Russia says it tests new laser defences against drones
MOSCOW, June 13 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it had conducted large-scale tests of new laser-based systems to defend against drones.
A government statement described the new technology as "promising" and said it had been tested against various types of drone in different weather conditions.
It said the anti-drone lasers would become part of a "universal air defence system" that President Vladimir Putin said this week Russia needed to build.
"The test results will be used to refine existing models and create systems capable of providing reliable protection against modern air attack weapons. Conducting tests allows us to move on to serial production and upscaling," the statement said. An accompanying video showed charred debris from a destroyed drone.
Both sides have deployed drones on a huge scale in the Russia-Ukraine war, using them to spot and hit targets not only on the battlefield but way beyond the front lines.
Ukrainian drones have frequently struck sites deep inside Russia such as oil depots, refineries and airfields, highlighting the need for Moscow to boost its defences.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian drones smuggled close to air bases in trucks inflicted serious damage to Russia's long-range bomber fleet.
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The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Why does this billionaire have 100 kids in 12 countries?
Pavel Durov is a Russian-born billionaire whose interests include doing half-naked photoshoots with baby goats and having lots and lots of (human) kids. The 40-year-old billionaire founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram revealed last year– in a post on his own app – that while he isn't married and prefers to live alone, he has over 100 biological children in 12 countries via sperm donation. Durov's reproductive choices made headlines again this week after the tech tycoon told the French political magazine Le Point that he is going to leave his fortune, estimated at almost $14bn, to all of his children. Durov has six children he fathered naturally with three different partners as well as the children he has via sperm donation. 'They are all my children and will all have the same rights. I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death,' he told Le Point. What possessed Durov, who was charged last year in France over allegations that Telegram is being used for illicit activity, to populate the world with so many mini-mes? (He has denied failing to cooperate with authorities and Telegram has denied having poor moderation.) Well, like Elon Musk and a number of other tech types, Durov is a pronatalist who is worried about global fertility rates declining. He's chosen to take a hands-on approach to tackling the issue, funding free IVF treatments for women at AltraVita IVF Clinic in Moscow for anyone who uses his sperm. If you're interested, and I'm sure that a lot of people will be now that Durov has laid out the terms of his will, he's still got sperm on ice at the clinic. Durov first donated his sperm over 15 years ago, in order to help a friend. Then, he said in his Telegram post last year, he realised he ought to donate more widely. 'The boss of the clinic told me that 'high quality donor material' was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples,' Durov said in the post. Durov added that he wants to 'help destigmatize the whole notion of sperm donation and incentivize more healthy men to do it.' Having used a sperm donor to conceive my own child, I'm all for destigmatizing sperm donation. Particularly as there is a major lack of sperm donors among certain demographics: at one point last year, for example, there were only a dozen Black sperm donors at the four main cryobanks in the US. But, and this is a very big but, there is an enormous difference between destigmatizing artificial insemination and one person thinking it is their 'civic duty' to conceive 100-plus children. Allowing a single individual to procreate so prolifically raises complex ethical issues. There's the possibility of accidental incest in the future, as well as the potential psychological impact that stems from someone discovering they have 100 siblings. There are also potential medical problems: earlier this year it was reported that the sperm of a man with a rare cancer-causing mutation was used to conceive at least 67 children. Is Durov even allowed to donate to so many different couples? The short answer is yes. The law regarding how many children can be conceived from one donor is complicated and varies from country to country. In places like France there are strict national limits while in the US (and Russia) there is no national law limiting the number of donations one person can make. Reputable cryobanks, however, do claim to have their own self-imposed limits. The European Sperm Bank applies a worldwide limit of 75 families for each sperm donor. California Cryobank, one of the largest providers in the US, has said it tries to limit donations to about 25-30 families. However these cryobanks are also extremely expensive, particularly after the pandemic, when shortages meant spermflation kicked in, and there is a completely unregulated market for sperm via Facebook groups and private websites where people can match with potential donors. This has allowed unscrupulous people like Jonathan Jacob Meijer of the Netherlands to father hundreds of children. As artificial insemination becomes more common, there is a desperate need to better regulate the industry and limit the number of children conceived from a single sperm donor. Indeed, Sweden, along with seven other countries including Belgium, raised the topic with EU ministers this week. 'This issue has been left unresolved for too long,' an official from Belgium told POLITICO, adding that an 'international limit is a first step in the right direction.' Let's hope that these limits get put in place sooner rather than later. Because I have an inkling that Elon Musk, who seems to be going a little off the rails, might take all the chatter about Durov's progeny as a personal challenge. These include messages like: 'Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?' The Guardian reports that this is the 'latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world's most restrictive laws'. The caveat here is that overdiagnosis could be contributing to this increasing. Per Axios, one study 'found that routine skin exams have increased and pathologists now more often classify ambiguous lesions as melanoma'. (You should still get yourself checked and avoid tanning beds!) The judge who did this is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who previously worked for a conservative Christian legal activist group and has made his anti-abortion views very clear. Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion Hundreds of ambitious conservative women gathered at the Young Women's Leadership Summit this week, an annual conference organized by the rightwing Turning Point USA. They wore buttons that said things like 'My Favorite Season Is the Fall of Feminism' and 'I Don't Need a Degree to Succeed' while listening to inspiring lectures about how their real calling in life is to stay in the kitchen. At one point Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder, encouraged a high school freshman to focus on husband-hunting rather than higher education. 