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Twitter hack probe leads to call for cybersecurity rules for social media giants

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twitter hack probe leads to call for cybersecurity rules for social media giants

An investigation into this summer’s Twitter hack by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) has ended with a stinging rebuke for how easily Twitter let itself be duped by a “simple” social engineering technique — and with a wider call for key social media platforms to be regulated on security.

In the report, the NYSDFS points, by way of contrasting example, to how quickly regulated cryptocurrency companies acted to prevent the Twitter hackers scamming even more people — arguing this demonstrates that tech innovation and regulation aren’t mutually exclusive.

Its point is that the biggest social media platforms have huge societal power (with all the associated consumer risk) but no regulated responsibilities to protect users.

The report concludes this is a problem U.S. lawmakers need to get on and tackle stat — recommending that an oversight council be established (to “designate systemically important social media companies”) and an “appropriate” regulator appointed to ‘monitor and supervise’ the security practices of mainstream social media platforms.

“Social media companies have evolved into an indispensable means of communications: more than half of Americans use social media to get news, and connect with colleagues, family, and friends. This evolution calls for a regulatory regime that reflects social media as critical infrastructure,” the NYSDFS writes, before going on to point out there is still “no dedicated state or federal regulator empowered to ensure adequate cybersecurity practices to prevent fraud, disinformation, and other systemic threats to social media giants”.

“The Twitter Hack demonstrates, more than anything, the risk to society when systemically important institutions are left to regulate themselves,” it adds. “Protecting systemically important social media against misuse is crucial for all of us — consumers, voters, government, and industry. The time for government action is now.”

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We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment on the report

Among the key findings from the Department’s investigation are that the hackers broke into Twitter’s systems by calling employees and claiming to be from Twitter’s IT department — through which simple social engineering method they were able to trick four employees into handing over their log-in credentials. From there they were able to access the Twitter accounts of high profile politicians, celebrities, and entrepreneurs, including Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian West, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and a number of cryptocurrency companies — using the hijacked accounts to tweet out a crypto scam to millions of users.

Twitter has previously confirmed that a “phone spear phishing” attack was used to gain credentials.

Per the report, the hackers’ “double your bitcoin” scam messages, which contained links to make a payment in bitcoins, enabled them to steal more than $118,000 worth of bitcoins from Twitter users.

Although a considerably larger sum was prevented from being stolen as a result of swift action taken by regulated crypto companies — namely: Coinbase, Square, Gemini Trust Company and Bitstamp — who the Department said blocked scores of attempted transfers by the fraudsters.

“This swift action blocked over 6,000 attempted transfers worth approximately $1.5 million to the Hackers’ bitcoin addresses,” the report notes.

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Twitter is also called out for not having a cybersecurity chief in post at the time of the hack — after failing to replace Mike Convertino, who left in December 2019 to join cyber resilience firm Arceo.

Last month it announced Rinki Sethi had been hired as CISO.

“Despite being a global social media platform boasting over 330 million average monthly users in 2019, Twitter lacked adequate cybersecurity protection,” the NYSDFS writes. “At the time of the attack, Twitter did not have a chief information security officer, adequate access controls and identity management, and adequate security monitoring — some of the core measures required by the Department’s first-in-the-nation cybersecurity regulation.”

European Union data protection law already bakes in security requirements as part of a comprehensive privacy and security framework (with major penalties possible for security breaches). However an investigation by the Irish DPC of a 2018 Twitter security incident is still yet to conclude after a draft decision failed to gain the backing of the other EU data watchdogs this August — triggering a further delay to the pan-EU regulatory process.

This story was updated with a correction: Twitter had failed to replace Mike Convertino as CISO rather than Michael Coates, who was also in the post but left Twitter in March 2019, rather than in March 2020 as we originally stated

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We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

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We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Investors who have invested in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock have reaped significant benefits from the company’s robust financial performance over the last five years. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market has been a key driver of the company’s consistent revenue growth and impressive profit margins.

In addition, Google has expanded its operations into related fields such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These areas show great promise as future growth drivers, making them increasingly attractive to investors. Notably, Alphabet’s stock price has been rising due to investor interest in the company’s recent initiatives in the fast-developing field of artificial intelligence (AI), adding generative AI features to Gmail and Google Docs.

However, when it comes to predicting the future pricing of a corporation like Google, there are many factors to consider. With this in mind, Finbold turned to the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to suggest a likely pricing range for GOOG stock by 2030. Although the tool was unable to give a definitive price range, it did note the following:

“Over the long term, Google has a track record of strong financial performance and has shown an ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As such, it’s reasonable to expect that Google’s stock price may continue to appreciate over time.”

GOOG stock price prediction

While attempting to estimate the price range of future transactions, it is essential to consider a variety of measures in addition to the AI chat tool, which includes deep learning algorithms and stock market experts.

Finbold collected forecasts provided by CoinPriceForecast, a finance prediction tool that utilizes machine self-learning technology, to anticipate Google stock price by the end of 2030 to compare with ChatGPT’s projection.

