New Jersey fines data center $1.1M after drone pics expose 62 gas generators

This week, New Jersey ordered the operator of one of the East Coast’s largest planned data centers to pay a $1.1 million fine for secretly installing and operating gas generators in violation of the state’s Air Pollution Control Act.

DataOne got hit with the fine after an investigation by The Guardian and Floodlight News in August shared thermal drone footage showing that 45 of the 62 gas generators were operating. None of the generators had permits required for generators with 37-kilowatt capacity or higher, despite running at 1,982-kw capacities more than 50 times higher than the state limit.

States track gas generators like DataOne uses because they emit “carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and other combustion-related pollutants,” officials from New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) noted. Those pollutants can worsen asthma, trigger heart attacks, and cause early deaths.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/new-jersey-fines-data-center-1-1m-after-satellite-pics-expose-62-gas-generators/




Google’s first Suncatcher orbital data center test launches October 1

Google is taking its first step toward making Project Suncatcher a reality. Announced last year, Suncatcher is Google’s “moonshot” effort to design orbital AI data centers, which AI boosters like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have pitched as an alternative to divisive terrestrial data centers. Google’s first experimental satellite will launch on October 1 with the aim of validating Google’s vision for a constellation of AI satellites.

The satellite, dubbed MVP, is about the size of a refrigerator. Inside, it has four of Google’s custom TPU AI accelerators, which are used to train AI models and run inference to generate tokens for AI workloads. On Earth, a data center will run thousands of these chips, which consume massive amounts of power—one of the reasons putting solar-powered AI hardware in space is so attractive.

Google’s latest moonshot to put machine learning in space.

MVP is starting small, with solar panels that supply only about one kilowatt of power, The New York Times reports. That’s enough to power a microwave or a hair dryer. Google did not build the satellite from scratch. While the AI hardware inside is Google’s, the spacecraft comes from a satellite imagery firm called Planet Labs. The initial plan was to launch two custom satellites in 2027, but Google wanted to accelerate its efforts. So the company opted to integrate its chips into a satellite that Planet Labs had already built for an early test.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/09/googles-first-suncatcher-orbital-data-center-test-launches-october-1/




OpenAI agent “didn’t accept no for an answer” in Australian government breach

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government is investigating a June incident in which an OpenAI agent accessed “non-public files” from the country’s online Medicare statistics portal. OpenAI said in a statement that “our models took actions we did not intend” in causing the breach, which it only recently disclosed to the Australian government.

Speaking in New York on Wednesday, Albanese said three other public health statistics systems also “may have been impacted” across Australian federal and state governments. He added that these portals “contain non-sensitive Medicare information” such as aggregate statistics and that early indications suggest “no personal information is believed to have been accessed.”

That said, Albanese stressed that the “situation is obviously unacceptable” and that he has expressed his “extreme concern” over how the incident was handled to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/openai-agent-didnt-accept-no-for-an-answer-in-australian-government-breach/




AI, la vera sfida delle telco è ripensare il modo di lavorare. A rischio il 75% dei dipendenti nei prossimi 5 anni

L’intelligenza artificiale promette di cambiare radicalmente il settore delle telecomunicazioni. Ma per le telco la sfida non sarà semplicemente adottare nuove tecnologie: sarà ripensare organizzazione, competenze e modelli di business per riuscire a trasformare l’AI in valore. È quanto emerge dall’ultima edizione del Telco of Tomorrow di EY-Parthenon, realizzata intervistando una novantina di executive di aziende di telecomunicazioni.

Quasi tutti si aspettano un forte impatto dell’AI

Le aspettative sono particolarmente elevate. Il 97% dei dirigenti intervistati ritiene che l’intelligenza artificiale produrrà importanti aumenti di produttività entro i prossimi cinque anni. Il 78% si spinge oltre, prevedendo un possibile raddoppio dei livelli di efficienza.

Le telco stanno concentrando gli sforzi soprattutto sull’assistenza clienti e la risoluzione dei problemi, area indicata dal 92% degli intervistati. Seguono l’ottimizzazione delle reti (67%) e il potenziamento e la personalizzazione dei servizi (38% ciascuno).

Il potenziale, dunque, è considerato enorme. Ma altrettanto significativi sono gli ostacoli.

Budget e competenze sono i principali freni

Per il 54% degli executive, uno dei problemi principali è rappresentato dai vincoli di budget. Il 43% segnala invece una carenza di competenze adeguate.

A complicare ulteriormente il percorso di trasformazione c’è la difficoltà di allineare tecnologia e strategia aziendale. Il 34% dei manager considera infatti la mancanza di una direzione strategica sufficientemente chiara un ostacolo importante.

“Le telco non sono a corto di opportunità di crescita”, osserva Cédric Foray, EY Global Telecommunications Sector Leader. La vera difficoltà, secondo il manager, consiste nel disporre dei modelli operativi, delle competenze e della chiarezza strategica necessari per coglierle.

