An anonymous reader shared this report from The New York Times: Russian counterintelligence agents are analyzing data from the popular Chinese messaging and social media app WeChat to monitor people who might be in contact with Chinese spies, according to a Russian intelligence document obtained by The New York Times. The disclosure highlights the rising level of concern about Chinese influence in Russia as the two countries deepen their relationship. As Russia has become isolated from the West over its war in Ukraine, it has become increasingly reliant on Chinese money, companies and technology. But it has also faced what the document describes as increased Chinese espionage efforts.

The document indicates that the Russian domestic security agency, known as the F.S.B., pulls purloined data into an analytical tool known as "Skopishche" (a Russian word for a mob of people). Information from WeChat is among the data being analyzed, according to the document... One Western intelligence agency told The Times that the information in the document was consistent with what it knew about "Russian penetration of Chinese communications...." By design, [WeChat] does not use end-to-end encryption to protect user data. That is because the Chinese government exercises strict control over the app and relies on its weak security to monitor and censor speech. Foreign intelligence agencies can exploit that weakness, too...

WeChat was briefly banned in Russia in 2017, but access was restored after Tencent took steps to comply with laws requiring foreign digital platforms above a certain size to register as "organizers of information dissemination." The Times confirmed that WeChat is currently licensed by the government to operate in Russia. That license would require Tencent to store user data on Russian servers and to provide access to security agencies upon request.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [Volvo] is debuting a new version of the three-point seatbelt that it believes is a major improvement over the original. The new design will be a smart belt that adapts to each occupant's body and adjusts the belt load accordingly. It uses data from interior and exterior sensors to customize protection based on the road conditions and the specific occupants. The technology will debut on the upcoming EX60 crossover.

According to Volvo, the onboard sensors can accurately detect a passenger's height, weight, body shape, and seating position. Based on real-time data, the belts optimize protection -- increasing belt load for larger passengers or lowering it for smaller passengers. While the technology for customizing protection isn't new -- Volvo's current belts already use three load-limiting profiles- the new belts increase that number to 11. The belts should also get safer over time, too, as they are equipped to receive over-the-air updates. sinij adds: "Downloading patches for your seat belts from China. What could possibly go wrong?"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The FBI is warning that the BADBOX 2.0 malware campaign has infected over 1 million home Internet-connected devices, converting consumer electronics into residential proxies that are used for malicious activity. The BADBOX botnet is commonly found on Chinese Android-based smart TVs, streaming boxes, projectors, tablets, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices. "The BADBOX 2.0 botnet consists of millions of infected devices and maintains numerous backdoors to proxy services that cyber criminal actors exploit by either selling or providing free access to compromised home networks to be used for various criminal activity," warns the FBI.

These devices come preloaded with the BADBOX 2.0 malware botnet or become infected after installing firmware updates and through malicious Android applications that sneak onto Google Play and third-party app stores. "Cyber criminals gain unauthorized access to home networks by either configuring the product with malicious software prior to the users purchase or infecting the device as it downloads required applications that contain backdoors, usually during the set-up process," explains the FBI. "Once these compromised IoT devices are connected to home networks, the infected devices are susceptible to becoming part of the BADBOX 2.0 botnet and residential proxy services4 known to be used for malicious activity."

Once infected, the devices connect to the attacker's command and control (C2) servers, where they receive commands to execute on the compromised devices, such as [routing malicious traffic through residential IPs to obscure cybercriminal activity, performing background ad fraud to generate revenue, and launching credential-stuffing attacks using stolen login data]. Over the years, the malware botnet continued expanding until 2024, when Germany's cybersecurity agency disrupted the botnet in the country by sinkholing the communication between infected devices and the attacker's infrastructure, effectively rendering the malware useless. However, that did not stop the threat actors, with researchers saying they found the malware installed on 192,000 devices a week later. Even more concerning, the malware was found on more mainstream brands, like Yandex TVs and Hisense smartphones. Unfortunately, despite the previous disruption, the botnet continued to grow, with HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence stating that over 1 million consumer devices had become infected by March 2025. This new larger botnet is now being called BADBOX 2.0 to indicate a new tracking of the malware campaign. "This scheme impacted more than 1 million consumer devices. Devices connected to the BADBOX 2.0 operation included lower-price-point, 'off brand,' uncertified tablets, connected TV (CTV) boxes, digital projectors, and more," explains HUMAN.

