An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: AI can reverse engineer machine code and find vulnerabilities in ancient legacy architectures, says Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich, who used his own Apple II code from 40 years ago as an example. Russinovich wrote: "We are entering an era of automated, AI-accelerated vulnerability discovery that will be leveraged by both defenders and attackers."
In May 1986, Russinovich wrote a utility called Enhancer for the Apple II personal computer. The utility, written in 6502 machine language, added the ability to use a variable or BASIC expression for the destination of a GOTO, GOSUB, or RESTORE command, whereas without modification Applesoft BASIC would only accept a line number. Russinovich had Claude Opus 4.6, released early last month, look over the code. It decompiled the machine language and found several security issues, including a case of "silent incorrect behavior" where, if the destination line was not found, the program would set the pointer to the following line or past the end of the program, instead of reporting an error. The fix would be to check the carry flag, which is set if the line is not found, and branch to an error.
The existence of the vulnerability in Apple II type-in code has only amusement value, but the ability of AI to decompile embedded code and find vulnerabilities is a concern. "Billions of legacy microcontrollers exist globally, many likely running fragile or poorly audited firmware like this," said one comment to Russinovich's post.
In May 1986, Russinovich wrote a utility called Enhancer for the Apple II personal computer. The utility, written in 6502 machine language, added the ability to use a variable or BASIC expression for the destination of a GOTO, GOSUB, or RESTORE command, whereas without modification Applesoft BASIC would only accept a line number. Russinovich had Claude Opus 4.6, released early last month, look over the code. It decompiled the machine language and found several security issues, including a case of "silent incorrect behavior" where, if the destination line was not found, the program would set the pointer to the following line or past the end of the program, instead of reporting an error. The fix would be to check the carry flag, which is set if the line is not found, and branch to an error.
The existence of the vulnerability in Apple II type-in code has only amusement value, but the ability of AI to decompile embedded code and find vulnerabilities is a concern. "Billions of legacy microcontrollers exist globally, many likely running fragile or poorly audited firmware like this," said one comment to Russinovich's post.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
LONDEN (ANP/AFP) - Het Britse marineschip HMS Dragon heeft Portsmouth verlaten en is onderweg naar de Middellandse Zee om de "Britse verdediging in de regio te versterken". Daar vond begin deze maand een droneaanval plaats op een Britse basis op Cyprus. Naderhand verweet de oppositie in het Verenigd Koninkrijk de regering daar te traag op te reageren en daarmee de internationale reputatie van het land te grabbel te gooien.
Het Britse ministerie van Defensie zegt dat de marine de HMS Dragon in hoog tempo gereed heeft gemaakt om ingezet te worden. Er zou in zes dagen voor zes weken aan werk zijn verricht. Het vaartuig wordt omschreven als "een van de beste luchtverdedigingsschepen ter wereld" en beschikt over middelen om drones en raketten neer te halen.
Dat het schip nu pas wordt ingezet, leidde in het VK tot politiek getouwtrek. De centrumlinkse regering verweet de conservatieve oppositie de krijgsmacht met bezuinigingen verzwakt te hebben.
KEULEN (ANP/DPA) - Piloten van Lufthansa in Duitsland hebben de oproep gekregen om donderdag en vrijdag 48 uur lang te staken. Vakbond Vereinigung Cockpit doet die oproep vanwege een oplopend conflict over pensioenen. Naar verwachting raakt de actie vluchten die vanuit Duitsland vertrekken.
Het is de bedoeling dat de stakingen geen hinder opleveren voor vluchten naar bestemmingen in Egypte, Azerbeidzjan, Bahrein, Irak, Israël, Jemen, Jordanië, Qatar, Koeweit, Saudi-Arabië, Oman, Libanon en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten. De vakbond zag vorige week al af van stakingen vanwege de spanningen in het Midden-Oosten, die veel vliegverkeer raakten en voor veel gestrande reizigers in de regio zorgden.
Piloten van de Duitse luchtvaartmaatschappij staakten in februari ook. Daardoor gingen ongeveer 800 vluchten niet door en werden 100.000 passagiers benadeeld.
