Tag: internet

Anthony Blinken Reveals Government’s AI Plan To Censor Free Speech

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken admitted last week that the State Department is preparing to use artificial intelligence to “combat disinformation,” amidst a massive government-wide AI rollout that will involved the cooperation of Big Tech and other private-sector partners.

At a speaking engagement streamed last week with the State Department’s chief data and AI officer, Matthew Graviss, Blinken gushed about the “extraordinary potential” and “extraordinary benefit” AI has on our society, and “how AI could be used to accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals which are, for the most part, stalled.”

He was referring to the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development goals, which represent a globalist blueprint for a one-world totalitarian system. These goals include the gai-worshipping climate agenda, along with new restrictions on free speech, the freedom of movement, wealth transfers from rich to poor countries, and the digitization of humanity. Now Blinken is saying these goals could be jumpstarted by employing advanced artificial intelligence technologies.

Listen to Blinken, in the video below, openly describe how the government will use AI to clamp down on the free speech of citizens. (Fast-forward to the 3-minute mark and watch through the 7:07 mark.)

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Google News Ranks AI-Generated Spam as Top Results Above Actual Stories

Despite recent algorithm changes aimed at improving search quality, Google News continues to face challenges with AI-generated spam content appearing in its top results, frequently outranking original reporting.

Wired reports that while artificial intelligence becomes more commonplace across the internet, Google News finds itself grappling with a persistent issue: the proliferation of AI-generated spam content in its search results. This problem persists even after the search giant implemented significant algorithm updates earlier this year to combat unhelpful and unoriginal content.

The issue came to light when a journalist, while searching for information on Adobe’s AI policies, stumbled upon a plagiarized article at the top of Google News results. The article, published on a website called Syrus #Blog, was a near-exact copy of a piece originally published by Wired, with only minor alterations in phrasing. Further investigation revealed that this was not an isolated incident, as similar plagiarized content was found in multiple languages, affecting articles from various reputable news sources.

Elizabeth Tucker, a director of product management at Google, had announced in April that the company had completed a major rollout of changes to its search engine ranking system. These updates were intended to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 45 percent. However, the persistence of AI-generated spam in Google News suggests that the problem is far from solved.

Lily Ray, senior director of search engine optimization at Amsive, describes this as a “rampant problem” on Google. She notes that many clients have reported instances of their articles being rewritten and republished using AI tools. This practice not only undermines the work of original content creators but also poses a significant challenge to Google’s efforts to provide high-quality, reliable information to its users.

The creators of Syrus #Blog, when contacted, claimed that their content creation process involves AI tools that “analyze and synthesize information from various sources while always respecting intellectual property.” They pointed to a single hyperlink at the bottom of their articles as sufficient attribution. However, SEO experts and content creators argue that this practice falls far short of ethical standards and violates Google’s spam policies.

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OnlyFans Contains Child Sexual Abuse Material Of Toddlers And Teens, According To Reports

Porn-driven website OnlyFans has been found to contain explicit content of minors despite its claims to build the “safest digital media platform in the world,” according to a new investigative report.

Reuters has exposed OnlyFans’ involvement in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) after documenting 30 complaints from U.S. police and court records of CSAM from December 2019 and June 2024. According to the news agency, they “cited more than 200 explicit videos and images of kids, including some adults having oral sex with toddlers.” In another case, a minor stayed on OnlyFans for over a year.

After 16-year-old girl from Florida went missing in 2023, her parents found nude photos and videos of herself to 22-year-old Ethan Diaz, who appeared to have abducted her. Police found that Diaz posted explicit content of the girl on OnlyFans. One video showed the teen penetrating herself and was advertised for $20. The caption read, “Watch me get super wild.” Diaz was charged with human trafficking and other offenses.

In the 30 cases reviewed by Reuters, over half resulted in an arrest and criminal convictions. Most of the adults involved in CSAM were accused of preying on and exploiting minors to create pornographic material and profit from it. In other cases, minors somehow bypassed OnlyFans vetting to sell their own explicit content. And “in the case involving toddlers, a man used the site to send another man more than 100 files featuring the abuse of children of all ages,” Reuters added.

Despite these findings, OnlyFans asserts that it is strictly for adults, with measures to monitor users, vet content, and remove and report CSAM. “We know the age and identity of everyone on our platform,” said CEO Keily Blair in a 2023 speech. “No children allowed, nobody under 18 on the platform.”