"The infected devices are Android Open Source Project devices, not Android TV OS devices or Play Protect certified Android devices. All of these devices are manufactured in mainland China and shipped globally; indeed, HUMAN observed BADBOX 2.0-associated traffic from 222 countries and territories worldwide."

Chinese student enrollment at American universities has dropped to 277,000 in the 2023-24 academic year, down from a peak of 372,000 in 2019-20, according to data in a new report examining shifting global education patterns. The decline accelerated following the State Department's May 28th announcement of an "aggressive" campaign to revoke visas for Chinese students in "critical fields" of science and engineering, as well as those with unspecified Communist Party "connections."

The trend reflects broader economic and geopolitical pressures beyond visa restrictions. Chinese families increasingly view American education as too expensive amid China's economic downturn and property market decline, while domestic employers have grown suspicious of foreign-educated graduates. Meanwhile, Chinese students are choosing alternatives including Britain, which hosted nearly 150,000 Chinese students in 2023-24, and regional destinations like Japan, where Chinese enrollment increased to 115,000 in 2023 from under 100,000 in 2019.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC: A consumer organization filed a complaint with the European Commission on Thursday against online fast-fashion retailer Shein over its use of "dark patterns," which are tactics designed to make people buy more on its app and website. Pop-ups urging customers not to leave the app or risk losing promotions, countdown timers that create time pressure to complete a purchase and the infinite scroll on its app are among the methods Shein uses that could be considered "aggressive commercial practices," wrote BEUC, a pan-European consumer group, in a report.

The BEUC also detailed Shein's use of frequent notifications, with one phone receiving 12 notifications from the app in a single day. "For fast fashion you need to have volume, you need to have mass consumption, and these dark patterns are designed to stimulate mass consumption," said Agustin Reyna, director general of BEUC, in an interview. "For us, to be satisfactory they need to get rid of these dark patterns, but the question is whether they will have enough incentive to do so, knowing the potential impact it can have on the volume of purchases." [...]

The BEUC also targeted the online discount platform Temu, a Shein rival, in a previous complaint. Both platforms have surged in popularity in Europe, partly helped by apps that encourage shoppers to engage with games and stand to win discounts and free products. [...] The BEUC noted that dark patterns are widely used by mass-market clothing retailers and called on the consumer protection network to include other retailers in its investigation. It said 25 of its member organizations in 21 countries, including France, Germany and Spain, joined in the grievance filed with the commission and with the European consumer protection network. Temu and Shein have their own issues in the United States. Following the recent closure of the de minimis loophole, use of the two Chinese platforms have slowed significantly. "Temu's U.S. daily active users (DAUs) dropped 52% in May versus March, before Trump's tariffs were announced, while those at rival Shein were down 25%," reports CNBC, citing data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

"The declines were also reflected in both platforms' Apple App Store rankings. Temu averaged a rank of 132 in May 2025, down from an average top 3 ranking a year ago, while Shein averaged a rank of 60 last month versus a top 10 ranking the year prior, the data showed."

China's southernmost province of Hainan is piloting a programme to grant select corporate users broad access to the global internet, a rare move in a country known for having some of the world's most restrictive online censorship, as the island seeks to transform itself into a global free-trade port. From a report: Employees of companies registered and operating in Hainan can apply for the "Global Connect" mobile service through the Hainan International Data Comprehensive Service Centre (HIDCSC), according to the agency, which is overseen by the state-run Hainan Big Data Development Centre.

The programme allows eligible users to bypass the so-called Great Firewall, which blocks access to many of the world's most-visited websites, such as Google and Wikipedia. Applicants must be on a 5G plan with one of the country's three major state-backed carriers -- China Mobile, China Unicom or China Telecom -- and submit their employer's information, including the company's Unified Social Credit Code, for approval. The process can take up to five months, HIDCSC staff said.

Amazon is developing software for humanoid robots that could eventually replace hundreds of thousands of delivery workers, [non-paywalled source] The Information reports. The company is building a "humanoid park" obstacle course at its San Francisco office to test robots that would ride in the back of Amazon's Rivian electric vans and deliver packages to customers, the report said. The indoor testing facility, roughly the size of a coffee shop, will house a Rivian van and serve as a controlled environment before Amazon takes the robots on "field trips" to deliver real packages on actual streets.

