Connect with us

Computer

China Defends Ban On US Chipmaker Micron in 2023

Published

on

micron

BEIJING, China – The Chinese government defended its restriction on using components from US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. in some computer systems on Wednesday after Washington raised concern, escalating tensions over technology and security.

The security examination of Micron products was “conducted in accordance with the law,” according to Mao Ning, a foreign ministry official.

On Sunday, the Chinese Cyberspace Administration stated that Micron goods pose unspecified security threats but provided no further details. It barred them from using computers that handled sensitive data.

This came after the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands barred China’s access to advanced processor chip technology on security grounds, at a time when the governing Communist Party is threatening to attack Taiwan and is becoming more belligerent towards its Asian neighbors.

China’s cybersecurity review does not target any specific countries or regions,” Mao explained. “We do not exclude technologies and products from any country.”

Supply disruptions and missed sales revenue have harmed businesses on both sides.

Washington and its allies’ restrictions on access to chips and methods for making them deter China’s ambitions to create its semiconductor sector. Potential sales to Chinese smartphone makers, chip foundries, and other clients have cost US vendors billions.

micron

The Chinese government defended its restriction on using components from US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc.

Mao said the US had put security limitations on over 1,200 Chinese enterprises “without any factual basis.” She accused Washington of exploiting national security to “unreasonably suppress Chinese companies.”

“This is economic coercion, and it is unacceptable,” Mao declared.

According to State Department spokeswoman Matthew Miller, the US administration is “engaging directly” with Beijing to “make our view clear” on the Micron embargo.

“We have very serious concerns,” Miller added. He stated of China, “This action appears inconsistent with the PRC’s assertions that it is open for business and committed to a transparent regulatory framework.”

According to Micron’s chief financial officer, Mark Murphy, the company would work with the Chinese authorities to assess the ban’s impact.

“We remain unclear as to what security concerns exist,” Murphy said during a JP Morgan technology industry conference call. “We have received no customer complaints about the security of our products.”

According to Murphy, Micron expects to lose sales similar to a single-digit percentage of total revenue, but the exact figure will depend on which customers and products are affected.

The Chinese government defended its restriction on using components from US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc.

Foreign Minister Qin Gang urged his Dutch counterpart on Tuesday for access to chipmaking technology that has been restricted for security reasons.

China requires a machine that uses ultraviolet light to etch minuscule circuits on next-generation chips and is only available from one Dutch manufacturer, ASML Holding NV. Without it, the ruling party’s aspirations to build semiconductors for cellphones, artificial intelligence, and other cutting-edge applications will be hampered.

“China has serious concerns about this,” Qin said. “We should work together to jointly protect the normal trade order between us” and “keep global industrial and supply chains stable.”

Wopke Hoekstra, the Dutch minister, stated that he “shared our national security concerns” but provided no indication that his government’s position had altered.

SOURCE – (AP)

Business

Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

Published

on

microsoft

BOSTON — Microsoft said Friday that it is still working to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into senior business officials’ email accounts in November and are attempting to enter consumer networks using stolen access data.

According to the software giant’s blog and regulatory filing, the hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data gained during the intrusion, which was exposed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems.

microsoft

Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

A corporate official declined to specify the source code and capabilities the hackers gained to further attack customers and systems. Microsoft claimed Friday that hackers obtained “secrets” from email contacts between the business and certain customers, including cryptographic secrets like passwords, certificates, and authentication keys, and that it was contacting them “to assist in mitigating measures.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a cloud computing business, revealed on January 24 that it was also an SVR hacking victim and had been notified of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with the revelation that it had been compromised.

“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus,” the company said Friday, adding that it may be utilizing acquired data “to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so.” According to cybersecurity experts, Microsoft’s admission that the SVR hack had not been contained highlights the risks of government and business relying heavily on the Redmond, Washington-based company’s software monoculture — and the fact that so many of its customers are linked via its global cloud network.

microsoft

Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security. “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.”

Tenable’s CEO, Amit Yoran, also published a statement expressing shock and dismay. He is among security pros who believe Microsoft is extremely secretive about its vulnerabilities and how it handles intrusions.

“We should all be furious that this keeps happening,” he continued. “These breaches aren’t isolated from each other and Microsoft’s shady security practices and misleading statements purposely obfuscate the whole truth.”

Microsoft said it has yet to establish if the incident will have a material impact on its profitability. It also stated that the intrusion’s persistence “reflects what has become a more broadly unprecedented global threat landscape, especially in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks.”

The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same ones responsible for the SolarWinds breach.

microsoft

Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

When Microsoft first reported the intrusion, it stated that the SVR unit got into its corporate email system and accessed the accounts of certain senior executives and staff from its cybersecurity and legal departments. It did not specify how many accounts were compromised.

