Changelog: OneWeb ready to go stratospheric?
This week: Satellite internet, more AI angst, file transfer vulnerability.
Out of this world
British satellite company OneWeb has had a chequered history since it launched just over a decade ago.
Having blasted its first constellation into orbit in 2019, it soon fell on hard times, and had to be saved from bankruptcy by the UK government, which took a stake in the company in 2020, seeing its craft as a potential way to establish a post-Brexit alternative to Europe’s Galileo GPS system.
This taxpayer-funded idea turned out to be short-lived, and last year OneWeb announced its merger with French rival Eutelstat, creating a distinctly European satellite powerhouse boasting satellite fleets in both low Earth (LEO) and geosynchronous orbit.
As of last month, OneWeb has put 634 satellites into LEO, and it is aiming to roll out global broadband coverage by the end of 2023. But it is questionable how long it can remain competitive in the crowded and costly market of satellite broadband — one that might be increasingly dominated by global power-players like SpaceX and Amazon.
This week, Stephanie Stacey explored the company’s prospects.
AI is going to kill us all, part 1,235,986
As I write this newsletter, the internet is getting very excited about a story suggesting the US Air Force ran a test simulation which saw an artificial intelligence-powered drone turn on its operator, killing them so it could complete its mission.
There is widespread doubt about whether this story is true (the USAF denies it happened), but it does illustrate the heightened sense of anxiety surrounding AI at present.
Last week I attended a talk by the so-called ‘godfather’ of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, whose work on deep neural networks is the basis for the technology that underpins the advanced machine learning models of today. Hinton is now a full paid-up member of the AI-sceptics club, and used his lecture at Cambridge University to highlight the potential problems such systems could cause society in the coming years. He, rather ominously, concluded his presentation with a slide which was blank apart from the words THE END in capital letters.
Hinton was one of the signatories this week of a letter suggesting AI was an “extinction risk” for humanity, joining tech leaders from around the world to call for greater regulation of automated systems.
Legislation is coming down the track from Europe and the US, and while it is finalised, the EU has suggested introducing a voluntary AI code of conduct, which would commit developers to building systems in a responsible manner.
More from Tech Monitor
Hackers like to MOVEit MOVEit
A critical vulnerability in file transfer system MOVEit Transfer is being actively exploited by hackers, who are using the bug to steal data from the software company’s customers. MOVEit is deployed widely across the public sector in the UK and the US, and users are being urged to take action to safeguard their networks.
The vulnerability is under active exploitation according to research from security company Rapid7. Progress Software, which makes MOVEit Transfer, has released a series of patches to combat the problem.
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