Last year, WhatsApp and Apple notified several people in Italy, including journalists and activists, that they had been targeted with government spyware. In particular, WhatsApp pointed the finger at the Israeli American surveillance tech maker Paragon Solutions as the company that provided the technology for a hacking campaign that targeted around 90 people around the world with its 'Graphite' spyware. The notifications prompted a scandal in Italy that is still unfolding. After being notified of the attacks, a number of victims filed criminal complaints with Italian authorities, and prosecutors then opened an investigation. According to Wired Italy, Italian prosecutors sent a formal request for information to Paragon, via the Israeli government, but a year after the investigations were opened, the company has yet to respond. Following the eruption of the spyware scandal in Italy, Paragon publicly called out the Italian government, claiming it refused the company's offer to investigate whether a journalist was hacked and spied on with its Graphite spyware. The company went so far as to cancel its contract with Italy's two spy agencies, AISE and AISI, in part because the Italian government turned down the company's offer to help....

As quantum computers advance, they are expected to be able to break tried-and-true security schemes that currently keep most sensitive data secure from attackers. Scientists and policymakers are working to design and implement post-quantum cryptography to defend against these future attacks. MIT researchers have developed an ultra-efficient microchip that can bring post-quantum cryptography techniques to wireless biomedical devices, like pacemakers and insulin pumps. Such wearable, ingestible, or implantable devices are usually too power-constrained to implement these computationally demanding security protocols. Their tiny chip, which is about the size of a very fine needle tip, also includes built-in protections against physical hacking attempts that can bypass encryption to steal user data, such as a patient's social security number or device credentials. Compared to prior designs, the new technology is more than an order of magnitude more energy-efficient. In the long run, the new chip could enable next-generation wireless medical devices to maintain strong security even as quantum computing becomes more prevalent. In addition, it could be applied to many types of resource-constrained edge devices, like industrial sensors and smart inventory tags....

President Trump reportedly likes to go around asking aides about who his successor should be: J. D. Vance or Marco Rubio. If Trump were to ask his own voters the same question, he would, at least based on my recent experience, come away with a pretty clear answer. I run weekly focus groups, and the moderators regularly ask Trump voters whom they would like to see inherit the party in 2028 and beyond. More and more, what we're hearing in response is a strange new respect for Rubio. Although Vance might seem like a more natural MAGA heir, many Trump voters see Rubio as a stabilizing force who comes off a lot better than many of his peers inside the administration, including the vice president. 'Marco Rubio, I think, is an amazing dude,' said Ken, a Biden 2020/Trump 2024 voter from Georgia. 'If anybody is left that we can see on the TV or C-SPAN that's just genuine,' he said, 'it's Marco Rubio.' Ken called Rubio 'a family man and still a stand-up politician,' and said, 'He also is about putting America first, which I agree with.' (To protect participants' privacy, we disclose only their first name.)...

Meta has found a new source of training data for its AI models: its own employees. The company plans to use data culled from the mouse movements and keystrokes of its own staff in its pursuit to build more capable and efficient artificial intelligence. The story, which was first reported by Reuters, shows the lengths to which tech companies are going to find new sources of training data ' the lifeblood of AI models that helps the programs learn how to more effectively carry out tasks and respond to user queries. 'If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them ' things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus. To help, we're launching an internal tool that will capture these kinds of inputs on certain applications to help us train our models. There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose.' This trend would seem to reveal the troublesome privacy implications of the AI industry, as yesterday's internal corporate communications are increasingly becoming fodder for a new corporate supply chain. Last week it was reported that old startups were being scavenged for their corporate communications (from Slack archives, Jira tickets and other internal messaging platforms), which could be converted into AI fuel....