At the time, Microsoft stated that it could terminate the hackers’ access to the compromised accounts on or around January 13. But by then, they had certainly established a footing.

It said they gained access via compromising credentials on a “legacy” test account but did not elaborate.

Microsoft’s newest disclosure comes three months after a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule went into effect, requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose breaches that potentially harm their businesses.

SOURCE – (AP)

Continue Reading

Business

OpenAI Has ‘Full Confidence’ In CEO Sam Altman After Investigation, Reinstates Him To Board

Published

on

openai altman

OpenAI has reinstated CEO Sam Altman to its board of directors and stated that it has “full confidence” in his leadership following the completion of an outside review into the company’s troubles.

The ChatGPT creator hired the law firm WilmerHale to investigate what caused the company to abruptly fire Altman in November, only to rehire him days later. After months of research, it discovered that Altman’s dismissal was a “consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust” between him and the previous board, according to an OpenAI summary of the conclusions released Friday. The whole report still needs to be released.

OpenAI also announced that three women have joined its board of directors: Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellman, former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, former Sony general counsel; and Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart.

altman

OpenAI Has ‘Full Confidence’ In CEO Sam Altman After Investigation, Reinstates Him To Board

The moves are an attempt by the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup to demonstrate to investors and consumers that it is working to overcome the internal tensions that nearly wrecked it last year and made global headlines.

“I’m pleased this whole thing is over,” Altman told reporters Friday, adding that he has been dismayed to see “people with an agenda” releasing material to hurt the firm or its goal and “pit us against each other.” At the same time, he stated that he has learnt from the experience and apologized for a disagreement with a former board member that could have been handled “with more grace and care.”

In a parting shot, two board members who voted to remove Altman before being forced out themselves wished the incoming board well but emphasized the importance of accountability when developing technology “as potentially world-changing” as OpenAI.

“We hope the new board does its job in governing OpenAI and holding it accountable to its mission,” ex-board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley said in a joint statement. “As we told the investigators, deception, manipulation, and resistance to thorough oversight should be unacceptable.”

For over three months, OpenAI provided scant information about what prompted its then-board of directors to remove Altman on November 17. A declaration that day stated that Altman was “not consistently candid in his communications” in a way that hampered the board’s ability to carry out its duties. He was also removed from the board, along with its chairman, Greg Brockman, who resigned as the company’s president.

Much of OpenAI’s disagreements have stemmed from its unconventional governance structure. Founded as a nonprofit to securely develop futuristic AI to benefit humanity, it is today a fast-growing major business run by a nonprofit board dedicated to its original mission.

The investigation determined that the preceding board operated within its authority. However, it also concluded that Altman’s “conduct did not mandate removal,” according to OpenAI. It stated that Altman and Brockman remained the appropriate leaders for the company.

“The review concluded there was a significant breakdown in trust between the prior board and Sam and Greg,” the board’s chair, Bret Taylor, told reporters on Friday. “And similarly concluded that the board acted in good faith, that the board believed at the time that its actions would mitigate some of the challenges that it perceived and didn’t anticipate some of the instability.”

The founders and leaders of OpenAI have long debated the threats posed by stronger AI systems. However, citing the law firm’s conclusions, Taylor stated that Altman’s firing “did not arise out of concerns regarding product safety or security.”

Taylor stated that it was not about OpenAI’s money or representations made to investors, customers, or business partners.

altman

OpenAI Has ‘Full Confidence’ In CEO Sam Altman After Investigation, Reinstates Him To Board

Days after his surprise dismissal, Altman and his supporters, with support from the majority of OpenAI’s workforce and close business partner Microsoft, orchestrated a comeback that returned Altman and Brockman to executive positions while forcing out board members Toner, a Georgetown University researcher; McCauley, a scientist at RAND Corporation; and another co-founder, Ilya Sutskever. Sutskever retained his position as chief scientist and publicly regretted his involvement in dismissing Altman.

“I think Ilya loves OpenAI,” Altman said Friday, expressing hope that they will continue to collaborate. However, he declined to comment on Sutskever’s present status at the business.

When Altman and Brockman returned to the company in November, they were not reinstated on the board. However, an “initial” new board of three men was constituted, led by Taylor, a former Salesforce and Facebook executive who previously chaired Twitter’s board before Elon Musk took over. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, the sole remaining member of the previous board, are the others.

(Quora and Taylor’s new business, Sierra, has AI chatbots that use OpenAI technology.)

After hiring the law firm in December, OpenAI stated that WilmerHale interviewed dozens of the company’s previous board members, current executives, advisers, and other witnesses. The corporation also stated that the law firm examined thousands of documents and other corporate acts. WilmerHale did not immediately reply to a response request on Friday.

