The government announcement on 14 May about how it sees the future of the digital identity market operating means the uncertainty of the last few months is over. Investors had stopped investing and several identity service providers (IDSPs) have had to put their plans on hold waiting for this day. Those barriers have now been lifted. IDSPs are working though what the government wallet means for them and the disruptive change it will bring to the market. Business cases are being re-examined. The good news is that the 14 May meeting promises to mark a welcome shift in government and identity industry relations. There is understanding and recognition that the secretary of state’s decision to press ahead with announcing the Gov.uk Wallet in January was a bold and reasonable one to make with the information he had available. There is also understanding and recognition by the secretary of state, Peter Kyle, of the unintended consequence of that decision on industry. Identity is like time – it seems simple until you realise it’s all relative. It’s that complexity that government and industry now need to wrestle with together. The consensus is that both sides can learn from the experience and build forward together with more certainty. Let’s take a moment to consider the future this new partnership can unlock. The government’s digital wallet and credentials can be likened to the role of the Bank of England in the financial system – it acts as the identity provider of last resort. Relying parties, such as retailers, can’t directly access what’s inside someone’s wallet - instead, they must go through a registered digital verification service (DVS). Think of these organisations as the retail banks of the identity ecosystem, with the Office for Digital Identity and Attributes (OfDIA) playing a role similar to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Of course, unlike the Bank of England or the FCA, neither the government wallet nor OfDIA are independent – but perhaps that’s a question for the next generation to solve. The point is this: the banking system offers a useful role model for how the identity and personal data market could evolve – where a person’s data, like their money, is something they own, store securely, and choose to share through trusted intermediaries. And here’s the other exciting thing about that analogy. The UK is the global powerhouse in financial and regulatory technology (fintech and regtech) – streets ahead of what’s brewing in Silicon Valley. We sometimes forget that. This is not just hype - it’s rooted in the real-world muscle of London, still the financial capital of the world. It’s this deep, practical, and highly specialised expertise – built in the crucible of high-trust, high-stakes finance – that’s now being unlocked for something new: a sovereign identity and personal data market. While the big tech giants have the global reach to roll out platforms at scale, it’s the UK that holds the keys to making the data economy actually work – in a way that fits with western democratic values. Not big tech surveillance. Not top-down state control. But something more balanced. More human. More trusted. That’s the real prize this new government partnership holds – not just for the digital identity sector, but for the future of the UK economy. A chance to lead the world once again – this time, in building the data layer of democracy. Now comes the hard part. For the past two decades, working in digital identity in the UK was often a lonely road – misunderstood, underfunded, and sometimes even ridiculed. Yet a small group of pioneers kept the flag flying, laying the groundwork that has now led to the creation of OfDIA – a regulatory framework that finally unlocks the innovative potential of the private sector. With the starting gun fired, identity is now going mainstream. A new wave of ideas – powered by trusted digital credentials – is about to flood the market. But identity alone won’t be enough to survive, let alone thrive. What matters now is value. Take banking. Customer-owned personal data stores – shared voluntarily, under their control – are a far richer source of information than anything a credit reference agency can offer. If banks became certified under the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) and the government added a domestic PEP (politically exposed persons) flag to the wallet, they could cut compliance costs by millions. The same goes for major recruiters, NHS trusts, and universities. With DBS certificates, HM Revenue & Customs data, qualifications, and right-to-work credentials in the wallet, time-to-hire and onboarding costs could be dramatically reduced – if these institutions become DVS certified. This isn’t evolution. It’s disruption. Supply chains will shift. Whole new categories of value-added identity services will emerge. Startups will rush in. Competition will intensify. And current identity providers? They’ll need to level up – fast – or risk being left behind. Meanwhile, in the short term, the tasks ahead are a bit messy and incomplete – but necessary. First, the government has set an ambitious goal - to introduce the public to digital ID through age verification for alcohol sales by Christmas. It’s a bold target, and one we should support – but with less than six months to go, it’s a tall order. Proof of concepts will be ready, but full-scale roll-out? Unlikely. Still, the urgency is welcome. Even if we miss the mark, it pushes the whole system forward and identity providers will have to forge new collaborations and ways of working they have not had to consider before. More importantly, this initiative can serve a greater purpose – unlocking regulatory resistance to digital identity across the wider economy. Right now, regulators aren’t aligned, and until they are, in-house compliance teams have no choice but to block innovation. But once the rules change, the brakes come off. Compliance professionals can become allies of change, working with technologists to enable business, not hold it back. And when that alignment happens – regulators, compliance, and tech all pulling in the same direction – the stage is set for the real magic. For the entrepreneurs, the builders, the investors - with government setting the guardrails and the market delivering the innovation - the future won’t just