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Ransomware took an American gas pipeline operator offlineHackers attacked an American natural-gas compression facility with ransomware, according to an advisory from US officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.The attack started because an employee clicked a spearphishing link, a fake link that opened the door to the hackers. They accessed the IT and then industrial networks.Impact: The immediate effect was that hackers encrypted data on the victim’s networks. The company was unable to read real-time data, prompting a shutdown lasting two days. Both IT and industrial processes were attacked. The hackers’ actions took human-machine interfaces offline but “at no time did the threat actor obtain the ability to control or manipulate operations,” officials said, a crucially important line that remained uncrossed.The attack, which came from “commodity ransomware” not specifically designed to attack industrial operations, did not touch programmable logic controllers, which are the devices that directly control the pipeline and related facilities.Industrial targets: The US officials released the advisory as a warning to other industrial operators. Earlier this month, a report spotlighted ransomware dubbed EKANS that specifically targets industrial networks. Into the future: Ransomware is a money-making business whose operators are looking for the biggest cashout. Industrial companies like pipeline operators are an attractive target because shutdowns can be especially costly.This company, however, failed in its security efforts: its emergency response plan didn’t consider cyberattacks, and significant “gaps in cybersecurity knowledge” were blamed for the lack of plans for this kind of scenario.Ransomware is an estimated $25 billion illicit industry worldwide, a clear sign that the incentives are lined up to keep the attacks coming. ShareLinkImagePhoto by Mike Benna on UnsplashShareLinkImagePhoto by Mike Benna on UnsplashSpecial issue: predictionsMarch/April 2020What AI still can’t doArtificial intelligence won’t be very smart if computers don’t grasp cause and effect. That’s something even humans have trouble with.Climate Change3hHumans are producing a far larger share of methane emissions than we thoughtHumans are responsible for 25% to 40% more of the total share of methane emissions than previously estimated, according to a new study in Nature….The methane problem: Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases: about 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, it’s responsible for about a quarter of global warming. It’s produced naturally by animals, volcanoes, and wetlands, but it’s also a byproduct of oil and gas production. It’s this last form of methane that the study focused on.How they worked it out: Researchers used ice core measurements from Greenland from 1750 to 2013, plus previous data from Antarctica. They melted the ice to release the small quantities of ancient air trapped inside. These act a bit like time capsules, allowing us to get a snapshot of the methane in the atmosphere at the time. They used the isotope carbon-14, which comes from living things, as a proxy to determine whether the methane they found came from biological sources. Until 1870, around the time we started using fossil fuels, almost all methane came from these sources. After that, there was a rise in methane that didn’t have any carbon-14, from ancient fossil sources in which the isotope had disappeared. That allowed the researchers to compare natural methane with methane caused by human activity.A possible upside? If more methane is created by humans, there’s an even bigger opportunity to rein in how much we release. Methane stays in the atmosphere for only a decade (compared with 200 years for carbon dioxide). So efforts to cut methane, which mostly comes from the production and transportation of gas and oil, could pay big dividends right away.Sign up here to our daily newsletter The Download to get your dose of the latest must-read news from the world of emerging tech. ShareLinkImageAssociated PressExpandArtificial IntelligenceFeb 19Artificial-intelligence development should be regulated, says Elon MuskRegulators, rein us in: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said development of advanced artificial intelligence, including AI created by his own companies, should be regulated. He tweeted the remark…Timely: The European Union unveiled a plan today to regulate “high risk” AI systems. New draft laws are expected to follow at the end of 2020. Last year 42 different countries signed up to a promise to take steps to regulate AI. However, the US and China currently seem to be prioritizing innovation and establishing supremacy in the field of AI over regulation and safety concerns. Long-standing worries: This is far from the first time Musk has expressed concerns about the potential negative consequences of AI development. He’s previously described it as “our biggest existential threat” and “potentially more dangerous than nukes.” In 2018 he told Recode that he thought a government committee should spend a year or two “gaining insight about AI” and then come up with regulations to ensure that it is developed and used safely.To have more stories like this delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our Webby-nominated AI newsletter The Algorithm. It’s free.ShareLinkTaggedArtificial IntelligenceImageAssociated PressExpandEmTech Digital 2020Building AI you can trustAt MIT Technology Review’s AI conference, come find ideas, inspiration, and practical guidance on deploying AI in organizations in 2020.01.AI strategy studioAre you confident in your AI strategy? Start with an expert-driven workshop full of real-life case studies on how companies have implemented AI.02.Are you AI ready?Trust is the theme for this year’s event: algorithms we can trust, data we can trust, decisions we can trust. 