As the world is moving on towards advancing significant technology, massive focuses and threats are looming around, including the massive move by Canada to ban the infamous Flipper Zero and related devices. Moreover, there is also a significant incident that took place in Hong Kong where an employee was scammed via deepfake campaigns which impersonated its CEO and CFO.
Tech Times
Lastly, there is a growing concern regarding AI's environmental effects, but the renowned company, Opera, is now making a move towards conservation and reducing the stress it brings to Mother Nature.
Flipper Zero Faces Canadian Ban, Sees It as a Threat
Flipper Zero
The notorious pen-testing gadget made for "tech geeks" is now facing a massive ban in Canada shortly, with the country looking towards this to rule against its import, sale, and use in the country. This is because of the rising car theft incidents in the Great North, with the hacking devices known as "flippers," capable of unlocking a vehicle and driving away with it.
Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, revealed in his recent post via X that this is the path the country is going towards, looking to stem the problem in its roots.
Through the ban on flippers, alongside the most famed tool, the Flipper Zero, Canada is looking to lower the rate of car theft and recover the stolen vehicles for the victims.
A multinational firm in Hong Kong fell victim to an elaborate deepfake scam which led to the company losing $25 million (HK$ 200 Million) after an employee was duped by the unknown threat actors. According to reports, the said employee was personally messaged by its UK-based CFO, asking the victim to carry out secret transactions for them.
Despite doubting the favor, the employee proceeded with the scam after meeting the CEO, CFO, and other employees via a video conference. However, the threat actors used generative AI deepfakes to convince the victim that they were legitimate people.
The scam took place for an entire week, leading to 15 transactions that transferred the money to the threat actors, across five Hong Kong bank accounts which the scammers gave the victim during the virtual meeting.
It was later verified with the headquarters that such requests were not made.
AI's Environmental Effects
Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The development and operations of artificial intelligence have massive environmental effects, particularly as it requires a great deal of power to run the systems and infrastructure. Apart from this, AI's use and availability also bring a great deal of harm to the environment, especially as it requires additional computing power for its operations.
That being said, a renowned browser company, Opera, is now looking to move towards deploying its AI using clean energy, also planning to deploy its latest AI cluster in Keflavik, Iceland, which would run strictly on green energy. This will help the company offer improvements for its AI already present in its browsers, taking on a better role beyond that of a chatbot.