be an upgrade, it’ll be a transformation. Communication, education, and outreach programmes can transform every community – even those post-industrial regions that have been left behind. There should be no reason why people have to leave their hometowns to seek work and opportunity. We can find new and diverse ways of working once we know who we all are. In conclusion, 14 May could well be remembered as a watershed moment – not just for government and the identity industry, but for the future of the UK economy. And that’s before we even begin to explore the power of person-centric, controlled artificial intelligence (AI) – AI that serves individual creators, not big tech monopolies. So, hats off to Peter Kyle for his bold decisions and refreshing honesty. This is a moment that demands goodwill and open collaboration. Government and industry must move as one – the stakes are too high for division. This isn’t just about digital identity. It’s about sovereignty. It’s about dignity and rebuilding trust in an age of data. If we get this right in the UK, we won’t just be rebuilding the country and creating economic growth. We’ll empower people. We’ll unlock opportunity. And we’ll show the world how democracy can evolve – and thrive – in the digital era. The game is now well and truly on. And everything’s to play for. Let’s rise to meet it. David Crack is chair of the Association of Digital Verification Professionals, a trade body representing companies involved in the electronic validation of documents and digital identities. Read more about digital identity A driving licence in an app is a boost for digital identity - but not for angry suppliers - It’s rare that a digital government development attracts interest from mainstream media, but the announcement of a digital driving licence brought widespread national coverage. Distrust builds between digital ID sector and government amid speculation over 'ID cards by stealth' - The latest meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on digital identity was more exciting than it sounds. European Digital Identity Wallet: One ID for EU citizens - The European Digital Identity Wallet is a personal digital wallet with which you will be able to identify yourself digitally in the future. Is this the solution for a centralised ID?

At DICE and GDC this year I heard talk of a trend in game development that sent a chill down my spine: "deprofessionalization." As A16z marketing partner Ryan K. Rigney defines it, deprofessionalization is a phenomenon driven by the overperformance of older titles (particularly free-to-play live service games), large studios struggling to drive sales, and the outsized success of some solo developers and small teams.These three forces, he argues, will combine to "drive career professionals from the traditional, professionalized side of the games industry.""Some of these people will decide to go indie," he continues. "Others will leave gaming altogether. And in between there’s a vast spectrum of irregular working arrangements available."Is this trend real? It sure felt so at PAX East 2025. It's no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic led to many game companies decamping from expo floors, retreating to either all-online promotion or in-person community meetups structured around intermittent panels. Gone are the days where a chunk of the development team can get one-on-one facetime with players—shifts in supply and demand have simply moved where marketing takes place.But something else lurked under the surface. Some notable studios like Behaviour Interactive and Funcom had classic booths up on the show floor. Devolver Digital had maybe the tallest booth on display—but it was only using it to showcase three games: Mycopunk, Monster Train 2, and Botsu. The bulk of the remaining space was taken up by small publishers and game studios.Related:Wandering through these booths, I found a mix of truly excellent and inspiring games. But also found myself bubbling with frustration. Few of the developers on display were working on teams larger than three people. They talked about publishers wanting ever-more-expensive offerings as part of their pitch deck. Short-term contractors seemed to be the best way to plug gaps. Why did it feel like so few proper businesses were fighting to get their games in front of players at PAX?Speaking with Rigney and other developers, I sensed that "deprofessionalization" isn't just a catchy phrase to describe demand-side economics in game industry hiring. It's a frustrating reality that may undervalue games from big and small teams alike.Deprofessionalization is built on the back of devaluing laborRigney offered some extra nuance on his "deprofessionalization" theory in an email exchange we had before PAX. He predicted that marketing roles at studios would be "the first" on the chopping block, followed by "roles that seem replaceable to management (even if they're not)."Related:"The winners will be the creative renegades. I'm talking about the people making work that would have never gotten greenlit at one of these bigger publishers in the first place. Some of these creatives will start their own studio, or dabble in side projects...This is the only creative industry on the planet where one person can make $100 million making something by themselves."That held up in my survey of the games boothing at PAX. The developers of Mycopunk and Cat Secretary had some of the larger teams on the floor of about 5-6 people. Indie publisher Playism was showing off a number of excellent-looking games like Mind Diver and Break Arts III. Executive producer Shunji Mizutani told me the average team size the company is looking to back is around 1-3 developers (though he said it's not a hard and fast rule).My favorite game I saw, We Harvest Shadows is being developed by The First Tree solo developer David Wehle. Wehle explained that he's hiring a contract coder to help with the dense system design fueling the "farming" part of his "horror farming simulator." The story was the same everywhere I went. Solo devs, two-person teams, and publishers fishing for low-budget indie hits were the talk of the show.Related:I want to be clear here—no one I spoke with at PAX East should feel "obligated" to give anyone a job. They're small teams making the most of limited resources, and