This summer, Amazon plans to test multiple humanoid models, including a $16,000 unit from China-based Unitree that has gained popularity among robotics developers, the report said. The initiative represents Amazon's most ambitious robotics project yet, extending beyond its existing warehouse automation to tackle the significantly more complex challenge of outdoor package delivery. Amazon currently operates more than 20,000 Rivian vehicles for deliveries and plans to expand its electric fleet to 100,000 vehicles by 2030.

OpenAI said it disrupted several attempts [non-paywalled source] from users in China to leverage its AI models for cyber threats and covert influence operations, underscoring the security challenges AI poses as the technology becomes more powerful. From a report: The Microsoft-backed company on Thursday published its latest report on disrupting malicious uses of AI, saying its investigative teams continued to uncover and prevent such activities in the three months since Feb. 21.

While misuse occurred in several countries, OpenAI said it believes a "significant number" of violations came from China, noting that four of 10 sample cases included in its latest report likely had a Chinese origin. In one such case, the company said it banned ChatGPT accounts it claimed were using OpenAI's models to generate social media posts for a covert influence operation. The company said a user stated in a prompt that they worked for China's propaganda department, though it cautioned it didn't have independent proof to verify its claim.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers broke into an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, indicating that Chinese attackers penetrated the US communications system earlier than publicly known. Investigators working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company's systems for seven months starting in the summer of 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, an unclassified report sent to Western intelligence agencies, doesn't name the company where the malware was found and the people familiar with the matter declined to identify it.

The 2023 intrusion at an American telecommunications company, which hasn't been previously reported, came about a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies said they began spotting clues that Chinese hackers had penetrated many of the country's largest phone and wireless firms. The US government has blamed the later breaches on a Chinese state-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. It's unclear if the 2023 hack is related to that foreign espionage campaign and, if so, to what degree. Nonetheless, it raises questions about when Chinese intruders established a foothold in the American communications industry. "We've known for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely subject to attack," said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications expert. "What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies." Investigators linked the sophisticated rootkit malware Demodex to China's Ministry of State Security, noting it enabled deep, stealthy access to systems and remained undetected on a U.S. defense-linked company's network until early 2024.

A Chinese government spokesperson denied responsibility for cyberattacks and accused the U.S. and its allies of spreading disinformation and conducting cyber operations against China.

A new business model has emerged across China's major cities, El Pais reports, where companies charge unemployed individuals to rent desk space and pretend to work, responding to social pressure around joblessness amid rising youth unemployment rates. These services charge between 30 and 50 yuan ($4-7) daily for desks, Wi-Fi, coffee, and lunch in spaces designed to mimic traditional work environments.

Some operations assign fictitious tasks and organize supervisory rounds to enhance the illusion, while premium services allow clients to roleplay as managers or stage workplace conflicts for additional fees. The trend has gained significant traction on Xiaohongshu, China's equivalent to Instagram, where advertisements for "pretend-to-work companies" accumulate millions of views. Youth unemployment reached 16.5% among 16-to-24-year-olds in March 2025, according to National Bureau of Statistics data, while overall urban unemployment stood at 5.3% in the first quarter.

"We've officially entered the age of watching robots clobber each other in fighting rings," writes Vice.com.

A kick-boxing competition was staged Sunday in Hangzhou, China using four robots from Unitree Robotics, reports Futurism. (The robots were named "AI Strategist", "Silk Artisan", "Armored Mulan", and "Energy Guardian".) "However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams."

Although those ringside human controllers used quick voice commands, according to the South China Morning Post: Unlike typical remote-controlled toys, handling Unitree's G1 robots entails "a whole set of motion-control algorithms powered by large [artificial intelligence] models", said Liu Tai, deputy chief engineer at China Telecommunication Technology Labs, which is under research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
More from Vice: The G1 robots are just over 4 feet tall [130 cm] and weigh around 77 pounds [35 kg]. They wear gloves. They have headgear. They throw jabs, uppercuts, and surprisingly sharp kicks... One match even ended in a proper knockout when a robot stayed down for more than eight seconds. The fights ran three rounds and were scored based on clean hits to the head and torso, just like standard kickboxing...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's Ministry of Commerce is meeting with some of the country's biggest automakers to discuss whether the industry is using a loophole to mask weakening sales. Reuters adds: It comes after Great Wall Motor's Chairman Wei Jianjun said in an interview with Sina Finance last week that a phenomenon called "secondhand cars with zero mileage" had emerged in the Chinese market as a result of the industry's years-long price war.

