Microsoft Deploys Air-Gapped AI for Classified Defense, Intelligence Customers

by  Adam Mazmanian

GPT-4 will be on offer for classified workloads via Azure Government Top Secret. 

Users of top secret IT systems may soon have access to generative artificial intelligence tools to draft documents, write code and analyze information.

Microsoft will announce later today the availability of GPT-4 in the Azure Government Top Secret cloud. The tech giant has been working for about 18 months on this effort, which includes the first-ever establishment of a new instance of ChatGPT specifically for classified U.S. government workloads.

 Read full story at NextGov/FCW…

What Does Law Enforcement Really Think About Digital IDs?

by  Nikki Davidson

 While many states have rolled out digital ID programs, the number of law enforcement agencies who accept them remains limited. One agency shared with Government Technology the challenges and successes they’ve experienced conducting traffic stops with users of digital wallets.

When state patrol officers in Colorado pull over someone and ask for their license and registration, there’s a chance they’ll be shown a QR code.

…“I’d say from a technology side, I don’t know of any problems we’ve run into. It’s pretty slick,” said Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Patrick Rice in an interview with Government Technology. “Once you’re in the system and logged in and somebody presents it, it’s super easy. You just scan it, it shows up and you don’t have to take anything back to the car with you.”

However, according to Sgt. Rice, the amount of times interactions with this technology actually occur is limited. He shared that while there are now 1.34 million people registered for the myColorado app, there were only 82 QR code scans by state patrol in 2022, and 191 scans in 2023.

 Read full story at Government Technology…

White House in Talks With Industry to Build Legal Framework for Software Liability

by  David DiMolfetta

As part of a broad cybersecurity strategy, the U.S. wants to create incentives for the tech industry to manufacture products and software that don’t contain major security flaws 

Nick Leiserson, the Office of the National Cyber Director’s assistant director for cyber policy and programs, told an audience at the RSA Conference in San Francisco that the White House began outreach efforts to software makers in March to pick their brains about how to best craft legal clauses that shift software liability away from customers and more onto manufacturers.

“This [engagement] is all very much over the next, you know, eight to 10 months,” he said on the sidelines of the conference. “Much of our focus is saying the goal isn’t liability for liability sake. It’s to incentivize different or incentivize improved software development practices.”

 Read full story at NextGov/FCW…

Jamf Brings Powerful New Compliance Tools to Apple IT

by  Jonny Evans

 The tools, unveiled at a special event this week, also include managed device support for Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and privilege elevation.

As Apple becomes more deeply embedded in increasingly regulated enterprises, IT needs new tools for security compliance to keep their fleets in shape. Jamf introduced a batch of solutions to achieve this at a special event this week. I spoke again with Michael Covington, vice president of portfolio strategy at Jamf, to learn more about what the company has made available.

“We see organizations of all sizes struggle to establish good security hygiene for their Apple devices,” Covington said. “Our research shows 39% of organizations operate at least one device with known vulnerabilities, so improving basic endpoint configuration is low hanging fruit for security teams, and it can significantly improve their overall risk posture.”

 Read full story at …

Passkeys Explained: How to Embrace a Passwordless Future Today

by  Peter Stelzel-Morawietz

Passkeys are increasingly replacing traditional passwords. This makes logging on to the internet much more convenient and secure. You can create your first passkey in just one minute.  

…We focus on the practical use of passkeys and only explain the technology behind them to the extent that it helps you understand them and have the necessary trust. Passkeys are a further development of the established Fido 2 security standard with asymmetric encryption.

When you set up a passkey to log in to an online service, your PC or mobile phone generates a key pair. The public key is sent to the website and stored there, the private key is secret and remains in the crypto chip of your device — i.e. in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) on a computer.

Once a passkey has been set up, the next time you visit the website (or app), you simply tell it that you want to log in. The online service then sends your device a so-called challenge: a task that can only be solved with the help of your private key stored in your device and which you authorize using your fingerprint, face scan, or PIN.

 Read full story at PCWorld…

These Dangerous Scammers Don’t Even Bother to Hide Their Crimes

by  Matt Burgess

“Yahoo Boy” cybercriminals are openly running dozens of scams across Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, and more.

Most scammers and cybercriminals operate in the digital shadows and don’t want you to know how they make money. But that’s not the case for the Yahoo Boys, a loose collective of young men in West Africa who are some of the web’s most prolific—and increasingly dangerous—scammers.

…Inside the groups, there’s a hive of fraudulent activity with the cybercriminals often showing their faces and sharing ways to scam people with other members. They openly distribute scripts detailing how to blackmail people and how to run sextortion scams—that have driven people to take their own lives—sell albums with hundreds of photographs, and advertise fake social media accounts. Among the scams, they’re also using AI to create fake “nude” images of people and real-time deepfake video calls.

 Read full story at Wired…

Individual Data Center Campuses Now Need “Several Gigawatts” of Power, Dominion Says

by  Kevin Clark

The utility has not only seen a larger number of data center customer requests in recent years, but the size of each facility request (in megawatts) has grown larger. 

Dominion Energy is receiving requests to power larger data center campuses that require total capacity ranging from 300 megawatts to as many as “several gigawatts,” CEO Bob Blue said during the utility’s first-quarter earnings call this week.

… Dominion has connected 94 data centers totaling over four GW of capacity over the last approximately five years, Blue told investors. …Blue said the utility expects to connect an additional 15 data centers in 2024.

 Read full story at Power Engnineering…

DOE Taps 3 Long-Duration Energy Storage Projects to Receive $15M

by  Robert Walton

New Lab, Battery Council International and CleanTech Strategies will each receive about $5 million for projects that address key development barriers to domestic energy storage. 

The U.S. Department of Energy on Monday announced three organizations will be awarded about $5 million each to help advance long-duration energy storage projects.

… The selected projects include a New Lab effort to enable high-capacity zinc utilization through electrode and electrolyte fundamentals; Battery Council International’s “Consortium for Lead Battery Leadership in LDES project;” and CleanTech Strategies’ work to accelerate the development of flow battery technologies.

 Read full story at UtilityDive…

Leveraging Quantum Computing to Tackle Power Grid Challenges

by  Jonathan Spencer Jones

The US Oak Ridge National Laboratory is collaborating with quantum computing company IonQ to help solve power grid challenges and drive infrastructure improvements. 

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is collaborating with quantum computing company IonQ to help solve power grid challenges and drive infrastructure improvements.

… The project is focused on addressing the challenges of increasing demand and the proliferation of distributed energy resources, with the need for innovative solutions that can address both optimization and security challenges.

 Read full story at PowerGrid International…