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The Linkielist

North Korean hackers put backdoors in Russian hypersonic missile maker computers

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Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.

Reuters could not determine whether any data was taken during the intrusion or what information may have been viewed.

[…]

Source: North Korean hackers stole secrets of Russian hypersonic missile maker – EURACTIV.com

Scientists observe first evidence of ‘quantum superchemistry’ in the laboratory

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A team from the University of Chicago has announced the first evidence for “quantum superchemistry”—a phenomenon where particles in the same quantum state undergo collective accelerated reactions. The effect had been predicted, but never observed in the laboratory.

[…]

Chin’s group is experienced with herding atoms into quantum states, but molecules are larger and much more complex than atoms—so the group had to invent new techniques to wrangle them.

In the experiments, the scientists cooled down cesium atoms and coaxed them into the same quantum state. Next, they watched as the atoms reacted to form molecules.

In ordinary chemistry, the would collide, and there’s a probability for each collision to form a molecule. However, predicts that atoms in a quantum state perform actions collectively instead.

[…]

One consequence is that the reaction happens faster than it would under ordinary conditions. In fact, the more atoms in the system, the faster the reaction happens.

Another consequence is that the final molecules share the same molecular state. Chin explained that the same molecules in different states can have different physical and —but there are times when you want to create a batch of molecules in a specific state. In traditional chemistry, you’re rolling the dice. “But with this technique, you can steer the molecules into an identical state,” he said.

[…]

More information: Zhendong Zhang et al, Many-body chemical reactions in a quantum degenerate gas, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-02139-8

Source: Scientists observe first evidence of ‘quantum superchemistry’ in the laboratory

What? AI-Generated Art Banned from Future Dungeons & Dragons Books After “Fan Uproar” (Or ~1600 tweets about it)

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A Dungeons & Dragons expansion book included AI-generated artwork. Fans on Twitter spotted it before the book was even released (noting, among other things, a wolf with human feet). An embarrassed representative for Wizards of the Coast then tweeted out an announcement about new guidelines stating explicitly that “artists must refrain from using AI art generation as part of their creation process for developing D&D art.” GeekWire reports: The artist in question, Ilya Shkipin, is a California-based painter, illustrator, and operator of an NFT marketplace, who has worked on projects for Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast since 2014. Shkipin took to Twitter himself on Friday, and acknowledged in several now-deleted tweets that he’d used AI tools to “polish” several original illustrations and concept sketches. As of Saturday morning, Shkipin had taken down his original tweets and announced that the illustrations for Glory of the Giants are “going to be reworked…”

While the physical book won’t be out until August 15, the e-book is available now from Wizards’ D&D Beyond digital storefront.
Wizards of the Coast emphasized this won’t happen again. About this particular incident, they noted “We have worked with this artist since 2014 and he’s put years of work into books we all love. While we weren’t aware of the artist’s choice to use AI in the creation process for these commissioned pieces, we have discussed with him, and he will not use AI for Wizards’ work moving forward.”

GeekWire adds that the latest D&D video game, Baldur’s Gate 3, “went into its full launch period on Tuesday. Based on metrics such as its player population on Steam, BG3 has been an immediate success, with a high of over 709,000 people playing it concurrently on Saturday afternoon.”

Source: AI-Generated Art Banned from Future ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Books After Fan Uproar – Slashdot

Really? 1600 tweets about this is considered an “uproar” and was enough to change policy into anti-AI? So if you actually look at the pictures, only the wolf with human feet was strange and the rest of the comments weren’t in my eyes. Welcome to life – we have AI’s now and people are going to use them. They are going to save artists loads of time and allow them to create really really cool stuff… like these pictures!

Come on Wizards of the Coast, don’t be luddites.

MIT Boffins Build Battery Alternative Out of Cement, Carbon Black, and Water

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Long-time Slashdot reader KindMind shares a report from The Register: Researchers at MIT claim to have found a novel new way to store energy using nothing but cement, a bit of water, and powdered carbon black — a crystalline form of the element. The materials can be cleverly combined to create supercapacitors, which could in turn be used to build power-storing foundations of houses, roadways that could wirelessly charge vehicles, and serve as the foundation of wind turbines and other renewable energy systems — all while holding a surprising amount of energy, the team claims. According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 45 cubic meters of the carbon-black-doped cement could have enough capacity to store 10 kilowatt-hours of energy — roughly the amount an average household uses in a day. A block of cement that size would measure about 3.5 meters per side and, depending on the size of the house, the block could theoretically store all the energy an off-grid home using renewables would need.” […]

Just three percent of the mixture has to be carbon black for the hardened cement to act as a supercapacitor, but the researchers found that a 10 percent carbon black mixture appears to be ideal. Beyond that ratio, the cement becomes less stable — not something you want in a building or foundation. The team notes that non-structural use could allow higher concentrations of carbon black, and thus higher energy storage capacity. The team has only built a tiny one-volt test platform using its carbon black mix, but has plans to scale up to supercapacitors the same size as a 12-volt automobile battery — and eventually to the 45 cubic meter block. Along with being used for energy storage, the mix could also be used to provide heat — by applying electricity to the conductive carbon network encased in the cement, MIT noted.
As Science magazine puts it, “Tesla’s Powerwall, a boxy, wall-mounted, lithium-ion battery, can power your home for half a day or so. But what if your home was the battery?”

Source: MIT Boffins Build Battery Alternative Out of Cement, Carbon Black, and Water – Slashdot

Will Browsers Be Required By Law To Stop You From Visiting Infringing Sites?

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Mozilla’s Open Policy & Advocacy blog has news about a worrying proposal from the French government:

In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability. Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list.

The post explains why this is an extremely dangerous approach:

A world in which browsers can be forced to incorporate a list of banned websites at the software-level that simply do not open, either in a region or globally, is a worrying prospect that raises serious concerns around freedom of expression. If it successfully passes into law, the precedent this would set would make it much harder for browsers to reject such requests from other governments.

If a capability to block any site on a government blacklist were required by law to be built in to all browsers, then repressive governments would be given an enormously powerful tool. There would be no way around that censorship, short of hacking the browser code. That might be an option for open source coders, but it certainly won’t be for the vast majority of ordinary users. As the Mozilla post points out:

Such a move will overturn decades of established content moderation norms and provide a playbook for authoritarian governments that will easily negate the existence of censorship circumvention tools.

It is even worse than that. If such a capability to block any site were built in to browsers, it’s not just authoritarian governments that would be rubbing their hands with glee: the copyright industry would doubtless push for allegedly infringing sites to be included on the block list too. We know this, because it has already done it in the past, as discussed in Walled Culture the book (free digital versions).

Not many people now remember, but in 2004, BT (British Telecom) caused something of a storm when it created CleanFeed:

British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain’s largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy.

