ZeroHour
DashboardNewsCVEsExploitsIncidentsAIBriefAnalyticsEntitiesWatchlistIOCsAsk the feedSourcesFeeds & APIKiosk mode

Search: “algorithms”

260 stories

Searchkeywordsmart Sortlatesthotimportancerelevance
DomainAllCyberAIWindow24h3d7d30dAllIn the wildImportant onlyShow duplicates
CategoryAllMalware 831Vulnerability 719Ransomware 613Industry 488Policy & legal 387Data breach 319Phishing & fraud 243Exploit / PoC 227Threat actor 217Research 213AI research 71AI tools & infra 70AI safety & security 43Tools 42
SeverityAllcritical 1219high 1248medium 844low 1005info 262

Automatic Key Exchange: faster, post-quantum secure origin handshakes for 45 billion daily connections (and counting)

Cloudflare's Automatic Key Exchange probes origins to lead with preferred key exchange, cutting HelloRetryRequests from 52% to 3.7% and enabling automatic post-quantum origin connections.

Cloudflare announced Automatic Key Exchange, an extension of Automatic SSL/TLS that probes each origin's supported key agreement algorithms and leads with the preferred one, favoring the post-quantum hybrid X25519MLKEM768. Rollover across roughly 45 billion daily origin connections cut HelloRetryRequests from about 52% to 3.7%, saving more than 150 ms of p90 handshake latency. Hundreds of thousands of domains now receive post-quantum origin connections without manual configuration, supporting Cloudflare's goal of quantum-safe encryption by 2029 to counter harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks.

Cloudflare Blog · 7d agoResearch

X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds

A PNAS study of 715 X users finds the platform's engagement-optimizing algorithm amplifies value-misaligned ragebait, affecting self-identified Democrats more.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used browser extension data from 715 U.S. X users, recruited in September and October 2024, to compare self-reported values with the content the For You feed amplified. It found that replying to posts—only 6.8% of observed interactions—disproportionately shapes the engagement-optimizing algorithm, creating runaway feedback loops of value-misaligned ragebait that were more pronounced for self-identified Democrats. Co-author Ziv Epstein, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, said the observational work is intended to spur debate on algorithm transparency and user control over feeds.

404 Media · 28d agoAI safety & security

1.1.1.1 now supports post-quantum DNSSEC, all 2,420 bytes of it

Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 resolver now validates post-quantum DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44, a 2,420-byte NIST algorithm, preparing DNS for post-quantum migration by 2029.

Cloudflare enabled 1.1.1.1 to validate DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44 (algorithm 18), a NIST-standardized post-quantum signature with 1,312-byte public keys and 2,420-byte signatures, roughly 38x larger than ECDSA P-256. The large signatures exceed common DNS-over-UDP limits, forcing fallback to TCP and creating downgrade risks while conventional algorithms must be published alongside. Cloudflare cites the risk of a quantum computer breaking RSA/ECDSA signatures by 2030 and plans full post-quantum security by 2029.

Cloudflare Blog · 5d agoTools1

Machine Unlearning as Private Retroactive Algorithms

A cs.CR paper defines private retroactive algorithms, showing machine unlearning is a data-maintenance problem and giving DP constructions for linear statistics, clustering, histograms.

The paper argues that machine unlearning's requirement to emulate retraining from scratch carries no meaningful privacy semantics against adversaries observing sequences of releases, recasting it as a data-maintenance question addressed by retroactive algorithms. It defines private retroactive algorithms, combining retroactivity with differential privacy under continual observation. Constructions achieve privacy and retroactivity at no asymptotic cost over privacy alone for linear statistics, clustering, and histograms, alongside impossibility results.

arXiv cs.CR · 11d agoResearch

When the Algorithm Fires You: Uber Faces €825M Fine

Dutch regulators fined Uber 825 million euros under GDPR for suspending drivers via fully automated decisions without human review or disclosure.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) fined Uber 824,990,000 euros (~$964M) for making fully automated decisions to deactivate drivers' accounts between 2018 and 2022 without any human review, violating GDPR limits on automated decision-making, and for failing to inform drivers that automated systems were deciding. The penalty is Uber's fourth from the Dutch regulator and exceeds its previous record 290 million euro fine from 2024 over data transfers to the US. Uber says it has stopped the cited practices and is appealing both the decision and the fine amount.

