Tech
Police arrest SMS blaster crew that sent malicious messages to thousands across Toronto
Police have arrested and brought 44 charges against three men for allegedly operating an SMS blaster in downtown Toronto. The scheme, which began in November 2025, is the “first known instance” of an SMS blaster operating in Canada, according to the police report.
In a statement, the Toronto Police Service said it believes tens of thousands of devices were blasted with spammy text messages over several months.
SMS blasters work by spoofing cell towers and broadcasting a stronger signal than other towers in range in order to trick nearby cell phones and tablets into connecting with the blaster. Once connected to nearby devices, an SMS blaster can send out thousands of text messages, which may contain links to phishing sites that impersonate login pages of legitimate businesses. Such devices exploit security weaknesses in older 2G cellular networks to send these messages.
The scheme aimed to steal people’s usernames and passwords, including banking credentials, said Lindsay Riddell, a Detective Sergeant with the Toronto Police, in a press conference.
The police said such devices disrupt nearby cellular communications and interfere with 911 emergency services.
The police have released a photo of a similar SMS blaster found in the United Kingdom during an earlier investigation (pictured above), but declined to share a photo of the blaster found in Toronto, citing safety reasons.
Authorities said the SMS blaster was “uniquely built,” and was operated from the back of a vehicle, allowing the device to be used in multiple locations across Toronto.
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In 2024, police in Thailand arrested gang members for running a similar SMS blaster out of the back of a truck in Bangkok. The gang members reportedly blasted close to a million text messages over a three-day period.
Users can block attempts by SMS blasters by switching off their phones’ 2G cellular connectivity. Users of Apple devices can turn on Lockdown Mode to switch off their 2G radios.
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Tech
Meta Wants to Run Your Business With AI — Microsoft and Salesforce Have a New Rival
Meta launches Enterprise Platform, bringing Muse, Business Agent and AI tools to companies as it takes on Microsoft and Salesforce.
The post Meta Wants to Run Your Business With AI — Microsoft and Salesforce Have a New Rival appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Tech
OpenAI gives Codex reusable cloud environments that work across devices
OpenAI introduced new capabilities for its software engineering agent Codex, making it more useful beyond a developer’s laptop with reusable cloud development environments that can be accessed from any device.
The update, announced at OpenAI’s Dev Day on Tuesday, is one of several for Codex. OpenAI also announced a refreshed Codex CLI, a new code review experience, tools to harden infrastructure, and other API enhancements.
While Codex could already spin up cloud tasks to do work remotely, today’s announcement shows that OpenAI is making those cloud environments more persistent and configurable, rather than treating each cloud task as an isolated remote sandbox.
As the company explains, developers will now be able to run Codex wherever they need it, whether that’s on a computer, remotely from a phone, or in the cloud. The reusable development environments are designed to help tasks start more quickly and give teams a shared workspace with approved settings and permissions, OpenAI said.

Meanwhile, the Codex CLI is getting an update that allows developers to start and direct tasks using their voice.
A new /agents view is meant to make it easier to delegate work and track multiple tasks at the same time. Other changes include improvements to everyday tasks such as editing prompts, resuming sessions, and using worktrees. OpenAI is also rolling out a “cleaner” terminal user interface designed to make longer sessions easier to read.

Codex can also be pulled into a new code review experience within the ChatGPT desktop app, where users can read summaries, explore code changes, or ask Codex about potential issues before sharing feedback on GitHub pull requests or GitLab merge requests.
Automatic code reviews also let Codex perform an initial review while users step away from their computers.

On the security side, OpenAI is rolling out a new set of tools called Codex Security Cloud, designed to help developers secure their infrastructure. Developers can use the tools to scan entire GitHub repositories on demand or on a regular schedule, as well as whenever new commits arrive. Codex will then investigate findings, remove duplicates, and prepare fixes in the cloud — even when the user isn’t active and their laptop is closed.
Notably, the toolset includes access to the models offered through OpenAI’s cybersecurity initiative Daybreak Blue, without requiring developers to submit a separate application.

OpenAI also announced several API updates, including a new Decisions API for real-time decision-making. The API uses Luna to answer a set of user-defined questions with predefined answers. The company also introduced an updated a version of the Agents API that now supports computer use and the ability to use Amazon’s Bedrock Managed Agents to build OpenAI agents that run entirely on AWS.
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Tech
OpenAI takes on Microsoft with the launch of what feels a whole lot like ChatGPT’s own office suite
OpenAI has been a close partner of Microsoft from the jump, but the AI lab is increasingly going after the company’s bread and butter, workplace software, with new features that closely resemble an office software suite like Microsoft’s.
At its Dev Day developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, OpenAI announced several new ChatGPT features designed for office workers.
Most notably, OpenAI launched a feature called Space, a shared workspace inside ChatGPT where coworkers can collaborate with the chatbot and with their own Dots, OpenAI’s newly launched AI agent personas (that can carry out tasks on a user’s behalf), on a range of work tasks.
“Your pages and files all live together in Space, like they would in a drive,” said CEO Sam Altman during Tuesday’s presentation. “But spaces feel alive.” Altman said users can give a page specific instructions, such as checking a team channel and updating the page with what it finds.
OpenAI also announced Pages, a companion word processor that the company describes as “a new type of document, built for human and agent collaboration.” It appears to be OpenAI’s answer to Google Docs and Microsoft Word. Users can “write, research, generate charts, create images, or visualize information” in it, OpenAI says.
OpenAI has also launched its answer to PowerPoint with what it calls collaborative slides. These slides can be created by merely talking about them within ChatGPT. Once generated, multiple workers and agents can work together within them and will have the ability to leave comments and edit them.
As OpenAI edges into the territory of Microsoft, Microsoft and other software companies like Salesforce are busy trying to become more like OpenAI. Over the past year, both companies have released a slew of AI products as the software industry attempts to keep up with the shifting landscape.
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