Here’s how it worked:

Subscribers to British Telecom’s internet services such as BTYahoo and BTInternet who attempt to access illegal sites will receive an error message as if the page was unavailable. BT will register the number of attempts but will not be able to record details of those accessing the sites.

The key justification for what the Guardian called “the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy” was that it only blocked illegal child sexual abuse material Web sites. It was therefore an extreme situation requiring an exceptional solution. But seven years later, the copyright industry were able to convince a High Court judge to ignore that justification, and to take advantage of CleanFeed to block a site, Newzbin 2, that had nothing to do with child sexual abuse material, and therefore did not require exceptional solutions:

Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed – which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse – to block Newzbin 2.

Exactly the logic used by copyright companies to subvert CleanFeed could be used to co-opt the censorship capabilities of browsers with built-in Web blocking lists. As with CleanFeed, the copyright industry would doubtless argue that since the technology already exists, why not to apply it to tackling copyright infringement too?

That very real threat is another reason to fight this pernicious, misguided French proposal. Because if it is implemented, it will be very hard to stop it becoming yet another technology that the copyright world demands should be bent to its own selfish purposes.

Source: Will Browsers Be Required By Law To Stop You From Visiting Infringing Sites? | Techdirt

Very scary indeed

Academic Book About Emojis Can’t Include The Emojis It Talks About Because Of Copyright

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Jieun Kiaer, an Oxford professor of Korean linguistics, recently published an academic book called Emoji Speak: Communications and Behaviours on Social Media. As you can tell from the name, it’s a book about emoji, and about how people communicate with them:

Exploring why and how emojis are born, and the different ways in which people use them, this book highlights the diversity of emoji speak. Presenting the results of empirical investigations with participants of British, Belgian, Chinese, French, Japanese, Jordanian, Korean, Singaporean, and Spanish backgrounds, it raises important questions around the complexity of emoji use.

Though emojis have become ubiquitous, their interpretation can be more challenging. What is humorous in one region, for example, might be considered inappropriate or insulting in another. Whilst emoji use can speed up our communication, we might also question whether they convey our emotions sufficiently. Moreover, far from belonging to the youth, people of all ages now use emoji speak, prompting Kiaer to consider the future of our communication in an increasingly digital world.

Sounds interesting enough, but as Goldman highlights with an image from the book, Kiaer was apparently unable to actually show examples of many of the emoji she was discussing due to copyright fears. While companies like Twitter and Google have offered up their own emoji sets under open licenses, not all of them have, and some of the specifics about the variations in how different companies represent different emoji apparently were key to the book.

So, for those, Kiaer actually hired an artist, Loli Kim, to draw similar emoji!

Note on Images of Emojis

The page reads as follows (with paragraph breaks added for readability):

Notes on Images of Emojis

Social media spaces are almost entirely copyright free. They do not follow the same rules as the offline world. For example, on Twitter you can retweet any tweet and add your own opinion. On Instagram, you can share any post and add stickers or text. On TikTok, you can even ‘duet’ a video to add your own video next to a pre-existing one. As much as each platform has its own rules and regulations, people are able to use and change existing material as they wish. Thinking about copyright brings to light barriers that exist between the online and offline worlds. You can use any emoji in your texts, tweets, posts and videos, but if you want to use them in the offline world, you may encounter a plethora of copyright issues.

In writing this book, I have learnt that online and offline exist upon two very different foundations. I originally planned to have plenty of images of emojis, stickers, and other multi-modal resources featured throughout this book, but I have been unable to for copyright reasons. In this moment, I realized how difficult it is to move emojis from the online world into the offline world.

Even though I am writing this book about emojis and their significance in our lives, I cannot use images of them in even an academic book. Were I writing a tweet or Instagram post, however, I would likely have no problem. Throughout this book, I stress that emoji speak in online spaces is a grassroots movement in which there are no linguistic authorities and corporations have little power to influence which emojis we use. Comparatively, in offline spaces, big corporations take ownership of our emoji speak, much like linguistic authorities dictate how we should write and speak properly.

This sounds like something out of a science fiction story, but it is an important fact of which to be aware. While the boundaries between our online and offline words may be blurring, barriers do still exist between them. For this reason, I have had to use an artist’s interpretation of the images that I originally had in mind for this book. Links to the original images have been provided as endnotes, in case readers would like to see them.

Just… incredible. Now, my first reaction to this is that using the emoji and stickers and whatnot in the book seems like a very clear fair use situation. But… that requires a publisher willing to take up the fight (and an insurance company behind the publisher willing to finance that fight). And, that often doesn’t happen. Publishers are notoriously averse to supporting fair use, because they don’t want to get sued.

But, really, this just ends up highlighting (once again) the absolute ridiculousness of copyright in the modern world. No one in their right mind would think that a book about emoji is somehow harming the market for whatever emoji or stickers the professor wished to include. Yet, due to the nature of copyright, here we are. With an academic book about emoji that can’t even include the emoji being spoken about.

Source: Academic Book About Emojis Can’t Include The Emojis It Talks About Because Of Copyright | Techdirt

AI-assisted mammogram cancer screening could cut radiologist workloads in half

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A newly published study in the the Lancet Oncology journal has found that the use of AI in mammogram cancer screening can safely cut radiologist workloads nearly in half without risk of increasing false-positive results. In effect, the study found that the AI’s recommendations were on par with those of two radiologists working together.

“AI-supported mammography screening resulted in a similar cancer detection rate compared with standard double reading, with a substantially lower screen-reading workload, indicating that the use of AI in mammography screening is safe,” the study found.

The study was performed by a research team out of Lund University in Sweden and, accordingly, followed 80,033 Swedish women (average age of 54) for just over a year in 2021-2022 . Of the 39,996 patients that were randomly assigned AI-empowered breast cancer screenings, 28 percent or 244 tests returned screen-detected cancers. Of the other 40,024 patients that received conventional cancer screenings, just 25 percent, or 203 tests, returned screen-detected cancers.

Of those extra 41 cancers detected by the AI side, 19 turned out to be invasive. Both the AI-empowered and conventional screenings ran a 1.5 percent false positive rate. Most impressively, radiologists on the the AI side had to look at 36,886 fewer screen readings than their counterparts, a 44 percent reduction in their workload.

[…]

Source: AI-assisted cancer screening could cut radiologist workloads in half | Engadget

Microsoft Comes Under Blistering Criticism For ‘Grossly Irresponsible’ Azure Security

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft has once again come under blistering criticism for the security practices of Azure and its other cloud offerings, with the CEO of security firm Tenable saying Microsoft is “grossly irresponsible” and mired in a “culture of toxic obfuscation.” The comments from Amit Yoran, chairman and CEO of Tenable, come six days after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) blasted Microsoft for what he said were “negligent cybersecurity practices” that enabled hackers backed by the Chinese government to steal hundreds of thousands of emails from cloud customers, including officials in the US Departments of State and Commerce. Microsoft has yet to provide key details about the mysterious breach, which involved the hackers obtaining an extraordinarily powerful encryption key granting access to a variety of its other cloud services. The company has taken pains ever since to obscure its infrastructure’s role in the mass breach.