According to the most recent long-term estimate, which Finbold obtained on March 20, the price of Google will rise beyond $200 in 2030 and touch $247 by the end of the year, which would indicate a 141% gain from today to the end of the year.

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2030 GOOG price prediction: Source: CoinPriceForecast

Google has been assigned a recommendation of ‘strong buy’ by the majority of analysts working on Wall Street for a more near-term time frame. Significantly, 36 analysts of the 48 have recommended a “strong buy,” while seven people have advocated a “buy.” The remaining five analysts had given a ‘hold’ rating.

1679313229 737 We asked ChatGPT what will be Google GOOG stock price
Wall Street GOOG 12-month price prediction: Source: TradingView

The average price projection for Alphabet stock over the last three months has been $125.32; this objective represents a 22.31% upside from its current price. It’s interesting to note that the maximum price forecast for the next year is $160, representing a gain of 56.16% from the stock’s current price of $102.46.

While the outlook for Google stock may be positive, it’s important to keep in mind that some potential challenges and risks could impact its performance, including competition from ChatGPT itself, which could affect Google’s price.


Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.

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This Apple Watch app brings ChatGPT to your wrist — here’s why you want it

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Apple Watch Series 8

ChatGPT feels like it is everywhere at the moment; the AI-powered tool is rapidly starting to feel like internet connected home devices where you are left wondering if your flower pot really needed Bluetooth. However, after hearing about a new Apple Watch app that brings ChatGPT to your favorite wrist computer, I’m actually convinced this one is worth checking out.

The new app is called watchGPT and as I tipped off already, it gives you access to ChatGPT from your Apple Watch. Now the $10,000 question (or more accurately the $3.99 question, as that is the one-time cost of the app) is why having ChatGPT on your wrist is remotely necessary, so let’s dive into what exactly the app can do.

What can watchGPT do?

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Discord goes all in with AI: chatbots, automods, whiteboards and more

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Discord goes all in with AI: chatbots, automods, whiteboards and more

AI is the future, at least over on Discord.

The messaging application originally made for gamers has become Gen Z’s favorite online hangout destination of choice, and now it’s rolling out a number of features powered by artificial intelligence.

In an announcement(Opens in a new tab) on Thursday, Discord shared what’s coming to the platform soon: an AI chatbot, an automated AI moderator, a conversation summarizer, an avatar remixer, and a whiteboard. Some of these features begin rolling out today, March 9. Others will launch in the coming weeks and months.

While AI has jumped into the mainstream thanks to the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, Discord has had an active AI community for quite a while now. According to the company, third-party AI apps already on the platform already have more than 30 million monthly users. Nearly 3 million servers on Discord have some AI element integrated into the community.

In fact, the biggest community on Discord is Midjourney, a text-to-image AI project which allows users to generate art from right within the server. Discord says Midjourney’s server has more than 13 million members.

So, with AI being such an integral part of Discord already, it seemed like only a matter of time before Discord itself started bringing AI directly into the platform.

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AutoMod AI
Credit: Discord

The first feature coming to some Discord servers as soon as today is AutoMod AI. Discord already has an AutoMod feature, which basically automatically moderates rooms for admins based on the rules of the server. Discord has now integrated OpenAI-powered AI into AutoMod, allowing it to search the server and contact moderators when it thinks rules are possibly being broken. According to Discord, AutoMod AI can also consider the context of a conversation so, for example, users don’t get penalized for posts that are misconstrued.

Clyde is a bot that Discord users may already be familiar with, and starting next week, Clyde is getting an AI upgrade. Currently, the Clyde bot provides information, such as server error messages, and also responds to timeout or ban requests from users and mods. However, that’s pretty much all Clyde was able to do. Until now.

Clyde chatbot

Clyde
Credit: Discord

Clyde will now be able to answer all sorts of questions from users, much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. Users simply have to type “@Clyde” followed by their prompt. Clyde will be able to pull up information and also help find specific emojis or GIFs based on a user’s description.

Another AI feature coming to Discord next week is Conversation Summaries. Again, the name is fairly descriptive of what it does. With users all over the world, many Discord channels are always moving regardless of time of day. Conversation Summaries will allow users to catch up on what they missed on a Discover Server. The AI-powered feature will “bundle” chats into topics so users can easily read up on what they find most interesting.

Conversation Summaries

Conversation Summaries
Credit: Discord

Starting today, developers can start playing with Avatar Remix, an open-source Discord app that integrates AI art into the messaging app. Avatar Remix allows users to take a fellow user’s avatar and change it up “using the power of generative image models.” What does that mean? In the demo that Discord showed Mashable, a user was able to add a party hat or a mustache to a friend’s avatar by simply mentioning their username and describing what changes they’d like to make.

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Avatar Remix

Avatar Remix
Credit: Discord

The company is also launching an “AI incubator,” offering support for developers creating AI-powered apps on Discord.

Finally, Discord revealed a feature that’s coming soon that has long been requested by the Discord community: a whiteboard. But, of course, this won’t be just any collaborative whiteboard feature. It’s going to be AI-powered, allowing users to collaborate in generating AI art and more.

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