The phenomenon, he said, involved cars that had been registered and had licence plates -- marking them as sold -- but had never been driven being sold in the secondhand market. Wei said that at least 3,000 to 4,000 vendors on Chinese used car platforms were selling such cars. The source said the tactic was seen as a potential method within the industry for automakers and dealers to support new car sales as they try to meet aggressive sales targets.

India faces a paradoxical climate challenge that requires embracing air conditioning despite the environmental costs, according to analysis of the country's warming patterns and pollution crisis. While the past decade marked India's warmest on record, the nation has warmed at only 0.09C per decade compared to 0.30C globally, with horrific air pollution serving as an unintended cooling agent by intercepting solar radiation and making clouds more reflective.

The cooling effect creates a dangerous trade-off: cleaner air would accelerate temperature rises just as the country desperately needs relief from intensifying heat waves. Only one in ten Indian households owns air conditioning, compared to two-thirds in China and four-fifths in Malaysia, despite air-conditioner sales doubling between 2020 and 2024. During heat waves, cooling systems already account for one-fifth of power demand, mostly supplied by coal plants that worsen the pollution problem India must eventually solve.

An anonymous reader shares a report: HP is close to ending production of North-America-bound products in China, after US tariffs kicked a hole in its quarterly profits. "A quarter ago, we shared that our goal was to have less than ten percent of the products in North America being shipped from China by September," HP president and CEO Enrique Lores told investors on the company's Q2 2025 earnings call. "We have accelerated that and we share that now almost no products will be coming from China sold in the US by June. It's a very significant acceleration of the plan that we have."

"We accelerated the shift of factories out from China into Southeast Asia, into Mexico to a certain extent in the US to mitigate the impact of the change," he added. Lores also revealed that HP has removed the US as a distribution hub for products sold in Canada or to Latin America. Doing so means HP doesn't have to pay tariffs.

A security researcher has discovered an exposed database containing 184 million login credentials for major services including Apple, Facebook, and Google accounts, along with credentials linked to government agencies across 29 countries. Jeremiah Fowler found the 47-gigabyte trove in early May, but the database contained no identifying information about its owner or origins.

The records included plaintext passwords and usernames for accounts spanning Netflix, PayPal, Discord, and other major platforms. A sample analysis revealed 220 email addresses with government domains from countries including the United States, China, and Israel. Fowler told Wired he suspects the data was compiled by cybercriminals using infostealer malware. World Host Group, which hosted the database, shut down access after Fowler's report and described it as content uploaded by a "fraudulent user." The company said it would cooperate with law enforcement authorities.

Great swathes of the planet's oceans have become darker in the past two decades, according to researchers who fear the trend will have a severe impact on marine life around the world. From a report: Satellite data and numerical modelling revealed that more than a fifth of the global ocean darkened between 2003 and 2022, reducing the band of water that life reliant on sunlight and moonlight can thrive in. The effect is evident across 75m sq km (30m sq miles) of ocean, equivalent to the land area of Europe, Africa, China and North America combined, and disturbs the upper layer of water where 90% of marine species live.

Dr Thomas Davies, a marine conservationist at the University of Plymouth, said the findings were a "genuine cause for concern," with potentially severe implications for marine ecosystems, global fisheries and the critical turnover of carbon and nutrients in the oceans. Most marine life thrives in the photic zones of the world's oceans, the surface layers that allow sufficient light through for organisms to exploit. While sunlight can reach a kilometre beneath the waves, in practice there is little below 200 metres.

President Trump's threat of a 25% tariff on smartphone imports including iPhones would not provide enough economic incentive for Apple to relocate US-bound iPhone production to domestic facilities, according to a new Morgan Stanley note viewed by Slashdot. The tariff threat, announced Friday via social media, appeared to target Apple's recent shift of iPhone production from China to India through its contract manufacturing partners.

Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that establishing US iPhone production would require a minimum of two years and several billion dollars to build multiple greenfield assembly facilities, with a trained workforce exceeding 100,000 workers during peak seasons. More significantly, the firm calculates that a US-produced iPhone would cost 35% more than current China or India production, primarily due to higher labor costs and the need to import 25% of iPhone components from China under existing 30% tariffs. By contrast, Apple could offset a 25% import tariff by raising global iPhone prices just 4-6%, making domestic production economically unviable.