On Wednesday, Yoran took to LinkedIn to castigate Microsoft for failing to fix what the company said on Monday was a “critical” issue that gives hackers unauthorized access to data and apps managed by Azure AD, a Microsoft cloud offering for managing user authentication inside large organizations. Monday’s disclosure said that the firm notified Microsoft of the problem in March and that Microsoft reported 16 weeks later that it had been fixed. Tenable researchers told Microsoft that the fix was incomplete. Microsoft set the date for providing a complete fix to September 28.

“To give you an idea of how bad this is, our team very quickly discovered authentication secrets to a bank,” Yoran wrote. “They were so concerned about the seriousness and the ethics of the issue that we immediately notified Microsoft.” He continued: “Did Microsoft quickly fix the issue that could effectively lead to the breach of multiple customers’ networks and services? Of course not. They took more than 90 days to implement a partial fix — and only for new applications loaded in the service.” In response, Microsoft officials wrote: “We appreciate the collaboration with the security community to responsibly disclose product issues. We follow an extensive process involving a thorough investigation, update development for all versions of affected products, and compatibility testing among other operating systems and applications. Ultimately, developing a security update is a delicate balance between timeliness and quality, while ensuring maximized customer protection with minimized customer disruption.” Microsoft went on to say that the initial fix in June “mitigated the issue for the majority of customers” and “no customer action is required.”

In a separate email, Yoran responded: “It now appears that it’s either fixed, or we are blocked from testing. We don’t know the fix, or mitigation, so hard to say if it’s truly fixed, or Microsoft put a control in place like a firewall rule or ACL to block us. When we find vulns in other products, vendors usually inform us of the fix so we can validate it effectively. With Microsoft Azure that doesn’t happen, so it’s a black box, which is also part of the problem. The ‘just trust us’ lacks credibility when you have the current track record.”

Source: Microsoft Comes Under Blistering Criticism For ‘Grossly Irresponsible’ Security – Slashdot

A great example of why a) closed source software is a really bad idea, b) why responsible disclosure is a good idea and c) why cloud is often a bad idea

IBM and NASA open source satellite-image-labeling AI model

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IBM and NASA have put together and released Prithvi: an open source foundation AI model that may help scientists and other folks analyze satellite imagery.

The vision transformer model, released under an Apache 2 license, is relatively small at 100 million parameters, and was trained on a year’s worth of images collected by the US space boffins’ Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) program. As well as the main model, three variants of Prithvi are available, fine-tuned for identifying flooding; wildfire burn scars; and crops and other land use.

Essentially, it works like this: you feed one of the models an overhead satellite photo, and it labels areas in the snap it understands. For example, the variant fine-tuned for crops can point out where there’s probably water, forests, corn fields, cotton fields, developed land, wetlands, and so on.

This collection, we imagine, would be useful for, say, automating the study of changes to land over time – such as tracking erosion from flooding, or how drought and wildfires have hit a region. Big Blue and NASA aren’t the first to do this with machine learning: there are plenty of previous efforts we could cite.

A demo of the crop-classifying Prithvi model can be found here. Provide your own satellite imagery or use one of the examples at the bottom of the page. Click Submit to run the model live.

“We believe that foundation models have the potential to change the way observational data is analyzed and help us to better understand our planet,” Kevin Murphy, chief science data officer at NASA, said in a statement. “And by open sourcing such models and making them available to the world, we hope to multiply their impact.”

Developers can download the models from Hugging Face here.

There are other online demos of Prithvi, such as this one for the variant fine-tuned for bodies of water; this one for detecting wildfire scars; and this one that shows off the model’s ability to reconstruct partially photographed areas.

[…]

Source: IBM and NASA open source satellite-image-labeling AI model • The Register

Couple admit laundering $4B of stolen Bitfinex Bitcoins

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Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan on Thursday pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges related to the 2016 theft of some 120,000 Bitcoins from Hong Kong-based Bitfinex.

The Feds arrested Lichtenstein, 35, and Morgan, 33, in February 2022 following the US government’s tracing of about 95,000 of the stolen BTC – worth about $3.6 billion at the time and $2.8 billion today – to digital wallets controlled by the married couple.

The Justice Department at the time described the seizure as the largest ever and has since recovered an additional $475 million.

[…]

Lichtenstein admitted in court he gained access into Bitfinex’s network using unidentified tools and techniques. According to prosecutors, once inside, Lichtenstein proceeded to initiate more than 2,000 fraudulent transactions that sent 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex into a cryptocurrency wallet he controlled.

Thereafter, the Justice Department said, he tried to cover his tracks by deleting access credentials and log files, and then involved Morgan to help launder the stolen funds by transferring them through a maze of financial accounts. At one point Lichtenstein used some of the funds to buy gold coins, which were then buried by Morgan.

An affidavit [PDF] from IRS investigator Christopher Janczewski, which documents the basis of the US government’s case, traces the flow of stolen funds through multiple accounts associated with the defendants.

[…]

 

Source: Couple admit laundering $4B of stolen Bitfinex Bitcoins • The Register

Special License For Supercars Will Be Required In South Australia by 2024

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The state of South Australia, home to 1.8 million people, is treading that well-worn path with new laws regulating the use of “ultra high-powered vehicles” on the road.

The issue stems from a fatal crash in 2019 when 15-year-old Sophia Naismith was tragically struck and killed by an out-of-control Lamborghini Huracan driven by Alexander Campbell. After Campbell avoided jail with a suspended sentence last year, community backlash created a political case for change. As covered by Drive.com.au, the government has now implemented a raft of new road laws in response.

The laws designate a new class of “ultra high-powered vehicles” (UHPV). This covers any such vehicle with a power-to-weight ratio of 276 kW/metric tonne (407 horsepower/US ton) and a gross mass under 4.5 tonne (9920 pounds). Roughly 200 models are currently expected to fall into this classification, with buses and motorbikes exempt from the rules. This classification would notably include the Lamborghini Huracan, which boasts a power-to-weight ratio of 292 kW/tonne (431 hp/US ton). For reference, another sports car, the base Chevrolet Corvette, comes in at 242kW/ton and is not subject to these rules. The 670-horsepower Z06 version of that car is, though.

After December 1st, 2024, those wishing to drive a UHPV must hold a special ‘U Class’ license. Obtaining this license requires passing an online course currently in development by the government of the region, based in Adelaide. Furthermore, drivers must have held a regular car or heavy vehicle license for at least three years to be eligible for a U license. There will be no retroactive exemptions, with all current drivers wishing to drive UHPV-class cars required to take the course.

