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Storage technology explained: Flash vs HDD

The past 12 months saw flash storage nudge into areas from which it had hitherto been absent. In particular, this was because of the availability of denser – and therefore cheaper per-gigabyte (GB) – quad-level cell (QLC) flash storage into array markets and use cases that were once considered nearline.

Alongside this, we saw the price-per-GB of flash drop towards the level of spinning disk hard disk drives (HDDs) then rebound rapidly as memory manufacturers chased profitability. Meanwhile, the keenest of flash storage advocates predicted the demise of the hard drive and the imminent victory of the all-flash datacentre.

In this article, we define enterprise flash storage, look into its QLC and triple-level cell (TLC) variants, the benefits of non-volatile memory express (NVMe) flash, and examine the pros and cons of flash versus HDD in terms of cost, performance, flash in the cloud, and the likelihood (or otherwise) of the all-flash datacentre.

What is enterprise flash storage?

Enterprise flash storage refers to systems that comprise multiple flash drives housed in datacentre rack-mounted array form factor products.

In enterprise flash storage arrays, the capacity of many drives is aggregated, with access to storage media governed by controller hardware.

The controller is compute that powers the intelligence needed to handle input/output (I/O) from hosts to the storage, decision-making over allocation of data to media, but also in flash arrays to carry out maintenance tasks such as wear levelling, garbage collection, and so on.

Enterprise flash storage array capacities run from tens of terabytes (TB) to many petabytes (PB). As with HDD-based arrays, access to storage can be block (for performance-hungry database use cases, for example), file (for general use and unstructured data) or object (for unstructured data also).

What is QLC flash storage?

QLC is the latest generation of flash storage media. QLC stands for quad-level cell. That means that every cell in the flash chip can store four bits of data using 16 states.

That means it can store more data in the same space than TLC flash, which is also widely available. Previously widely available were single-level cell (SLC) flash and multi-level cell (MLC, meaning two states), but these have been largely superseded now.

At the start of 2024, most enterprise storage arrays are built with TLC drives for general-purpose and mission-critical use cases. But QLC has edged into the mainstream and gained traction for unstructured data workloads, in particular with key enterprise storage array makers adding QLC-based products in the past year or so.

As manufacturers increase the number of possible states per cell, storage density increases and the cost of storage per GB decreases. But, as storage density increases in terms of cell capacity, issues can arise that can limit the endurance of flash media.

What is NVMe flash?

Non-volatile memory express (NVMe) is a protocol developed especially for use with flash storage. Prior to NVMe, flash drives used transport protocols that originated during the HDD era, namely Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) and Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS). In fact, these are still in use and arrays that use drives with such connectivity (2.5in and 3.5in form factor) are sold by the big storage suppliers.

But NVMe is at the forefront now for flash drive performance. NVMe’s key innovation was to optimise queues and buffers for use with flash, which improved performance many times over.

As a follow-on, suppliers then developed ways of allowing NVMe connectivity across physically more distant connections across the datacentre. Such NVMe-over-fabrics technologies include the ability to carry NVMe via Ethernet, Infiniband, TCP, RDMA (ie, memory-to-memory connectivity) and more.

What is HDD?

Hard disk drives (HDDs) that rely on magnetic read/write heads and mechanically spinning disks have been around for decades, with flash a competitor that has emerged in the past 10 years or so.

As with flash, HDDs can be aggregated into datacentre rack-mounted array products and the capacity of multiple drives pooled for enterprise users. In fact, HDD-based arrays long preceded enterprise flash arrays and are still widely used.  

What’s the difference in performance between flash and HDD?

When we look at flash versus disk, the key thing that stands out is that flash is fast – many times faster than spinning disk HDD.

Flash drives offer lower latency, with access times down to low milliseconds, or even microseconds, compared with the multiple milliseconds of spinning disk, particularly for reads. That means enterprise flash can also offer vastly more input/output operations per second (IOPS) when aggregated into a storage array.

In throughput terms, flash offers gigabit-per-second (Gbps) rates four or five times quicker than HDD.

Such rapidity has been the key draw for enterprise flash storage and is a result of the lack of moving parts. With spinning platters, HDD is limited by physics in ways that solid-state storage is not.