Security Affairs · 21d agoPolicy & legal

HypoEvolve: Genetic Algorithms Enable Multi-Agent LLMs to Discover Scientific Hypotheses

HypoEvolve couples a generational genetic algorithm with specialized LLM agents to generate drug-repurposing hypotheses, beating six baselines on DepMap selectivity (0.171 vs 0.115).

HypoEvolve coordinates specialized LLM agents through a generational genetic algorithm in which scientific judgments and new proposals reshape a hypothesis population. Evaluation centers on drug repurposing, linking mechanistic explanations to target-level biological claims assessed via external measures adapted from DepMap and Open Targets. Across 34 cancer types, HypoEvolve scores highest against six baselines on both measures, with DepMap selectivity of 0.171 versus 0.115 for the strongest baseline, and gains generalize to held-out cancer types.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 1d agoAI research1

Instagram's head says engagement falls by half without the algorithm

Instagram head Adam Mosseri says disabling ranked feeds cuts engagement up to 50%, amid Australian legislation that would force platforms to offer algorithm opt-outs.

Meta's Adam Mosseri told an Australian press briefing that users switching to chronological feeds see engagement fall by as much as 50% and satisfaction drop sharply, arguing ranked feeds deliver a better experience. Australia's draft Digital Duty of Care bill would require platforms to prompt users to disable algorithmic ranking. The EU's Digital Services Act Article 38 has required very large platforms to offer a non-profiling feed option since 2023, with modest adoption. Meta also faces a social media harms trial in which Instagram's addictive design is at issue.

Hacker News · AI · 4d agoAI policyHN 46↑ · 52 comments

Algorithmic stability via ensembling

Theoretical work derives a general framework quantifying stability guarantees for averaging-based ensembles under arbitrary data perturbations via covariance operator norms.

The paper develops a framework for quantifying algorithmic stability of ensembling strategies defined via averaging, for varied types of data perturbation. The main result bounds the stability of the ensembled algorithm in terms of the norm of a covariance operator describing the ensembling process. The framework yields interpretable insights across practical perturbation examples and provides sharper guarantees than those derived from differential privacy considerations.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research

Opaque recurrence, and other AI terms that you should probably know

TechCrunch updates its plain-English glossary defining common AI terms from AGI and agents to chain-of-thought reasoning.

TechCrunch maintains a regularly updated glossary of AI terminology, defining terms such as AGI, AI agents, API endpoints, chain of thought, coding agents, compute, deep learning, and diffusion. It highlights 'opaque recurrence', the reasoning technique in OpenAI's new Astra model that has drawn attention from AI safety researchers. The piece is an educational living document rather than new research or a product announcement.

TechCrunch · AI · 8d agoAI industry

Guiding Worker Self-Selection in Crowdsourcing Contests: An LLM-Augmented Algorithmic Approach

Researchers introduce GRAF, a greedy framework for crowdsourcing contest self-selection, and LLMScore, an LLM-driven method that auto-designs its scoring algorithm.

The paper studies self-selection in Tullock contests (SSTC), where workers choose contests and then compete within them. GRAF is a greedy polynomial-time framework that orders workers by a score vector with zero worker regret and platform optimality guarantees in special cases. LLMScore is an LLM-driven evolutionary framework that produces human-readable, inspectable scoring code, jointly optimizing platform utility and worker satisfaction. Across 1,000 synthetic instances in four settings, GRAF with LLMScore achieves high-quality, often near-optimal outcomes with low worker regret, transferring from small training instances to larger, structurally different settings.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 8d agoAI research1

LLM-Driven Algorithm Design for Quantum Circuit Synthesis based on Binary Decision Diagrams

QuantumEvo uses an LLM to evolve BDD variable-ordering heuristics, achieving a 70.9% tie-or-win rate on quantum circuit cost versus baseline methods.

The QuantumEvo framework uses an LLM as a heuristic generator for quantum-cost-aware BDD variable ordering in reversible circuit synthesis, searching over heuristics initialized from multiple families and selecting them by downstream quantum circuit cost. The discovered heuristic HGA-QE modifies the sifting step inside a genetic algorithm and achieves a 70.9% tie-or-win rate against the per-function best baseline, with strict wins on 13.5% of functions. Advantages are clearer on benchmark suites not used for heuristic discovery.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 11d agoAI research1

5 useful things you'll learn in my new post-training textbook (shipping now!)