it's the acceleration in game development technology that's made it possible. What feels wrong is how few people seem to benefit from this status quo.Image via ReedPop.To go back to Rigney for a moment, his key example of a post-deprofessionalization game developer is veteran developer Aaron Rutledge, a former lead designer on League of Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Apex Legends. After leaving Respawn Entertainment in 2024 he founded a consultancy firm Area Denial, acting as a "gun for hire" for studios.Rutledge deserves his success, and the life of a traveling creative called on by other studios sounds romantic. But as a foundation for game development, it's a framework that celebrates the few over the many. It narrows which roles are considered "essential" for making great games (often designers or programmers) and treats other positions as somehow less essential. You could see someone like Wehle hiring someone like Rutledge to bring some of that triple-A experience to a small game.But that feels like the polar ends of who can benefit in the deprofessionalized world—developers with the stability to swing big for big-shot ideas, and programmers or designers with deep career experience that can be called in like a group of noble mercenaries. People in between will be left out.Who gets left behind in a world mainly filled with small teams?My PAX trip validated my fear that three professions are especially vulnerable in this deprofessionalized world: artists, writers, and those working in game audio or music. These roles seemed vulnerable because on these small teams, they were the roles developers mentioned doing in some kind of shared or joint fashion.All three risk compartmentalization as "asset creators," their work treated as products you can purchase off the store shelf.Every artist in games knows how hard it is to make a living doing what you love. In-house artist positions have faded away as companies look overseas to produce as many assets as humanly possible at the lowest living wage. Enthusiasm for AI-generated assets (that look like dogshit) are nudging this trend along. In the "gun for hire" mindset, working artists aren't worth anything to game development because they're producing goods to be used, not participants in the process. Art directors are in a slightly more stable position, but only by virtue of knowing "what looks good" and telling someone else what they want to do.As someone who recently shipped his second game as a writer, the cuts to game narrative teams hit close to home. The GDC 2025 State of the Industry survey reported that of the 11 percent of developers laid off in the last year, 19 percent of them worked in game narrative, the highest of any responding demographic. Two diverging trends are hurting this field: the growth of successful games that don't feature much narrative (either focusing on deep game mechanics or story-lite multiplayer) and the spread of story-driven games authored by the creative director and maybe one or two collaborators create conditions that lower the number of available jobs.Image via ReedPop.Game writers have long described frustration with how they're treated by the industry, often brought in later in the process and sometimes treated as if they lie in opposition to the rest of the development team. Some studios leaned on the job title of "narrative designer" for professionals who write and implement narrative events, but that still speaks to a mistrust of the profession, that producing words isn't enough to bring value to a team.Finally, game audio and music professionals both produce work that can be bundled into licensable libraries, with implementation left to designers on a team. Sometimes this work is essential, the number of sounds a game needs can't be produced by an individual human. And composers don't always want to be tied to one studio—working with multiple teams frees them to explore creative projects and keep working when they aren't necessarily needed in a day-to-day game development environment.But again, treating them this way puts them on the rim of the game development wheel, implying their labor could be deprioritized by true talent that deserves to reap the benefits of game design.A decentralized creative community needs to benefit creativesRigney explained to me that the game industry has one ace up its sleeve that other creative fields don't: its "indie" market is a commercially viable market. "People are paying for these games!," he exclaimed. "This is not happening for indie filmmakers. This isn't happening for books. What's happening for indie games and small studios won't replace the jobs lost at the major publishers, but it will create opportunity for the most creative and most determined people."But don't rush off to start your indie dreams—it's still as true as it was for years that most indie games do not succeed. And those that don't succeed can still be financial fodder for the shovel merchants of the worlds—your technology companies, your payment processors, your game platforms, your investors, etc. Plenty of companies are standing ready to profit on the devs gunning to be the next Schedule I.Is there a way deprofessionalization can benefit the developers left behind? Rigney raised one fair point: part of the reason some indies are running circles around large companies is that those companies can mismanage creatives so badly they go for years without shipping a game. If someone smart could crack that problem—improve management at large organizations and make sure games make it out the door—that could be a way to balance the trend."Right now none of the solutions are well equipped to solve all the problems. I work in venture capital, which isn't great for funding individual games, but can work well when funding teams that are pursuing large scale growth via some new distribution or technological edge."Indeed, PAX East showed that we need creative solutions. One shouldn't need to be a social media wunderkind, years of hard-to-earn triple-A experience, or be a jack-of-all-trades to have a career in game development. That path does bring us some wildly inventive games—but leaves us with a community of developers hustling on gig work to keep their dream alive.Update 5/16: This piece has been updated to clarify Rigney's job title at A16z.