In terms of capacities, HDD is available in up to around 22TB units. And while some flash drives have been marketed that run to 60-plus terabytes, they generally come in smaller sizes, but part of that is because of cost. 

What’s the cost difference between flash and HDD?

In terms of per-GB cost at drive level, flash costs more than spinning disk.

Flash prices spiked significantly in late 2023 and the early months of 2024 as manufacturers throttled back production in an effort to raise prices and achieve profitability.

Solid-state drive (SSD) prices per gigabyte reached an average of $0.095/GB by April 2024, which was a rise of 26.67% since autumn 2023.

But, flash drive prices then fell steadily over the first three quarters of 2024 to an average of $0.085 per gigabyte (GB) in September 2024.

In October 2023, flash had averaged $0.075/GB while HDD averaged $0.05/GB for SAS and $0.035/GB for SATA drives.

Average spinning disk (SAS and SATA) hard drive prices held steady during the six months to September 2024 at $0.039 per gigabyte. That figure was $0.041/GB in early April.

For a customer that planned to deploy 20TB of flash, based on those prices, it would have cost $1,500 in October 2023, $1,900 in April 2024, and $1,700 in September 2024. That compares to the equivalent for spinning disk of $850 in October 2023 and $780 in September 2024.

Will flash kill HDD? How much longer for HDD?

In particular, Pure Storage has declared HDDs will be dead by 2028, with its flash products the chief agent in the cull, and all owing to its ability to aggregate much more flash capacity on its proprietary modules than occurs on commodity flash drives.

With flash module sizes of up to 300TB by 2026 promised by Pure, it contends that spinning disk will be commercially unviable.

Meanwhile, companies such as Panasas, which specialises in storage for unstructured data, point to hyperscaler datacentres’ overwhelming use of spinning disk in ratios up to 90/10 against flash. Panasas argues that there’s still a five-times differential between the lowest-cost flash and HDD, and that for most, something like the hyperscaler solution is optimal.  

When can you use flash and HDD in the cloud?

Enterprise users can also specify flash storage and spinning disk in the cloud. It is more likely in most cases that cloud storage will be specified by performance and cost criteria, in which case the customer may never know what media underlies it.

But it is possible also to specify flash storage in the cloud and the three largest hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – have solid-state storage options that mix cost, capacity and performance. 

The hyperscalers all offer flash storage to support compute with service levels based on capacity and IOPS per volume that range from general-purpose to premium levels aimed at specific workloads (eg, SQL, Oracle, SAP Hana) and environments (eg, Windows, Lustre, MacOS).

There are also options aimed at flash for file storage and flash storage from named suppliers, such as Azure’s NetApp Files.

What is the all-flash datacentre?

For about a decade, the idea of the all-flash datacentre has been discussed. The all-flash datacentre replaces HDD and other media such as tape with flash storage.

Driving it is the continued decrease in the cost of flash storage – as with QLC flash – but also the advantages of flash in terms of rapid access. The latter becomes more relevant as customers want to run analytics on bigger subsets of their data.

So, for example, where backups may previously have been held on nearline media such as slower HDDs, advocates of flash for such use cases point to the ability to run artificial intelligence (AI) on large customer datasets and to gain value therefrom.

Also, with backups as an example, the idea of being able to recover quickly from flash media in case of a ransomware attack is another use case touted by all-flash datacentre boosters. 

When will the all-flash datacentre arrive?

While enthusiastic suppliers of flash storage such as Pure talk down the obstacles to the all-flash datacentre, analysts point to the spread of (especially QLC) flash into secondary workloads but not necessarily all use cases, with spinning disk likely to retain its usefulness for some time for some datasets.

Meanwhile, HDD suppliers such as Toshiba say around 85% of all data is still on spinning disk. That fact, it says, is not likely to change rapidly, not least because the flash capacity to replace it doesn’t exist.

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Final report on Nats calls for improvements to contingency process

The major incident caused by the failure of the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (Nats) in August 2023 may be a very rare occurrence, but a final report into the system failure has recommended 34 changes.

The report, prepared for the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) by the Independent Review Panel, looked at what could be done better to limit the effects of the failure that occurred because an incorrectly formatted flight plan was submitted to the system.