Nathan Lambert's new RLHF and post-training LLM textbook covers PPO, GRPO, GSPO, CISPO and related techniques, freely available online.

Nathan Lambert's book 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback: Aligning and Post-training LLMs' is now shipping from Manning. It covers policy-gradient algorithms including PPO, GRPO, GSPO, CISPO, and RLOO, plus loss aggregation, truncated importance sampling, asynchronous RL systems, and post-training topics like rejection sampling, outcome reward models, and on-policy distillation. The book is freely available online with a 12-hour course, codebase, and exercises.

Interconnects · Aug 10, 2026AI research

Unmasking Cloud Identities: From Behavioral Clustering to Automated Detection

Unit 42 clusters behavior of 40,000+ AWS identities from 125 cloud environments to map functional roles and enable lightweight SQL-based detection.

Palo Alto Unit 42 built an unsupervised behavioral clustering model using UMAP and HDBSCAN on AWS CloudTrail logs to map cloud identities to functional roles such as administrators, backup services, security tooling and DevOps. The study analyzed over 40,000 identities across 125 cloud environments over two months. The researchers show that heuristics extracted from the clustering map can be implemented in standard SQL, enabling role classification at scale without running a continuous ML pipeline. The methodology extends to audit logs from other cloud providers, SaaS and Kubernetes.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 2d agoResearch

Getting ahead of ‘harvest-now-decrypt-later’: Post-quantum cryptography planning

Opinion piece urges organizations to begin post-quantum cryptography migration now, citing harvest-now-decrypt-later risk and NIST deadlines.

CSO Online outlines why harvest-now-decrypt-later makes long-lived sensitive data a current risk even before quantum computers exist. It cites NIST IR 8547 timelines deprecating RSA-2048 and ECC P-256 by 2030 and removing them by 2035, finalized FIPS standards ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA, upcoming FN-DSA (FIPS 206), NSA requirements for national security systems from 2027, and UK NCSC phased guidance through 2035. The author recommends cryptographic discovery, crypto-agility, and prioritizing long-confidentiality data and TLS endpoints.

CSO Online · 6d agoResearch

Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography

Apple introduces Reference Image, hardware-backed verifiable photography on iPhone 18 Pro using sensor signing and Private Cloud Compute to counter AI-generated fakes.

Apple announced Reference Image, an opt-in camera mode debuting on the main sensor of iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max that produces securely timestamped, verifiable photographs. The design splits into two phases: a secure digital negative created by cryptographically signing pixel data at the sensor immediately after capture (preventing injection or tampering), then developing that negative into a reference image. Private Cloud Compute handles processing without exposing image contents to anyone, including Apple, and fraudulent reference images can be revoked without revealing the photographer's identity. Apple positions the system as stronger than C2PA-based approaches, which sign metadata after capture, are vulnerable to editing-chain compromise, and can tie images to a device or individual.

Hacker News · security · 8h agoResearchHN 25↑ · 18 comments

Differential Privacy Meets Fixed Parameter Tractability: Algorithms and Lower Bounds

Theory paper combines differential privacy with fixed-parameter tractable encoders, improving approximation guarantees for combinatorial optimization and proving new lower bounds.

The paper studies combinatorial optimization under epsilon-differential privacy within the implicit encoder-decoder framework of Gupta et al. (SODA 2010), generalizing it to allow fixed-parameter tractable encoders. This circumvents approximation barriers inherent to polynomial-time algorithms and yields improved guarantees for fundamental combinatorial optimization problems. The authors establish the first representation-independent lower bounds: assuming a non-uniform variant of the Gap Exponential Time Hypothesis, no epsilon-DP encoder-decoder pair can achieve certain approximation guarantees with a subexponential-time decoder for sufficiently small epsilon. Representation-dependent lower bounds are also provided for larger epsilon.

arXiv cs.CR · 5d agoResearch

The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

A G7 working group report urges governments and industry to accelerate post-quantum cryptography migration, framing quantum risk as a near-term economic threat.