Another major change, as reported by MSN, makes it a criminal offense to disable traction control and other driver aids in an “ultra high-powered vehicle.” Specifically, the rule applies to “anti-lock braking, automated emergency braking, electronic stability control or traction control” systems, but not lane-keeping assists and parking sensors.

Drivers breaking this rule will be subject to penalties of up to $5,000 AUD. However, reasonable defenses include switching off driver aids in conditions where justified, such as if the vehicle is stuck. Similarly, a further defense exists if the driver did not disable the system themselves and was unaware of the situation. They will have to prove that, of course.

Meanwhile, if a driver crashes while in “sports mode” or with traction control disabled, and that incident causes death or serious harm, the driver will be charged with an “aggravated offense” which comes with new harsher penalties. For example, prior to the change, the charge of “aggravated driving without due care causing death” carried a maximum 12-month jail penalty and six-month driving disqualification. That has now been upgraded to seven years in jail and three years of disqualification. This bears a direct relation to Campbell’s crash, which was alleged to have happened indirectly due to the use of the Huracan’s sports mode.

[…]

Source: Special License For Supercars Will Be Required In South Australia by 2024

Whilst I agree with the idea of needing a supercar license, making it an offense to turn off driving aids is a bit sketchy for me…

Tesla Hackers Find ‘Unpatchable’ Jailbreak to Unlock Paid Features for Free

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A security researcher along with three PhD students from Germany have reportedly found a way to exploit Tesla’s current AMD-based cars to develop what could be the world’s first persistent “Tesla Jailbreak.”

The team published a briefing ahead of their presentation at next week’s Blackhat 2023. There, they will present a working version of an attack against Tesla’s latest AMD-based media control unit (MCU). According to the researchers, the jailbreak uses an already-known hardware exploit against a component in the MCU, which ultimately enables access to critical systems that control in-car purchases—and perhaps even tricking the car into thinking these purchases are already paid for.

[.,..]

Tesla has started using this well-established platform to enable in-car purchases, not only for additional connectivity features but even for analog features like faster acceleration or rear heated seats. As a result, hacking the embedded car computer could allow users to unlock these features without paying.”

Separately, the attack will allow researchers to extract a vehicle-specific cryptography key that is used to authenticate and authorize a vehicle within Tesla’s service network.

According to the researchers, the attack is unpatchable on current cars, meaning that no matter what software updates are pushed out by Tesla, attackers—or perhaps even DIY hackers in the future—can run arbitrary code on Tesla vehicles as long as they have physical access to the car. Specifically, the attack is unpatchable because it’s not an attack directly on a Tesla-made component, but rather against the embedded AMD Secure Processor (ASP) which lives inside of the MCU.

[…]

Tesla is an offender of something many car owners hate: making vehicles with hardware installed, but locked behind software. For example, the RWD Model 3 has footwell lights installed from the factory, but they are software disabled. Tesla also previously locked the heated steering wheel function and heated rear seats behind a software paywall, but eventually began activating it on new cars at no extra cost in 2021. There’s also the $2,000 “Acceleration Boost” upgrade for certain cars that drops a half-second off of the zero to 60 time.

[…]

Source: Tesla Hackers Find ‘Unpatchable’ Jailbreak to Unlock Paid Features for Free

Water-soluble circuit boards could cut carbon footprints by 60 percent

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German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies AG announced that it’s producing a printed circuit board (PCB) that dissolves in water. Sourced from UK startup Jiva Materials, the plant-based Soluboard could provide a new avenue for the tech industry to reduce e-waste as companies scramble to meet climate goals by 2030.

Jiva’s biodegradable PCB is made from natural fibers and a halogen-free polymer with a much lower carbon footprint than traditional boards made with fiberglass composites. A 2022 study by the University of Washington College of Engineering and Microsoft Research saw the team create an Earth-friendly mouse using a Soluboard PCB as its core. The researchers found that the Soluboard dissolved in hot water in under six minutes. However, it can take several hours to break down at room temperature.

In addition to dissolving the PCB fibers, the process makes it easier to retrieve the valuable metals attached to it. “After [it dissolves], we’re left with the chips and circuit traces which we can filter out,” said UW assistant professor Vikram Iyer, who worked on the mouse project.

[…]

Jiva says the board has a 60 percent smaller carbon footprint than traditional PCBs — specifically, it can save 10.5 kg of carbon and 620 g of plastic per square meter of PCB.

[…]

Source: Water-soluble circuit boards could cut carbon footprints by 60 percent | Engadget

AI-enabled brain implant helps spine damaged patient regain feeling and movement

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Keith Thomas from New York was involved in a driving accident back in 2020 that injured his spine’s C4 and C5 vertebrae, leading to a total loss in feeling and movement from the chest down. Recently, though, Thomas had been able to move his arm at will and feel his sister hold his hand, thanks to the AI brain implant technology developed by the Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine.

The research team first spent months mapping his brain with MRIs to pinpoint the exact parts of his brain responsible for arm movements and the sense of touch in his hands. Then, four months ago, surgeons performed a 15-hour procedure to implant microchips into his brain — Thomas was even awake for some parts so he could tell them what sensations he was feeling in his hand as they probed parts of the organ.

While the microchips are inside his body, the team also installed external ports on top of his head. Those ports connect to a computer with the artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that the team developed to interpret his thoughts and turn them into action. The researchers call this approach “thought-driven therapy,” because it all starts with the patient’s intentions. If he thinks of wanting to move his hand, for instance, his brain implant sends signals to the computer, which then sends signals to the electrode patches on his spine and hand muscles in order to stimulate movement. They attached sensors to his fingertips and palms, as well, to stimulate sensation.

Thanks to this system, he was able to move his arm at will and feel his sister holding his hand in the lab. While he needed to be attached to the computer for those milestones, the researchers say Thomas has shown signs of recovery even when the system is off. His arm strength has apparently “more than doubled” since the study began, and his forearm and wrist could now feel some new sensations. If all goes well, the team’s thought-driven therapy could help him regain more of his sense of touch and mobility.

While the approach has a ways to go, the team behind it is hopeful that it could change the lives of people living with paralysis.

[…]

Source: AI-enabled brain implant helps patient regain feeling and movement | Engadget

Reddit Wins, Doesn’t Have to NARC on Users Who Discussed Torrenting

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This weekend, a federal court tossed a subpoena in a case against the internet service provider Grande that would require Reddit to reveal the identities of anonymous users that torrent movies.

The case was originally filed in 2021 by 20 movie producers against Grande Communications in the Western District of Texas federal court. The lawsuit claims that Grande is committing copyright infringement against the producers for allegedly ignoring the torrenting of 45 of their movies that occurred on its networks. As part of the case, the plaintiffs attempted to subpoena Reddit for IP addresses and user data for accounts that openly discussed torrenting on the platform. This weekend, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler denied the subpoena—meaning Reddit is off the hook.

