LabHost enabled users to set up websites designed to trick victims into revealing personal information – with 70,000 allegedly duped in the UK

University students have turned to cyber fraud to boost their income, police have said, as they revealed they have infiltrated a huge phishing site on the dark web responsible for scamming tens of thousands of people.

The site called LabHost was active since 2021 and was a cyber fraud superstore, allowing users to produce realistic-looking websites from household names such as the big banks, ensnaring victims around the world including 70,000 in the UK.

European Commission has concerns about app’s impact on children, as well as addiction

The EU has given TikTok 24 hours to provide a risk assessment over a new service it has launched in the EU amid concerns it will encourage children to become addicted to videos on the platform.

The watch-and-get-rewarded application, TikTok Lite, launched in France and Spain this month, effectively offering users prizes such as Amazon vouchers, gift cards via PayPal or TikTok’s Coins currency for points earned through “tasks”.

Delaware court in nullified compensation deal based on carmaker’s market value in January, calling it ‘unfathomable sum’

Tesla on Wednesday asked its shareholders to once again approve CEO Elon Musk ‘s record-breaking $56bn pay that was set in 2018, but was rejected by a Delaware judge in January.

The compensation includes no salary or cash bonus, but sets rewards based on Tesla’s market value rising to as much as $650bn over the next 10 years. Tesla is now valued at over $500bn, according to LSEG data.

According to an automated missive, I have the perfect set of skills to help write the first draft of AI history. It’s not a job for life, though

Say what you like about the Germans, you can always count on them to find just the right word for anything. Take “ weltschmerz ”, for example, which roughly translates to “world pain”. It signifies despair at the suffering in the world – and a deep anguish that stems from knowing that a better world is possible. Is there a more apt encapsulation of the current moment?

For the past six months I, like many others, have been suffering from an acute case of weltschmerz. As someone of Palestinian heritage I have been weighed down by survivor’s guilt as I’ve watched the unfolding genocide in Gaza. For a while, I didn’t have the emotional energy to write. The only way I could get out of bed and make it through the day was by avoiding the news completely. Which … isn’t an ideal scenario when you largely write about the news for a living. So, at one point, I decided on a career pivot and applied for various non-writing jobs, including one at a dog food manufacturer. Reader, I was rejected. In fact, I didn’t even make it to the first round of interviews; I was humbled by a dog’s dinner.

But truancy and illness-related absences can be reversed with good sleeping habits and strong family ties, study suggests

Young people who spend too much time online are more likely to miss school through illness or truancy, a study has suggested.

Teenage girls appear to be more likely than teenage boys to score highly on excessive internet use, the findings indicate. But a good amount of sleep and exercise and a trusting relationship with their parents appear to go some way to reducing the effects of extreme web use on classroom absences.

Hi-tech ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London risks deeper regional inequalities, says thinktank

Investments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are “profoundly skewed” towards the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and risk deepening existing regional inequalities in England, according to research.

Ministers have promised to level up the country, narrowing the gap between the best- and worst-performing areas, but the rapid rollout of generative AI and automation could cut against that aspiration, according to the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW).

While AI tools have been used by some translators to support their work, three-quarters of those surveyed believe the emerging technology will negatively impact their future income

More than a third of translators have lost work due to generative AI , a survey by the Society of Authors (SoA) has found. More than four in 10 translators said that their income has decreased because of generative AI, while more than three-quarters believe the emerging technology will negatively affect their future income.

The SoA, the UK’s largest trade union for writers, illustrators and translators, ran the survey in January. It found that 37% of translators had used generative AI to support their work, and 8% used it because they were asked by their publisher or commissioning organisation.

A little-known amendment to the reauthorized version of Fisa would create a drastic, draconian expansion of the government’s surveillance powers

The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.

More children and families extorted with AI-made photos and videos, says National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Child sexual exploitation is on the rise online and taking new forms such as images and videos generated by artificial intelligence, according to an annual assessment released on Tuesday by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a US-based clearinghouse for the reporting of child sexual abuse material.

Reports to the NCMEC of child abuse online rose by more than 12% in 2023 compared with the previous year, surpassing 36.2m reports, the organization said in its annual CyberTipline report. The majority of tips received were related to the circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) such as photos and videos, but there was also an increase in reports of financial sexual extortion, when an online predator lures a child into sending nude images or videos and then demands money.