In the event of a failure of a primary system, the backup system is designed to seamlessly take over processing. The authors of the Nats major incident investigation final report noted that in this instance, the primary system had not failed, but had acted as programmed. It placed itself into maintenance mode to make sure irreconcilable – and therefore potentially unsafe – information was not sent to an air traffic controller.

However, the backup system applied the same logic to the flight plan with the same result. It subsequently raised its own critical exception, writing a log file into the system log, and placed itself into maintenance mode.

The failure of Nats occurred because both the primary and backup Flight Plan Reception Suite Automated – Replacement (FPRSA-R) subsystems were in maintenance mode to protect the safety of the air traffic control operations. This meant flight plans could no longer be automatically processed, and manual intervention was now required.

The report recommended that Nats should review the current command structure, its supporting technology and processes. This should analyse whether the current model is likely to lead to the best outcomes in the majority of incidents, or whether it can be optimised further with the addition of alternative options.

The report’s authors recommended that this review should include, as a minimum, options for alternative models and examples of other effective command structures, including the use of a single incident manager model. They also noted that such options should include guidance about when the use of each option is most appropriate, and suggested a review of training requirements to maximise operational oversight capabilities during incidents, and system and process requirements to support selected structures, including decision-making, escalation and creation of a common operating picture.

When Nats went offline, a subset of unprocessed data remained in the system but was outside the established pause queue. This required further escalation to identify the root cause of the issue.

The report recommended that air traffic control documentation should be reviewed to ensure that the system complexity and behaviour can be better understood by engineers and users who are not dedicated to the system. There should also be a high-level joint Technical Services and Operations review of key critical systems. The report recommended that this review should confirm that the operational documentation for each system reviewed has sufficient description and clarity to allow the system to be operated safely and resiliently in unexpected circumstances.

While escalation procedures were followed, the authors of the report pointed out that earlier contact with the supplier would most likely have expedited the resolution of the event.

They recommended that Nats should update the escalation process to provide guidance on the time or other key criteria that should trigger when, and under what circumstances, supplier support is requested. “Nats should create a single controlled document detailing the supplier contracts and associated contacts, who provide 24-hour support,” the report stated. “These details should be accessible by anyone in Nats likely to be required to support an incident response. As a minimum, these should include Levels 1 through 3 of engineering support.”

Among the minor recommendations is that given the complexity of the system architecture, which is regularly changed and upgraded, it is impossible to maintain up-to-date overall system mapping of Nats. The report’s authors recommended conducting an assessment of the feasibility of using new technology, or a model-based engineering process, to rapidly produce the required system schematic information to the teams during the early stages of an incident.

They also said that the technical services director should review the current operational documentation in support of implementing new technology, or a model-based engineering process that supports rapid mapping. “This must ensure that there is sufficient and accurate detail for the various levels of engineering support to see the high-level, key interfacing systems and methods by which they connect,” they wrote.

The key aim of this review should be to assist in the identification of problems that might be upstream or downstream of the specific system where a fault first occurs.

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Intel isn’t giving up on desktop graphics cards after Battlemage, as rumor claims 3rd-gen Celestial GPUs are still coming

  • Intel is still planning for 3rd-gen desktop GPUs to follow Battlemage
  • This dismisses other rumors that Intel may not make these desktop cards
  • The truth is likely that Intel hasn’t yet fully made the decision itself

Intel’s Celestial graphics cards for the desktop, which will be the 3rd-gen of Arc GPUs, to follow Battlemage – the next-gen that’s imminent – are still being planned and worked on for the future.

That’s the latest word from the grapevine, courtesy of a well-known leaker on X, Bionic Squash.

As you can see, the leaker says that Intel still has plans for discrete GPUs (DGPUs), meaning desktop graphics cards, after the desktop models for Battlemage have been unleashed.

If the current run of rumors is correct, those Battlemage graphics cards could arrive in December, with one model being the B580 – possibly the top-of-the-range GPU – which was recently leaked.