“The plaintiffs thus move to compel Reddit to produce the identities of its users who are the subject of the plaintiffs’ subpoena,” Magistrate Judge Beeler wrote in her decision. “The issue is whether that discovery is permissible despite the users’ right to speak anonymously under the First Amendment. The court denies the motion because the plaintiffs have not demonstrated a compelling need for the discovery that outweighs the users’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech.”

Reddit was previously cleared of a similar subpoena in a similar lawsuit by the same judge back in May as reported by ArsTechnica. Reddit was asked to unmask eight users who were active in piracy threads on the platform, but the social media website pulled the same First Amendment defense.

 

Source: Reddit Wins, Doesn’t Have to NARC on Users Who Discussed Torrenting

Cult of Dead Cow hacktivists design distributed encryption system for mobile apps

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Once known for distributing hacking tools and shaming software companies into improving their security, a famed group of technology activists is now working to develop a system that will allow the creation of messaging and social networking apps that won’t keep hold of users’ personal data.

The group, Cult of the Dead Cow, has developed a coding framework that can be used by app developers who are willing to embrace strong encryption and forsake revenue from advertising that is targeted to individuals based on detailed profiles gleaned from the data most apps now routinely collect.

The team is building on the work of such free products as Signal, which offers strong encryption for text messages and voice calls, and Tor, which offers anonymous web surfing by routing traffic through a series of servers to disguise the location of the person conducting the search.

The latest effort, to be detailed at the massive annual Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas next week, seeks to provide a foundation for messaging, file sharing and even social networking apps without harvesting any data, all secured by the kind of end-to-end encryption that makes interception hard even for governments.

Called Veilid, and pronounced vay-lid, the code can be used by developers to build applications for mobile devices or the web. Those apps will pass fully encrypted content to one another using the Veilid protocol, its developers say. As with the file-sharing software BitTorrent, which distributes different pieces of the same content simultaneously, the network will get faster as more devices join and share the load, the developers say. In such decentralized “peer-to-peer” networks, users download data from each other instead of from a central machine.

As with some other open-source endeavors, the challenge will come in persuading programmers and engineers to devote time to designing apps that are compatible with Veilid. Though developers could charge money for those apps or sell ads, the potential revenue streams are limited by the inability to collect detailed information that has become a primary method for distributing targeted ads or pitching a product to a specific set of users.

The team behind Veilid has not yet released documentation explaining its design choices, and collaborative work on an initial messaging app, intended to function without requiring a phone number, has yet to produce a test version.

But the nascent project has other things going for it.

It arrives amid disarray, competition and a willingness to experiment among social network and chat users resentful of Twitter and Facebook. And it buttresses opposition to increasing moves by governments, lately including the United Kingdom, to undercut strong encryption with laws requiring disclosure on demand of content or user identities. Apple, Facebook parent Meta and Signal recently threatened to pull some UK services if that country’s Online Safety Bill is adopted unchanged.

Civil rights activists and abortion rights supporters have also been alarmed by police use of messages sent by text and Facebook Messenger to investigate abortions in states that have banned the procedure after the first six weeks of pregnancy.

“It’s great that people are developing an end-to-end encryption framework for everything,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We can move past the surveillance business model.”

Source: Cult of Dead Cow hacktivists design encryption system for mobile apps – The Washington Post

Judge Seems (Correctly) Skeptical Of AI Copyright Lawsui

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Over the last few months there have been a flurry of lawsuits against AI companies, with most of them being focused on copyright claims. The site ChatGPTIsEatingTheWorld has been tracking all the lawsuits, which currently lists 11 lawsuits, seven of which are copyright claims. Five of those are from the same lawyers: Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, who seem to want to corner the market on “suing AI companies for copyright.”

We already covered just how bad their two separate (though they’re currently trying to combine them, and no one can explain to me why it made sense to file them separately in the first place) lawsuits on behalf of authors are, as they show little understanding of how copyright actually works. But their original lawsuit against Stability AI, MidJourney, and DeviantArt was even worse, as we noted back in April. As we said at the time, they don’t allege a single act of infringement, but rather make vague statements about how what these AI tools are doing must be infringing.

(Also, the lawyers seemed to totally misunderstand what DeviantArt was doing, in that it was using open source tools to better enable DeviantArt artists to prevent their works from being used as inspiration in AI systems, and claimed that was infringing… but that’s a different issue).

It appears that the judge overseeing that lawsuit has noticed just how weak the claims are. Though we don’t have a written opinion yet, Reuters reports that Judge William Orrick was pretty clear at least week’s hearing that the case, as currently argued, has no chance.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick said during a hearing in San Francisco on Wednesday that he was inclined to dismiss most of a lawsuit brought by a group of artists against generative artificial intelligence companies, though he would allow them to file a new complaint.

Orrick said that the artists should more clearly state and differentiate their claims against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt, and that they should be able to “provide more facts” about the alleged copyright infringement because they have access to Stability’s relevant source code.

“Otherwise, it seems implausible that their works are involved,” Orrick said, noting that the systems have been trained on “five billion compressed images.”

Again, the theory of the lawsuit seemed to be that AI companies cut up little pieces of the content they train on and create a “collage” in response. Except, that’s not at all how it works. And since the complaint can’t show any specific work that has been infringed on by the output, the case seems like a loser. And it’s good the judge sees that.

He also recognizes that merely being inspired by someone else’s art doesn’t make the new art infringing:

“I don’t think the claim regarding output images is plausible at the moment, because there’s no substantial similarity” between images created by the artists and the AI systems, Orrick said.

It seems likely that Saveri and crew will file an amended complaint to try to more competently make this argument, but since the underlying technology doesn’t fundamentally do what the lawsuit pretends it does, it’s difficult to see how it can succeed.

But, of course, this is copyright, and copyright caselaw doesn’t always follow logic or what the law itself says. So it’s no surprise that Saveri and Butterick are trying multiple lawsuits with these theories. They might just find a judge confused enough to buy it.

Source: Judge Seems (Correctly) Skeptical Of AI Copyright Lawsuit | Techdirt

Italians turn telco regulator into internet spy, judge and jury, puts 25% of population as criminals

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Italy’s brand new anti-piracy law has just received full approval from telecoms regulator AGCOM. In a statement issued Thursday, AGCOM noted its position “at the forefront of the European scene in combating online piracy.” The new law comes into force on August 8 and authorizes nationwide ISP blocking of live events and enables the state to issue fines of up to 5,000 euros to users of pirate streams .

Unanimously approved by the Chamber of Deputies back in March and then unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this month, Italy’s new anti-piracy law has just been unanimously approved by telecoms regulator AGCOM.