Is it possible that OnlyFans has more CSAM than we think? Due to its paywall model, the site makes it more difficult for police to detect CSAM. In fact, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) only received access to OnlyFans in late 2023. And, per ArsTechnica, the organization seemingly can’t scan the entire platform at once, telling Reuters that its access was “limited” exclusively “to OnlyFans accounts reported to its CyberTipline or connected to a missing child case.”

In 2023, OnlyFans made 347 CyberTipline reports “out of hundreds of millions of posts,” a “testament to the rigorous safety controls OnlyFans has in place,” their spokesperson said. They explained that most of the suspected material “does not turn out to be CSAM” or “are duplicate images or videos.” Still, specialists in CSAM informed Reuters the actual amount of CSAM is difficult to verify due to the individual paywalls, with OnlyFans currently boasting over 3 million creators. Trey Amick, director of forensic consultants at Magnet Forensics Inc., told Reuters, “It’s not just one paywall. It’s a paywall for each and every contributor.”

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NewsGuard Co-Founder Advocates Banning Anonymous Social Media Posts, Enabling Lawsuits Against Tech Firms for “False” Content

NewsGuard co-founder and co-CEO Steve Brill has published a book, “The Death of Truth” – but he’s not taking any responsibility. On the contrary.

Namely, Brill’s “apolitical (misinformation) rating system for news sites” as NewsGuard is promoted to customers, is often blasted – and currently investigated by Congress for possible First Amendment violations – as yet another tool to suppress online speech.

But corporate media sing his praises, presenting him as a “media maven.”

A censorship maven more like it, critics would say. And while getting his book promoted, Brill managed to add his name to the steadily growing list of governments, NGOs, and associated figures who are attacking online anonymity.

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AI Garbage Pollutes Internet: 42% of Overall Web Traffic Now Generated by Bots

A new report from Akamai Technologies has unveiled alarming statistics about the prevalence and impact of web scraper bots on businesses, particularly in the e-commerce sector. An astounding 42 percent of overall web traffic is now generated by bots, according to the cloud computing giant.

The report reveals that as the internet becomes increasingly dominated by automated traffic, businesses are facing a growing threat from malicious bots. Akamai Technologies, a leading cloud company, has released its latest State of the Internet (SOTI) report, titled “Scraping Away Your Bottom Line: How Web Scrapers Impact e-commerce,” shedding light on the pervasive issue of web scraping bots and their detrimental effects on online businesses.

The report’s findings are striking: bots now account for a staggering 42 percent of overall web traffic, with 65 percent of these bots classified as malicious. This surge in bot activity is particularly concerning for the e-commerce sector, which relies heavily on revenue-generating web applications and is therefore most vulnerable to high-risk bot traffic.

Patrick Sullivan, CTO of Security Strategy at Akamai, emphasized the seriousness of the issue, stating, “Bots continue to present massive challenges resulting in multiple pain points for app and API owners.” He highlighted the various ways in which scraper bots can harm businesses, including data theft and brand impersonation.

The report identifies several key ways in which scraper bots are being weaponized against businesses. These include competitive intelligence gathering, inventory hoarding, and the creation of imposter sites. Such activities not only impact a company’s bottom line but also degrade the customer experience.

One of the most concerning developments highlighted in the report is the rise of AI botnets. These advanced bots have the capability to discover and scrape unstructured data and content, even when it’s presented in inconsistent formats or locations. Moreover, they can leverage business intelligence to enhance their decision-making processes, making them increasingly difficult to detect and mitigate.

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Windows 11’s Sneaky OneDrive Sync

Those still using Microsoft Windows (now in version 11) as their operating system in 2024 have a lot of experience being left out of the “decision-making process” concerning their own computer and their own data.

This is what closed-source, proprietary software gets you (in addition to a lack of innovation and overall technical quality); but there are even more ways to avoid transparency, and, frankly, disrespect paying customers.

And one is introducing questionable features without even announcing them.

OneDrive – Microsoft’s cloud service – is also available to back up Windows folders like Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos… and as it turns out, users don’t even have to agree to this – or even know it’s happening.

Namely, if you are installing Windows 11 (signed into the Microsoft account, as Microsoft prefers), the default is now to upload content from those folders to Microsoft’s cloud. And Microsoft didn’t bother informing their users about this change, compared to the previous installation process, Neowin reported.