An Intel Arc A770 LE graphics card on a table with a pink desk mat

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Analysis: Some mixed messages from the rumor mill

You might be wondering: why would there be any concerns about Celestial, anyway? Well, in the recent past, there have been some suggestions that Intel might not have another generation of GPUs after Battlemage, or at least not desktop models – and that Celestial could be for integrated graphics only.

Bionic Squash seems pretty confident this isn’t the case, and recent hints appear to back that up. Intel is certainly working on Celestial already, and could even have radical plans for more powerful desktop GPUs in the 3rd generation, going by a recently spotted patent.

That said, Celestial GPUs of the desktop variety still haven’t turned up in leaks – it’s too early for that at this point – and some other recent chatter has suggested that Intel may be waiting to see how successful Battlemage is, before fully committing to discrete Celestial products. However, take that past rumor, and this new one, too, with plenty of caution.

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It’s very likely that the truth is Intel still has decisions to make on this front, but if Bionic Squash is right, the plan for now is to release a 3rd-generation of Arc desktop GPUs.

Via Wccftech

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It’s easier than ever to use SearchGPT on your iPhone

It’s impressive that in only a few months, OpenAI’s ChatGPT became a fundamental part of Apple’s iPhone devices. Whether you have a phone with Apple Intelligence or not, you can take advantage of ChatGPT through its app or by integrating it with Apple’s AI platform.

With the latter, ChatGPT can currently improve Writing Tools technology. Apple explains:

With ChatGPT from OpenAI integrated into Siri and Writing Tools, you get even more expertise when it might be helpful for you — no need to jump between tools. Siri can tap into ChatGPT for certain requests, including questions about photos or documents. And with Compose in Writing Tools, you can create and illustrate original content from scratch.

You control when ChatGPT is used and will be asked before any of your information is shared. Anyone can access ChatGPT for free, without creating an account. ChatGPT subscribers can connect accounts to access paid features within these experiences.

However, if you prefer using OpenAI’s ChatGPT app, the latest update brought an important upgrade. Now, you can set a Shortcut with SearchGPT. For those unaware, OpenAI’s SearchGPT is designed to give you an answer, as it will “quickly and directly respond to your questions with up-to-date information from the web while giving you clear links to relevant sources.” Users will be able to ask follow-up questions as the GPT understands the context of each query.

By using Apple’s Shortcuts app, you could give Siri a command to open SearchGPT or even add it to the Action Button of your iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 models.

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So far, SearchGPT is available for OpenAI subscribers with ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Teams services. Still, the company plans to roll out support to free users in the coming months. To access this feature, don’t forget to update your ChatGPT app to the latest version from the App Store.

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UK data centers ready for expansion

A study by data center specialists Onnec has revealed that local authorities in the UK’s 20 largest cities have overwhelmingly approved data center projects, with 89% of applications receiving planning permission over the past five years. Of the 88 applications reviewed, only three were rejected, five were withdrawn, and one remained undecided.

Onnec looked at 44 local councils and their planning applications for the report. The researchers found that data centers are generally approved, which shows local support for digital infrastructure. To provide computing power and data storage for AI deployment makes that support crucial. Only three applications in Sheffield were rejected. Local authorities looked into possible issues around the design and impact of the centers, along with whether they would fit the character of the surroundings or damage the Green Belt.

Data Center Spread

Notably, the British government has made data centers critical national infrastructure to emphasize their report. That said, the report urges a holistic approach to planning and a nationwide approach to achieve the best outcomes. The UK has pledged £6.3 billion in data center investment as part of its work to make the UK a hub for AI. The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) is trying to reduce the friction in building data centers. It has looked into rejected projects to see where there is room for improvement.

“Data centers are critical for driving AI growth, and with the race for AI supremacy in full swing, the UK has recognized that to get ahead, the right infrastructure must be in place,” Matt Salter, Data Centre Director at Onnec. “Data centers can become the new oil for regions and cities, but only if they are planned holistically – this means considering every aspect of the data center instead of focusing solely on factors such as power and cooling. For example, thinking about the importance of cabling in providing the bandwidth needed to get the most from data center hardware.

London is the largest data center market in Europe, but the report suggests trying to up the availability of data centers elsewhere in the country. Relying solely on London means there is limited power availability along with problems around sustainability. Spreading data centers to other regions would also mean spreading the benefits to the people there. That means improved job opportunities not only for the data centers but for anywhere that the digital skills required for data centers are useful.