In a statement published Thursday, AGCOM welcomed the amendments to Online Copyright Enforcement regulation 680/13/CONS, which concern measures to counter the illegal distribution of live sports streams, as laid out in Resolution 189/23/CONS.

The new provisions grant AGCOM the power to issue “dynamic injunctions” against online service providers of all kinds, a privilege usually reserved for judges in Europe’s highest courts. The aim is to streamline blocking measures against unlicensed IPTV services, with the goal of rendering them inaccessible across all of Italy.

“With such measures, it will be possible to disable access to pirated content in the first 30 minutes of the event broadcast by blocking DNS resolution of domain names and blocking the routing of network traffic to IP addresses uniquely intended for illicit activities,” AGCOM says.

[…]

Penalties For Challenging AGCOM’s New Powers

When AGCOM issues blocking instructions to service providers, their details will be passed to the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Rome.

After carrying out AGCOM’s instructions, those providers will be required to send a report “without delay” to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. It must detail “all activities carried out in fulfillment of the aforementioned measures” along with “any existing data or information in their possession that may allow for the identification of the providers of the content disseminated abusively.”

In other words, ISPs will be expected to block pirates and gather intelligence on the way. Failure to comply with the instructions of AGCOM will result in a sanction as laid out in LEGGE 31 luglio 1997, n. 249 (Law 249 of July 31, 1997); an administrative fine of 20 million lira to 500 million lira, or in today’s currency – €10,620 to €265,000.

Those involved in the supply/distribution of infringing streams will now face up to three years in prison and a fine of up to €15,000. That’s just €5,000 higher than the minimum punishment intermediaries risk should they fail to follow blocking instructions. Notably, it’s still €250,000 less than the maximum fine a service provider could face if they fail to block piracy carried out by actual pirates.

Watch Pirate Streams? There’s a Fine For That

Unlike the United States where simply consuming pirated streams probably isn’t illegal, in 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that consuming illicit streams in the EU runs contrary to law.

With new deterrents in place against operators of pirate services and otherwise innocent online service providers, Italy has a new deterrent for people who consume pirated streams. From August 8, 2023, they risk a fine of up to €5,000. At least on paper, that has the potential to become quite interesting.

IPSOS research carried out in Italy over the past few years found that roughly 25% of the adult population consume pirate IPTV streams to some extent during a year.

Italy has a population of around 59 million so even with some aggressive rounding that’s still a few million potential pirates. How evidence of this offense can be obtained and then attributed to an individual is unclear.

[…]

Source: Italian Pirate IPTV Customers Risk a 5,000 Euro Fine Starting August 8, 2023 * TorrentFreak

So they will be able to inspect your internet usage, block VPNs, kick you off internet, fine and imprison you – all with no recourse!

That Which Copyright Destroys, ‘Pirates’ Can Save

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There’s an interesting post on TorrentFreak that concerns so-called “pirate” subtitles for films. It’s absurd that anyone could consider subtitles to be piracy in any way. They are a good example of how ordinary people can add value by generously helping others enjoy films and TV programs in languages they don’t understand. In no sense do “pirate” subtitles “steal” from those films and programs, they manifestly enhance them. And yet the ownership-obsessed copyright world actively pursues people who dare to spread joy in this way. In discussing these subtitles, TorrentFreak mentions a site that I’ve not heard of before, Karagarga:

an illustrious BitTorrent tracker that’s been around for more than 18 years. Becoming a member of the private community isn’t easy but those inside gain access to a wealth of film obscurities.

The site focuses on archiving rare classic and cult movies, as well as other film-related content. Blockbusters and other popular Hollywood releases can’t be found on the site as uploading them is strictly forbidden.

TorrentFreak links to an article about Karagarga published some years ago by the Canadian newspaper National Post. Here’s a key point it makes:

It’s difficult to overstate the significance of such a resource. Movies of unflagging historical merit are otherwise lost to changes in technology and time every year: film prints are damaged or lost, musty VHS tapes aren’t upgraded, DVDs fall out of print without reissue, back catalogues never make the transition to digital. But should even a single copy of the film exist, however tenuously, it can survive on Karagarga: one person uploads a rarity and dozens more continue to share.

Although that mentions things like film prints being lost, or back catalogues that aren’t converted to digital formats, the underlying cause of films being lost is copyright. It is copyright that prevents people from making backups of films, whether analogue or digital. Even though people are painfully aware of the vulnerability of films that exist in a few copies or even just one copy, it is generally illegal for them to do anything about it, because of copyright. Instead, they must often sit by as cinematic masterpieces are lost forever.

Unless, of course, sites like Karagarga make unauthorized digital copies. It’s a great demonstration of the fact that copyright, far from preserving culture, often leads to its permanent loss. And that supposedly “evil” sites like Karagarga are the ones that save it for posterity.

Source: That Which Copyright Destroys, ‘Pirates’ Can Save | Techdirt

‘Eventually it will just be a barcode, won’t it?’ Why Britain’s new stamps are causing outrage and upset

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Royal Mail’s stamps are finally entering the digital world, with printed codes that can be used to track letters or linked to videos. Collectors, traditionalists and royalists are not amused

[…]

In February, Royal Mail introduced a new design for its standard stamps, which have changed so little since the launch of the Penny Black in 1840 that they are officially known as “definitives”. The new stamps – “plum purple” for first class, “holly green” for second – still feature the same regal profile introduced more than 50 years ago. But what is most bothering purists – and leading Johnson to the brink of direct action – is the addition next to the Queen of a digital barcode

The rectangular codes – which look like QR codes but are apparently not QR codes, which are a particular, and trademarked, kind of code – are designed to stop counterfeiting and to enable the tracking of all letters to improve efficiency. Correspondents will soon be able to share photo or video messages by linking digital content to their coded stamps. Recipients will view it via the Royal Mail app (currently the codes link to a short film featuring Shaun the Sheep and a plasticine postwoman).

The Penny Black, launched in 1840.
The first adhesive postage stamp … the Penny Black, launched in 1840. Photograph: PA

From 1 February 2023, only the new stamps will be accepted. Any old stamps must be used before then or traded in. Christmas and other themed special stamps will remain valid indefinitely. Swapping definitives, which can still be done after the deadline, is free but will involve downloading and printing a form, or requesting one by phone or letter, and posting it to Royal Mail along with the old stamps.

[…]

Since the launch of the Penny Black as the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, the sticky squares have become more than a simple proof of purchase: they are collectibles, artists’ canvases, tools of propaganda and cultural icons.

[… ]

In the first year of the Penny Black, the number of letters sent more than doubled – then doubled again by 1850. Letter writing stopped being an elite pursuit and the postal service became profitable. Dozens of countries swiftly copied Hill’s example. Stamps were as significant an innovation in communication as telephones or web-connected home computers would be.

