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

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• U.K. Drops Request That Apple Create a Back Door
• Internet-Wide Vulnerability Enables Giant DDoS Attacks
• ‘Microwave Brain’ on a Chip
• Google Announces Tennessee as Site for Small Modular Nuclear Reactor
• NIST Issues Guidelines to Help Detect Face Photo Morphs
• Wireless Airy Beams Twist Past Indoor Obstacles
• Python Survey Shows Growth
• Robotic Sensor Detects Crops by Their Vibrations
• Hijacked Satellites Bring Weapons to Space
• Japan to Train 30,000 African Students in AI
• Machine Learning Contest Aims to Improve Speech BCIs
• Supreme Court Allows Mississippi Law on Children’s Use of Social Media
• Travel eSIMs Secretly Route Traffic over Chinese Networks

U.K. Drops Request That Apple Create a Back Door

The U.S. has secured an agreement with the U.K. that spares Apple from creating a tool giving U.K. law enforcement access to customers’ encrypted cloud data. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Britain agreed to drop the mandate, which Apple argued threatened civil liberties and global data security. The move followed Britain’s amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act and a secret order compelling Apple to comply.
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Internet-Wide Vulnerability Enables Giant DDoS Attacks

Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have discovered a new HTTP/2 vulnerability that could enable massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks affecting up to one-third of websites globally. The “MadeYouReset” flaw circumvents last year’s “Rapid Reset” fix by exploiting server-initiated stream cancellations to overwhelm back-end systems. Though many vendors have patched against the threat, others remain vulnerable.
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‘Microwave Brain’ on a Chip

A low-power microchip described as a “microwave brain” by its developers at Cornell University can compute on both ultrafast data signals and wireless communication signals by harnessing the physics of microwaves. The capability is enabled by the chip’s design as a neural network using interconnected modes produced in tunable waveguides, allowing it to recognize patterns and learn from data. The network uses analog, nonlinear behavior in the microwave regime, allowing it to handle data streams in the tens of gigahertz.
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Google Announces Tennessee as Site for Small Modular Nuclear Reactor

Google and Kairos Power selected Oak Ridge, TN, as the site of an advanced nuclear power plant that will supply electricity to Google’s data centers in Tennessee and Alabama starting in 2030. The new power plant will provide 50 megawatts of electricity; the company’s deal with the Tennessee Valley Authority utility supports up to 500 megawatts of new nuclear power generation capacity. “The deployment of advanced nuclear reactors is essential to U.S. AI dominance and energy leadership," U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
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NIST Issues Guidelines to Help Detect Face Photo Morphs

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued guidelines to help organizations combat face morphing attacks, in which blended photos deceive facial recognition systems and enable identity fraud. The new guidelines highlight two approaches to detecting such attacks: single-image detection, which analyzes only a suspicious photo, and differential detection, which compares it against a verified image. Single-image tools can be highly accurate but often fail on unfamiliar morphing software, while differential methods are more consistent, though they require an additional photo.
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Wireless Airy Beams Twist Past Indoor Obstacles

Princeton University researchers have solved a critical challenge for ultra-fast sub-terahertz wireless signals, which can carry 10 times more data than current systems but are easily blocked by walls and objects. The researchers merged physics and machine learning to produce curved transmission paths known as "Airy beams," that bend around objects. The researchers developed a neural network capable of making real-time selections of the optimal beam for a specific environment as obstacles move.
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Python Survey Shows Growth

The Python Software Foundation and JetBrains released the eighth Python Developer Survey, based on nearly 30,000 responses. Around 72% of respondents said they use it professionally. While Python 3.12 is the version about a third (35%) of respondents said they use most, only 15% said they have upgraded to version 3.13, despite claims newer versions save costs and boost efficiency. Nearly half of respondents said they use Python mostly for data analysis (48%) and Web development (46%).
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Robotic Sensor Detects Crops by Their Vibrations

Technology developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute identifies the shapes of crops using sound rather than vision. “SonicBoom” is designed to help robots work in cluttered environments where leaves may block cameras by using six contact microphones inside a PVC pipe to detect vibrations when touching objects. Analysis of these sound waves can pinpoint contact locations with high accuracy.
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Hijacked Satellites Bring Weapons to Space

Hackers aligned with Russia demonstrated the dangers of cyberwarfare in space by hijacking a satellite broadcasting television to Ukraine during Moscow’s Victory Day parade to show Russian tanks and troops, underscoring how satellites increasingly are targets in modern conflict. Attacks on satellites can disable critical systems by exploiting outdated software or disrupting signals, threatening GPS, communications, and military operations.
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Japan to Train 30,000 African Students in AI

The Matsuo-Iwasawa Lab at Japan's University of Tokyo plans to offer AI courses to 30,000 students at 20 to 30 universities across Africa over the next three years, with a focus on the manufacturing, distribution, and agriculture sectors. The program also will include personnel exchanges with Japanese companies. The Japanese government intends to help students who complete the courses in starting businesses and launching ventures. Additionally, the program will tap the Japan-Africa Co-Creation for Industry initiative, which will match Japanese companies with African startups.
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Machine Learning Contest Aims to Improve Speech BCIs

The Brain-to-text '25 competition being run by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Neuroprosthetics Lab for the next five months requires machine learning experts to develop algorithms that can predict the speech of a brain-computer interface (BCI) user. Competitors are tasked with training their algorithms on brain data corresponding to 10,948 sentences a BCI user attempted to say. The algorithms must then predict the words in 1,450 sentences not included in the training data, with the goal of beating the UC Davis researchers' 6.70% word error rate.
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Supreme Court Allows Mississippi Law on Children’s Use of Social Media

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a Mississippi law requiring minors to obtain parental consent before using social media platforms, allowing the law to take effect while a federal appeals court reviews a challenge by trade group NetChoice. Enacted in 2024, the law targets platforms enabling social interaction, while exempting news, sports, commerce, and gaming sites, as well as email and direct messaging. It mandates age verification and imposes a $10,000 fine per violation.
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Travel eSIMs Secretly Route Traffic over Chinese Networks

Northeastern University researchers found that many travel electronic identity modules (eSIMs) route user traffic through foreign networks, often without disclosure. In a test of 25 providers, researchers discovered that data frequently passed through China Mobile’s infrastructure, sometimes making devices appear located in China. They also found that eSIM profiles engaged in hidden communications with overseas servers, and that becoming an eSIM reseller requires minimal verification but grants access to sensitive identifiers and even approximate device location.
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