“Failing to take a holistic approach will result in sites that aren’t fit for purpose, don’t deliver on the UK’s needs, and degrade over time – poor planning could mean a new data center can feel five years old after the first year of operation, and in need of an expensive retrofit,” Salter said. “The UK risks losing ground in the race for AI supremacy if data centers aren’t built to last.”

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Netflix is cracking down even harder on password sharing

It’s been about 18 months since Netflix started enforcing its password-sharing ban, and the move was highly profitable for the company. While some subscribers canceled their accounts in anger once the streamer announced the measures, many others chose to keep their Netflix subscriptions.

Back in June 2023, I told you that Netflix would not do anything to you while enforcing its password-sharing ban. No one had to worry about being blocked or banned. Instead, you get Netflix household verification requests from time to time. You then have 15 minutes to complete the checks for people outside your household sharing your passwords.

Netflix has now ramped up its game when it comes to enforcing household verification checks in an effort to further punish people for sharing their passwords. Netflix appears to be much more aggressive with its checks, making it almost impossible to share passwords outside of your household.

In the 18 months since I made the first changes to my Netflix household, Netflix kept sending verification requests. These messages would pop up on TVs and other devices and require me to click a button in an email to confirm that the gadgets were part of the same household.

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It all worked great without any hiccups. Sometimes, the checks would come in every couple of weeks, and other times, they’d be much rarer.

There was even a point where I thought Netflix had stopped checking or that it no longer mattered. After all, Netflix added millions of new customers after banning password-sharing, so there couldn’t be that many people left using the same account from two different locations. That’s essentially what households boil down to.

Another reason for the less frequent checks might concern the actual use of the account. Maybe people were accessing the account less frequently than before.

Whatever the case, it’s been a while since I received multiple requests to verify my Netflix household on the same day. But then something unusual happened around the time Disney started enforcing its own password-sharing ban: Netflix became more aggressive.

Nobody Wants This on NetflixKristen Bell as Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah in “Nobody Wants This.” Image source: Adam Rose/Netflix

Say User A and User B simultaneously used the same Netflix login from two different addresses a few weeks ago. User A got a notification to verify the household, which I assisted with, expecting to be a normal check. As soon as I did that, User B got a verification prompt. That was new. I verified the household again, and guess what happened next? User A got kicked off, and Netflix requested another check.

Do this a few times, and you’ll end up with at least some devices logged out of the account. Again, I didn’t see that happen in the previous 18 months.

Also, it’s definitely not the kind of Netflix password-sharing experience you want. It would still work if you wanted to. You can plan your Netflix access to avoid being online on the same account from two different locations. But who wants to bother with that?

It’s also the first time I’ve seen Netflix being so aggressive. I joked that with 2024 almost over, Netflix is trying to improve its financials for the December quarter by signing up more subscribers. I imagine other users have dealt with similar scenarios in the past few weeks.

Regarding subscribers, Netflix had 282.7 million customers at the end of the September quarter, up from 260.38 million subscribers at the end of 2023. Interestingly, Netflix netted 30 million new customers in 2023, the year it announced the password-sharing ban and started enforcing it.

So what did I do when Netflix started cracking down even harder? Nothing. I didn’t cancel Netflix. I accepted it. I get why Netflix is doing it, and I know this is the way things have to work. If you want to stream Netflix, you have to pay.

You can easily get a new Netflix account. The cheapest ad-based tier is still relatively affordable. That’s probably the account Netflix wants you to get in the first place. Ads might benefit its bottom line even more than a more expensive subscription, depending on how much you watch.

Also, ad-based tiers are increasingly popular on streaming services. Disney’s Bob Iger revealed recently that some 30% of Disney Plus global subscribers are on the ad tier. That’s about 37 million accounts.

Netflix, meanwhile, recently reported 70 million monthly users on the ad tier. That’s almost double the 40 million mark it hit back in May.

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UK consumers losing more than ever to holiday scams

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Action Fraud have launched their annual appeal to consumers to pay more attention to fraud, after publishing figures that reveal rising losses to online scammers during the festive shopping season, which kicks off in earnest over the next fortnight heading into Black Friday.

