Amazon Passes $3 Trillion Market Cap; OpenAI vs Apple in Court of Public Opinion; Hotel Wi-Fi Hacks Microsoft 365; AI Supervised Remote Exam Ends Badly

Amazon has joined an ultra-exclusive club now…topping the $3 trillion market capitalization mark. Cnbc.com reports that this comes on the heels of a better than expected earnings report last week. The jump comes after the company reported a surge in cloud growth during the second quarter on the back of strong artificial intelligence demand. It reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.97 versus estimates of $1.82 per share. Revenue came in at $200.61 billion, beating the $196.47 billion analysts estimated. The push for AI data centers helped Amazon’s rivals, too.  Microsoft Azure cloud revenue rising 43% during the fiscal fourth quarter and Google Cloud reporting 82% growth during their own earnings last week.

Apple filed a suit last month, as we reported here, involving former Apple employees and OpenAI…accusing the latter of stealing its trade secrets. According to theverge.com, OpenAI has shot back-in public, not a court filing- that Apple’s suit is  “careless, aggressive, and oddly personal,” sharing iMessage and email exchanges to challenge allegations central to the case. OpenAI seems to be trying to win in the court of public opinion well before the case goes to trial or gets settled. Apple has asked a court for a preliminary injunction to prevent the two individuals,  Chang Liu and Tang Tan, and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, or using or disclosing alleged confidential information while the lawsuit moves ahead. Expect more drama to emerge in the public arena… at least from OpenAI’s side…as this moves forward at the usual snail’s pace in the courts. It’s unlikely that famously secretive Apple will reply to any degree in public. 

An apparently world wide scam targeting hotel wi-fi networks has been traced back to Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard…also known as APT29. Bleepingcomputer.com says The attackers manipulate DNS and HTTP traffic on networks served by captive portal equipment, allowing them to intercept user connections to hotel and conference center Wi-Fi networks. After modifying DNS settings, the attacker can redirect victims to phishing pages that impersonate Microsoft 365 login portals, or to device code phishing pages that abuse Microsoft Entra ID authentication flows. Microsoft observed this activity since July. Microsoft recommends treating hotel and conference Wi-Fi as untrusted, using private cellular or managed connections whenever possible, and avoiding software updates or tools offered through captive portals. I recommend using your phone as a hot spot connected to your computer, and to never use hotel wi-fi at all. The same goes for airports, or any other public place. You might as well be on a Zoom with the bad guys wearing a giant ‘hack me’ sign.

About 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam earlier this summer for UNAM, Mexico’s largest university. Arstechnica.com reports that the exam was administered remotely for the first time…using a’lockdown’ browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software. Well, things didn’t exactly go according to plan. The top results varied dramatically from past results. Between 2021 and 2025, 3.5 percent of test takers scored 100 or more on the 120-question UNAM test. This year, 16.3 percent did so. At the very tip-top, Between 2021 and 2025, 0.9 percent of test takers scored 110 or more; this year, 5.5 percent did so. A commission has looked things over and decided that the 58,000 applicants  who did well enough to be admitted will have to retake the exam….in person! Enterprising prospective college kids and college students have always found ways to get a leg up on exams. At the fraternity house where I lived in part of my college days, they had two file cabinets in the basement with past exams of professors…all with the correct answers for members to pore over in order to get a higher score. Welcome to the 21st century version of that…with AI assistants.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.