Welcome to the June 24, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Demand for Better Cybersecurity Fuels Job Market
• UNESCO Sounds Alarm Over AI-Fueled Holocaust Denial
• Dash to Ditch Paper Money in Sweden Created a Playground for Criminals
• Maryland Lets Sexual Assault Victims Track Evidence via Bar Code
• New York Governor Signs Bill Regulating Social Media Algorithms
• Passwords Weakened by Advancements in Computing Processing
• Teens Make World's Smallest Network Switch
• Titan Disaster Forces Global Rethinking of Deep Sea Exploration
• Facial Recognition Company Expands into Latin America
• California Governor Wants to Restrict Smartphone Usage in Schools
• Quantum Computer Helps Understanding of Magnets
• AI Is Revolutionizing Drug Development

Demand for Better Cybersecurity Fuels Job Market

The FBI’s Internet Criminal Complaint Center has received an average of 758,000 complaints of cyberattacks per year over the past five years. The growing threat has created a booming job market for cybersecurity specialists. The Biden administration views the hundreds of thousands of cyber job vacancies as a national security issue.
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UNESCO Sounds Alarm Over AI-Fueled Holocaust Denial

Citing the use of chatbots by hackers to spread Nazi ideology and fuel Holocaust denial, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is calling for ethical safeguards on AI, and for schools to highlight the risks of AI-generated content. The report cites the use of Google's Gemini to produce images of ethnically diverse Nazi soldiers, ChatGPT's invention of "Holocaust by drowning," and the use of Google's Bard to create witnesses to support falsehoods about Nazi massacres.
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Dash to Ditch Paper Money in Sweden Created a Playground for Criminals

With Sweden further along than nearly any other European nation in eliminating paper money, it is being viewed as a test case in the fight against digital crime. Swedish authorities are finding it difficult to crack down on digital crime given how ingrained the BankID digital identification system is in the national economy. Controlled by a consortium of private lenders, BankID works like an online signature and is used for electronic payments, filing tax returns, setting up businesses, and more.
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Maryland Lets Sexual Assault Victims Track Evidence via Bar Code

Maryland has implemented a new statewide system for tracking sexual assault evidence kits to ensure both transparency and accountability. The Track-Kit system will allow sexual assault victims to anonymously track their kits through unique bar codes assigned when a forensic exam is completed at the hospital and scanned by law enforcement when they take custody of the kit.
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New York Governor Signs Bill Regulating Social Media Algorithms

Governor Kathy Hochul signed two measures into law Thursday, making New York the first U.S. state with a law to legally regulate social media algorithms. Under the SAFE For Kids Act, social media platforms will be required to display content chronologically by default to those under 18, while the New York Child Data Protection Act will restrict websites from collecting or sharing the personal data of users under 18 without consent.
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Passwords Weakened by Advancements in Computing Processing

A new report on password strength noted the advancements in computer processing power made cracking passwords significantly easier. Kaspersky researchers said it took them less than one hour to crack 59% of 193 million passwords in a database obtained from the dark web. Eight-character passwords composed of same-case English letters and digits or 36 combinable characters were cracked within 17 seconds. The researchers used a Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU and different algorithms for their experiment.
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Teens Make World's Smallest Network Switch

Murex Robotics, a high school robotics team at New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy, claims to have developed the world's smallest network switch, measuring 44.9 mm by 42.2 mm and providing five 100 Mbps Ethernet ports. The students built the Murex Ethernet Switch to connect a custom CM4-based control board, programmable logic controller module, and multiple IP cameras to a remotely operated vehicle.
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Titan Disaster Forces Global Rethinking of Deep Sea Exploration

A pair of robotic vehicles will be sent to the resting place of the Titanic to recover artifacts, about a year after the June 18, 2023, implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five people, The July expedition is being organized by RMS Titanic. While proponents of human-piloted submersibles are pushing for regulation, the RMS Titanic expedition shows that some are rethinking deep sea exploration, with a shift toward robots as a safer alternative.
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Facial Recognition Company Expands into Latin America

Clearview AI's controversial facial recognition technology has expanded to Latin America, where a recent trial by law enforcement officials, investigators, and prosecutors led to minors being rescued in about six countries. In the investigation of online child-exploitation cases, the tool was used to analyze 2,198 images and 995 videos, identifying 29 offenders and 110 victims over a period of three days. The effort resulted in at least 51 victims being rescued as of June 13.
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California Governor Wants to Restrict Smartphone Usage in Schools

California Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for student smartphone use to be restricted during the school day. Citing the mental health risks associated with social media, Newsom said he will build on a 2019 law giving school districts the authority to restrict or ban the use of smartphones when students are in school or under a school employee's supervision. This comes as the Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted to create policies prohibiting the use of smartphones by students during the school day, with some exceptions.
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Quantum Computer Helps Understanding of Magnets

Google researchers have developed a new type of quantum computer that combines features from both digital and analog quantum computers. They used a digital quantum computer's qubits to model a two-dimensional (2D) magnet, mimicking a real-world magnet by operating all of the qubits simultaneously, instead of having them perform logical operations one by one.
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AI Is Revolutionizing Drug Development

Startups are increasingly leveraging AI in drug discovery and development using models that can identify potential drug candidates based on patterns detected in the specialized data on which they are trained. AI-designed drug molecules are transformed into physical molecules, whose interactions with target proteins are tested, with the results used by the AI model to improve its next design. A number of companies have built automated labs to produce data to train such AI models.
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