The BBC is "really worried" by a new tactic by fake news propagandists and fraudsters who are exploiting the rise of chat apps to spread false content carrying the broadcaster's trusted branding. The organisation has found itself repeatedly targeted by what appears to be a mixture of state-backed political activists, opportunistic fraudsters and malicious pranksters, who are grafting the BBC's famous logo onto false reports that are shared on the largely unregulated chat platforms. The trend represents a new dimension in the fake news threat and a major challenge to democratic processes and to news organisations in protecting their brand reputations. The BBC last week felt obliged to issue a formal warning after a clip purporting to show the BBC reporting on the outbreak of nuclear war between Russian and NATO forces in the Baltic went viral on WhatsApp and other chat platforms as a piece of breaking news. In other instances, the BBC's branding has been used to give a false sense of authentication to concocted election results, and in creating malicious news'reports' designed to damage corporate targets.

On a fine early afternoon in late March a young German-Iranian friend and I walked into the Garage Gallery at the Fire Station in Doha, Qatar - and we wondered. We were there to see the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's "Laundromat": "A traveling installation", as the official description of the exhibition says, "that brings the current European migrant crisis into sharp focus." We had read before that "the work is centered around a vast makeshift camp near the village of Idomeni, on the border with the Republic of Macedonia. As part of his recently released documentary Human Flow, Ai Weiwei has borne witness to the brutal plight of refugees worldwide." Does the brutal plight of refugees worldwide - those from Syria in particular - need a witness?

Yesterday, the Belgian minister of justice, Koen Greens, announced the result of an investigation that the country's Gaming Commission conducted into video game "loot boxes", a mechanic that lets players pay real money for a chance at winning virtual items. It found that three popular games – Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Fifa 18 – were in violation of gambling legislation. This is a significant finding, because controversy over loot boxes has been raging for at least six months: are they actually a form of gambling? Worse, are they a form of gambling that is particularly appealing to children? Belgium's Gaming Commission has decided that, yes, they are, and the publishers in question should remove loot boxes from their games or face fines.

The National Institutes for Health (NIH) are on an ambitious effort to harness advances in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) to support programs like the Precision Medicine, Cancer Moonshot, and Brain Initiatives. To accelerate progress, the NIH made a call to the public for a Request for Information (RFI)on the proposed Strategic Plan on Data Science. I submitted my letter and a number of people asked me to make my letter public. Since, as soon as it is submitted, it becomes part of the public record and the submission has now closed, I'm put the full text below. While this letter is specific to the NIH, there are many parts that are salient to the broader questions of ethics, security, and how we need to think about data going forward.

ANYONE with even a passing involvement with cybersecurity – a junior helpdesk staff and upwards – will be aware that the most susceptible points of failure in any network are the carbon-based entities operating computerized technology. And even the most battle-hardened cybersecurity officer will, at some stage of their life, have at least begun to click on a link found in an email of dubious provenance. BYOD and the increased digital fluency of every organization's users have increased the pressure on security teams, as users spend longer online, on more devices, doing more complex tasks, and interacting more with others on the LAN and the internet. Endpoint security, therefore, is increasingly important. Traditional systems to protect endpoints largely work on the basis of signature detection, and methods inherited from their firewall cousins, such as black & whitelists and databases of known exploits.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are increasingly promoted as a solution in the context, and you don't need to look far to find products and services trumpeting their use of such techniques as a key selling point. At the same time, there is a growing concern that the growth of AI will herald a new era of cybercrime, making attacks more complex and more difficult to stop. Before looking at the potential downsides, it is worth thinking about the defensive role the AI can play in cybersecurity. The key areas here will include spotting things that we would not ordinarily notice and aiding the automation of things that otherwise rely upon manual intervention. Although it's getting significant attention at present, the opportunity to link AI into cybersecurity has been recognised for quite some time, with application in behavioural profiling and anomaly detection (e.g.

As a young person aged 16, I have come to a clear realisation that artificial intelligence will have a profound impact on myself, my family and everyone around me. Only recently have we really seen the impact of AI on the world, some examples of these include our phones (we interact with virtual personal assistants such as Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant), banking (AI analyses large amounts of data and pattern searching) medicine (AI is able to predict and diagnose lung cancer, heart disease and more). However, although some people understand the concept of AI and its use in our day to day life, the majority of people are scared of what life will be with these so called "fake humans" running our lives. In my opinion, the first step that needs to take place, having the greatest effect, are the laws that will be put in place before the mass realisation of AI. Although some laws now stand, more discussion needs to take place around ethics and use of data, as well as guidance for those developing AI systems and algorithms.

In a landscape marked by an explosion in the number of security incidents, machine learning should be the main focal point in 2018. The promise of automated learning is of as much interest to hackers as it is to companies concerned with protecting their informational assets. The subject has even made it onto McAfee's 2018 five most important trends in cyber security. Identified as one of this year's biggest issues, machine learning has some very diverse applications in the world of cyber security. For example, it can be used to analyse the activities carried out by an authentication service so as to trigger an alert or block access when abnormal behaviour is detected.

The Trump administration is keenly interested in using artificial intelligence to help the military perform some of its key tasks more effectively and cheaply, the Defense Department's second most senior official told defense reporters in Washington on Tuesday. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing aircraft executive, said artificial intelligence or AI -- the use of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence -- could aid the department, for example, in making better use of the voluminous intelligence data it collects. He also said AI could enhance military logistics, the task of supplying the right parts and gear to soldiers and maintenance crews at the right time. And it could facilitate wiser decision-making about providing health care for service members, producing future cost savings. Already, the Pentagon is preparing to create a Center for Excellence -- possibly within the next six months -- that would pull together multiple existing military programs related to AI applications and bring added coherence and impetus to the work, he and other senior defense officials have said.

Mr. Keller joined Tesla in 2016 from chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to serve as vice president of Autopilot hardware. He assumed control of Autopilot software as well last June, following the departure of Chris Lattner, who left only six months after Tesla hired him away from Apple Inc. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively," Tesla said. Electrek, a blog that closely follows Tesla, earlier reported Mr. Keller's departure. Tesla has had several departures from its senior ranks since the start of last year, including its top sales executive and chief financial officer. The company is struggling to ramp up production of the Model 3, a sedan that is supposed to help make the electric-car producer more mainstream.