Microsoft Deploys Generative AI for US Spies

Law enforcement in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia this week named a Russian national as the person behind LockBitSupp, the pseudonym of the leader of the LockBit ransomware gang that the US says is responsible for extracting $500 million from its victims. A deputy director of the FBI has urged the agency’s employees to continue to use a massive foreign surveillance database to search for the communications of “US persons,” sparking the ire of privacy and civil liberty advocates who unsuccessfully fought for such searches to require a warrant. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires that “targets” of the surveillance program be based outside the US, but the texts, emails, and phone call of people in the US can be included in the 702 database if one of the parties involved in the communication is foreign. However, Microsoft claims that the model it created for the US government is “clean,” meaning it can read files without learning from them, preventing secret information from being integrated into the platform. China’s foreign ministry has denied the allegations, saying in a statement that it “firmly opposes and fights all forms of cyber attacks” and “rejects the use of this issue politically to smear other countries.” The payroll company, Shared Services Connected, had known about the breach for months before reporting it to the government, according to The Guardian.