Around the world fungal infections kill an estimated 2.5 million people a year, notes a report from CNN. But new research predicts that certain species of infection-causing Aspergillus fungi could spread into new areas as the earth's temperature rises. ("The study, published this month, is currently being peer reviewed...") Aspergillus fungi grow like small filaments in soils all over the world. Like almost all fungi, they release huge numbers of tiny spores that spread through the air. Humans inhale spores every day but most people won't experience any health issues; their immune system clears them. It's a different story for those with lung conditions including asthma, cystic fibrosis and COPD, as well as people with compromised immune systems, such as cancer and organ transplant patients, and those who have had severe flu or Covid-19. If the body's immune system fails to clear the spores, the fungus "starts to grow and basically kind of eat you from the inside out, saying it really bluntly," said Norman van Rijn, one of the study's authors and a climate change and infectious diseases researcher at the University of Manchester. Aspergillosis has very high mortality rates at around 20% to 40%, he said. It's also very difficult to diagnose, as doctors don't always have it on their radar and patients often present with fevers and coughs, symptoms common to many illnesses. Fungal pathogens are also becoming increasingly resistant to treatment, van Rijn added. There are only four classes of antifungal medicines available...

Aspergillus flavus, a species that tends to prefer hotter, tropical climates, could increase its spread by 16% if humans continue burning large amounts of fossil fuels, the study found... [Mainly in parts of Europe and the northernmost edges of Scandinavia, Russia, China, and Canada, and the western edge of Alaska.] This species can cause severe infections in humans and is resistant to many antifungal medications. It also infects a range of food crops, posing a potential threat to food security. The World Health Organization added Aspergillus flavus to its critical group of fungal pathogens in 2022 because of its public health impact and antifungal resistance risk...

Conversely, temperatures in some regions, including sub-Saharan Africa, could become so hot they are no longer hospitable to Aspergillus fungi. This could bring its own problems, as fungi play an important role in ecosystems, including healthy soils. As well as expanding their growing range, a warming world could also be increasing fungi's temperature tolerance, allowing them to better survive inside human bodies. Extreme weather events such as drought, floods and heatwaves can affect fungi, too, helping to spread spores over long distances.
Thanks to Slashdot reader quonset for sharing the article.

In early 2025, U.S. solar power production jumped 44% compared to the previous year, driven by end-of-year construction to capture tax incentives and long-term cost advantages. "The bad news is that, in contrast to China, solar's growth hasn't been enough to offset rising demand," notes Ars Technica. "Instead, the US also saw significant growth in coal use, which rose by 23 percent compared to the year prior, after years of steady decline." From the report: Short-term fluctuations in demand are normal, generally driven by weather-induced demand for heating or cooling. Despite those changes, demand for electricity in the US has been largely flat for over a decade, largely thanks to gains in efficiency. But 2024 saw demand go up by nearly 3 percent, and the first quarter of 2025 saw another rise, this time of nearly 5 percent. It's a bit too early to say that we're seeing a shift to a period of rising demand, but one has been predicted for some time due to rising data center use and the increased electrification of transportation and appliances.

Under those circumstances, the rest of the difference will be made up for with fossil fuels. Running counter to recent trends, the use of natural gas dropped during the first three months of 2025. This means that the use of coal rose nearly as quickly as demand, up by 23 percent compared to the same time period in 2024. Despite the rise in coal use, the fraction of carbon-free electricity held steady year over year, with wind/solar/hydro/nuclear accounting for 43 percent of all power put on the US grid. That occurred despite small drops in nuclear and hydro production.

Out of 186 countries, only Guyana produces enough food to self-sufficiently feed all its citizens without foreign imports, according to new research. From a report: The study, published in Nature Food, investigated how well each country could feed their populations in seven food groups: fruits, vegetables, dairy, fish, meat, plant-based protein and starchy staples.

Worldwide, the study found that 65% of countries were overproducing meat and dairy, compared to their own population's dietary needs. It also found that Guyana, located in South America, was the only country that could boast total self-sufficiency, while China and Vietnam were close behind, being able to produce enough food in six out of seven food groups. Just one in seven of the tested countries were judged self-sufficient in five or more categories.