The first stamp was also a triumph of design. There was no need to include a country name – there were no stamps anywhere else, after all. Instead, a portrait of Queen Victoria in profile was added. Monarchs and colours have come and gone, and perforations and self-adhesion arrived. But the definitives have changed little in 180 years. The current stamps, originally designed by the artist Arnold Machin, have used the same sculpted profile of Queen Elizabeth II for the past 55 years.

Yet I am not alone in barely using them; the pandemic has only hastened a postal freefall, from a peak of just over 20bn letters sent via Royal Mail in 2005 (in the same year, the proportion of UK households with the internet tipped over 50%), to fewer than 8bn in 2020-21. These figures include commercial post; the smaller number of cards and letters bearing sticky stamps is likely to be in steeper decline.

Two stamps issued in 1995, commemorating Sir Rowland Hill, who proposed the idea of the pre-paid stamp.
Sir Rowland Hill, the schoolmaster who proposed the idea of the pre-paid stamp, was commemorated with a special set of stamps in 1995. Photograph: Kay Roxby/Alamy

“They’re trying to attract the younger generation by throwing in a QR code and a video of Shaun the Sheep,” says Andrew Jackson, 58, a collector and trader who runs Tagula Blue Stamps. Like Jackson, Johnson wonders if the change signals the beginning of the end for stamps. “Eventually it will just be the barcode, won’t it?” she says.

[…]

Royal Mail now produces more than a dozen sets of special stamps a year in an attempt to create demand among collectors. This year they include pictures of cats, birds, the Rolling Stones and heroes of the Covid pandemic drawn by children.

Many state-owned postal services are much bolder. In Ukraine in April, queues formed outside post offices when Ukrposhta issued 1m stamps to commemorate the defiance of the soldier who refused to surrender an island soon after the Russian invasion. In the image, the solider is flipping the bird at the Moskva warship, which was later sunk, in a visual representation of the message he had radioed to the ship: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

But the potential for stamps to punch above their weight is doing little to boost demand. Gentleman says he rarely uses more than a pack or two at Christmas, preferring email for everyday correspondence. He’s not sure about the aesthetic appeal of the coded stamps. “I find it difficult to enthuse over them,” he says.

Some critics have been blunter. “Arnold Machin’s profile of the Queen is one of the simplest, purest compositions in the world,” tweeted Samuel West, actor and stamp collector, in March, addressing his next sentence to Royal Mail: “You took one of the great iconic stamp designs, and you fucked it up.” The writer and broadcaster Victoria Coren Mitchell simply said: “THIS IS AWFUL!”

The implications were more practical for some. Many canny letter writers buy stamps in bulk to avoid being hit by future price rises. Royal Mail’s swap scheme is designed so that nobody loses out, but I gather many collectors find themselves in a bind. Old definitives might have a higher value because they are rare. But some of that value comes also because the stamps could theoretically be used. Swap them and you’d throw away all of that value. Keep them and you’d lose much of it anyway. “A lot of value is just going to be lost overnight,” says Gerard McCulloch, an Australian collector better known as the Punk Philatelist.

Meanwhile groups representing older people say that, as well as creating inconvenience, the change risks marginalising those who still rely on “snail mail”. These users are also affected most by price rises (first-class stamps went up by 10p to 95p in April). “It will be chicken and egg,” says Dennis Reed from the campaign group Silver Voices. “Less people will send letters so Royal Mail will say, ‘We won’t have as many collections or post boxes’ – and even fewer people will send letters.”

[…]

 

Source: ‘Eventually it will just be a barcode, won’t it?’ Why Britain’s new stamps are causing outrage and upset | Society | The Guardian

It’s poorly described but a lot of people have huge collections of pretty stamps which they actually use. The value of these will be wiped out.

Diamond’s all-electric eDA40 completes maiden flight

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Diamond Aircraft announced that it has successfully completed the first flight of its eDA40 electric aircraft.

The eDA40 is an all-electric, battery-powered version of the popular DA40 light aircraft, which is one of the best-selling piston aircraft and is used by flight schools and private owners all over the world.

The eDA40’s maiden flight took place on July 26, 2023, in the skies over the company’s headquarters in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. During the flight Diamond’s Head of Flight Test, Sören Pedersen, performed several system checks and undertook basic maneuvers.

“The aircraft performed outstandingly well during its maiden flight and not only met but exceeded all our expectations,” said Diamond CEO, Liqun (Frank) Zhang.

The eDA40 is powered by a Safran ENGINeUS electric motor and a battery module made by Electric Power Systems (EPS).

Flight autonomy is expected to be up to 90 minutes, with a charging time from depleted to full battery of around 20 minutes using a DC fast charging system. Diamond Aircraft claims the eDA40’s operating costs will be 40% below those of a traditional piston engine aircraft of similar size.

The Austrian manufacturer is seeking Part 23 certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the eDA40.

The aircraft will be publicly presented at the AERO Friedrichshafen 2024 air show, which will take place in the southern German city in April 2024.

Source: Diamond’s all-electric eDA40 completes maiden flight – AeroTime

AI Creation and Copyright: Unraveling the debate on originality, ownership

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Whether AI systems can create original work sparks intense discussions among philosophers, jurists, and computer scientists and touches on issues of ownership, copyright, and economic competition, writes Stefano Quintarelli.

Stefano Quintarelli is an information technology specialist, a former member of the Italian Parliament and a former member of the European Commission’s High-level expert group on Artificial Intelligence.

Did Jesus Christ own the clothing he wore? In Umberto Eco’s landmark book “The Name of the Rose,” this is the central issue that is hotly debated by senior clergy, leading to internecine warfare. What is at stake is nothing less than the legitimacy of the church to own private property — and for clergy to grow rich in the process — since if Jesus did it then it would be permitted for his faithful servants.

Although it may not affect the future of an entity quite as dominant as the Catholic church, a similarly vexatious question is sparking heated debate today: Namely, can artificial intelligence systems create original work, or are they just parrots who repeat what they are told? Is what they do similar to human intelligence, or are they just echoes of things that have already been created by others?

The recent boom in generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT has spurred a flurry of multilateral initiatives as regulators attempt to respond to the breakneck pace of development of AI systems, write Carisa Nietsche and Camille Ford.

In this case, the debate is not among senior clergy, but philosophers, jurists and computer scientists (those who specialise in the workings of the human brain seem to be virtually absent from the discussion). Instead of threatening the wealth of the church, the answer to the question of machine intelligence raises issues that affect the ownership and wealth that flows from all human works.

Large language models (LLMs) such as Bard and ChatGPT are built by ingesting huge quantities of written material from the internet and learning to make connections and correlations between the words and phrases in those texts. The question is: When an AI engine produces something, is it generating a new creative work, as a human would, or is it merely generating a derivative work?

