Source: Route Fifty
https://www.route-fifty.com/public-safety/2025/04/law-enforcement-taps-drones-improve-response-times-and-safety/404497/
By allowing drone operators to listen in on 911 calls in real time, a Georgia police department aims to enhance public safety operations.
The time between calling 911 and dispatching officers to the scene typically take minutes, said Rahul Sidhu, vice president of aviation at Flock Safety, but the drone-as-a-first-responder system can help reduce response times to 86 seconds on average.
Other police departments across the country are also beefing up their drone capabilities, including the Rochester Police Department in New York, which is looking to leverage drones to capture real-time video to assist with emergency situations, such as crime scenes or motor vehicle accidents. The Glendale Police Department in Arizona is also implementing a drone program to scope out potential crime scenes ahead of officers’ arrival to increase their situational awareness and safety.
[I wonder if there are any privacy, security, or eavesdropping issues? /pmw1]
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Subject: Homeland Security Email Tells a US Citizen to ‘Immediately’ Self-Deport
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/homeland-security-email-tells-a-us-citizen-to-immediately-self-deport/
The United States Department of Homeland Security sent an email this week informing people living in the US on a temporary legal status that their “parole” has been revoked and instructed them to leave the country “immediately.” However, the email was also addressed to at least one US citizen, an immigration attorney from Massachusetts. And it remains unclear who must abide by the email’s instructions—or why the apparent revocation of legal immigration status was delivered via email at all.
The email informs the recipient that “DHS is now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole,” which it says will go into effect “7 days from the date of this notice.” The email appears to be similar, if not identical, to messages received by users of CBP One, an app developed during the Biden administration that allows non-citizens from certain countries to schedule appointments at US points of entry in an effort to seek asylum. A spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tells WIRED, however, that the email was sent more broadly.
Then there’s the matter of the email being an email at all, Regan says, adding that “it is absolutely not common” for a change in legal immigration status to arrive via email, which typically happens in person or via certified mail. “People would think it’s a phishing email or something not legitimate,” Regan says. Also, the fact that the email does not appear to have been first posted on a government website added to questions about its authenticity.
[e-mail is not a highly reliable way of communicating based upon my experience with mailing list managers /pmw1]
Regan also notes that many immigrants do not have email addresses, and therefore couldn’t receive the communication in the first place.
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Filed: https://www.wired.com/category/security
Source: The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/13/hacktivism_is_having_a_resurgence/
And that isn’t to say all of today’s hacktivists are g-men. Some of these netizens may well indeed be independent activists graduating from defacing websites and going after larger targets, spurred on by global political change. Experts we’ve spoken to, though, point to a more organized, underhand edge to modern hacktivism.
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Subject: Google Files New Patent On Personal History-Based Search
Source: Search Engine Journal
https://www.bespacific.com/google-files-new-patent-on-personal-history-based-search/
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Abstracted from beSpacific
Copyright © 2025 beSpacific, All rights reserved.
Source: Newser
https://www.newser.com/story/367162/dhs-tells-immigration-lawyer-a-us-citizen-to-self-deport.html
The subject line of the email that Nicole Micheroni received Friday from the Department of Homeland Security read “Notification of Termination of Parole,” with one other line standing out most to her: “It is time for you to leave the United States.” It was a surprising directive for Micheroni to receive—considering she’s a 40-year-old Boston attorney who was born in Massachusetts, was raised and went to college there, and is and always has been a US citizen, reports the Boston Globe. Micheroni initially thought the email may have been meant for one of her clients, but there was no one else’s name or ID number on the message, meaning the note to “self-deport” was apparently intended for her….
Source: 404media.co
https://archive.ph/RYjOI
Last week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paid contracting giant Palantir tens of millions of dollars to make modifications to a powerful ICE database and search tool to allow “complete target analysis of known populations” and to update the tool’s targeting and enforcement priorities, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media. The records show that Palantir is actively working on, and making updates to, the technical infrastructure underpinning the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The news comes after ICE agents arrested a green card holding student at his interview to become a U.S. citizen; plainclothes officers picked up a student on the street for deportation despite the State Department finding no evidence she was linked to antisemitism or Hamas as claimed; […]
Palantir’s engagement with ICE is facilitating and enabling abuses and violation of rights—rights like due process which, I want to note, extend to all in the US, regardless of citizenship status,” Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and global privacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), told 404 Media in an email after reviewing screenshots of the records.
Source: Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-tightens-access-evidence-ai-model-mimicry-deepseek-2025-4
- OpenAI now requires a government ID for developer access to advanced AI models.
- Copyleaks research shows DeepSeek-R1 mimics OpenAI outputs, raising imitation concerns.
- AI model fingerprinting could enforce licensing and protect intellectual property rights.
