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Submission + - Chicago Public Schools lost over $20 million in electronics in one year, report (cbsnews.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In all, more than $20 million were lost – as about students failed to return 77,505 laptops and other electronic devices within a year. This is even though the district spends millions to track such devices.

The underlying concern is that taxpayer dollars will be used to replace them.

Submission + - Judges given approval to use AI to write legal opinions (apnews.com)

Press2ToContinue writes: From the "What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong" department:

LONDON (AP) — England’s 1,000-year-old legal system — still steeped in traditions that include wearing wigs and robes — has taken a cautious step into the future by giving judges permission to use artificial intelligence to help produce rulings.

The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary last month said AI could help write opinions but stressed it shouldn’t be used for research or legal analyses because the technology can fabricate information and provide misleading, inaccurate and biased information.

“Judges do not need to shun the careful use of AI,” said Master of the Rolls Geoffrey Vos, the second-highest ranking judge in England and Wales. “But they must ensure that they protect confidence and take full personal responsibility for everything they produce.”

At a time when scholars and legal experts are pondering a future when AI could replace lawyers, help select jurors or even decide cases, the approach spelled out Dec. 11 by the judiciary is restrained. But for a profession slow to embrace technological change, it’s a proactive step as government and industry — and society in general — react to a rapidly advancing technology alternately portrayed as a panacea and a menace.

Submission + - Side channel attack against post-quantum encryption algorithm (thehackernews.com) 1

jd writes: Crystals-Kyber was chosen to be the US government's post-quantum cryptography system of choice last year, but a side-channel attack has been identified.

From TFA, NIST says that this is an implementation-specific attack (the reference implementation) and not a vulnerability in Kyber itself.

From TFA:
The exploit relates to "side-channel attacks on up to the fifth-order masked implementations of CRYSTALS-Kyber in ARM Cortex-M4 CPU," Elena Dubrova, Kalle Ngo, and Joel Gärtner of KTH Royal Institute of Technology said in a paper.

CRYSTALS-Kyber is one of four post-quantum algorithms selected by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) after a rigorous multi-year effort to identify a set of next-generation encryption standards that can withstand huge leaps in computing power.

One of the popular countermeasures to harden cryptographic implementations against physical attacks is masking, which randomizes the computation and detaches the side-channel information from the secret-dependent cryptographic variables.

The attack method devised by the researchers involves a neural network training method called recursive learning to help recover message bits with a high probability of success.

The researchers also developed a new message recovery method called cyclic rotation that manipulates ciphertexts to increase the leakage of message bits, thereby boosting the success rate and making it possible to extract the session key.

"Such a method allows us to train neural networks that can recover a message bit with the probability above 99% from high-order masked implementations," they added.

When reached for comment, NIST told The Hacker News that the approach does not break the algorithm itself and that the findings don't affect the standardization process of CRYSTALS-Kyber.

On the mailing list, D. J. Bernstein added this:

Ive been recently carrying out code analysis for some of the KEM implementations submitted to SUPERCOP. In the case of kyber*/ref, I noticed various "/KYBER_Q" occurrences with variable inputs. In at least one case, line 190 of crypto_kem/kyber768/ref/poly.c, this is clearly a secret input. I'd expect measurable, possibly exploitable, timing variations

Canada

Facebook Breached Canadian Privacy Laws, Watchdogs Say (bloomberg.com) 33

Privacy watchdogs are accusing Facebook of "serious contraventions of Canadian privacy laws" in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. From a report: In a joint report released Thursday, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia said the Menlo Park, California-based technology giant didn't obtain proper consent from users to disclose their personal data, didn't have adequate safeguards to protect that data and didn't take proper responsibility for the information under its control. "Facebook's refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company," Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien said in a news release. "Their privacy framework was empty, and their vague terms were so elastic that they were not meaningful for privacy protection." Therrien's office plans to take the matter to Federal Court to "seek an order to force the company to correct its privacy practices," according to the release.
Education

Algeria Shuts Off Entire Country's Internet To Stop Students From Cheating (gizmodo.com) 123

Algeria has begun instituting nationwide internet blackouts to prevent students from leaking high school diploma exams online. Gizmodo reports: The country will turn off mobile and landline internet service across the country for an hour at a time during the exam period, which started on Wednesday and runs through June 25. The 11 blackouts are scheduled for an hour after each exam begins. In 2016, exam questions were reportedly leaked online and authorities were dissatisfied with a less stringent attempt to limit social media during the 2017 exams. The sweeping shutdown will also block Facebook for the entirety of the exam period, Education Minister Nouria Benghabrit told Algerian newspaper Annahar, according to the BBC. Benghabrit reportedly said they are "not comfortable" with their choice to shut down all internet service, but that they "should not passively stand in front of such a possible leak." Metal detectors are reportedly being used to make sure that no one brings any internet-enabled devices into the exam halls. Surveillance cameras and phone jammers are also being used at the locations where the exams are being printed.
Transportation

Tesla's Autopilot To Get 'Full Self-Driving Feature' In August (reuters.com) 180

Earlier today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that its Autopilot driver assistance system will get full self-driving features following a software upgrade in August. Reuters reports: Autopilot, a form of advanced cruise control, handles some driving tasks and warns those behind the wheel they are always responsible for the vehicle's safe operation. But a spate of recent crashes has brought the system under regulatory scrutiny. "To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features," Musk tweeted here on Sunday, replying to a Twitter user.

Musk said the autopilot issue during lane-merging is better in the current software and will be fully fixed in the August update. However, it was not clear what self-driving features would be included in the August update. Tesla's documentation on its website about the "full self-driving capabilities" package says that it is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval.

Digital

Sweden Tries To Halt Its March To Total Cashlessness (bloomberg.com) 332

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A key committee of Swedish lawmakers wants to force the country's biggest banks to handle cash in an effort to halt the nation's march toward complete cashlessness. Parliament's Riksbank committee, which is in the process of reviewing the central bank law, proposed making it mandatory for banks to offer cash withdrawals and handle daily receipts. The requirement would apply to banks that provide checking accounts and have more than 70 billion kronor ($8 billion) in deposits from the Swedish public, according to a report.

The lawmakers said there needs to be "reasonable access to those services in all of Sweden," and that 99 percent of Swedes should have a maximum distance of 25 kilometers (16 miles) to the nearest cash withdrawal. The requirement doesn't state how banks should offer those services, and lenders can choose whether to use a third party, machines or over-the-counter services. The move is a response to Sweden's rapid transformation as it becomes one of the most cashless societies in the world. That's led to concerns that some people are finding it increasingly difficult to cope without access to mobile phones or bank cards. There are also fears around what would happen if the digital payments systems suddenly crashed.

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