Technology

404 Media has seen user manuals for Mobile Fortify, ICE’s new facial recognition app which allows officers to instantly look up DHS, State Department, and state law enforcement databases by just pointing a phone at someone’s face.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250718041407/https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-supercharged-facial-recognition-app-of-200-million-images/

Imagine sending Google an encrypted question and getting back the exact results you wanted — without them having any way of knowing what your question was or what result they returned. The technique to do that is called Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).

Retro gaming YouTuber Once Were Nerd faces major fines and jail time for reviewing gaming handhelds that ship with preloaded ROMs.

Next week, on 22 and 23 July 2025, the High Court of Justice in London will hear the Wikimedia Foundation's legal challenge to the Categorisation Regulations of the United Kingdom (UK)'s Online Safety Act (OSA).

Windows 11 24H2 has a bug where Event Viewer flags a critical Firewall error (Windows Firewall With Advanced Security 2042 None).

Replacement is the only option if you break a Pixel Watch, but that could change soon.

You can just say no. You don't have to do any of this crap.

Claude Code users have been hit with unexpectedly restrictive usage limits. The problems, many of which have been aired on Claude Code’s GitHub page, seem to be concentrated among heavy users of the service, many of whom are on the $200-a-month Max plan.

Netflix wants to “double” ad revenue this year.

Dictionary website isn’t offering refunds and is now only available with ads.

A talented developer has simulated a significant portion of Windows XP on the web, and you can access and you can play around with it using a simple link.

Dorsey's initial investment has gotten the new nonprofit "andOtherStuff" up and running, and he worked on some of its initial iOS apps.

Roblox will still monitor the conversations for ‘critical harm.’

A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.

A chief economist at investment giant Apollo says the top ten AI stocks are more detached from reality than the tech titans of the 1990s were. His chart is a stark warning that history is about to repeat itself.

Amazon Prime subscribers are under attack — here’s what you need to know.

Archived version: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/07/17/amazon-warns-220-million-customers-of-prime-account-attacks/

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.17-115437/https://www.ft.com/content/9ddeb0ca-d334-4fc0-9a5d-c1945bbfb1f5

Paywalls blocked: https://archive.is/2025.07.17-182607/https://www.theverge.com/news/709209/news-media-alliance-12ft-io-takedown-paywall

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.17-070155/https://www.theverge.com/news/708481/microsoft-teams-mercedes-benz-integration-in-car-camera-support

Key findings

• Between March and June 2025, Proofpoint Threat Research observed three Chinese state-sponsored threat actors conduct targeted phishing campaigns against the Taiwanese semiconductor industry. In all cases, the motive was most likely espionage.
• Targets of these campaigns ranged from organizations involved in the manufacturing, design, and testing of semiconductors and integrated circuits, wider equipment and services supply chain entities within this sector, as well as financial investment analysts specializing in the Taiwanese semiconductor market.
• This activity likely reflects China’s strategic priority to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency and decrease reliance on international supply chains and technologies, particularly in light of US and Taiwanese export controls.

China-aligned threat actors have routinely targeted the semiconductor industry for many years. This activity likely aligns with China’s internal strategic economic priorities, which have increasingly emphasized the importance of semiconductor technologies in successive national economic development initiatives, including the Five-Year Plans. A growing focus on ensuring strategic self-reliance for semiconductor technologies, accelerated by external pressures from export controls, has likely reinforced the priority of intelligence collection operations directed at this industry. This is reflected in China-aligned espionage activity tracked by the Proofpoint Threat Research team, where we are currently observing an elevated level of targeting of the industry by China-aligned groups compared to historical activity.

Between March and June 2025, Proofpoint identified multiple China-aligned threat actors specifically targeting Taiwanese organizations within the semiconductor industry. This included a China-aligned threat actor tracked as UNK_FistBump targeting semiconductor design, manufacturing, and supply chain organizations in employment-themed phishing campaigns resulting in the delivery of Cobalt Strike or the custom Voldemort backdoor.

Additionally, Proofpoint observed another China-aligned threat actor tracked as UNK_DropPitch targeting individuals in multiple major investment firms who specialize in investment analysis specifically within the Taiwanese semiconductor industry. This UNK_DropPitch targeting is exemplary of intelligence collection priorities spanning less obvious areas of the semiconductor ecosystem beyond just design and manufacturing entities. Finally, we also observed an actor tracked as UNK_SparkyCarp conducting credential phishing activity against a Taiwanese semiconductor company using a custom Adversary in the Middle (AiTM) phishing kit.

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