pixel_dreams - Fotolia News Security tests reveal serious vulnerability in government’s One Login digital ID system A ‘red teaming’ exercise to simulate cyber attacks on the government’s flagship digital identity system has found that One Login can be compromised without detection By Bryan Glick, Editor in chief Published: 16 May 2025 12:37 External security tests on the government’s flagship digital identity system, Gov.uk One Login, have found serious vulnerabilities in the live service, Computer Weekly has learned. A “red teaming” exercise conducted in March by IT security consultancy Cyberis discovered that privileged access to One Login can be compromised without detection by security monitoring tools. According to Cyberis, red teaming tests the resilience of systems by simulating the tactics, techniques and procedures of cyber attackers to show how well an organisation can detect and respond to an incident. Computer Weekly has been asked by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) not to reveal further details of the vulnerability while the Government Digital Service (GDS) seeks to fix the problem. Compromising the highest levels of access to a system risks exposing personal data and software code to any cyber attackers able to exploit the vulnerability. A government spokesperson said: “Delivering best practice, we routinely conduct red teaming exercises to test security infrastructure. Where issues are found, we work urgently to resolve them.” The existence of a serious current vulnerability will raise further concerns over the security of One Login, which is intended to be the way that citizens prove their identity and log in to most online government services. There are already six million users of the system, and it is used to access more than 50 online services. Last month, Computer Weekly revealed that GDS was warned by the Cabinet Office in November 2022 and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in September 2023, that One Login had “serious data protection failings” and “significant shortcomings” in information security that could increase the risk of data breaches and identity theft. GDS said the concerns were “outdated” and arose “when the technology was in its infancy in 2023”, despite One Login being used at that time to support live services. “We have worked to address all these concerns as evidenced by multiple external independent assessments. Any suggestion otherwise is unfounded,” said a spokesperson, at the time. A whistleblower first raised security concerns about One Login within GDS as long ago as July 2022. The issues identified included system administration being performed through non-compliant devices with a risk of transmitting security vulnerabilities, such as malware or phishing attacks, that could compromise the live system. The NCSC recommends that system administration for key government services should be conducted from a dedicated device used only for that purpose, known as a privileged access workstation (PAW), or alternatively to use only “browse down” devices, where the security level of the device is always the same or greater than the system being managed. The whistleblower warned that a lack of PAWs and use of browse-up administration were significant risks. Computer Weekly subsequently revealed that the One Login team has yet to fully meet NCSC guidelines – the system only complies with 21 of the 39 outcomes detailed in the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) – an improvement on the five outcomes it successfully followed a year ago. The One Login development team is also yet to fully implement the government’s Secure by Design practices, although GDS said the system “meets these principles”. Earlier this week, we further revealed that One Login had lost its certification against the government’s own trust framework for digital identity systems, after a key technology supplier allowed its certification to lapse and, as a result, One Login was removed from the official accreditation scheme. In a meeting with private sector digital identity providers this week (Wednesday 14 May), DSIT secretary of state Peter Kyle explained how One Login will underpin the forthcoming Gov.uk Wallet, which will be used to deliver digital versions of key government documents, such as driving licences. Kyle talked about the “rapid journey” he hopes the government will take in delivering digital identity services for citizens and stressed the importance that such systems are “delivered safely [and] securely”. The government spokesperson added: “Gov.uk One Login follows the highest security standards for government and private sector services – including dedicated 24/7 eyes-on monitoring and incident response. As the public rightly expects, protecting the security of government services and the data and privacy of users to keep pace with the changing cyber threat landscape is paramount.” Questions are also being asked in Parliament about the security of One Login. In recent weeks, Liberal Democrat peer and digital spokesman Tim Clement-Jones and Conservative peer Simone Finn have separately submitted Parliamentary questions to DSIT asking for reassurances about the system. Finn asked whether the government has “quantified the likelihood and potential impact of insider threats, unauthorised privileged access, and production environment compromise within One Login”. In response, DSIT minister for the future digital economy and online safety, peer Maggie Jones, said: “The Gov.uk One Login team collaborates closely with the NCSC to assess and mitigate risks associated with insider threats, unauthorised privileged access, and production environment compromise, aligning with the Cyber Assessment Framework outlined in the Government Cyber Security Strategy 