The head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency warned the country's leading research universities on Thursday that foreign states are targeting their institutions and imperilling national security. The Record: "We know that our universities are being actively targeted by hostile actors and need to guard against the threat posed to frontier research in the most sensitive sectors," said the deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, who also attended the briefing. The threat requires "further measures," said the deputy PM, who announced that the government was launching a consultation with the sector so it could "do more to support our universities and put the right security in place to protect their cutting-edge research." The briefing was delivered by Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, alongside Dowden and the National Cyber Security Centre's interim chief executive, Felicity Oswald. It was made to the vice-chancellors of the Russell Group, a collective of the country's 24 leading universities. Among the range of measures being considered is having MI5, the domestic security agency, carry out security vetting on key researchers involved in a "small proportion of academic work, with a particular focus on research with potential dual uses in civilian and military life."

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Creating a sexually explicit "deepfake" image is to be made an offence under a new law in the UK, the Ministry of Justice has announced. The Guardian: Under the legislation, anyone who creates such an image without consent will face a criminal record and an unlimited fine. They could also face jail if the image is shared more widely. The creation of a deepfake image will be an offence regardless of whether the creator intended to share it, the department said. The Online Safety Act, introduced last year, has already criminalised the sharing of deepfake intimate images, whose creation is being facilitated by advances in artificial intelligence. The offence will be introduced through an amendment to the criminal justice bill, which is making its way through parliament. Laura Farris, the minister for victims and safeguarding, said the creation of deepfake sexual images was "unacceptable irrespective of whether the image is shared."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Ministers are considering banning the sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16 after a number of polls have shown significant public support for such a curb. The government issued guidance on the use of mobile phones in English schools two months ago, but other curbs are said to have been considered to better protect children after a number of campaigns. [...] A March survey by Parentkind, of 2,496 parents of school-age children in England, found 58% of parents believe the government should ban smartphones for under-16s. It also found more than four in five parents said they felt smartphones were "harmful" to children and young people. Another survey by More in Common revealed 64% of people thought that a ban on selling smartphones to under-16s would be a good idea, compared with 20% who said it was a bad idea. The curb was even popular among 2019 Tory voters, according to the thinktank, which found 72% backed a ban, as did 61% of Labour voters. But the thought of another ban has left some Conservatives uneasy. One Tory government source described the idea as "out of touch," noting: "It's not the government's role to step in and microparent; we're meant to make parents more aware of the powers they have like restrictions on websites, apps and even the use of parental control apps." They said only in extreme cases could the government "parent better than actual parents and guardians."

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England could produce 13 times more renewable energy than it does now, while using less than 3% of its land, analysis has found. The Guardian: Onshore wind and solar projects could provide enough electricity to power all the households in England two and a half times over, the research by Exeter University, commissioned by Friends of the Earth (FoE), suggested. Currently, about 17 terawatt hours of electricity a year comes from homegrown renewables on land. But there is potential for 130TWh to come from solar panels, and 96TWh from onshore wind. These figures are reached by only taking into account the most suitable sites, excluding national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, higher grade agricultural land and heritage sites. Some commentators have argued that solar farms will reduce the UK's ability to grow its own food, but the new analysis suggests there is plenty of land that can be used without impairing agricultural production. More land is now taken up by golf courses than solar farms, and developers can be required to enhance biodiversity through simple measures such as maintaining hedgerows and ponds. Onshore windfarms were in effect banned in 2015 by the then prime minister, David Cameron. Rishi Sunak last year claimed to make moves towards lifting the ban, through small changes to the planning regulations, but campaigners say they were ineffectual and real planning reform is needed. No plans were submitted for new windfarms in England last year, and few new developments are coming forward, despite high gas prices, rising bills and onshore wind being the cheapest form of electricity generation.

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The UK government has admitted its negotiating power over billions of pounds of cloud infrastructure spending has been inhibited by vendor lock-in. From a report: A document from the Cabinet Office's Central Digital & Data Office, circulated within Whitehall, seen by The Register, says the "UK government's current approach to cloud adoption and management across its departments faces several challenges" which combined result "in risk concentration and vendor lock-in that inhibit UK government's negotiating power over the cloud vendors." The paper also says that if the UK government -- which has spent tens of billions on cloud services in the last decade -- does not change its approach, "the existing dominance of AWS and Azure in the UK Government's cloud services is set to continue." Doing nothing would mean "leaving the government with minimal leverage over pricing and product options. "This path forecasts a future where, within a decade, the public sector could face the end of its ability to negotiate favourable terms, leading to entrenched vendor lock-in and potential regulatory scrutiny from [UK regulator] the Competition and Markets Authority." The document has been circulated under the heading "UK Public Sector Cloud Marketplace." It is authored by Chris Nesbitt-Smith, a CDDO consultant, and sponsored by CDDO principal technical architect Edward McCutcheon and David Knott, CDDO chief technical officer.

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A British court has ruled that Julian Assange can't be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won't get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site's publication of classified American documents. From a report: Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue -- and Assange will remain inside London's high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years. Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, "is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed."

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A man has been sentenced for cyber flashing in England for the first time. From a report: Nicholas Hawkes, 39, from Basildon in Essex, was jailed for 66 weeks at Southend Crown Court today after he sent unsolicited photos of his erect penis to a 15-year-old girl and a woman on 9 February. The older victim took screenshots of the offending image on WhatsApp and reported Hawkes to the police the same day. Cyber flashing became a criminal offence in England with the passage of the Online Safety Act on 31 January. It has been a crime in Scotland since 2010. The offence covers the sending of an unsolicited sexual image to people via social media, dating apps, text message or data-sharing services such as Bluetooth and AirDrop. Victims of cyber flashing get lifelong anonymity from the time they report the offence, as it also falls under the Sexual Offences Act.

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