A secure and private suite for team collaboration

 

A secure and private suite for team collaboration

Businesses need a private alternative to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 that uses the familiar tools they rely on every day. That’s why we launched Proton Workspace: a fully integrated suite for teams to communicate, collaborate, and grow securely, protected by strong encryption and Swiss privacy laws. It brings together Proton Mail, Calendar (now with appointment scheduling), Drive, Docs, Sheets, Pass, VPN, Lumo AI assistant, and Proton Meet.

Explore Workspace with a free trial

Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code

Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code
Published Tue, Mar 31 20264:56 PM EDT

Ashley Capoot@/in/ashley-capoot/
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Key Points
Anthropic accidentally leaked part of the internal source code for its coding assistant Claude Code, according to a spokesperson.
The leak could help give software developers, and Anthropic’s competitors, insight into how it built the viral coding tool.
“No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed,” the spokesperson said.


The Anthropic logo appears on a smartphone screen with multiple Claude AI logos in the background. Following the release of Claude Opus 4.6 on February 5, Anthropic continues to challenge its main competitors in the generative AI market in Creteil, France, on February 6, 2026.
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images


Anthropic leaked part of the internal source code for its popular artificial intelligence coding assistant, Claude Code, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

“No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement. “This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach. We’re rolling out measures to prevent this from happening again.”


A source code leak is a blow to the startup, as it could help give software developers, and Anthropic’s competitors, insight into how it built its viral coding tool. A post on X with a link to Anthropic’s code has amassed more than 21 million views since it was shared at 4:23 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The leak also marks Anthropic’s second major data blunder in under a week. Descriptions of Anthropic’s upcoming AI model and other documents were recently discovered in a publicly accessible data cache, according to a report from Fortune on Thursday.


Anthropic was founded by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers in 2021, and it’s best known for developing a family of AI models called Claude.

The company released Claude Code to the general public in May, and it helps software developers build features, fix bugs and automate tasks.

Claude Code has seen massive adoption over the last year, and its run-rate revenue had swelled to more than $2.5 billion as of February.


The tool’s success has prompted companies like OpenAI, Google and xAI to pour resources into developing competing offerings.

 

Nike just can’t do it in China

Nick Iluzada

Nike’s turnaround has hit a huge wall in China—and that’s anything but great for shareholders. The company’s earnings call this week revealed that sales in China fell for the seventh consecutive quarter, and that they’re expected to remain weak for the rest of the year. The company’s shares crashed by ~15% in response to its bleak outlook in China, even though Nike’s fiscal Q3 earnings and revenue beat expectations. The recovery remains in progress CEO Elliott Hill was brought on board in 2024 to return Nike to its glory days by refocusing the brand on sports. Some progress has been made, as revenue in North America grew for a second straight quarter. But overseas problems had Hill venting in an all-hands meeting that “I’m so tired, and I know you are too, of talking about fixing this business,” according to Bloomberg: In China, consumers are pulling back as they look for bargains during tough economic times—but other foreign brands aren’t being hit as hard as Nike. Nike CFO Matthew Friend blamed the conflict in the Middle East as a disruptor to shopping patterns in the region, as well as in Europe and Africa. Nike also cited US tariffs eating into the company’s bottom line. Looking ahead…the company is expecting continued growth in North America and plans to offer longer-term guidance to investors this fall.

Privacy watch and updates

 

Privacy watch

News and updates about online privacy

• Google, Apple, and Meta shared data from more than 3.5 million user accounts with US authorities over the past decade through routine requests alone, a 770% increase since reporting began. When FISA disclosures are included, the total rises to roughly 6.7 million. See the details of the investigation.
• Another Proton study found that nearly one in four small and medium businesses suffered a cyberattack in the past 12 months. Cyber risk is shaped by human error, inconsistent use of security tools, and giving more data to cloud and AI platforms. See our recommendations for businesses.
• Apple’s latest iPhone update in the UK introduces age verification at the operating-system level, requiring some people to prove they are over 18 with a credit card or government-issued ID. The move comes after pressure from regulators under the Online Safety Act to do more to protect children online. What it means beyond the UK.
• The Trump administration is poised to renew a surveillance law known as Section 702 that gives the government the power to spy on people without a warrant. The law is especially controversial in the US because it can be used to target American citizens, who would normally be protected from warrantless surveillance by the Constitution.
• Instagram is dropping end-to-end encryption for chats, despite years of Meta presenting it as the future of private messaging. Uncertainty remains around what happens to currently encrypted chats.
• Google has settled a $68 million lawsuit alleging that Google Assistant improperly recorded private conversations after false activations and used that data for targeted ads. It is one more entry in the long line of privacy cases Google has chosen to settle rather than fight in court and risk admitting wrongdoing.

Can countries replace SWIFT?

Can countries replace SWIFT? Evidence from Russia suggests not easily

The Conversation – Articles (CA) · a day ago
by Mesbah Sharaf, Professor of Economics, University of Alberta


When Russian banks were cut off from the SWIFT messaging system in 2022, the move was seen as one of the strongest financial sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.

The measure, taken by the European Union and its allies, targeted major Russian banks and aimed to disrupt the country’s ability to conduct international transactions.

SWIFT — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — allows more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries to send secure, standardized payment instructions to one another. Without it, cross-border transactions become slower, more difficult and more expensive.

But what happens if a country is pushed out of the world’s main financial messaging network? Can it simply build an alternative? Our recent research suggests the answer is no — or at least not nearly as easily as some claims suggest.
Russia’s workaround

Russia had been preparing for the risk of being cut off from global financial infrastructure for years. After earlier sanctions in 2014, it developed its own domestic system, known as the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), to reduce its reliance on foreign financial infrastructure and make itself less vulnerable to future sanctions.