In altre parole, acquistare e implementare tecnologie AI non sarà sufficiente. Il valore arriverà dalla capacità di far evolvere contemporaneamente strategia, persone e organizzazione.

La nuova frontiera è oltre la connettività

C’è poi un altro elemento che emerge dalla ricerca: la necessità per le telco di trovare nuove fonti di crescita al di fuori dei tradizionali servizi di connettività.

Il 50% degli intervistati considera i servizi non-core un importante motore di crescita, una percentuale in aumento rispetto al 34% rilevato da EY nel 2024.

E il cambiamento potrebbe accelerare: il 47% dei dirigenti indica infatti il ripensamento dei modelli di business per favorire la crescita nei servizi non-core tra le principali priorità strategiche dei prossimi cinque anni.

Le aree indicate da EY comprendono cybersecurity, sovereign cloud, infrastrutture per l’AI e GPU-as-a-Service.

In questi mercati le telco possono contare su alcuni asset difficili da replicare: infrastrutture, marchi conosciuti e relazioni consolidate con i clienti.

L’AI cambia anche il lavoro

La trasformazione più profonda, però, potrebbe riguardare proprio le persone.

Secondo EY, il 69% dei dirigenti prevede che circa tre quarti della forza lavoro dovrà essere riqualificata o sostituita nei prossimi cinque anni, mentre le aziende passeranno a modelli operativi sempre più basati sull’AI.

Per diventare operatori realmente AI-native, quindi, il reskilling non sarà un elemento accessorio, ma una componente centrale della strategia.

Philippe Ensarguet, VP Cloud and Software Engineering di Orange, ha recentemente sottolineato l’importanza di upskilling e reskilling, evidenziando come la gestione dei progetti di AI e la supervisione dei sistemi di AI agentica richiedano nuove competenze.

Allo stesso tempo, queste competenze devono essere integrate con una conoscenza profonda delle reti e dei processi aziendali: automatizzare significa infatti sapere prima di tutto cosa automatizzare e come farlo.

Non basta aggiungere l’AI ai processi esistenti

La difficoltà, però, non riguarda soltanto la formazione. Le telco dovranno anche diventare più capaci di attrarre nuovi talenti.

Secondo EY, appena il 31% degli executive ritiene che il settore delle telecomunicazioni sarà tra quelli più attrattivi per i lavoratori nei prossimi cinque anni.

Per questo, sostiene Foray, la trasformazione dovrà coinvolgere anche strutture organizzative, ruoli, processi e leadership.

Il rischio è limitarsi ad aggiungere l’AI ai modelli di lavoro esistenti, senza ripensarli realmente. Ma proprio qui potrebbe trovarsi la parte più importante della trasformazione.

Per le telco, la vera sfida dell’AI non sarà quindi soltanto automatizzare ciò che già fanno. Sarà capire come lavorare, organizzarsi e generare valore in modo diverso.

Novità su Google, per aggiungere Key4Biz tra le tue fonti preferite, clicca qui

Aggiungi Key4Biz tra le tue fonti preferite

Leggi le altre notizie sull’home page di Key4biz

https://www.key4biz.it/ai-la-vera-sfida-delle-telco-e-ripensare-il-modo-di-lavorare-a-rischio-il-75-dei-dipendenti-nei-prossimi-5-anni/588779/




RatHat Android Trojan Uses AI for Automation

The malware relies on AI for real-time device navigation and control, increasing adaptability and evasion.

The post RatHat Android Trojan Uses AI for Automation appeared first on SecurityWeek.

https://www.securityweek.com/rathat-android-trojan-uses-ai-for-automation/




AI hallucination of Chinese nuclear components almost led to US military attack

The US narrowly avoided boarding a Chinese ship based on an “entirely false” US intelligence report generated with the help of AI tools, according to a CNN report.

That erroneous intelligence, submitted by a US Special Operations Command analyst, suggested the Chinese ship was transporting nuclear arms program components through the Middle East, according to “four sources familiar with the episode” cited by CNN. The US military was preparing to intercept and board the ship, with air support, before officials discovered a chatbot used in generating the report had “inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying.”

One source told CNN the AI-powered fiasco “almost started a war.”

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/report-us-almost-boarded-chinese-ship-over-hallucinated-ai-arms-report/




FAA tees up $875M AI tool to help manage air traffic congestion

An AI tool is set to start advising air traffic controllers on managing air traffic in the congested airspace above the Washington, DC, area. The expected launch would be the first step toward a planned nationwide rollout covering the 29 million square miles of US national airspace overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA describes the SMART system as using AI models to predict air traffic flows and identify potential conflicts based on operational factors like airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, and airspace conditions. US government and industry officials told The Wall Street Journal that SMART could debut for the three major airports in the Washington, DC, area as soon as Monday, September 21.

