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An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online. Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology. A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86m music files from Spotify and 256m rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100m tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory. The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, said it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”. The Guardian
A former Metropolitan Police chief has backed plans aimed at forcing Apple and Google to disable stolen smartphones. Lord Hogan-Howe, who was head of the Met from 2011 to 2017, has sponsored an amendment to crime legislation in the House of Lords that would require the US tech giants to cut phones off from key services after they are reported stolen. His support for the move comes amid mounting pressure on Apple and Google to help crack down on phone theft. Telegraph
Fake adverts for weight loss drugs by a company pretending to be health and beauty retailer Boots have been removed from TikTok after the firm complained. The adverts for prescription-only weight loss drugs appeared to show smiling healthcare professionals from the British retailer – but in reality they were made with AI. It is illegal to advertise prescription-only weight loss drugs to the public. A spokesperson for Boots told the BBC the firm was “aware” of the videos and had complained to TikTok, which said it had removed the videos. BBC
Ford Motor Co. cut back its EV plans last week in a major announcement, but it simultaneously placed a big bet on a new business line: producing batteries for energy storage. The pivot was made possible by Ford’s unique access to Chinese technology. When it set out to delve deeper into the EV battery business in 2023, the company inked a deal with Chinese battery juggernaut Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. to license its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology. Under the new plan, it will leverage the same deal to produce larger-scale batteries for stationary storage. Bloomberg
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (Nissan) has confirmed that information of thousands of its customers has been compromised after the data breach at Red Hat in September. The Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, produces more than 3.2 million cars a year. The company employs 120,000 people and has a strong presence in Japan, North America, Europe, and Asia. In an announcement yesterday, Nissan informed that it was indirectly impacted by a security breach incident at the U.S.-based enterprise software company Red Hat. Bleeping Computer
A dangerous npm package named “lotusbail” has been stealing WhatsApp messages and user data from thousands of developers worldwide. The package, which has been downloaded over 56,000 times, disguises itself as a legitimate WhatsApp Web API library while secretly running malware in the background. It presents itself as a fork of the trusted “@whiskeysockets/baileys” package, making it appear safe to developers who need WhatsApp integration tools. Cybersecurity News
South Korea’s government on Friday announced it will require local mobile carriers to verify the identity of new customers with facial recognition scans, in the hope of reducing scams. As explained in an announcement from South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, the nation has a problem with criminals registering mobile phone accounts and then using them to run scams such as voice phishing. The nation’s new policy therefore extends existing customer authentication arrangements, which see buyers required to present verifiable identity documents at the point of sale, to add verification of a facial scan. The Register
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