The Republican Plan to Reform the Census Could Put Everyone's Privacy at Risk A little-known algorithmic process called "differential privacy" helps keep census data anonymous. President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have spent the better part of the president's second term radically reshaping the federal government. But in recent weeks, the GOP has set its sights on taking another run at an old target: the US census. Since the first Trump administration, the right has sought to add a question to the census that captures a respondent's immigration status and to exclude noncitizens from the tallies that determine how seats in Congress are distributed. In 2019, the Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the first Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the census. But now, a little-known algorithmic process called "differential privacy," created to keep census data from being used to identify individual respondents, has become the right's latest focus.

As students returned to school this week, WIRED spoke to a self-proclaimed leader of a violent online group known as "Purgatory" about a rash of swattings at universities across the US in recent days. The group claims to have ties to the loose cybercriminal network known as The Com, and the alleged Purgatory leader claimed responsibility for calling in hoax active-shooter alerts. Researchers from multiple organizations warned this week that cybercriminals are increasingly using generative AI tools to fuel ransomware attacks, including real situations where cybercriminals without technical expertise are using AI to develop the malware. And a popular, yet enigmatic, shortwave Russian radio station known as UVB-76 seems to have turned into a tool for Kremlin propaganda after decades of mystery and intrigue. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn't cover in depth ourselves.

AI should be saving you time, boosting your productivity, and even helping you think more creatively. But if you're stuck rewriting prompts, dealing with bad responses, or wondering why it feels so basic, here's a hard truth: it's not ChatGPT … it's you. But getting your skills up to snuff is simple if you enroll in our best-selling e-degree program. It doesn't matter if you're a complete beginner, an aspiring master, or somewhere in between, you'll learn how to use ChatGPT like an expert for just 19.97 (reg. Don't worry about fitting time into your schedule--these courses are completely self-paced.

What's new: A new pair of AI benchmarks could help developers reduce bias in AI models, potentially making them fairer and less likely to cause harm. The benchmarks evaluate AI systems based on their awareness of different scenarios and contexts. They could offer a more nuanced way to measure AI's bias and its understanding of the world. Why it matters: The researchers were inspired to look into the problem of bias after witnessing clumsy missteps in previous approaches, demonstrating how ignoring differences between groups may in fact make AI systems less fair. But while these new benchmarks could help teams better judge fairness in AI models, actually fixing them may require some other techniques altogether.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R- Tex., got into a heated exchange with CNN host Pamela Brown over the Trump administration's crackdown on government spending, specifically for public broadcasting at PBS and NPR. By 1970, both PBS and NPR sprang forth from the CBP, and Americans were treated to the "News Hour," "Sesame Street," British comedies and science programming at a time when there were only three networks, cable TV was strictly for the boondocks, and VCRs were science fiction. A big part of the reason that programming was limited was that production costs for broadcasting were incredibly high. In David Grzybowski's book, 'The Big Story,' he cites Philadelphia news anchor Larry Kane talking about how hard it was during the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear scare to just get a live TV shot from Harrisburg to Philly: "I know we had a live microwave, but the microwaves didn't go that far. I think we sought some satellite time. The satellite times in those days were 5,000 a minute."

You've seen the Game awards nominations. Our own Guardian games of the year list is still a wee while away, but while you're waiting – with bated breath, I'm sure – here's an appetiser: Pushing Buttons' alternative awards. Need to recover your hearts while adventuring through a bunch of eerie rifts that are tearing Hyrule apart? Simply conjure a bed out of thin air, make sure you're out of enemy reach and have a wee nap. Need to make your way across a bridgeable gap?

For years now, an online shop called Super Yaki has been selling T-shirts and hats printed with the message "Judy Greer should've been the lead." That there is a market for such merch is a testament to just how beloved an actress Greer is, despite her reputation for always playing the sidekick rather than the main character. This month, though, all those T-shirt wearers' wishes have come true, sort of: The 49-year-old receives top billing in a movie that debuted on more than 3,000 screens last week. If you're wondering why you haven't heard of it, here comes the catch: Greer's lead role is in a Christian family movie from the son of the guy who co-wrote the Left Behind books. Greer plays a mother who takes on the challenge of directing her church's annual Christmas play in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, directed by Dallas Jenkins, creator of Christian miniseries The Chosen, and based on the 1972 children's book of the same name.

Either you've been getting late-night visits from Freddy Krueger, or the warm milk and magnesium aren't cutting it lately. Many people are turning to ring sleep trackers to help them get better shuteye, and it might be time to give in to the trend yourself. This one by Go2sleep is less than half the price of the famous Oura Ring. And its AI-powered algorithms help monitor more than just your heart rate as you sleep. Slip the Go2sleep over your finger, drift off into your mediocre-quality slumber, and the ring will monitor you all throughout the night.

I have a chair of shame at home. By that I mean a chair in my bedroom onto which I pile used clothes that aren't quite dirty enough to wash. For some inexplicable reason folding and putting away those clothes feels like an overwhelming task when I go to bed at night, so I dump them on the chair for "later." I would pay good money to automate that job before the chair is covered by a mountain of clothes. Thanks to AI, we're slowly inching towards the goal of household robots that can do our chores.

As a precocious teen looking to improve my college application, I sat in on a business studies class. I figured taking two extra A-Levels at night school alongside those I took during the day would make me irresistible to admissions tutors. The class I watched examined if it was worth a large factory keeping its own trucks and drivers in-house rather than outsourcing them. The data showed selling the trucks and firing the workers was more expensive in the long run, and yoked the company to the whims of any third-party logistics company in the local area. Not to mention, if you don't own a mission-critical component of your business, you're a lot less powerful when negotiating with your suppliers.