'I think there's an argument to bring back the 'MRS degree',' Kirk said. We've got to bomb the oppressed brown women in order to liberate them, don't you understand? Mona Eltahawy looks at the weaponization of women's rights to justify war from Afghanistan to Iran. In 2024, weightlifting was the fastest-growing sport among American women. Vox looks at changing body ideals and the way in which strength training ushers in 'a world that promises to make women bigger instead of smaller'. The president's granddaughter, clearly inspired by Trump's fake shift at McDonald's last year, posted a video of herself 'working' at Dunkin' Donuts. A wild monkey in Hong Kong recently went viral after getting filmed tearing up a sign telling people not to feed the animals. While no monkeys were available for comment, I suspect this may be a case of gorilla warfare. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Internet users advised to change passwords after 16bn logins exposed
Internet users have been told to change their passwords and upgrade their digital security after researchers claimed to have revealed the scale of sensitive information – 16bn login records – potentially available to cybercriminals. Researchers at Cybernews, an online tech publication, said they had found 30 datasets stuffed with credentials harvested from malicious software known as 'infostealers' and leaks. The researchers said the datasets were exposed 'only briefly' but amounted to 16bn login records, with an unspecified number of overlapping records – meaning it is difficult to say definitively how many accounts or people have been exposed. Cybernews said the credentials could open access to services including Facebook, Apple and Google – although there had been no 'centralised data breach' at those companies. Bob Diachenko, the Ukrainian cybersecurity specialist behind the research, said the datasets had become temporarily available after being poorly stored on remote servers – before being removed again. Diachenko said he was able to download the files and would aim to contact individuals and companies that had been exposed. 'It will take some time of course because it is an enormous amount of data,' he said. Diachenko said the information he had seen in infostealer logs included login URLs to Apple, Facebook and Google login pages. Apple and Facebook's parent, Meta, have been contacted for comment. A Google spokesperson said the data reported by Cybernews did not stem from a Google data breach – and recommended people use tools like Google's password manager to protect their accounts. Internet users are also able to check if their email has been compromised in a data breach by using the website Cybernews said the information seen in the datasets followed a 'clear structure: URL, followed by login details and a password'. Diachenko said the data appeared to be '85% infostealers' and about 15% from historical data breaches such as a leak suffered by LinkedIn. Experts said the research underlined the need to update passwords regularly and adopt tough security measures such as multifactor authentication – or combining a password with another form of verification such as a code texted from a phone. Other recommended measures include passkeys, a password-free method championed by Google and Facebook's owner, Meta. 'While you'd be right to be startled at the huge volume of data exposed in this leak it's important to note that there is no new threat here: this data will have already likely have been in circulation,' said Peter Mackenzie, the director of incident response and readiness at the cybersecurity firm Sophos. Mackenzie said the research underlined the scale of data that can be accessed by online criminals. 'What we are understanding is the depth of information available to cybercriminals.' He added: 'It is an important reminder to everyone to take proactive steps to update passwords, use a password manager and employ multifactor authentication to avoid credential issues in the future.' Toby Lewis, the global head of threat analysis at the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, said the data flagged in the research is hard to verify but infostealers – the malware reportedly behind the data theft – are 'very much real and in use by bad actors'. He said: 'They don't access a user's account but instead scrape information from their browser cookies and metadata. If you're following good practice of using password managers, turning on two-factor authentication and checking suspicious logins, this isn't something you should be greatly worried about.' Cybernews said none of the datasets have been reported previously barring one revealed in May with 184m records. It described the datasets as a 'blueprint for mass exploitation' including 'account takeover, identity theft, and highly targeted phishing'. The researchers added: 'The only silver lining here is that all of the datasets were exposed only briefly: long enough for researchers to uncover them, but not long enough to find who was controlling vast amounts of data.' Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said the news was a reminder to carry out 'password spring cleaning'. He added: 'The fact that everything seems to be breached eventually is why there is such a big push for zero trust security measures.'
NBC News
a day ago
- NBC News
Apple sued by shareholders for allegedly overstating AI progress
(Reuters) — Apple was sued on Friday by shareholders in a proposed securities fraud class action that accused it of downplaying how long it needed to integrate advanced artificial intelligence into its Siri voice assistant, hurting iPhone sales and its stock price. The complaint covers shareholders who suffered potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of losses in the year ending June 9, when Apple introduced several features and aesthetic improvements for its products but kept AI changes modest. Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. CEO Tim Cook, Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh and former CFO Luca Maestri are also defendants in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court. Shareholders led by Eric Tucker said that at its June 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple led them to believe AI would be a key driver of iPhone 16 devices, when it launched Apple Intelligence to make Siri more powerful and user-friendly. But they said the Cupertino, California-based company lacked a functional prototype of AI-based Siri features, and could not reasonably believe the features would ever be ready for iPhone 16s. Shareholders said the truth began to emerge on March 7 when Apple delayed some Siri upgrades to 2026, and continued through this year's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9 when Apple's assessment of its AI progress disappointed analysts. Apple shares have lost nearly one-fourth of their value since their December 26, 2024 record high, wiping out approximately $900 billion of market value.
