Welcome to the March 21, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• U.K. Cybersecurity Agency Warns of Quantum Hacking Risks
• Euro Semiconductor Firms Push for 'Chips Act 2.0'
• States Vie for Federal Cyber Workers
• Datacenter Boom Poses New Risk to Grid Operators
• China to Spend $55 Billion on R&D in 2025
• Art Created by AI Cannot Be Copyrighted, Court Rules
• Paragon Spyware Tool Linked to Canadian Police
• EU Pushes Ahead with Big Tech Antitrust Enforcement
• CISA Warns of Active Exploitation in GitHub Action Supply Chain Compromise
• 3D Printing Approach Strings Together Dynamic Objects
• 'Doxxing' Scandal Casts Shadow Over Baidu's AI Model Release
• Nvidia Hosts the Super Bowl of AI
• X Sues Indian Government over Censorship

U.K. Cybersecurity Agency Warns of Quantum Hacking Risks

Guidance from the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre calls on large organizations, critical national infrastructure operators, and companies with bespoke IT systems to implement "post-quantum cryptography" to guard against future quantum hackers. These entities were urged to identify services in need of an upgrade by 2028. The guidance indicated that the most important upgrades should be completed by 2031, with migration to a new encryption system by 2035.
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Euro Semiconductor Firms Push for 'Chips Act 2.0'

A group of European semiconductor businesses held a roundtable event in the European Parliament this week, along with industry bodies SEMI Europe and the European Semiconductor Industry Association (ESIA), to discuss the need for a sequel to the €43-billion ($47-billion) European Chips Act finalized in 2023. Following the roundtable, the participants sent a joint declaration to the European Commission’s Henna Virkkunen calling for a "Chips Act 2.0."
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States Vie for Federal Cyber Workers

According to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), about 1,700 cybersecurity positions or other cyber-related jobs have been posted by state and municipal governments across the U.S. over the past three months. States are vying for laid-off federal workers, especially those with cybersecurity experience, offering fast-track promotions, advanced skills training, and other perks. CompTIA's Tim Herbert said alignment with the U.S. government's NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity could make many states and municipalities "a good fit with former federal cybersecurity workers in sharing a common cyber lexicon."
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Datacenter Boom Poses New Risk to Grid Operators

Last July, 60 of Virginia's Data Center Alley's more than 200 datacenters fell off the grid and switched to on-site generators. Part of a safety mechanism to protect electronic equipment from damage, that change resulted in a surge of electricity that could have caused cascading power outages had power plant output not been reduced to compensate. In the last five years, such near-misses have been on the rise as more datacenters come online.
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China to Spend $55 Billion on R&D in 2025

China's Ministry of Finance said 398.12 billion yuan ($55 billion) of the 2025 central budget will be earmarked for science and technology, up 10%, or $5 billion, from last year. The rise in spending is part of an effort to bolster national research and development and accelerate plans for China to become self-reliant in the semiconductor and other industries. The additional $5 billion is expected to be put toward "Science and Technology Innovation 2030" projects on integrated circuits, AI, and quantum computing technology.
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Art Created by AI Cannot Be Copyrighted, Court Rules

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that art created autonomously by AI cannot be copyrighted. The three-judge panel upheld the U.S. Copyright Office's decision to deny a copyright to Stephen Thaler for the painting "A Recent Entrance to Paradise." Thaler had listed his AI platform "Creativity Machine" as the painting's "author" and himself as the owner in the copyright application.
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Paragon Spyware Tool Linked to Canadian Police

Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab in Canada said Ontario Provincial Police appear to have deployed spyware from Israel's Paragon on computers under its control. Spyware victims were Android phone users who were added to a WhatsApp group, where a malicious PDF file was sent to compromise devices via "zero click" intrusion. The researchers said Paragon's Graphite spyware has been linked to users in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore.
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EU Pushes Ahead with Big Tech Antitrust Enforcement

The European Commission (EC) is proceeding with enforcement actions against Apple and Google under its Digital Markets Act (DMA), despite warnings from the U.S.. The EC said Wednesday Apple's devices should be made interoperable with various devices made by rivals, and expressed concerns that Google’s search results display and terms for app developers using its Play Store on Android phones infringe DMA rules by giving Google’s tech an unfair advantage over others.
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CISA Warns of Active Exploitation in GitHub Action Supply Chain Compromise

A vulnerability tied to the supply change compromise of the GitHub Action tj-actions/changed-files has been added to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. A CISA alert said a malicious code vulnerability embedded in the tj-actions/changed-files GitHub Action lets a remote attacker view action logs to obtain valid AWS access keys, GitHub personal access tokens, npm tokens, private RSA keys, and more.
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3D Printing Approach Strings Together Dynamic Objects

An all-in-one 3D-printing method developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers automates the process of creating cable-driven mechanisms to make objects bend, twist, or fold in real time. With the Xstrings program, users can input a design with specific dimensions and choose how the parts will move and how the cables will be secured. A fused deposition modeling 3D printer then prints the device's parts in a single step.
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'Doxxing' Scandal Casts Shadow Over Baidu's AI Model Release

Chinese tech giant Baidu is facing criticism over a "doxxing" scandal that has overshadowed the launch of its new AI models. The daughter of Baidu Vice President Xie Guangjun shared social media users' real names, ID numbers, phone numbers, and other personal information during an online argument over a K-pop singer. The incident has raised concerns among social media users across various platforms about whether Baidu is leaking users' personal data.
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Nvidia Hosts the Super Bowl of AI

The Nvidia GTC annual developer conference has evolved from an academic summit into the Super Bowl of AI, attracting a who's who of industry leaders. On March 18, more than 25,000 people filled a National Hockey League arena to hear Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speak on the future of AI. Nvidia GTC was formerly the GPU Technology Conference, which included a research summit where academics detailed how they had used the company's components for computing research.
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X Sues Indian Government over Censorship

Social media company X has sued the Indian government, accusing it of illegally blocking content on the platform. The suit accuses India of creating a “censorship portal” last year, enabling government agencies, state authorities, and local police officers to issue takedown orders en masse, in violation of India’s constitution and the Information Technology Act.
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