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Today β€” 30 September 2026Main stream

Moth Swarms Sweep Across Australia. That’s Good News.

30 September 2026 at 13:10
Bogong moths have been in decline since the 1980s, but this spring the insects have been sighted in the thousands across southeastern Australia, delighting scientists.
Yesterday β€” 29 September 2026Main stream

Here's what actually happened in OpenAI's Australian gov't server hack

29 September 2026 at 18:11

Last week, when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the world that an OpenAI agent had accessed "non-public files" from his country's Medicare statistics portal during testing, his description of the incident was a little light on details. Today, we're getting new information on just how far OpenAI's overzealous agent went in attempting to satisfy a rather innocuous-sounding informational prompt.

In a newly published blog post, OpenAI says the June incident started when the company asked "an experimental, internal-only OpenAI model" to research government spending statistics in the Australian state of Victoria. When the model ran into trouble finding that data using the publicly published statistics that it was supposed to reference, "it took actions that we had not authorized it to take" to find an answer, OpenAI said.

Those unauthorized actions included finding "a way to gain non-public access to the service" and using that access to view "technical system information and source code" alongside credentials and the aggregate statistics it was actually searching for, OpenAI said.

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OpenAI Apologizes for Australia Medicare Hack

29 September 2026 at 05:23
The company detailed how A.I. agents gained access to four government websites and acknowledged mishandling its response.

Β© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco. The company said it would work to rebuild trust with Australians.

OpenAI Apologizes for Australia Medicare Hack

29 September 2026 at 05:23
The company detailed how A.I. agents gained access to four government websites and acknowledged mishandling its response.

Β© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco. The company said it would work to rebuild trust with Australians.
Before yesterdayMain stream

OpenAI Agents Hacked Into an Australian Government Website. Who’s Responsible?

25 September 2026 at 12:20
The first known breach of a government website by rogue artificial intelligence agents has prompted global calls for more regulation of the technology.

Β© Lexi Parra/The New York Times

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Thursday. He has called for international standards to govern A.I.

OpenAI’s A.I. Tried Breaching Four Other Targets, With No Prompting

24 September 2026 at 16:49
In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said.

Β© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco. At least four times this year, the company’s artificial intelligence hacked or tried to break into government and university websites without being instructed to do so.
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