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"A police investigation has been launched after MPs were apparently targeted in a "spear-phishing" attack, in what security experts believe could be an attempt to compromise parliament. A police force said it had started an inquiry after receiving a complaint from an MP who was sent a number of unsolicited messages last month."

"Google has launched a webpage where European citizens can request that links to information about them be taken off search results, the first step to comply with a court ruling affirming the "right to be forgotten". The company, which processes more than 90% of all web searches in Europe, has made available a webform through which people can submit their requests but has stopped short of specifying when it will remove links that meet the criteria for being taken down."

"Netlab researchers, who are usually among the firsts to discover emerging botnets, said the botnet contains several clues to suggest this is the work of the same group which developed the Moobot botnet in 2019 and the LeetHozer botnet in 2020. Both botnets were essentially built and used for launching DDoS attacks, which also appears to be Matryosh's primary function, as well. The Netlab team says they found functions in the code specific to features that will use infected devices to launch DDoS attacks via protocols like TCP, UDP, and ICMP."

"Waymo and Cruise are now allowed to launch paid 24/7, fully autonomous driverless car services in San Francisco, state regulators decided Thursday. Why it matters: This is the final approval in both companies' quests to launch their full-fledged services throughout San Francisco."

"A new botnet is actively targeting IoT devices using payloads compiled for a dozen CPU architectures and uses them to launch several types of DDoS and to spread various types of malware. The Dark Nexus botnet as it was named by the Bitdefender researchers who discovered it has gone through a very fast development process since it was initially spotted."

"This takes us to Kerala in south India, home to about 34 million people. There, the communist-led state government is launching something called the Kerala Fibre Optical Network (KFON) - and it's a major milestone. (It is worth noting the irony that the communist government, which has a history of opposing the introduction of computers, is now at the forefront of this digital initiative.) In 2016, the state recognised the internet as a basic citizen's right, joining other polities like Finland, Costa Rica and France. Next on the agenda: making this new right mean something. Despite facing various setbacks - such as the pandemic and a corruption allegation that led to the arrest of the senior bureaucrat who was previously in charge of KFON (he denies the allegation) - the project has finally been launched. It's a fibre-optic broadband network project, aiming to provide affordable and reliable internet connectivity to every household, government institution and business entity in the state."

Lord Prescott is to launch a claim for a judicial review of the Metropolitan Police's handling of phone hacking claims involving the News of the World.

"Turkey on Wednesday launched an investigation after a hacker or hackers posted a database online containing the personal information of nearly 50 million Turkish citizens - more than half of the country's population - and a message taunting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The population of Turkey is around 78 million. Experts say the leak could be one of the largest public leaks of its kind."

"Jack Poulson was a senior research scientist at Google whose work on machine learning work was used to improve Google's search results; now he's quit the company over its Project Dragonfly, a once-secret plan to launch a censored Chinese search engine; Poulson called the move a "forfeiture of our values." Tech companies find it hard to qualify skilled engineers at any price, and machine learning specialists are especially prize, commanding salaries of $1MM/year or more. "

"WILL HACKERS LAUNCH NUCLEAR WEAPONS?"

"Among other things, the declaration states that military AI needs to be developed according to international laws, that nations should be transparent about the principles underlying their technology, and that high standards are implemented for verifying the performance of AI systems. It also says that humans alone should make decisions around the use of nuclear weapons."

""The satellite's two-year mission will be to develop 'hack-proof' quantum communications, allowing users to send messages securely and at speeds faster than light," Xinhua reported."

"IDFC Bank has launched an app called Aadhaar Pay that aims to help millions of its citizens without a smartphone to pay for their purchases digitally with just their fingerprint.  Merchants will be able to download the app on their Android smartphones and attach a fingerprint scanner device. To make payments, buyers will only have to choose their bank name, input their unique Aadhaar number and scan their fingerprint, which acts as a password to make the payment directly from their bank account linked to their Aadhaar card."

"To coincide with the launch, the campaign has released research by Demos revealing the huge scale of social media misogyny. The study monitored the use of the words "slut" and "whore" by UK Twitter users over three weeks from the end of April. It found that 6,500 individuals were targeted by 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets in that period."

"Ringing Bells also plans to sell other more expensive handsets - ranging in price up to about $100 (£75) - at a profit. But, with just over a week to go until Freedom 251's launch, critics remain unconvinced. "I find it difficult to believe that any sort of phone can be manufactured for 251 rupees, so it's difficult to see what kind of business model they have," says Pranav Dixit, a tech expert at the news site Factor Daily."

Yehhaaaaa - it is about time OLPC moved forward in helping the world with the digital divide...