of the courts’ actions.

Read Grassley’s letter to Wingate HERE and letter to Neals HERE.

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‘Swarms of killer robots’: Former Biden official says US military is afraid of using AI

A former Biden administration official working on cyber policy says the United States military would have a problem controlling its soldiers’ use of artificial intelligence.

Mieke Eoyang, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy during the Joe Biden administration, said that current AI models are poorly suited for use in the U.S. military and would be dangerous if implemented.

With claims of “AI psychosis” and killer robots, Eoyang said the military cannot simply use an existing, public AI agent and morph it into use for the military. This would of course involve giving a chatbot leeway on suggesting the use of violence, or even killing a target.

Allowing for such capabilities is cause for alarm in the Department of Defense, now Department of War, Eoyang claimed.

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The “Reimagined State”: Tony Blair Institute’s Blueprint for a Global Techno-Dictatorship

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) has unveiled its “Reimagined State” initiative, a sweeping plan to use artificial intelligence and digital technology to reshape the way governments operate and ultimately, to change how people live their lives. The stated goal is to make public services more efficient, less costly, and more effective, but the deeper implications raise serious concerns about privacy, freedoms, centralized control, and digital autocracy.

The proposal calls for AI-powered digital assistants to streamline how citizens interact with government services, AI tools to help civil servants automate casework and routine tasks, and a “National Policy Twin,” a data platform designed to simulate policy outcomes and guide decision-making.

The TBI has already implemented this alleged aid to government decision-making in Albania’s parliament. In September 2025, Prime Minister Edi Rama appointed Diella as Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, making it the world’s first AI to hold a cabinet-level position.

But the role of the AI minister, named Diella, is not to aid in decision-making but to actually make decisions, because, as Diella said in her introductory speech, the problem of the past has not been machines but rather the poor decision-making of humans. TBI will now save us from ourselves by controlling us with technology.

TBI argues that the digital transformation of the reimagined state is necessary to solve the UK’s fiscal crisis, declining public services, and stagnant economy. Embedded within this vision, however, is a plan to make government data fully interoperable across departments and to implement a nationwide digital ID system, an infrastructure that would give the state unprecedented access to personal information.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who leads the institute, has called digital ID an “essential part of modern digital infrastructure.” Under his plan, each citizen would be assigned a single digital identifier linking personal health, tax, welfare, and immigration records. More alarmingly, such a system could give the state the power to track citizens and exclude them from services as punishment.

Bank accounts could be frozen, access to air travel restricted, and movement monitored through electronic toll systems. Since the same global advocates are pushing for electric vehicles, the ability to charge one’s car could also be suspended. In effect, an individual’s mobility and financial access could be controlled from a central government computer system.

Policies like the Green New Deal could be enforced digitally by cutting off electricity or water once monthly limits are exceeded, or by canceling flights after a person’s air travel pollution credits run out. Critics warn that Tony Blair’s “Future of Britain” and “Reimagined State” initiatives are not mere modernization efforts but blueprints for a global technocratic system. By linking digital identity systems, central bank digital currencies, and cross-border data networks, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) promotes a framework that could enable digital totalitarianism, where access to essential services depends on government approval. What Blair describes as “a little work of persuasion” toward modernization, is the normalization of mass surveillance and centralized control over private life.

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