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Global Scam Industry Evolving at 'Unprecedented Scale' Despite Recent Crackdown

3 months 1 week ago
Online scam operations across Southeast Asia are rapidly adapting to recent crackdowns, adopting AI and expanding globally despite the release of 7,000 trafficking victims from compounds along the Myanmar-Thailand border, experts say. These releases represent just a fraction of an estimated 100,000 people trapped in facilities run by criminal syndicates that rake in billions through investment schemes and romance scams targeting victims worldwide, CNN reports. "Billions of dollars are being invested in these kinds of businesses," said Kannavee Suebsang, a Thai lawmaker leading efforts to free those held in scam centers. "They will not stop." Crime groups are exploiting AI to write scamming scripts and using deepfakes to create personas, while networks have expanded to Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific region, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. "This is a situation the region has never faced before," said John Wojcik, a UN organized crime analyst. "The evolving situation is trending towards something far more dangerous than scams alone."

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A Second Opinion On Future GenAI Spending

3 months 1 week ago

Two weeks ago, before we began our nightmare travels to get to the 2025 edition of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, we put together an analysis of the AI server and storage spending forecasts put out by the good folks at IDC. …

A Second Opinion On Future GenAI Spending was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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European Commission Takes Aim At End-to-End Encryption and Proposes Europol Become an EU FBI

3 months 1 week ago
The European Commission has announced its intention to join the ongoing debate about lawful access to data and end-to-end encryption while unveiling a new internal security strategy aimed to address ongoing threats. From a report: ProtectEU, as the strategy has been named, describes the general areas that the bloc's executive would like to address in the coming years although as a strategy it does not offer any detailed policy proposals. In what the Commission called "a changed security environment and an evolving geopolitical landscape," it said Europe needed to "review its approach to internal security." Among its aims is establishing Europol as "a truly operational police agency to reinforce support to Member States," something potentially comparable to the U.S. FBI, with a role "in investigating cross-border, large-scale, and complex cases posing a serious threat to the internal security of the Union." Alongside the new Europol, the Commission said it would create roadmaps regarding both the "lawful and effective access to data for law enforcement" and on encryption.

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Microsoft Urges Businesses To Abandon Office Perpetual Licenses

3 months 1 week ago
Microsoft is pushing businesses to shift away from perpetual Office licenses to Microsoft 365 subscriptions, citing collaboration limitations and rising IT costs associated with standalone software. "You may have started noticing limitations," Microsoft says in a post. "Your apps are stuck on your desktop, limiting productivity anytime you're away from your office. You can't easily access your files or collaborate when working remotely." In its pitch, the Windows-maker says Microsoft 365 includes Office applications as well as security features, AI tools, and cloud storage. The post cites a Microsoft-commissioned Forrester study that claims the subscription model delivers "223% ROI over three years, with a payback period of less than six months" and "over $500,000 in benefits over three years."

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