If the answer is that a machine does not ‘learn’ and therefore only synthesises or parrots existing work and does not ‘create’ then for legal and copyright purposes, its output could be considered a work derived from existing texts and therefore not its own creative work with all the rights that would be included.

In the early years of the commercial web, there was a similar debate over whether hyperlinks and short excerpts from articles or web pages should be considered derivative works. Those who believed they were, argued that Google should have to pay royalties on those links and excerpts when it included them in its search results.

My position at the time was that links with short excerpts should not be considered a derivative work, but rather a new kind of service that helped bring those works to a different audience, and therefore didn’t compete with the economic interests of the authors of those works or owners of those sites. Not only did the links or excerpts not cause them harm, they did the exact opposite.

Bard, Google’s eagerly awaited response to ChatGPT, was launched in Europe on Thursday (13 July), following delays in complying with the EU’s data protection rules.

This argument and extensions of it formed the basis for the birth of economic giants such as Google and Facebook, which could not have existed if they had to pay a ‘link tax’ for the content they indexed and linked to (although recent laws in countries such as Australia and Canada have changed that to some extent, and have forced Google and Facebook to pay newspapers for linking to their content).

But large language models don’t just produce links or excerpts. The responses they provide don’t lead the user to the original texts or sites, but instead become a substitute for them. The audience is arguably the same, and therefore there is undoubtedly economic competition. A large language model could become the only interface for access to and economic exploitation of that information.

It seems obvious that this will become a political issue in both the US and Europe, although the question of its legality could result in different answers, since the United States has a legal tradition of ‘fair use’, which allows companies such as Google to use work in various ways without having to license it, and without infringing on an owner’s copyright.

In Europe, no such tradition exists (British Commonwealth countries have a similar concept called ‘fair dealing,’ but it is much weaker).

It’s probably not a coincidence that the companies that created these AI engines are reluctant to say what texts or content the models were built on, since transparency could facilitate possible findings of copyright infringement (a number of prominent authors are currently suing OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, because they believe their work was ingested by its large language model without permission).

The rise of generative AI models like ChatGPT and Midjourney AI, able to produce incredibly realistic content, poses an unprecedented challenge to the creative sector. We discuss what this new generation of Artificial Intelligence means for this sector and human …

A problem within the problem is that the players who promote these systems typically enjoy dominant positions in their respective markets, and are therefore not subject to special obligations to open up or become transparent. This is what happened with the ‘right to link’ that led the web giants to become gatekeepers — the freedom to link or excerpt created huge value that caused them to become dominant.

It’s not clear that the solution to these problems is to further restrict copyright so as to limit the creation of new large language models. In thinking about what measures to apply and how to evolve copyright in the age of artificial intelligence, we ought to think about rules that will also help open up downstream markets, not cement the market power that existing gatekeepers already have.

When the creators of AI talk about building systems that are smarter than humans, and defend their models as more than just ‘stochastic parrots’ who repeat whatever they are told, we need to keep in mind that these are more than just purely philosophical statements. There are significant economic interests involved, including the future exploitation of the wealth of information produced to date. And that rivals anything except possibly the wealth of the Catholic Church in the 1300’s, when Eco’s hero, William Of Baskerville, was asking questions about private property.

Source: AI Creation and Copyright: Unraveling the debate on originality, ownership – EURACTIV.com

US-EU AI Code of Conduct: First Step Towards Transatlantic Pillar of Global AI Governance?

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The European Union, G7, United States, and United Kingdom have announced initiatives aiming to establish governance regimes and guidelines around the technology’s use.

Amidst these efforts, an announcement made in late May by EU Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager at the close of the Fourth Trade and Technology Council (TTC) Ministerial in Sweden revealed an upcoming U.S.-EU “AI Code of Conduct.”

This measure represents a first step in laying the transatlantic foundations for global AI governance.

The AI Code of Conduct was presented as a joint U.S.-EU initiative to produce a draft set of voluntary commitments for businesses to adopt. It aims to bridge the gap between different jurisdictions by developing a set of non-binding international standards for companies developing AI systems ahead of legislation being passed in any country.

The initiative aims to go beyond the EU and U.S. to eventually involve other countries, including Indonesia and India, and ultimately be presented before the G7.

At present, questions remain surrounding the scope of the Code of Conduct and whether it will contain monitoring or enforcement mechanisms.

The AI Code of Conduct – coupled with other TTC deliverables emerging from the U.S.-EU Joint AI Roadmap – signals a path forward for the emergence of a transatlantic pillar of global AI governance.

Importantly, this approach circumvents questions of regulatory alignment and creates room for a broader set of multilateral actors, as well as the private sector.

[…]

Source: US-EU AI Code of Conduct: First Step Towards Transatlantic Pillar of Global AI Governance? – EURACTIV.com

Android phones can now tell you if there’s an AirTag following you

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When Google announced that trackers would be able to tie in to its 3 billion-device Bluetooth tracking network at its Google I/O 2023 conference, it also said that it would make it easier for people to avoid being tracked by trackers they don’t know about, like Apple AirTags.

Now Android users will soon get these “Unknown Tracker Alerts.” Based on the joint specification developed by Google and Apple, and incorporating feedback from tracker-makers like Tile and Chipolo, the alerts currently work only with AirTags, but Google says it will work with tag manufacturers to expand its coverage.

Android’s unknown tracker alerts, illustrated in moving Corporate Memphis style.

For now, if an AirTag you don’t own “is separated from its owner and determined to be traveling with you,” a notification will tell you this and that “the owner of the tracker can see its location.” Tapping the notification brings up a map tracing back to where it was first seen traveling with you. Google notes that this location data “is always encrypted and never shared with Google.”

Finally, Google offers a manual scan feature if you’re suspicious that your Android phone isn’t catching a tracker or want to see what’s nearby. The alerts are rolling out through a Google Play services update to devices on Android 6.0 and above over the coming weeks.

[…]

Source: Android phones can now tell you if there’s an AirTag following you

More than 1,300 UK experts call AI a force for good

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An open letter signed by more than 1,300 experts says AI is a “force for good, not a threat to humanity”.

It was organised by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, to counter “AI doom”.

Rashik Parmar, BCS chief executive, said it showed the UK tech community didn’t believe the “nightmare scenario of evil robot overlords”.

In March, tech leaders including Elon Musk, who recently launched an AI business, signed a letter calling for a pause in developing powerful systems.

[…]

The letter argues: “The UK can help lead the way in setting professional and technical standards in AI roles, supported by a robust code of conduct, international collaboration and fully resourced regulation”.

By doing so, it says Britain “can become a global byword for high-quality, ethical, inclusive AI”.

In the autumn UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will host a global summit on AI regulation.

Source: More than 1,300 experts call AI a force for good – BBC News