False Promises (IBM and Android), Security Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 15, 2025

• Misstatements

  • IBM

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ IBM unveils new 'Quantum Nighthawk' 120-qubit processor and software stack — company on track for 2029 fault-tolerance milestone [Ed: IBM: PRE-announcing products or features FOUR years ahead of time! Spam/vapourware.]

      IBM has detailed its most significant quantum computing advances to date, revealing new hardware and software designed to push the limits of what today’s superconducting qubits can do.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Android developer verification: Early access starts now as we continue to build with your feedback [Ed: Responding by insulting some more, saying "sideload"]

      We recently announced new developer verification requirements, which serve as an additional layer of defense in our ongoing effort to keep Android users safe. We know that security works best when it accounts for the diverse ways people use our tools. This is why we announced this change early: to gather input and ensure our solutions are balanced. We appreciate the community's engagement and have heard the early feedback – specifically from students and hobbyists who need an accessible path to learn, and from power users who are more comfortable with security risks. We are making changes to address the needs of both groups.

      To understand how these updates fit into our broader mission, it is important to first look at the specific threats we are tackling.

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Security updates for Thursday

    Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium and firefox-esr), Fedora (firefox, rubygem-rack, skopeo, and webkitgtk), Mageia (perl, perl-CPAN, perl-HTTP-Tiny, perl-Data-Entropy, perl-FCGI, perl-File-Find-Rule, perl-YAML-LibYAML, python-tornado, python-urllib3, python-pip, python3, and unbound), Oracle (ipa and kernel), Red Hat (container-tools:rhel8, krb5, openssl, pcs, podman, and runc), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (binutils, kernel, netty, netty-tcnative, podman, python311-pdfminer, and tomcat11), and Ubuntu (bind9 and linux-aws-6.8).

  • Hackaday ☛ If IRobot Falls, Hackers Are Ready To Wrangle Roombas

    Things are not looking good for iRobot. Although their robotic Roomba vacuums are basically a household name, the company has been faltering financially for some time now. In 2024 there was hope of a buyout by Amazon, who were presumably keen to pull the bots into their Alexa ecosystem, but that has since fallen through. Now, by the company’s own estimates, bankruptcy is a very real possibility by the end of the year.

  • Security Week ☛ Cisco ISE, CitrixBleed 2 Vulnerabilities Exploited as Zero-Days: Amazon

    Amazon has seen a threat actor exploiting CVE-2025-20337 and CVE-2025-5777, two critical Cisco and Citrix vulnerabilities, as zero-days.

  • 2025-11-09 [Older] Manassas City Public Schools close on Monday due to cyberattack

  • RiskyBiz ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Yanluowang ransomware IAB pleads guilty

  • 2025-11-10 [Older] HIPAA, but for non-Covered Entities?

  • Montana Linux ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] Video: A Security Model for systemd

  • 2025-11-07 [Older] The Congressional Budget Office was hacked. It says it has implemented new security measures.

  • RIPE ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Still Smart, Still Insecure: Why Our IoT Devices Keep Failing Basic Security Tests