2022-2030. “While assessments of insider threats have been made, copies of these assessments will not be placed in the Library of the House, as they are part of ongoing security measures and internal governance processes.” Clement-Jones asked: “What steps [the government is] taking to address security issues in the One Login digital identification system?” Jones replied: “One Login follows the highest security standards for government and private sector services. As the public rightly expects, protecting the security of government services and the data and privacy of users to keep pace with the changing cyber threat landscape is paramount. “Security best practice is followed with a number of layered security controls which include: Security clearances for staff with ‘Security Check’ clearance required for all developers with production access; identity and access management controls that block staff from viewing or altering personal information; a secure by design and compartmentalised system architecture; technical controls around building and deployments; logging and monitoring to alert on access to environments that contain personally identifiable information; and robust procedures for addressing any unauthorised or unaccounted for access.” Speaking to Computer Weekly about the security concerns, Clement-Jones said: “How is the government’s flagship digital identity system failing to meet standards so badly, given that it is expected to shortly form an essential part of our immigration controls? We need answers and quickly.”  Read more about One Login Companies House goes live with One Login ID verification – People can verify their identity with Companies House using Gov.uk One Login as the central government body becomes the 36th service to start using the digital identity system. GDS goes serverless to bring personalisation to online government services with One Login – GDS has opened up about the reasons why it’s opted for a serverless infrastructure to underpin One Login, and how it hopes the system will provide UK citizens with a more personalised experience. One Login digital identity project makes headway – Government services are lining up to work with the GDS on its One Login digital identity system, according to its director of digital identity, Natalie Jones. 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What just happened? TP-Link, the most popular router brand in the US, could be banned in the country. The ongoing saga over the firm's alleged links to China and anti-competitive behavior has led Republican lawmakers to urge the Commerce Department to ban sales of the company's products. The seventeen senators and representatives wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week to support the ongoing investigations into TP-Link. The company is being investigated by the Commerce, Defense, and Justice Departments over whether its China ties pose a security threat and whether the firm engaged in predatory pricing to undercut competitors and dominate the US market. The group essentially claims that TP-Link's cheap prices have helped it become the number one router brand in the US, thereby allowing the Chinese government to launch cyberattacks and surveillance programs against the United States using the devices. The letter also urges Lutnick to prohibit further sales of TP-Link networking products in the United States. The group goes on to accuse TP-Link of having a close association with the Chinese Communist Party, using predatory pricing to eliminate "trusted" US alternatives, and embedding foreign surveillance and destructive capabilities into US networks, all of which make it a "clear and present danger." The letter states that Chinese state actors have exploited TP-Link small and home office (SOHO) networking devices to wage cyberwarfare against the United States. It's also claimed that TP-Link is the only router company that refuses to engage in industry efforts to remediate Chinese state-sponsored bots. // Related Stories "Each day we fail to act, the CCP wins while American competitors suffer, and American security remains at risk," wrote the lawmakers. In a statement responding to the letter, TP-Link told PCMag, "The allegations are categorically false, and we look forward to setting the record straight about our company." "To be clear, TP-Link is not a state-sponsored company, has no 'deep ties' to, and is completely independent from, the Chinese Communist Party." Nine of sixteen best-selling routers on Amazon are TP-Link brands, including the top three models. It's estimated that 60-65% of homes and small businesses in the US use the routers, whose cheap prices help make them so popular. In October 2024, Microsoft exposed "CovertNetwork-1658," a Chinese-run botnet siphoning credentials from Azure since August 2023 via password-spray attacks. The network marshalled 16,000 hijacked SOHO routers, cameras and other IoT nodes – chiefly TP-Link models. The company's routers have a history of vulnerabilities: a CVSS-10 flaw hit the Archer C5400X in May 2024, and 2023 reports tied Chinese state actors to custom malware installed on TP-Link routers. The latter incident arrived soon after the US government said Mirai Botnet operators were using TP-Link routers for DDoS attacks. TP-Link, founded in 1996 by brothers Zhao Jianjun and Zhao Jiaxing, established its US arm in 2008 to handle marketing and support in North America, though ownership and operations remained tied to its Shenzhen-based parent. In 2024, TP-Link USA merged with the company's non-Chinese operations to form TP-Link Systems Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California – a move intended to create an "organizational separation," with distinct ownership, governance, R&D, and supply chains on each side.