Source: Android Headlines
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2025/04/trump-administration-wants-to-ban-deepseek-from-the-us.html
Summary: The Trump administration is thinking about banning China’s DeepSeek AI from being used in the US. It is also trying to hamper the company’s efforts by restricting it from buying NVIDIA’s AI chips.According to a report from The New York Times, the Trump administration is considering placing a ban on DeepSeek in the US. It also seeks to hinder the company’s AI development efforts by limiting its buying of NVIDIA’s AI chips.
DeepSeek has exploded in popularity over the past few months. The company burst onto the scene with its own AI model that boasted capabilities similar to those of other mainstream models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It even claimed to have trained it using just $6 million, a fraction of what other AI companies are spending. This resulted in the AI market temporarily crashing as many started to wonder if all this spending was truly necessary.
A potential ban – However, it looks like DeepSeek’s stay in the US and its future as a whole could be in jeopardy.
[…]
Source: Cord Cutters News
https://cordcuttersnews.com/text-message-scams-cost-consumers-470-million-in-2024-ftc-reports/
Text message scams surged to a staggering $470 million in consumer losses in 2024, a fivefold increase from $94 million in 2020, according to new data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Despite a drop in the number of reports, the financial toll highlights the growing sophistication of scammers targeting Americans, including 59.6 million cord-cutting households streaming on platforms like Fire TV, per Evoca.tv. The FTC’s findings, released today, spotlight fake delivery alerts, bogus job offers, and other deceptive texts, urging consumers to stay vigilant and report fraud.The most prevalent scam involved fake package delivery messages, where fraudsters send alerts about “issues” with a shipment, tricking users into clicking malicious links or sharing personal details. Bogus job opportunities, particularly “task scams,” ranked high, luring victims with promises of easy online work—often apps like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk—only to demand personal investments, with 30% of reports citing losses over $1,000, per FTC data. Other common ruses included fake bank fraud alerts about suspicious purchases, unpaid toll scams with payment links, and “wrong number” texts that morph into romantic ploys, leading to investment fraud.
Source: BleepingComputer
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/7-steps-to-take-after-a-credential-based-cyberattack/
These days, hackers don’t break in — they log in. Using valid credentials, cybercriminals bypass security systems while appearing legitimate to monitoring tools.And the problem is widespread; Google Cloud reports that weak or nonexistent credential protection facilitates 47% of cloud breaches, while IBM X-Force attributes nearly one-third of global cyberattacks to account compromises.
So what does this mean for your organization’s defenses? Here’s what you need to know about how to protect your systems from credential-based attacks, what to do when prevention fails, and why scanning your Active Directory for compromised passwords should be a part of your security strategy.
Why credential-based attacks are hackers’ preferred method. If your organization has been the target of a credential-based attack, you know how devastating the aftermath can be. But if you’re one of the lucky few that has so far escaped the sights of hackers, here’s what it’s like: It’s 2:37 AM when your phone rings. Your security team has detected unusual login patterns from IP addresses in Eastern Europe — during your company’s off-hours. By the time you’ve logged in remotely, the attacker has accessed multiple sensitive customer files and moved laterally through your network, compromising additional systems.
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Sponsored and written by Specops Software.
Subject: Trump is shifting cybersecurity to the states, but many aren’t prepared
Source: Route Fifty
https://www.route-fifty.com/cybersecurity/2025/04/trump-shifting-cybersecurity-states-many-arent-prepared/404676/
Only 22 of 48 states in a Nationwide Cybersecurity Review met recommended security levels.
By about 2015, as technology advanced and hackers became more creative, that changed, Fopiano said. Now, from the U.S. Secret Service to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there are thousands of attempts to compromise networks or organizations every day, he said.
“A lot of those [attempts] are toward government or even police, especially because they know that we’re not as prepared as we should be,” said Fopiano, who now oversees cybersecurity as part of a regional task force.
Spanning health care facilities to court systems, states and local communities are facing a rise in cyberthreats. They include threats to critical infrastructure, increased activity from foreign actors, continued ransomware attacks and more, according to a recent report from the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center.
States and localities are taking steps to address the problems, such as establishing new penalties for tampering with critical infrastructure, centralizing state IT personnel and setting standards in areas from elections to health care.
In 2023, of the 48 states that participated in the Nationwide Cybersecurity Review, a voluntary self-assessment conducted by federal agencies that examines how well governments are prepared to respond to cyberattacks, only 22 states reached or surpassed the recommended levels of security in their systems.
The notion that the federal government could just withdraw and expect states and localities to step in is just not realistic.
– Samir Jain, Vice President of Policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology
“Terrorist groups are getting into cybercrime, cartels are getting into cybercrime, you have kids just learning about hacking and just fooling around,” he said. “The audience of who’s doing it has definitely expanded and led to that rise in overall cybercrime.”
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Filed: https://www.route-fifty.com/cybersecurity/
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