A cybersecurity working group formed at the June 2026 G7 Summit in France called on organizations to stop postponing migration of critical systems to post-quantum cryptography, warning that harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks against currently encrypted data exist today. The report was signed by CISA, the UK NCSC, France's ANSSI, Germany's BSI, Canada's CSE, Japan's NCO, and Italy's ACN. It also cautions that some NIST-selected PQC algorithms have already been broken on classical computers, reinforcing support for crypto-agility. The push aligns with a recent US executive order moving federal PQC migration timelines from 2035 to 2030, while Google and others target 2029.

CyberScoop · 12d agoPolicy & legal

[AINews] Poolside gets $12B reverse-execuhire to NVIDIA; founders stay for $1B, employees go for $6B, Infraco scaling to 7GW neocloud

NVIDIA struck a $12B deal with AI coding startup Poolside, licensing its Model Factory and hiring 109 of its technical employees.

NVIDIA spent roughly $12B in an unusual reverse-execuhire of Poolside, licensing the company's Model Factory while hiring 109 of its ~115 technical staff; founders retain a $1B stake and employees receive about $6B. Poolside had raced to raise $2B to fund a 40,000 GB300 cluster after missing a six-week funding window, and founders argue frontier-scale training now requires an order of magnitude more compute plus contracted data center space. An infrastructure arm spun out in January 2026 is scaling toward 7GW as a neocloud. The newsletter also recaps OpenAI and Anthropic agent-platform releases.

Latent Space · 26d agoAI industry

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing

Anthropic will watermark Claude outputs by biasing low-stakes word choices, a method it says complies with EU AI regulations.

Anthropic detailed how future Claude versions will carry a statistical watermark by altering the source of randomness used to pick among near-synonymous words, adding no hidden characters or metadata; a key holder can compute a probability that text was Claude-generated. The company says internal testing showed no impact on quality, creativity, or readability, and frames the change as compliance with new EU AI regulations. Critics including John Gruber and Jeff Jarvis argue the method treats synonyms as interchangeable and devalues writing, a view echoed in this 404 Media opinion piece.

404 Media · 28d agoAI industry

AI for Military Support

Study of 2,015 Israeli military personnel found algorithmic aversion toward AI targeting decision support, reduced when explainable AI features were added.

The paper 'Black Box Warfare' reconstructed a real-world military AI decision-support system used in targeting and tested a high-fidelity replica in two experiments with 2,015 Israeli military personnel. Contrary to automation-bias fears, participants showed strong algorithmic aversion, especially in high-collateral-damage scenarios. Integrating explainable AI features reduced aversion and promoted more thoughtful evaluation of algorithmic recommendations. The authors conclude that trust in military AI is dynamic and that human agency remains central in high-stakes decisions.

Schneier on Security · Aug 11, 2026AI research

Import AI 470: No rights for machines; automating environment generation with SPADE; and building better GPU kernels with Hawkeye

METR analysis finds AI accelerating cyber vulnerability discovery, while SPADE self-play environment generation improves Qwen3 reasoning benchmark scores at 30B scale.

Import AI 470 discusses a METR research note reporting differential acceleration from AI: major acceleration in reported cyber vulnerabilities (cURL, OpenSSL, Firefox, Microsoft, NVD, OSV), minor acceleration in mathematics, and no measurable acceleration in AI-research optimization benchmarks. It also covers SPADE, a self-play framework from a multi-university team (University of Washington, Stanford, MIT, CMU, and others) that co-evolves executable training environments and agent capability using Environment Designer and Reasoning Agent roles with hint-based regret rewards. Trained on Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507, Qwen3-8B, and Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 via GRPO (400 rollouts of 25 environments), SPADE lifted the 30B-A3B game-environment suite average to 58.3, +8.1 over base, and improved tool-use results across backbones. The issue also references Hawkeye for building better GPU kernels.

Import AI · 22d agoAI research

Behind the Blog: Endless Scam Parade

404 Media's behind-the-blog discusses Spotify tagging AI-generated artists as a tipping point in platforms algorithmically rejecting AI slop.

404 Media's weekly behind-the-blog post discusses Spotify's decision to tag artists as AI-generated and stop promoting them, arguing it signals a tipping point where platforms and users begin algorithmically rejecting AI slop. It also mentions the mainstreaming of Flock and media appearances. The post is partially paywalled for paid members.

404 Media · Aug 14, 2026AI industry