The US-Israeli bombardment has once again underlined Donald Trump’s indifference to international law. A stronger EU can be a vital counterweight
When European leaders were blindsided in January by Donald Trump’s unilateral abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, their immediate response was to hedge their bets. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, affirmed that the principles of international law must always be respected, but also asserted that Mr Maduro lacked legitimacy. As a new Trump-compliant leadership emerged in Caracas, Europe’s attention drifted to crises closer to home.
The dilemmas and dangers posed by Mr Trump’s war of choice in Iran – again initiated with no attempt to consult allies or gain US congressional approval – are not so easily swerved. The US president has berated and mocked Sir Keir Starmer over a lack of full-throated support for his latest military adventure. He has threatened Spain with a trade embargo, after its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described the joint US-Israeli assault on Tehran as “unjustified and dangerous”, and refused to sanction the use of military bases. Even Mr Trump’s close ideological ally, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is under pressure from an electorate deeply hostile to involvement in another open-ended Middle East conflict with unpredictable consequences.
Continue reading...Bad actors have treated equality as a zero sum game, with women falsely portrayed as ‘winning’. Feeling they have to compete, young men are lashing out
Last week, results from a global survey signalled a rise in worrying attitudes towards women among young men. A team from the pollsters Ipsos and King’s College London found that nearly a third (31%) of gen Z men believe that a woman should always obey her husband, a fifth (21%) believe that she should never initiate sex, and 33% believe that women should let their husbands have the final word on important decisions.
There’s a limit to how much can be drawn from a worldwide survey that draws averages from vastly different cultures and economies. We cannot ask respondents what they meant by their answers, nor how they reconcile apparently contradictory views: younger men are more likely than older generations to call themselves feminists and to find successful women attractive, yet some also say women should be subordinate. Nor does the data tell us whether the same men hold these views.
Continue reading...Former Sinn Féin leader being sued by three men injured in IRA bombings in 1976 and 1996
A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary.
Adams, 77, is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996.
Continue reading...Widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk replaces husband on 16-member panel of military training facility
Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, to a key advisory board of the US Air Force Academy.
The 37-year-old joins a number of other loyalists to the president on the 16-member panel of the academy’s board of visitors, which according to its website “inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters” of the Colorado Springs military training facility.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Report suggests only 1% of annual spend on food and drink adverts will be affected after industry lobbying
The junk food ad ban intended to curb childhood obesity will affect only 1% of the £2.4bn spent annually on advertising food and drink, and may prove a “paper tiger”, ministers have been told.
The government has hailed the ban on advertising foods high in fat, salt and sugar before 9pm on TV and completely online, which came into force on 5 January, as a decisive and world-leading move that will remove 7.2bn calories from UK children’s diets every year.
Continue reading...NYPD officers responded to the alert, days after two men threw homemade explosives at Gracie Mansion
The New York police department (NYPD) responded to a reported suspicious device near Gracie Mansion on Tuesday afternoon, days after two men threw homemade explosives during protests outside mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home in what authorities have called an act of “ISIS-inspired terrorism”.
The NYPD posted an advisory on X, which said: “Due to a suspicious device, East End Avenue between East 85th and East 87th Street, as well as East 86th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue are closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Continue reading...Another recent HyperCard discovery (that isn’t somehow in the Internet Archive): an “expanded book” version of William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive).
De oorlog in het Midden-Oosten stuwt de olieprijzen omhoog en dat is te merken bij het tankstation. Dinsdag kostte een liter diesel 2,52 euro – een record. Dat is zelfs hoger dan de prijs voor benzine. Vanwaar dat verschil?
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Ransomware, malware-as-a-service, infostealers benefit MOIS, too
Iranian government-backed snoops are increasingly using cybercrime malware and ransomware infrastructure in their operations - not just hiding behind criminal masks as a cover for destructive cyber activity, according to security researchers.…
Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
Noodgedwongen krijgt het boek ‘Zoon, waar ben je?’ van Daniël Krol uit Sleeuwijk een sombere toevoeging. Vorige week werd een schoen en voet van zijn zoon Yoran gevonden. Een grootschalige zoekactie in de Dordtse Kil leverde afgelopen maandag niets op.