While SPFS was built mainly for the Russian market, the Bank of Russia says foreign users can also connect either directly or through a service bureau. This suggests an effort to extend its use beyond Russia, even if its international reach has remained limited.

When Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT in 2022, SPFS was presented as part of that fallback strategy. Other workarounds included capital controls, rules requiring exporters to sell part of their foreign-currency earnings and greater reliance on domestic payments infrastructure such as Mir.

At first glance, the strategy appeared to work. Russian exports remained high in the months after the sanctions, leading some observers to argue that the shock had been contained and that financial workarounds were doing their job. The Financial Times, for example, noted the surprising resilience of the Russian economy.

But our findings point to a more complicated reality.
What the data shows

Using monthly data from March 2020 to February 2024, we examined what happened to two key indicators after Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT: merchandise exports and international reserves.

The results showed a clear split between trade and finance. Export revenues stayed high for a time, but much of that was tied to the global surge in oil prices rather than to the strength of SPFS itself. Once oil prices were taken into account, the apparent export resilience became much weaker.

In other words, Russia benefited from unusually favourable market conditions. High energy prices helped keep export earnings afloat at exactly the moment when the country was facing major financial disruption. That is not the same thing as showing that a domestic payment system had replaced the role SWIFT normally plays in international finance.

The deeper strain showed up in Russia’s international reserves. Reserves are one of the clearest signs of a country’s external financial strength. They support currency stability, underpin investor confidence and provide a buffer against economic shocks.

Russia’s reserves fell sharply and stayed under pressure after the SWIFT exclusion, suggesting the financial damage ran deeper than the export numbers alone might imply.
Alternatives to SWIFT have limits

This helps explain why alternatives like SPFS have limits. A domestic system may help preserve some continuity and allow certain transactions to keep moving inside the country or with a limited group of foreign partners.

But it does not automatically recreate the wider ecosystem that makes SWIFT powerful: global reach, liquidity, institutional trust and the network effects that come from being used almost everywhere.

The more institutions that use a system, the more valuable it becomes. Replicating that scale requires broad international participation and confidence, which are difficult to build quickly.
The future of global payments

Around the world, governments are paying much closer attention to financial sovereignty, sanctions risk and dependence on payment systems they do not control.

Countries such as Russia and China have tried to build alternatives, and debates about payment fragmentation are becoming more common.

In simple terms, payment fragmentation means the global financial system breaking into separate networks that do not fully connect with each other, making cross-border transactions more complex, costly and less predictable.

Yet building a domestic alternative is not the same as reproducing a global network built on decades of legal standards, co-ordination and trust.
Sanctions are still effective

The broader lesson is that payment technologies derive their value not simply from their design, but from who uses them, how widely they are accepted and whether people trust them in practice.

That is why Russia’s experience should be interpreted carefully. It does not demonstrate that countries can easily escape the economic force of sanctions by building local substitutes.

Instead, it shows that while some adjustment is possible — especially when helped by high commodity prices — the advantages of a global network are much harder to replace.

So can countries build alternatives to SWIFT? Yes.

Can they quickly build alternatives with the same reach, trust and financial weight? Russia’s experience shows that while a country may be able to keep some payments moving for a time, that is very different from preserving full financial resilience.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in fourth quarter

 

The 
US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in the fourth quarter, the government says, downgrading its previous estimate




Gas prices are displayed at a gasoline station, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
By PAUL WISEMAN
Updated 7:29 AM GMT-7, April 9, 2026
Leer en español

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American economy, slowed by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, grew at a sluggish 0.5% annual pace from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in downgrade of its previous estimate.

U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — decelerated in the fourth quarter after registering impressive growth of 4.4% from July through September and 3.8% from April through June. The latest number was marked down from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate of 0.7% fourth-quarter growth.

Federal government spending and investment fell at a 16.6% annual pace because of the shutdown, lopping 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth. Consumer spending expanded 1.9%, down a notch from the previous estimate and from 3.5% in the second quarter. Spending on goods — such as cars and clothing — grew just 0.3%, down from 3% in the July-September period.

For all of 2025, the economy grew 2.1% last year, slower than 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023.

Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a 2.4% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter.

First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature

First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature

First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature
If Governor Janet Mills signs it, it will block construction of new data centers over 20 MW.
BY MIKE PEARLPUBLISHED APRIL 14, 2026, 11:18 PM ET

READING TIME 2 MINUTES

Actually a data center in Oregon. © Hrach Hovhannisyan via Shutterstock
READ LATER COMMENTS (10)



On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled state legislature in Maine passed a ban on large data centers. It wasn’t exactly close. The state’s House passed it 79-62, and the Senate passed it 21-13—along party lines with a few exceptions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Governor Janet Mills’ signature is still needed before it becomes law, and the Journal says she has signaled interest in signing such a ban under certain circumstances.


This ban passed in spite of—or perhaps because of—relatively low data center activity in Maine. Business Insider maps likely data centers construction by tracking permit requests for certain generators, and Maine appears to only have two such projects. However, data center demand drives up home energy costs, and the website Electric Choice ranks Maine fourth highest in electricity prices.

Insider also notes that similar legislative efforts have stalled or failed outright in Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Plenty of other cities and states are still considering laws like this one.

Maine’s ban has frequently been described as a ban on “large” data centers, but the threshold is 20 megawatts, which is actually pretty low, and effectively blocks construction of what is commonly known as an AI data center. According to the Regional Plan Association, while data centers used about two megawatts of electricity when the concept of a data center was new, the average contemporary data center uses about 40 megawatts.

Maine’s bill places a moratorium on construction until November of 2027, and also creates a council whose job will be to evaluate the cost of data centers on the people of Maine.