From the department of head scratches comes this counterintuitive news: Microsoft says it has no plans to change a remote login protocol in Windows that allows people to log in to machines using passwords that have been revoked.

Password changes are among the first steps people should take in the event a password has been leaked or an account has been compromised. People expect that once they've taken this step, none of the devices that relied on the password can be accessed.

Not just a bug

The Remote Desktop Protocol —the proprietary mechanism built into Windows for allowing a remote user to log in to and control a machine as if they were directly in front of it—however, will in many cases continue trusting a password even after a user has changed it. Microsoft says the behavior is a design decision to ensure users never get locked out.

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With the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brain worms have gotten a bad rap.

A year ago, the long-time anti-vaccine advocate and current US health secretary famously told The New York Times that a parasitic worm " got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died ." The startling revelation is now frequently referenced whenever Kennedy says something outlandish, false, or offensive—which is often. For those who have followed his anti-vaccine advocacy, it's frightfully clear that, worm-infested or not, Kennedy's brain is marinated in wild conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation.

While it's certainly possible that worm remnants could impair brain function, it remains unknown if the worm is to blame for Kennedy's cognitive oddities. For one thing, he was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning, which can cause brain damage, too. As prominent infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said last June in a conversation with political analyst David Axelrod: "I don't know what's going on in [Kennedy's] head, but it's not good."

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Apple’s AirPlay feature enables iPhones and MacBooks to seamlessly play music or show photos and videos on other Apple devices or third-party speakers and TVs that integrate the protocol. Now newly uncovered security flaws in AirPlay mean that those same wireless connections could allow hackers to move within a network just as easily, spreading malicious code from one infected device to another. Apple products are known for regularly receiving fixes, but given how rarely some smart-home devices are patched, it’s likely that these wirelessly enabled footholds for malware, across many of the hundreds of models of AirPlay-enabled devices, will persist for years to come.

On Tuesday, researchers from the cybersecurity firm Oligo revealed what they’re calling AirBorne, a collection of vulnerabilities affecting AirPlay, Apple’s proprietary radio-based protocol for local wireless communication. Bugs in Apple’s AirPlay software development kit (SDK) for third-party devices would allow hackers to hijack gadgets like speakers, receivers, set-top boxes, or smart TVs if they’re on the same Wi-Fi network as the hacker’s machine. Another set of AirBorne vulnerabilities would have allowed hackers to exploit AirPlay-enabled Apple devices too, Apple told Oligo, though these bugs have been patched in updates over the last several months, and Apple tells WIRED that those bugs could have only been exploited when users changed default AirPlay settings.

Those Apple devices aside, Oligo’s chief technology officer and cofounder, Gal Elbaz, estimates that potentially vulnerable third-party AirPlay-enabled devices number in the tens of millions. “Because AirPlay is supported in such a wide variety of devices, there are a lot that will take years to patch—or they will never be patched,” Elbaz says. “And it's all because of vulnerabilities in one piece of software that affects everything.”

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A couple of weeks ago, ground teams at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida removed one of the four main engines from the Space Launch System rocket slated to send four astronauts on a voyage around the Moon next year.

NASA officials ordered the removal of one of the massive rocket's RS-25 main engines after discovering a hydraulic leak on the engine's main oxidizer valve actuator, which controls the flow of super-cold liquid oxygen propellant into the engine's main combustion chamber, an agency spokesperson told Ars.

In its place, technicians installed another RS-25 engine from NASA's inventory to the bottom of the rocket's core stage, which is standing vertical on its mobile launch platform inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy. Teams began integrating the replacement engine with the rocket last Friday and are in the process of firmly securing it in the Engine 4 position on the core stage, the NASA spokesperson said.

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CBS owner Paramount is reportedly nearing a settlement with President Donald Trump over his claim that 60 Minutes "deceptively manipulated" a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.

Trump's complaint , filed against Paramount and CBS in a federal court in Texas, seeks at least $20 billion in damages. The lawsuit has been widely described as frivolous , but it appears that Paramount is motivated to settle the case while it seeks the Trump administration's approval for a merger with Skydance.

Reports published yesterday by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times say that Paramount is ready to settle. "In an April 18 meeting, the Paramount board outlined acceptable financial terms for a potential settlement with the president, according to three people with knowledge of the internal discussions," the NYT wrote. "The exact dollar amounts remain unclear, but the board's move clears a path for an out-of-court resolution."

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In advance of the Switch 2's planned June launch, Nintendo has released a system update for the original Switch that, among other things, activates the company's new Virtual Game Card system for sharing digital downloads. But Switch owners are finding that this new sharing system is a bit more limiting when it comes to sharing a single digital purchase for online play across multiple consoles.

For those who missed Nintendo's March announcement of the Virtual Game Card system , the new setup allows players to easily "unload" a digital game license from one Switch (or Switch 2) console and "load" it onto another console connected to the same Nintendo Account (or one in the same family group ). An Internet connection is required for the initial loading and unloading process, but after that, the system with the Virtual Game Card can play the downloaded game completely offline.

For those who don't want to constantly load and unload their virtual games between systems, Nintendo also offers an "Online License" feature deep in the Switch's system menu. When this feature is turned on, if you load a digital game without a Virtual Game Card present, the Switch will perform an online check to confirm that your Nintendo Account actually has access to that game. Nintendo recommends this feature for players who want to share games across three or more Switch units.

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The US Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday advanced the nomination of private astronaut and businessman Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA to the Senate floor, setting up the final step before he is confirmed.

The vote was not unanimous, at 19–9, with all of the nay votes coming from senators on the Democratic side of the aisle.

However, some key Democrats voted in favor of Isaacman, including the ranking member of the committee, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Before the vote, Cantwell said she appreciated that a candidate like Isaacman, with his background in business and private spaceflight, could bring new ideas and energy to the space agency.

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Pushing to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that its chatbots caused a teen's suicide , Character Technologies is arguing that chatbot outputs should be considered "pure speech" deserving of the highest degree of protection under the First Amendment.

In their motion to dismiss , the developers of Character.AI (C.AI) argued that it doesn't matter who the speaker is—whether it's a video game character spouting scripted dialogue, a foreign propagandist circulating misinformation, or a chatbot churning out AI-generated responses to prompting—courts protect listeners' rights to access that speech. Accusing the mother of the departed teen, Megan Garcia, of attempting to "insert this Court into the conversations of millions of C.AI users" and supposedly endeavoring to "shut down" C.AI, the chatbot maker argued that the First Amendment bars all of her claims.

"The Court need not wrestle with the novel questions of who should be deemed the speaker of the allegedly harmful content here and whether that speaker has First Amendment rights," Character Technologies argued, "because the First Amendment protects the public’s 'right to receive information and ideas.'"

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WASHINGTON—Here in DC, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will meet today to discuss its proposed budget legislation, and there's a doozy in there for drivers of electric vehicles and hybrids. As part of the Republican Party's ongoing war against science and the environment under President Trump, committee chairperson Sam Graves (R-Mo.) has included some new annual fees that will cost all drivers some, but some drivers more.

The Republicans plan to use the budget reconciliation process to pass this legislation, which is an expedited process that removes some of the US Senate's ability to stall. They're proposing a new annual federal motor vehicle registration fee, which state DMVs would have to collect and pass back to the federal government.

If it passes, all battery EVs would be subject to a new $200 tax. Hybrids—defined as a vehicle that is propelled by both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine or other power source (which would include fuel cell EVs)—will pay $100. But someone who commutes 90 miles a day in a particulate-belching Ford F-350 Duramax diesel pickup truck gets away with a mere $20 a year, and only from October 1, 2030; until then they get to drive for free.

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