Despite giving similar warnings last, and every, year, Brits lost over £11.5m to cyber criminals during November and December of 2023 – a jump of about £1m – with clothing, technology products and cars among the most prominent items targeted. Victims lost an average of £695 each, and those aged 30 to 39 submitted the largest number of reports, closely followed by 40 to 49 year-olds.

According to the statistics, about 43% of reported incidents involved a social media platform, and 19% an online marketplace.

The NCSC is today launching a national campaign to encourage people to take the bare minimum of steps to protect themselves, such as turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect their online accounts.

“As we head into the holiday shopping season, people are understandably eager to find the best deals online,” said NCSC CEO Richard Horne. “Unfortunately, this is also prime time for cyber criminals, who exploit bargain hunters with increasingly sophisticated scams – sometimes crafted using AI – making them harder to detect. To stay protected, I strongly recommend following our online shopping guidance, including setting up two-step verification and creating memorable-but-secure passwords using three random words.”

Recently appointed Home Office minister for fraud Lord Hanson added: “We know that more needs to be done to tackle online fraud. Our message to anyone shopping online as we approach Black Friday is simple: if you come across anything that doesn’t feel right – stop what you’re doing, break contact, and do not click any links.

“This government is committed to defeating this scourge, and we will continue our work with industry and other partners to better protect the public from this appalling crime,” he said.

NCSC guidance

Besides implementing simple technical measures, online shoppers are also being encouraged to be on the lookout for standard-yet-effective cyber criminal tactics. For example, some fraudsters often try to create a false sense of urgency using limited-time offers, or promoting apparently scarce or exclusive items.

In all instances, the best course of action is to shop sceptically – always keeping in mind the old adage that if something seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is. If something doesn’t seem quite right, the best course of action is to stop, break off contact, do not click on any links that have already been sent, and research the company or seller through trusted review sites.

Consumers can find out more about this year’s campaign at the Stop! Think Fraud microsite.

Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer protection organisation Which?, said she was in favour of the NCSC and government doing more to raise awareness of fraud and scams, but urged them to go further, saying it was not right that the onus always falls on consumers to protect themselves.

“Tackling fraud must be made a national priority, and the government should lead a more coordinated approach by encouraging sectors to share data and stop scams spreading,” she said. 

“New duties, equivalent to the obligations being introduced for banks and online platforms, should be placed on telecom providers, online advertising providers and domain registrars to ensure they verify the legitimacy of users.”

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Denmark’s AI-powered welfare system fuels mass surveillance

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools used by the Danish welfare authority violate individual privacy, risk discrimination and breach the European Union’s (EU) AI Act’s regulations on social scoring systems, according to analysis from Amnesty International.

Udbetaling Danmark (UDK, or Payout Denmark) – established in 2012 to centralise the payment of various welfare benefits across five municipalities – uses AI-powered algorithms to flag individuals who are considered at the highest risk of committing social benefits fraud for further investigation. These were developed in partnership with ATP, Denmark’s largest pensions processing company, and various private multinational corporations.

The report details how UDK’s fraud control algorithms breach the human rights of social security benefits recipients, including their rights to privacy, equality and social security. It also concludes that the system creates a barrier to accessing social benefits for certain marginalised groups, including people with disabilities, low-income individuals and migrants.

“This mass surveillance has created a social benefits system that risks targeting, rather than supporting, the very people it was meant to protect,” said Hellen Mukiri-Smith, Amnesty International’s researcher on artificial intelligence and human rights.

“The way the Danish automated welfare system operates is eroding individual privacy and undermining human dignity. By deploying fraud control algorithms and traditional surveillance methods to identify social benefits fraud, the authorities are enabling and expanding digitised mass surveillance.”

Amnesty argues that UDK’s fraud detection system likely falls under the “social scoring” ban under the EU’s AI Act, which came into force on 1 August 2024.

The act defines AI social scoring systems as those that “evaluate or classify” individuals or groups based on social behaviour or personal traits, causing “detrimental or unfavourable treatment” of those people.