The decision to launch SMART in a limited scope before going nationwide is the “right call,” said Philip Mann, principal consultant at Vector Strategic Consulting LLC, where he advises on aviation safety and AI governance. Mann previously worked at the FAA in multiple roles for 17 years.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/faa-tees-up-875m-ai-tool-to-help-manage-air-traffic-congestion/




US government website used Chinese model the FBI called “malicious”

On Wednesday, US government officials removed a Chinese AI search tool that was briefly deployed on the Federal Register website, Reuters reported.

The change came after social media users noticed an apparent contradiction: The National Archives was using one of Alibaba’s Qwen AI models, even as top US law enforcement claimed that such models illegally copy US frontier models. Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named Alibaba among six leading Chinese firms allegedly conducting “industrial-scale distillation” that the agency says is helping America’s biggest competitor cut costs and development time in the race for global AI leadership.

It’s unclear when exactly the National Archives, which runs the Federal Register website, began offering visitors the option to use a Qwen model to search public comments on proposed regulations. So far, the independent agency tasked with increasing public access to federal government documents has not commented on the removal and did not respond to Ars’ request for comment. The White House and the FBI have also not commented.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/us-government-website-used-chinese-model-the-fbi-called-malicious/




Researchers used Claude to hack OpenAI

Cyber researchers broke into OpenAI using its key rival Anthropic’s software, highlighting vulnerabilities in the ChatGPT maker’s security as leading AI companies face mounting scrutiny over safety.

A small cyber security group gained access to an OpenAI employee’s ChatGPT account, which permitted them to read private software information and suggest changes.

The researchers had been given access to an Anthropic tool specifically designed for security professionals, and were paid for the work as part of a program to find vulnerabilities before they could be exploited by bad actors.

Read full article

Comments

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/researchers-used-claude-to-hack-openai/




AI-Built Exploit and Sign-In Flaw Opened Path to Internal OpenAI Code

Researchers at security firm Hacktron used Claude to build a working exploit for a vulnerability in an image-processing library, then chained it with a flaw in OpenAI’s sign-in system to take over employee ChatGPT and Codex accounts, and ultimately gained access to internal code repositories.

The entry point was OpenAI’s community forum, community.openai.com, which runs on Discourse. Discourse’s built-in image checks didn’t support the HEIC/HEIF photo format, so uploads in that format were passed to ImageMagick, exposing an unpatched flaw in the libheif library it relies on for decoding. 

Hacktron says the underlying bug had been fixed upstream a year earlier without ever being flagged as a security issue, so it was never assigned a CVE and missed the usual patching cycle.

Turning the flaw into a reliable exploit took several attempts and involved Claude Opus 4.8 and Opus 5. The exploit allowed remote code execution, which the researchers first used against a test Discourse instance, then on OpenAI’s own forum.

Because the forum let people sign in with their OpenAI account, code execution there opened a path to broader account access. Hacktron says that until the issue was fixed, any user or employee who logged into the forum could have had their ChatGPT and Codex accounts taken over.

In addition, since people often connect other services to those accounts, the theoretical exposure extended to services like GitHub, Slack and email.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

OpenAI distinguishes between the two flaws. It told SecurityWeek that the image-processing bug lived in the third-party service Discourse, while the account-takeover path was a separate, OpenAI-side issue. 

The OpenAI weakness was related to sign-in tokens generated for the community forum carrying excessive permissions and granting full API access to associated ChatGPT and Codex accounts.

To demonstrate the access without reading any internal code, Hacktron says it took over an OpenAI employee’s account whose Codex integration was linked to OpenAI’s GitHub organization, then used it to open a pull request in an internal repository before stopping further testing. 

OpenAI said its own review of the incident found limited reads of private-repository metadata and commits, followed by the researcher-submitted pull request, specifically to a README file.

Hacktron’s report also raises Slack as a service that could theoretically have been reached through connected accounts. OpenAI says Hacktron did not verify actual access to employee Slack messages.

The security firm reported the account-takeover issue to OpenAI through Bugcrowd, and the AI giant confirmed a fix about 14 hours later. It separately reported the libheif flaw to Discourse through HackerOne. Discourse had a fix ready within two days and added image-processing sandboxing as an extra layer of defense, then published a security advisory.

In a statement, OpenAI said, “We thank the researchers for contacting us and sharing their findings. We narrowed the permissions on Community sign-in tokens and revoked affected tokens and sessions.” 

The company paid Hacktron a $6,500 bounty for the OpenAI-side finding. 

Related: OpenAI Says Its Models Searched GitHub for Leaked API Keys During Training

Related: AI Agents Can Retrain Own Models Mid-Task, Leaking Secrets and Erasing Refusals

Related: OpenAI Investigates Report Linking AI Agents to RubyGems Attack

https://www.securityweek.com/ai-built-exploit-and-sign-in-flaw-opened-path-to-internal-openai-code/