A group of Republican lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to ban sales of TP-Link networking products, including the company’s popular Wi-Fi routers. The Commerce, Defense, and Justice Departments have reportedly been investigating TP-Link for national security risks. On Wednesday, the lawmakers—including 12 GOP senators—wrote to the Commerce Department to voice support for its investigation, and called on the White House to block further sales of TP-Link products in the US. “TP-Link’s deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), use of predatory pricing to eliminate trusted US alternatives, and role in embedding foreign surveillance and destructive capabilities into our networks render it a clear and present danger,” they wrote to Secretary Howard Lutnick.The lawmakers claim TP-Link is a security threat because Chinese state-sponsored hackers have exploited the company’s routers and networking devices before, giving them a way to conduct cyberespionage within the US. The letter doesn’t include any evidence showing TP-Link has been deliberately aiding Chinese hackers. Still, the lawmakers alleges that TP-Link has been offering low “predatory” prices for its products to help it capture “nearly 60% of the US retail router and Wi-Fi system market.” In turn, the Chinese government can allegedly piggy back off TP-Link’s hardware to launch future cyberattacks on the US. (Photo by: Bildagentur-online/Schoening/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)“For these reasons, Commerce should immediately prohibit future sales of TP-Link SOHO (small and home office) networking equipment in the United States. Each day we fail to act, the CCP wins while American competitors suffer, and American security remains at risk,” the letter adds. The FBI has long been concerned that Chinese state-sponsored hackers are laying the groundwork to disrupt US critical infrastructure in the event conflict breaks out between China and the US. Recommended by Our EditorsAlthough a ban would be drastic, some former US security officials want a crackdown on TP-Link, saying it's imperative the country remove such devices before they become a threat. Other former federal officials have also said a ban would send a message to Beijing that its state-sponsored hacking will have consequences for China-based companies that may be involved. However, TP-Link says the letter is based on misinformation. “The allegations are categorically false, and we look forward to setting the record straight about our company,” the vendor told PCMag, adding: “To be clear, TP-Link is not a state-sponsored company, has no 'deep ties' to, and is completely independent from, the Chinese Communist Party.” Last year, TP-Link went as far to establish a new global headquarters in Irvine, California, although it was founded in Shenzhen, China, and still has a headquarters there. As a result, TP-Link also told PCMag: “As a US company, no foreign country or government, including China, has access to or control over the design and production of our products.”TP-Link also says it only has around a 35% share of the US market rather than 60%. “The allegation that bad actors from China used our routers for cyberattacks is misleading and disingenuous – routers made by many companies have been targets of attacks,” the company added. “TP-Link has been the victim of a smear campaign, driven by the goal of removing a competitor from the marketplace.”The Commerce Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In the meantime, TP-Link says it’s confident the Commerce Department’s investigation will lead it to “recognize the security of TP-Link’s operations and products.” TP-Link added that it has not received any inquiries from the Justice Department.

Watching the behavior of our tech overlords has answered questions I’d never thought to ask. How do you NDA an army of baby mamas? Is there anything more embarrassing than impersonating Benson Boone? (Also, who is Benson Boone?) And now, the latest: how long after a sovereign ruler of a repressive state murders one of your columnists should you make a deal with him? The answer, it turns out, is a little over six years.In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, was killed and dismembered with the approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS) after Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His body has never been found. On May 13th, Bezos’ Amazon announced it would work with Humain, MBS’ AI company, to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia — and the two companies will spend more than $5 billion in the process.Saudi money is old news in the tech industry — the Public Investment Fund has sloshed into lots of startups, either directly or via intermediaries such as SoftBank. Morally bankrupt moneygrubbers such as Andreessen Horowitz have been wooing Saudi funds for a while. (Perhaps that’s the real reason they endorsed the Saudis’ preferred candidate?) This isn’t the first deal for Amazon, either. In March, Amazon pledged to invest $5 billion to build data centers in a country that’s scrambling to look futuristic. In 2024, Saudi Arabia said it wanted to build an AI-powered economy. There’s a fancy website for Project 2030, which I guess is meant to distract us from all the oil money. That date isn’t a coincidence — many projections say that’s when oil production will peak and then decline. Regardless of when the actual peak occurs, a global shift away from petroleum threatens Saudi Arabia’s wealth. That’s why the country is behaving like a dipshit startup.Take Neom, billed as the city of the future, vaporware at a previously unimagined scale that also served as a “key tool” for MBS to consolidate power, according to Ali Dogan, a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. Khashoggi’s murder was a blow to the project, as luminaries such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz suspended their involvement. A number of companies publicly renounced Saudi money — at least, for a while. Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?Neom is moving down the entirely predictable vaporware path. It keeps getting delayed and downsized, which makes sense because it’s no longer the city of the future and a spectacular investment opportunity once it’s built — it’s just another city. But, according to Saudi officials, we won’t have to worry about that for another 50, or possibly 100, years. In the meantime, though, contracts! Investment! AI!Look, I don’t expect ethics out of Altman or any of his ilk. But for basic reasons of maintaining employee morale, I would hesitate to invest in a state that literally murdered one of my contractors. And didn’t merely murder him — but dismembered and then disappeared him. An opportunity the state had only because Khashoggi wanted to get married. Murder is bad enough, but every single detail makes it worse.Lately, it seems Bezos has been dismantling the Washington Post, one of the US’ premier journalistic institutions — putting British failure machine Will Lewis, known for his role in the UK phone-hacking scandal, in charge. Last year, the Post didn’t endorse a candidate in the US presidential race for the first time since 1960, resulting in more than 200,000 canceled subscriptions. Its stars have been fleeing in droves. (Ann Telnaes, who was driven to quit the Post after a cartoon making fun of Bezos was killed, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Oops!) Now, after all Bezos’ posturing about the free press, he’s cutting deals with people who murder journalists for saying inconvenient things. But maybe we should have seen that coming when he banned op-ed writers from opposing “free speech and the markets.” Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?It’s all so spineless. I mean, we already know that MBS may have hacked Bezos’ phone, but I guess that’s water under the bridge. Or maybe not. Maybe MBS got something real good in that hack. Impossible to say whether this is motivated by kompromat or greed, I suppose. But whatever the motive, we know one thing: it takes five years for Bezos to go from posting his photo op with the headstone of a murdered reporter to making billion-dollar deals with his killer.See More:

