Welcome to the June 20, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Pope Leo Takes On AI as a Potential Threat to Humanity
• AI Ethics Experts Set to Gather to Shape the Future of Responsible AI
• Hacker Group Exposes Source Code for Iran's Cryptocurrency
• China Unleashes Hackers Against Russia
• Waymo Cars Coming to New York, with a Driver Behind the Wheel
• Websites Track Users via Browser Fingerprinting
• Amazon Says It Will Reduce Its Workforce as AI Replaces Human Employees
• TikTok Ban Delayed for a Third Time
• China's Spy Agencies Investing Heavily in AI
• Iran Asks Citizens to Delete WhatsApp from Devices
• Images Hidden in Text Data Embedded into DNS TXT Records
• Tiny Middleman Could Access Two-Factor Login Codes from Tech Giants

Pope Leo Takes On AI as a Potential Threat to Humanity

This week, Google, Meta, IBM, Anthropic, Cohere, and Palantir executives took part in a two-day international conference at the Vatican on AI, ethics, and corporate governance. Some tech leaders hoped to avoid a binding international treaty on AI supported by the Vatican, and observers said the conference could set the tone for future interactions between Pope Leo and the tech industry on the matter of regulation.
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AI Ethics Experts Set to Gather to Shape the Future of Responsible AI

The 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT 2025), taking place June 23-26 in Athens, Greece, will address how algorithmic systems are reshaping the world and what it takes to ensure these AI tools do so justly. Said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis, “The unprecedented advances and rapid integration of AI and data technologies have created an urgent need for a scientific and public conversation about AI ethics."
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Hacker Group Exposes Source Code for Iran's Cryptocurrency

Israel-linked hacker group Gonjeshke Darande (Predatory Sparrow) released the source code and internal information of Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. According to the group, the company assists the regime in funding Iranian terrorism and uses virtual currencies to bypass sanctions. Gonjeshke Darande previously announced that it stole $48 million in cryptocurrency from the exchange, and claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-controlled Bank Sepah.
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China Unleashes Hackers Against Russia

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, groups linked to the Chinese government have repeatedly hacked Russian companies and government agencies. While China appears to have plenty of domestic scientific and military expertise, Chinese military experts have lamented that its troops lack battlefield experience. Some defense insiders say China sees Russia’s war in Ukraine as a chance to collect information about modern warfare tactics and Western weaponry, and what works against them.
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Waymo Cars Coming to New York, with a Driver Behind the Wheel

Alphabet's Waymo has applied for a permit from the New York City Department of Transportation that would allow its self-driving vehicles to operate autonomously, as long as a trained specialist is in the driver's seat. Current state law prohibits the operation of self-driving vehicles without a driver. The company first brought its cars to parts of the city in 2021 for manual driving, data collection, and testing, which allowed Waymo to improve its vehicles’ autonomous driving in icy and snowy conditions in a densely populated area.
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Websites Track Users via Browser Fingerprinting

Texas A&M University researchers developed a fingerprinting-based user tracking measurement framework that shows websites are using browser fingerprinting to track users across browser sessions and sites, even when users clear or delete cookies. FPTrace goes beyond scanning websites for fingerprinting code by analyzing ad systems' responses to changes in browser fingerprints. The researchers found browser fingerprints were used to track users even if they explicitly opted out of tracking.
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Amazon Says It Will Reduce Its Workforce as AI Replaces Human Employees

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a June 17 blog post that the rollout of generative AI agents will change how work is performed, enabling the company to shrink its workforce in the future. Jassy said, "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs." Employees should view AI as "teammates we can call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more helpful with more experience," according to Jassy.
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TikTok Ban Delayed for a Third Time

U.S. President Trump on Thursday issued another 90-day reprieve for TikTok, for the third time delaying enforcement of a 2024 law requiring the Chinese-controlled video app's sale or shutdown. A White House spokesperson said the Trump administration will work over the next three months to broker a deal ensuring U.S. user data on TikTok is secure. A prior U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the 2024 law, citing national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection and foreign ties.
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China's Spy Agencies Investing Heavily in AI

A report by researchers at Recorded Future's Insikt Group details investments in AI by Chinese spy agencies to develop tools that could improve intelligence analysis, help military commanders develop operational plans, and generate early threat warnings. The researchers found that China is probably using a mix of large language models, including Meta and OpenAI, along with domestic models from DeepSeek, Zhipu AI, and others.
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Iran Asks Citizens to Delete WhatsApp from Devices

Iranian state television has called on citizens to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones, claiming the app collects user information to send to Israel. In response, WhatsApp, which employs end-to-end encryption to prevent service providers in the middle from reading messages, issued a statement that read, "We do not track your precise location, we don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging, and we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another."
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Images Hidden in Text Data Embedded into DNS TXT Records

Cybersecurity researcher Asher Falcon demonstrated a data concealment approach that enables digital images to be embedded seamlessly within DNS TXT records. The technique, called "dnsimg," turns domain name infrastructure into an image storage system. It involves converting image files into hexadecimal or Base64 encoded text strings capable of being stored within DNS TXT records. Individual TXT records must adhere to a 2,048-character maximum, requiring larger images to be divided into smaller segments, a process that Falcon automated using a sophisticated Python script.
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Tiny Middleman Could Access Two-Factor Login Codes from Tech Giants

Concerns are being raised about the middlemen that send two-factor authentication codes to consumers via text on behalf of Big Tech companies, popular apps, banks, encrypted chat platforms, and other senders. An industry whistleblower has revealed around 1 million such messages have passed through Fink Telecom Services, a Swiss company that cybersecurity researchers have linked to incidents in which the codes were intercepted and used to infiltrate private online accounts. Critics of the industry point to a lack of regulation allowing such companies to operate without a license.
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