ACM TechNews, Monday, September 16, 2024

Welcome to the September 16, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

As Quantum Computing Threats Loom, Microsoft Updates Its Core Crypto Library

Microsoft updated its SymCrypt cryptographic library with two new encryption algorithms to protect against attacks from quantum computers. The new algorithms were ML-KEM (Module Learning with Errors-Key Encapsulation), one of three post-quantum standards formalized in August by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the NIST-recommended XMSS (eXtended Merkle Signature Scheme).
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Young Chinese Émigrés Confront U.S. Visa Lottery

Many Chinese émigrés who came to the U.S. for educational opportunities and want to stay find it difficult to obtain H-1B work visas. Each year, the U.S. government issues 85,000 H-1B visas via a lottery process, but registrations surged from 480,000 in the 2023 fiscal year to 780,000 in the 2024 fiscal year. The tense relationship between the U.S. and China also poses challenges.
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Infineon Unveils 12-Inch GaN Power Chip Wafer Tech

Infineon said it has developed 12-inch gallium nitride (GaN) wafer technology that can fit 2.3 times more chips than the current industry standard 8-inch wafer. Infineon noted that GaN chips can be produced on the same equipment used to manufacture silicon chips. Said Infineon's Adam White, "We see adoptions in areas of industrial, consumer, computing applications, and things like power supplies for AI [datacenters]" as well as "growing adoptions in robotics."
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India Semiconductor Ambition Grows with L&T Joining Chip Effort

The Indian conglomerate Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T) is the latest to enter the nation's semiconductor industry, with plans to spend more than $300 million over three years to create a fabless chipmaker. L&T Semiconductor Technologies' Sandeep Kumar said 15 product designs are expected by year's end, with sales commencing in 2027. L&T will focus on power chips, radio-frequency semiconductors, and mixed-signal integrated circuits.
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Operational Technology Leaves Itself Open to Cyberattack

Team82 security researchers analyzed data from more than 50,000 remote access-enabled devices and determined the uncontrolled use of remote access tools (RATs) poses a danger to operational technology (OT). The researchers found 55% of organizations use at least four RATs, and another 33% used six or more. The researchers recommend centralized management of RATs in OT and industrial control systems, with common access control policies.
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Tech Firms Halve Business Travel in 2023 but Alphabet, Apple Lag

An analysis conducted for Brussels-based Transport & Environment (T&E) revealed a 49% average decline in emissions from corporate flights by 26 major tech companies from 2019 to 2023, despite only seven of these companies having specific emissions-reduction targets. Said T&E's Denise Auclair, "Tech companies have claimed to be climate leaders for a long time, and many have substantially reduced their business travel emissions, but if they want to be credible, they must set reduction targets."
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Stretchable Electronics for Soft Robots to Allow Embedded Computation

Stretchable complex circuits developed by Yale University researchers could allow circuit boards to be integrated into soft robots. They devised a method for creating a soft, stretchable version of any complex two-layer circuit. The researchers employed this method to produce stretchable versions of the commercially available Arduino Pro Mini, Arduino Lilypad, Sparkfun Sound Detector, and Sparkfun RGB and Gesture Sensor.
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Making Videogames Was a Dream Career. Then the Mass Layoffs Came

A compilation of termination announcements and news reports by California-based technical artist Farhan Noor reveals that slightly more than 11,500 employees have been laid off by videogame companies this year, up from 10,500 in 2023 and 8,500 in 2022. The layoffs can be attributed to pandemic-era overhiring, frequent online updates allowing players to continue playing a single game longer than before, rising production and marketing costs, and industry consolidation.
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How $20 and a Lapsed Domain Allowed Security Pros to Undermine Internet Integrity

Researchers at watchTowr Labs discovered a vulnerability in the WHOIS protocol that could undermine certificate authorities. They found the WHOIS server for [.]mobi had migrated from whois[.]dotmobiregistry[.]net to whois[.]nic[.]mobi, and they acquired the expired domain for $20. The researchers then deployed a new WHOIS server and identified users that had yet to update their client to the new nic[.]mobi address. Within a week, the researchers reported more than 135,000 unique systems speaking to the server and more than 2.5 million queries.
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The Tech Skills Employers Want the Most

Researchers at software firm Finoit analyzed about 24,000 U.S. job listings to identify the most in-demand technology skills. They determined how many times each of 10 tech skills were mentioned as required in job listings, then matched the skills to average salaries from Indeed. At the top were Python and SQL, each named in 24,000 job listings, with average salaries of $126,673 and $92,457, respectively. These were followed by the terms AWS (16,000 job listings and an average salary of $140,733), robotics (15,000, $117,234), Linux (13,000, $84,939), Java (11,000, $92,177), JavaScript (9,000, $111,620), Azure (9,000, $140,733), C# (8,000, $122,372), and C++ (8,000, $126,129).
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Oracle Is Designing a Datacenter Powered by Three Small Nuclear Reactors

Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison said the company is working on a datacenter that would be powered by three small modular nuclear reactors, because it would require more than a gigawatt of electricity. Small modular nuclear reactors are intended to quicken the deployment of carbon-free energy amid an increase in power demand, including from datacenters. Nuclear industry executives do not expect them to be commercialized in the U.S. until the 2030s.
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