A cybersecurity blueprint for the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 must address ethical behavior of users and developers as well as ways to secure the technology itself. The Future Life Institutes standards for AI practitioners point in this direction.

Cybersecurity is full of hard problems, but perhaps none so difficult as securing the supply chain for our electronic devices. That's why the report published this week by Bloomberg about Chinese spies secretly planting microchips in American electronics in order to conduct espionage is so deeply unsettling. There is no way to address the threat of foreign governments compromising our hardware that does not require fundamentally and radically rethinking how we manufacture our devices and lead to more expensive, less ubiquitous electronics at exactly the moment when the internet of things seems to be pushing us in the opposite direction. According to Bloomberg, members of China's People's Liberation Army inserted the compromised microchips during the manufacturing process for motherboards produced by Super Micro Computer Inc., a company based in California. Those compromised motherboards, in turn, found their way to nearly 30 different companies and prompted an ongoing investigation by the U.S. government when the errant microchips were finally discovered by Amazon.

The US Department of Transportation has released its latest set of voluntary guidelines for automated driving systems, a report that builds on previous versions released over the past two years. With Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0, the DOT outlines additional safety principles, updates policy and offers guidance to state and local governments. "The integration of automation across our transportation system has the potential to increase productivity and facilitate freight movement," said DOT Secretary Elaine Chao. "But most importantly, automation has the potential to impact safety significantly -- by reducing crashes caused by human error, including crashes involving impaired or distracted drivers, and saving lives. The report notes that it's meant to be an update to, but not a replacement of, last year's guidance, and it encourages those developing automated driving systems to make public their Voluntary Safety Self-Assessments, which were introduced in last year's report. It also updates the list of best practices for state and local governments considering automated vehicle testing and operation. The agency also takes measures to clarify its policies and roles in regards to autonomous technology implementation. First, it's doing away with the Automated Vehicle Proving Grounds announced last year -- a list of 10 self-driving test sites that were eligible for federal funding. The DOT said that due to the "rapid increase in automated vehicle testing activities in many locations, there is no need for US DOT to favor particular locations." Additionally, the agency is working on updating language and regulations that it said unintentionally hamper automated vehicle progress. It will adapt its definitions of "driver" and "operator" to reflect that they no longer always refer to humans and can encompass automated systems. The DOT also announced a future notice of proposed rulemaking that will suggest exceptions to certain safety standards that apply only to human drivers -- such as pedals, brakes, mirrors and steering wheels -- for automated systems. Autonomous vehicle safety was put under the spotlight earlier this year when a self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian. "The public has legitimate concerns about the safety, security and privacy of automated technology," Chao said in the report. But some argue that the DOT's approach to autonomous vehicle safety isn't enough. "Despite deaths, injuries and crashes involving a variety of semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicle technology across the country, DOT continues to insist that eliminating regulation is the way to achieve safety," the Center of Auto Safety said in a statement about the report. "The potential for safety advancements or deadly disasters presented by autonomous vehicle technology is huge.

New facial recognition technology has identified three immigration cheats at one of America's busiest airports - in just forty days. The trio - who travelled separately during August and September - were intercepted at Washington's Dulles International Airport, which processes more than 21 million people per year. According to a statement by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they were each flagged-up by new software which scans minute differences between the person seeking entry and their passport photo. Impressively, mismatches are identified in as little as two seconds. Most recently, on Monday, a woman arriving on a flight from Accra, Ghana, presented a U.S. passport with a suspect image.

Tech giants including Apple and Amazon have hit back at claims by Bloomberg their servers may have been fitted with tiny microchips placed there by Chinese spies. The chips, which were'not much bigger than a grain of rice,' would have given China unprecedented backdoor access to computers and data, according to Bloomberg. Apple, Amazon and Super Micro, the Chinese motherboard manufacturer believed to have introduced the chips, have all issued statements denying the report. An Apple spokesman strongly denied the report in a statement, saying: 'On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, 'hardware manipulations' or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server. Apple never had any contact with the FBI or any other agency about such an incident.

NASA has switched its Curiosity rover to a'backup brain' in a bid to restore to rover. The Martian vehicle has been suffering from a major technical issue that has prevented the rover's active computer from storing science and some key engineering data since Sept. 15. Researchers hope that by switching the rover to its backup side, it can resume full functionality. The Martian vehicle has been suffering from a major technical issue that has prevented the rover's active computer from storing science and some key engineering data since Sept. 15. Curiosity was designed with two, computers, known as a Side-A and a Side-B computer.

The usual people are teaming up with the usual people to try to harness artificial intelligence (AI). That is, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are tying up with the UN, the World Bank and the Red Cross to try to use algorithms to predict famine. Every conference this year contains a dead human genius reincarnated as software system or a robot. Yes, there is a lot of hype, but there is real worth in AI and Machine Learning. Read our counseling on how to avoid adopting "black box" approach.

The Indian government plans to decongest its airports by introducing facial recognition technology next year - a proposal that may once again raise privacy concerns in the South Asian country. India's ministry of civil aviation on Thursday said passengers on domestic flights will be able to choose to use their biometric authentication system and go paperless. "Security will benefit from the ability of the technology to verify the passenger at every checkpoint in a non-intrusive way," ministry secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said in a statement. The proposal says passengers would be verified by being photographed at every stage of the check-in process - from entering the airport to proceeding through security and boarding the plane. The India government statement said the biometric technology will be introduced first at Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports by February next year, followed by Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada by April.

An alternative search engine is seeing growth as Google faces questions about its practices and alleged bias against conservatives. Google dominates search with only few viable alternatives in the field. But in the last few years, Paoli, Pa.-based DuckDuckGo has been gaining as a search engine, one that is built around anonymity, according to Search Engine Watch. "We provide you with everything you expect from Google without collecting your search history, or using it for targeted advertising," Gabriel Weinberg, CEO & Founder, DuckDuckGo, told Fox News in an email. "DuckDuckGo is a good search engine if you value privacy," Paul Bischoff, a privacy advocate at Comparitech, a company that reviews and compares consumer tech products, told Fox News.

This week, the Senate passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, which, among other things, renews funding for the Federal Aviation Administration and introduces new rules for airports and aircraft. But the bill, which now just needs to be signed by the president, also addresses drones. And while parts of the bill extend some aspects of drone use -- such as promoting drone package delivery and drone testing -- it also gives the federal government power to take down a private drone if it's seen as a "credible threat." The wording comes from another bill, the Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018, which was strongly supported by the Department of Homeland Security and absorbed into the FAA Reauthorization Act. In June, as part of its argument as to why it needed more leeway when it comes to drones, the agency said that terrorist groups overseas "use commercially available [unmanned aircraft systems] to drop explosive payloads, deliver harmful substances and conduct illicit surveillance," and added that the devices are also used to transport drugs, interfere with law enforcement and expolit unsecured networks.