An AI tool aims to wade through mountains of government feedback and understand what the public is trying to say.UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “No one should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on outsourcing such work to contractors.This digital assistant, aptly named ‘Consult’, just aced its first big test with the Scottish Government.The Scottish Gov threw Consult in at the deep end, asking it to make sense of public opinion on regulating non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as lip fillers and laser hair removal. Consult came back with findings almost identical to what human officials had pieced together.Now, the plan is to roll this tech out across various government departments. The current way of doing things is expensive and slow. Millions of pounds often go to outside contractors just to analyse what the public thinks.Consult is part of a bigger push to build a leaner, more responsive UK government—one that can deliver on its ‘Plan for Change’ without breaking the bank or taking an age to do it.So, how did it fare in Scotland? Consult chewed through responses from over 2,000 people. Using generative AI, it picked out the main themes and concerns bubbling up from the feedback across six key questions.Of course, Consult wasn’t left completely to its own devices. Experts in the Scottish Government double-checked and fine-tuned these initial themes. Then, the AI got back to work to sort individual responses into these categories. Officials ended up with more precious time to consider what people were saying and what it meant for policy.Because this was Consult’s first live outing, the Scottish Government went through every single response by hand too—just to be sure. Figuring out exactly what someone means in a written comment and then deciding which ‘theme’ it fits under can be a bit subjective. Even humans don’t always agree.When the government compared Consult’s handiwork to human analysis, the AI was right most of the time. Where there were differences, they were so minor they didn’t change the overall picture of what mattered most to people.Consult is part of a bigger AI toolkit called ‘Humphrey’—a suite of digital helpers designed to free up civil servants from admin and cut down on those contractor bills. It’s all part of a grander vision to use technology to sharpen up public services, aiming to find £45 billion in productivity savings. The goal is a more nimble government that is better at delivering that ‘Plan for Change’ we keep hearing about.“After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to collect and comprehensively review what experts and the public are telling us on a range of crucial issues,” added Kyle.“The Scottish Government has taken a bold first step. Very soon, I’ll be using Consult, within Humphrey, in my own department and others in Whitehall will be using it too – speeding up our work to deliver the Plan for Change.”Over in Scotland, Public Health Minister Jenni Minto said: “Using the tool was very beneficial in helping the Scottish Government understand more quickly what people wanted us to hear and our respondents’ range of views.“Using this tool has allowed the Scottish Government to move more quickly to a focus on the policy questions and dive into the detail of the evidence we’ve been presented with, while remaining confident that we have heard the strong views expressed by respondents.”Of course, like many AI deployments in government, it’s still early days, and Consult is officially still in the trial phase. More number-crunching and testing are on the cards to make sure it’s working just as it should before any big decisions about a full rollout are made.But the potential here is huge. The government runs about 500 consultations every year. If Consult lives up to its promise, it could save officials a staggering 75,000 days of analysis annually.And what did the civil servants who first worked with Consult think? They were reportedly “pleasantly surprised,” finding the AI’s initial analysis a “useful starting point.” Others raved that it “saved [them] a heck of a lot of time” and let them “get to the analysis and draw out what’s needed next” much faster.Interestingly, they also felt Consult brought a new level of fairness to the table. As one official put it, its use “takes away the bias and makes it more consistent,” preventing individual analysts from, perhaps unconsciously, letting their “own preconceived ideas” colour the findings.Some consultations receive tens, even hundreds of thousands of responses. Given how well Consult has performed in these early tests, it won’t be long before it’s used on these massive consultations.It’s worth noting that humans aren’t being kicked out of the loop. Consult has been built to keep the experts involved every step of the way. Officials will always review the themes the AI suggests and how it sorts the responses. They’ll have an interactive dashboard to play with, letting them filter and search for specific insights. It’s about AI doing the heavy lifting, so the humans can do the smart thinking.This move towards AI in government isn’t happening in a vacuum, and experts are watching closely.Stuart Harvey, CEO of Datactics, commented: “Using AI to speed up public consultations is a great example of how technology can improve efficiency and save money. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. For tools like this to work well and fairly, government departments need to make sure their data is accurate, up-to-date, and properly managed.“People need to trust the decisions made with AI. That means making sure the process is clear, well-governed, and ethical. If the data is messy or poorly handled, it can lead to biased or unreliable outcomes.“As the government expands its use of AI in public services, it’s vital to invest in strong data practices. That includes building clear and consistent data systems, making data accessible for review, and keeping humans involved in key decisions—especially when it comes to hearing from the public.”This sentiment is echoed by academics. Professor Michael Rovatsos from the University of Edinburgh, for instance, acknowledges the benefits but also wisely cautions about the risks of AI biases and even the potential for these tools to be manipulated. He’s calling for tough safeguards and ongoing investment to make sure any AI tool used by the government remains reliable and fair.Stuart Munton, Chief for Group Operations at AND Digital, added: “The government’s use of AI to speed up public consultations is a welcome step toward smarter, more efficient public services. However, as AI adoption grows, we must ensure that people – not just technology – are at the heart of this transformation.”“Tools like this will only reach their full potential if we invest in equipping public sector teams with the right skills and training. Empowering diverse talent to work with AI will not only improve how these tools perform but also ensure that innovation is inclusive to real-world needs.”If done right, with these expert caveats in mind, AI tools like Consult have the potential to improve how governments listen, learn, and make policy based on public opinion. The UK government isn’t hanging about; the plan is to get Consult working across various departments by the end of 2025.