Mukiri-Smith said: “The information that Amnesty International has collected and analysed suggests that the system used by the UDK and ATP functions as a social scoring system under the new EU Artificial Intelligence law – and should therefore be banned.”

UDK and ATP provided Amnesty with redacted documentation on the design of certain algorithmic systems, and allegedly rejected Amnesty’s requests for a collaborative audit, refusing to provide full access to the code and data used in their algorithms.

The Danish authority also rejected Amnesty’s assessment that its fraud detection system likely falls under the AI Act’s social scoring ban, but did not offer an explanation for this reasoning.

In response to this, Amnesty has called on the European Commission to issue clear guidelines on which AI practices constitute a social scoring system in its AI Act guidance. The organisation has also requested that the Danish authorities stop using the system until it can be confirmed that it does not fall under this ban.

Mukiri-Smith added: “The Danish authorities must urgently implement a clear and legally binding ban on the use of data related to ‘foreign affiliation’ or proxy data in risk scoring for fraud control purposes. They must also ensure robust transparency and adequate oversight in the development and deployment of fraud control algorithms.”

Computer Weekly contacted UDK about the claims made by Amnesty International but received no response by the time of publication.

Violation of privacy

Alongside ATP, UDK uses a system of up to 60 algorithms to identify fraudulent social benefit applications and flag individuals for further investigation by Danish authorities.

To power these models, Danish authorities have enacted laws enabling the extensive collection and merging of personal data from public databases of millions of Danish residents. This includes information on residency status, citizenship, and other data that can also serve as proxies for a person’s race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Mukiri-Smith added: “This expansive surveillance machine is used to document and build a panoramic view of a person’s life that is often disconnected from reality. It tracks and monitors where a social benefit claimant lives, works, their travel history, health records, and even their ties to foreign countries.”

Individuals interviewed by Amnesty described the psychological impact of being subjected to surveillance by fraud investigators and case workers. Describing the feeling of being investigated for benefits fraud, Stig Langvad of Dansk Handicap Foundation told Amnesty that it is like “sitting at the end of a gun”.

UDK stated that its collection and merging of personal data to detect social benefits fraud is “legally grounded”.

Exacerbation of structural marginalisation

The report also reveals that the benefits fraud control system developed by UDK and ATP is built on inherently discriminatory structures in Denmark’s legal and social systems, which categorises people and communities based on difference.

According to the report, Danish law already creates a “hostile environment for migrants and people who have been granted refugee status”, with residency requirements for those seeking to claim benefits that disproportionately affect people from non-Western countries, with many refugees in Denmark, including Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

The Really Single fraud control algorithm predicts a person’s family or relationship status to assess risk of benefit fraud in pensions and childcare schemes. One of the parameters employed by the algorithm includes “unusual” or “atypical” living patterns or family arrangements, but contains no clarity on what constitutes such situations, leaving room for dangerously arbitrary decision-making.

Mukiri-Smith added: “People in non-traditional living arrangements – such as those with disabilities who are married but live apart due to their disabilities; older people in relationships who live apart; or those living in a multi-generational household, a common arrangement in migrant communities – are all at risk of being targeted by the Really Single algorithm for further investigation into social benefits fraud.”

Gitte Nielsen, the chairperson of the social and labour market policy committee at Dansk Handicap Foundation, described the feeling of being constantly scrutinised and reassessed: “It is eating you up. A lot of our members … have depression because of this interrogation.”

UDK and ATP additionally use inputs related to “foreign affiliation” in their algorithmic models. For example, the Model Abroad algorithm identifies groups of beneficiaries deemed to have “medium and high-strength ties” to non-EEA countries and prioritises these groups for further investigation.

Amnesty’s research found that algorithms such as these discriminate against people based on factors such as national origin and migration status.

In a response to Amnesty, UDK stated that the use of “citizenship” as a parameter in their algorithms does not constitute processing of sensitive personal information.

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OpenAI’s AI-powered video maker Sora appears to have leaked

Update: We added a statement from OpenAI at the end of the article.

OpenAI’s upcoming AI-powered video maker, Sora, appears to have leaked. At least, this is what X account @legit_rumors posted. According to them, HuggingFace found OpenAI Sora’s access through Discord channels and shared some of the use cases of this AI video maker tool online.