The board also announced that it will make “improvements” to the company’s governance structure. It stated that it would implement new corporate governance principles, enhance the company’s procedures against conflicts of interest, establish a whistleblower hotline that would allow workers and contractors to submit anonymous reports, and form more board committees.

The company still faces difficulties, such as a lawsuit Musk filed against it. Musk co-chaired OpenAI’s board after its founding in 2015 and contributed to funding its early years. Musk claims that the corporation is abandoning its founding objective of chasing profits.

altman

OpenAI Has ‘Full Confidence’ In CEO Sam Altman After Investigation, Reinstates Him To Board

Legal experts have doubt that Musk’s arguments, which rely on an alleged breach of contract, will hold up in court.

However, it has already sparked internal debate within the company about its unusual governance structure, how “open” it should be about its research, and how to pursue what is known as artificial general intelligence, or AI systems that can perform as well as — or better than — humans in a wide range of tasks.

Taylor said Friday that OpenAI’s “mission-driven nonprofit” structure will remain unchanged as it pursues its aim of artificial general intelligence that benefits “all of humanity.”

“Our duties are to the mission, first and foremost, but the company — this amazing company that we’re in right now — was created to serve that mission,” said Taylor.

source – (ap)

Continue Reading

Computer

Microsoft Engineer Sounds Alarm On AI Image-Generator To US Officials And Company’s Board

Published

on

microsoft

A Microsoft developer is raising concerns about inappropriate and damaging pictures created too easily by the company’s artificial intelligence image-generator tool. On Wednesday, he submitted letters to US authorities and the tech giant’s board of directors, pressing them to intervene.

Shane Jones told The Associated Press that he considers himself a whistleblower and visited with U.S. Senate staffers last month to discuss his concerns.

microsoft

Microsoft Engineer Sounds Alarm On AI Image-Generator To US Officials And Company’s Board

The Federal Trade Commission confirmed receiving his letter on Wednesday but denied further comment.

Microsoft stated that it is committed to addressing employee concerns regarding corporate regulations and recognizes Jones’ “effort in studying and testing our latest technology to further enhance its safety.” It said it had advised him to use the company’s “robust internal reporting channels” to investigate and resolve the issues. CNBC was the first to report on the letters.

Jones, a principal software engineering lead who works on AI solutions for Microsoft’s retail customers, said he had spent three months attempting to address his safety concerns regarding Microsoft’s Copilot Designer, a tool that generates creative graphics based on written instructions. The technology is based on another AI picture generator, DALL-E 3, developed by Microsoft’s close business partner, OpenAI.

“One of the most concerning risks with Copilot Designer is when the product generates images that add harmful content despite a benign request from the user,” he said in his letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan. “For example, when using just the prompt, ‘car accident’, Copilot Designer has a tendency to randomly include an inappropriate, sexually objectified image of a woman in some of the pictures it creates.”

microsoft

Microsoft Engineer Sounds Alarm On AI Image-Generator To US Officials And Company’s Board

Other damaging information includes “political bias, underaged drinking and drug use, misuse of corporate trademarks and copyrights, conspiracy theories, and religion, to name a few,” he told the FTC. Jones said he frequently encouraged the business to remove the product from the market until it was safer or to update the age classification on smartphones to indicate that it is intended for mature audiences.

His letter to Microsoft’s board requests that it conduct an independent investigation into whether Microsoft is marketing dangerous goods “without disclosing known risks to consumers, including children.”

This is hardly Jones’ first public expression of his concerns. He said Microsoft first recommended he convey his findings directly to OpenAI.

When that did not work, he publicly posted a letter to OpenAI on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn in December, prompting a manager to warn him that Microsoft’s legal team “demanded that I delete the post, which I reluctantly did,” according to his letter to the board.

Jones has expressed concerns to the state attorney general in Washington, where Microsoft is located, and the United States Senate Commerce Committee.

microsoft

Microsoft Engineer Sounds Alarm On AI Image-Generator To US Officials And Company’s Board

Jones told the AP that while the “core issue” is with OpenAI’s DALL-E model, users who use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate AI photos will not see the same detrimental results because the two companies’ products have different safeguards.

“Many of the issues with Copilot Designer are already addressed with ChatGPT’s own safeguards,” he told me in a text message.

In 2022, several amazing AI image generators emerged, notably the second iteration of OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. That, and the subsequent release of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, increased public interest, putting commercial pressure on corporate behemoths like Microsoft and Google to create their versions.

However, without proper protections, the technology offers risks, including the ease with which users can create dangerous “deepfake” photographs of political figures, war zones, or nonconsensual nudity that appear to represent real individuals with identifiable faces. Google has temporarily removed its Gemini chatbot’s ability to produce photos of humans in response to controversy over how it depicted race and ethnicity, such as by portraying people of colour in Nazi-era military uniforms.

SOURCE – (AP)

Continue Reading

Trending