(Photo by Scott Rodgerson)Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Image by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/FuturismDevelopmentsFresh off his family's dip in Washington, DC's sewage-contaminated Rock Creek, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is reminding us that he is no expert when it comes to healthcare — the thing he was nominated to run.When speaking to the House of Representatives — his first appearance before Congress since his confirmation hearings in January — the allegedly brainwormed Health and Human Services secretary said the quiet part out loud when attempting to weasel out of questions about vaccines."I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive," Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee, "but I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me."That rejoinder came in response to questions from Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, who asked if the political scion would, vaccinate his family, as he did in the past.Kennedy said that he would "probably" vaccinate them against measles — a face-saving response, perhaps, given that a massive and deadly measles outbreak has spread amongst unvaccinated populations during his three-and-a-half-month tenure.When asked the same question about whether he'd vaccinate his kids against polio and chickenpox, Kennedy refused to answer directly."What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant," the avowed anti-vaxxer contended. "I don’t want to give advice."That assertion raised the hackles of critics who contend not only that the HHS head is supposed to be the nation's guiding light in healthcare, but also that his vaccine opinions have shaped his tenure thus far."The problem is that is his job — the top line of his job description — is the nation's chief health strategist," decried Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, in a post-hearing call with reporters. "That is his job, is to give people the best advice that he can. I believe that he's giving up on, in my view, his chief responsibility."As Benjamin notes, Kennedy's stance on vaccines has indeed been behind the HHS secretary's decision to direct dosages of Vitamin A — rather than extra supplies of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines — to be shipped to the West Texas region where the measles outbreak has led to the deaths of two children.(The vitamin, while as good as any other, isn't an effective treatment for measles.)During that same press call, public health practice professor Marissa Levine of the University of South Florida put Kennedy's vaccine obfuscation in even starker terms."I wonder what it would be like," she said, "if the transportation secretary refused to answer a question about whether he would fly."More on RFK Jr.: Government Launching Database of Everyday People With AutismShare This Article

Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she’s put off taking two cats and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.But it’s about to get far tighter.As the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs: Hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.“I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could never pay it off,” says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, California.Like millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in 2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would restart “involuntary collections” by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.Farro’s loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered she couldn’t earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school and got a master’s degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got worse.Around 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one suggestion.“They said, ‘Move to a cheaper state,'” says Farro, who rents a 400-square-foot casita from a friend. “I realized I was living in a different reality than they were.”Student loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold increase from 20 years ago. That has led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% over the same period, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.An estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default, according to a January report from CFPB.Debbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky, is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two decades and they’ve used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews. McIntyre doesn’t know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.She floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won’t automatically clear her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.“I don’t know what more I can do,” says McIntyre, who is too afraid to check what her loan balance is. “I’ll never get out of this hole.”Braxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it’s striking how many older people dial into the organization’s calls and attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts cancelled but fell victim to a system “riddled with flaws and illegalities and flukes.” Many whose educations have left them in late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans, sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and fees.For those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results can be devastating.“We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,” he says. “We know folks that have been driven into homelessness.”Collections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750 of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a debtor far below the poverty line.“We’re basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand and taking them away with another,” says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New America think tank.Linda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction, Arizona, went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.“It’s going to mean restrictions,” says Hilton. “There won’t be any travel. There won’t be any frills.”Some debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more are living in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the Department of Education’s dismantling and, for those seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting calls answered.While Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a necessary step for debtors “both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook,” even some of Trump’s most fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives harder.Randall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn’t strike him as fair, but he’s not sure Trump’s approach is either. He supported Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors. Countryman thinks Americans don’t realize how many older people are affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.“What’s a young person’s problem today,” he says, “is an old person’s problem tomorrow.”Countryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He’s worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been complicated by his criminal record.He lives off his wife’s Social Security check and the kindness of his mother-in-law. He doesn’t know how they’d get by if the government demands repayment.“I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,” he says. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky —Matt Sedensky, AP National Writer

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide  In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles  Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $) + Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket 🚀Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $) + Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work. We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn't disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding 🦆