While OpenAI hasn’t given Sora a proper release date, some people have had access to this tool for a while. According to the company, Sora is an “AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions. Sora can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adherence to the user’s prompt.”

However, only a few visual artists, designers, and filmmakers have access to this tool, which allows the company to “gain feedback on how to advance the model to be most helpful for creative professionals.”

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That being said, it seems hackers have leaked OpenAI’s Sora as a protest. Those people believe they’re being lured into “art washing.” They write: “Hundreds of artists provide unpaid labor through bug testing, feedback, and experimental work for the program for a $150B valued company. While hundreds contribute for free, a select few will be chosen through a competition to have their Sora-created films screened – offering minimal compensation which pales in comparison to the substantial PR and marketing value OpenAI receives.” This is why, they say they are “releasing this tool to give everyone an opportunity to experiment with what ~300 artists were offered; a free and unlimited access to this tool.”

They continue: “We are not against the use of AI technology as a tool for the arts (if we were, we probably wouldn’t have been invited to this program). What we don’t agree with is how this artist program has been rolled out and how the tool is shaping up ahead of a possible public release. We are sharing this with the world in the hopes that OpenAI becomes more open, more artist-friendly, and supports the arts beyond PR stunts.”

These are some of the examples of what OpenAI’s Sora can do at the moment:

The platform has been offering the ability to use Sora through the HuggingFace website, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. In a statement sent to BGR, OpenAI said:

Sora is still in research preview, and we’re working to balance creativity with robust safety measures for broader use. Hundreds of artists in our alpha have shaped Sora’s development, helping prioritize new features and safeguards. Participation is voluntary, with no obligation to provide feedback or use the tool. We’ve been excited to offer these artists free access and will continue supporting them through grants, events, and other programs. We believe AI can be a powerful creative tool and are committed to making Sora both useful and safe.

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AWS widening scope of MFA programme after early success

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is to widen the scope of a mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) programme it introduced earlier this year, after seeing strong uptake among customers and a slump in password-related phishing attacks.

The cloud giant made MFA compulsory for management account root users in the AWS Management Console beginning in May 2024, starting with its largest accounts. In June, it added support for FIDO2 passkeys as an MFA method to give users more options, and expanded the original requirement to include root users in standalone accounts, too.

According to AWS principal product manager of account protection Arynn Crow, over 750,000 root users have enabled MFA since April, with customer registration rates more than doubling since the addition of FIDO2 passkeys to the mix. She claimed the policy change had prevented “greater than 99%” of password-related attacks.

“At AWS, we’ve built our services with secure-by-design principles from day one, including features that set a high bar for our customers’ default security posture,” said Crow. “Strong authentication is a foundational component in overall account security, and the use of MFA is one of the simplest and most effective ways to help prevent unauthorised individuals from gaining access to systems or data.”

Based on this early success, AWS will now be expanding MFA requirements to member accounts in AWS organisations from Spring 2025.

“Customers who have not enabled central management of root access will be required to register MFA for their AWS Organizations member account root users in order to access the AWS Management Console,” said Crow.

“As with our previous expansions to management and standalone accounts, we will roll this change out gradually and notify individual customers who are required to take action in advance, to help customers adhere to the new requirements while minimising impact to their day-to-day operations.”

No more passwords anymore

On the back of its early successes with an MFA mandate, Crow said AWS was keen to do more to shore up security for its customers, and had recognised another opportunity to try to eliminate unnecessary passwords for good.

She said that on top of the run-of-the-mill security issues seen with standard passwords, attempting to secure password-based authentication was introducing too much operational overhead for AWS customers, especially those operating at scale or subject to regulatory requirements to rotate their credentials frequently.

As such, AWS has now launched a new capability to centrally manage root access for accounts managed in AWS Organizations, enabling them to cut down on the number of passwords they need to manage while still keeping control over the use of root principals.

Crow explained that customers can now turn on centralised root access with a quick configuration change – either in the identity and access management console or the AWS command line interface – and then remove the long-term credentials of member account root users.

“This will improve the security posture of our customers while simultaneously reducing their operational effort,” she concluded.

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