03.Artificial common sense: what it takes to get AI to actually understandIs artificial general intelligence possible? How far off is it? And what’s standing in the way?04.Solving biasSome practical approaches to dealing with problems of bias in algorithms and data.Tech PolicyFeb 19The EU just released weakened guidelines for regulating artificial intelligenceThe news: The European Union’s newly released white paper containing guidelines for regulating AI acknowledges the potential for artificial intelligence to “lead to breaches of fundamental rights,”…—Making sure AI is trained on representative data—Requiring companies to keep detailed documentation of how the AI was developed—Telling citizens when they are interacting with an AI—Requiring human oversight for AI systemsThe criticism: The new criteria are much weaker than the ones suggested in a version of the white paper leaked in January. That draft suggested a moratorium on facial recognition in public spaces for five years, while this one calls only for a “broad European debate” on facial recognition policy. Michael Veale, a digital policy lecturer at University College London, notes that the commission often takes more extreme positions in early drafts as a political tactic, so it’s not surprising that the official paper does not suggest a moratorium. However, he says it’s still disappointing because it comes on the heels of a similarly lackluster report from the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which was considered “heavily captured by industry.”Meanwhile, the paper’s guidelines for AI apply only to what it deems “high-risk” technologies, says Frederike Kaltheuner, a tech policy fellow at Mozilla. “High-risk” can include certain industries, like health care, or certain types, like biometric surveillance. But the suggestions wouldn’t apply to advertising technology or consumer privacy, which Kaltheuner says can have big effects and which aren’t being addressed under GDPR.The white paper is only a set of guidelines. The European Commission will start drafting legislation based on these proposals and comments at the end of 2020. What else: The EU today also released a paper on “European data strategy” that suggests it wants to create a “single European data space”—meaning a European data giant that will challenge the big tech companies of Silicon Valley.ShareLinkExpandSponsoredHow artificial intelligence is making health care more humanMIT Technology Review Insights surveyed more than 900 health-care professionals on their use of artificial intelligence today. This new report explores the major findings.Read moreBlockchainFeb 19Michael Bloomberg has taken Andrew Yang’s place as the cryptocurrency candidateMichael Bloomberg has unveiled a stance on cryptocurrency policy, making the businessman and former mayor of New York the only active Democratic presidential candidate to directly address the topic. …He’s got a plan for that: As US president, Bloomberg would “work with regulators to provide clearer rules” for cryptocurrency users and businesses, according to a new campaign document describing his plans for financial industry reform. “Cryptocurrencies have become an asset class worth hundreds of billions of dollars, yet regulatory oversight remains fragmented and undeveloped,” the document states. It says that Bloomberg would seek clarity on hot-button issues including digital token sales, consumer protection, requirements for financial institutions that hold digital assets, and taxation of cryptocurrencies.Vaguely regulated: For years, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and industry advocates have called for the federal government to answer a number of important questions. When is a token sale a security sale? What measures should cryptocurrency exchanges and other financial institutions be required to take to protect their customers’ digital money? And there is all sorts of confusion around the issue of taxation. Some have argued that when it refuses to clearly answer these questions though new regulations or laws, the government risks losing innovative companies to other markets.“Healthy competition”: Bloomberg seems to agree that a lack of regulatory clarity is holding back innovation: “For all the promise of the blockchain, Bitcoin, and initial coin offerings, there’s also plenty of hype, fraud, and criminal activity.” The campaign says its focus on crypto is part of a larger emphasis on innovations that can provide “healthy competition” in the financial services industry. Crypto, the campaign issue? Cryptocurrency still has relatively few users, but as Bloomberg notes, hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. Besides that, Facebook and other technology companies are considering issuing their own digital currencies, raising questions that policymakers—and possibly the next US president—will need to answer about the future of money. Andrew Yang, who recently exited the race, had made a similar promise to seek clarity from regulators. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has spoken out only once about crypto since he’s been in office, tweeting in July that he is “not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”Keep up with the fast-moving and sometimes baffling world of cryptocurrencies and blockchains with our weekly newsletter Chain Letter. Subscribe here. It’s free!ShareLinkTaggedElection 2020ImageAssociated PressExpandArtificial IntelligenceFeb 19An Indian politician is using deepfake technology to win new votersThe news: A deepfake of the president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Manoj Tiwari, went viral on WhatsApp in the country earlier this month, ahead of legislative assembly elections in…The purpose: The BJP has partnered with political communications firm The Ideaz Factory to create deepfakes that let it target voters across the over 20 different languages used in India. The party told Vice that the Tiwari deepfake reached approximately 15 million people in 5,800 WhatsApp groups.Causing alarm: This isn’t the first time deepfakes have popped up during a political campaign. For example, last December, researchers made a fake video of the two candidates in the UK’s general election endorsing each other. It wasn’t supposed to sway the vote, however—merely to raise awareness about deepfake technology. This case in India seems to be the first time deepfakes have been used for a political campaign. The big risk is that we reach a point where people can no longer trust what they see or hear. In that scenario, a video wouldn’t even need to be digitally altered for people to denounce it as fake. It’s not hard to imagine the corrosive impact that would have on an already fragile political landscape.Sign up here to our daily newsletter The Download to get your dose of the latest must-read news from the world of emerging tech. ShareLinkImageYouTube | BJPExpand