“Informing” here means, not with a press release, and not even with prompts during installation and setup.

The backup, i.e., the syncing of the files is now already ongoing or done as soon as a fresh install is finished, and users are reportedly only (slowly) becoming aware of the change because of new visual indicators on their desktop shortcuts and folder icons (showing that the backup is in progress or done).

Windows users can still be grateful there are several ways to deal with the situation. One is to go to the OneDrive settings, and then go through several steps (Sync and Backup>Manage Backup…) and uncheck whatever folders should not sync with the Microsoft cloud service.

(But there are also older versions of OneDrive, where the way is, Manage Backup>StopBackup.)

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Why Has Joe Biden’s $42 Billion Broadband Program Not Connected One Single Household?

One of President Joe Biden’s pledges upon entering office in 2021 was to expand Americans’ access to high-speed broadband internet. But despite apportioning tens of billions of dollars to the task, not one person has been connected to the internet as a result of the initiative.

Contained within the 2021 infrastructure bill, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program authorized more than $42 billion in grants, to “connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.”

“In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans,” Brendan Carr, the senior Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) this month. “Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.”

BEAD is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the Department of Commerce. NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson told lawmakers in May, “with BEAD, this is really a 2025, 2026, shovels in the ground project.”

Carr blames the delay on “the addition of a substantive wish list of progressive ideas” to the approval process. In an April 2023 letter to Davidson, 11 Republican U.S. senators warned that “NTIA’s bureaucratic red tape and far-left mandates undermine Congress’ intent and would discourage participation from broadband providers while increasing the overall cost of building out broadband networks.”

Among several examples, the senators noted that NTIA’s BEAD proposal “requires subgrantees to prioritize certain segments of the workforce, such as ‘individuals with past criminal records’ and ‘justice-impacted […] participants.'” The infrastructure law that authorized the program merely required contractors to be “in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws.”

The previous year, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Republican senators warned that the NTIA’s proposed BEAD rollout “creates a complex, nine-step, ‘iterative’ structure and review process that is likely to mire State broadband offices in excessive bureaucracy and delay connecting unserved and underserved Americans as quickly as possible.”

In practice, this is exactly what’s happening: Multiple representatives from the telecommunications industry told MinnPost this week that they had no interest in applying for a piece of Minnesota’s $652 million in BEAD grants. Brent Christensen, president and CEO of Minnesota Telecom Alliance, which represents 70 Minnesota telecom companies, said, “None of them would bid for the federal grants because of the regulations that would come with it—especially the requirement to provide low-cost services to low-income households in exchange for grants that would allow internet providers to build out their networks.”

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CARNIVORE (DCS1000): FBI Files on Their Email and Electronic Communication Monitoring Software

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the FBI’s Carnivore system drew considerable attention and debate. Unveiled during this period, Carnivore was a sophisticated email wiretapping system designed to intercept and analyze digital communications. The system’s capabilities and the implications for privacy and civil liberties were subjects of intense scrutiny and concern among privacy advocates, Internet service providers (ISPs), and the public at large.

Carnivore, officially known as DCS1000, was a network diagnostic tool utilized by the FBI to monitor and intercept email and other online communications. The system was installed at an ISP’s premises and was capable of scanning vast amounts of digital data passing through the ISP’s network. Carnivore specifically targeted communications of suspects under investigation, allowing the FBI to capture emails, chat sessions, and other forms of online interactions.

The Carnivore system operated by tapping into the ISP’s network and filtering the data packets that flowed through it. According to an internal FBI document, the system was designed to “ensure that only the exact communications authorized by the court to be intercepted are what is intercepted”​​. This meant that Carnivore could be configured to capture only the communications of a specific target while excluding all other traffic.

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Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win

As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.

IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a “devastating loss” for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.

To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court’s decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA’s controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library’s lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA’s lending than by preventing it.

“We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed—the same technology used by corporate publishers,” Chris Freeland, IA’s director of library services, wrote in the blog. “But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn’t be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that’s why we are appealing.”

IA will have an opportunity to defend its practices when oral arguments start in its appeal on June 28.

“Our position is straightforward; we just want to let our library patrons borrow and read the books we own, like any other library,” Freeland wrote, while arguing that the “potential repercussions of this lawsuit extend far beyond the Internet Archive” and publishers should just “let readers read.”

“This is a fight for the preservation of all libraries and the fundamental right to access information, a cornerstone of any democratic society,” Freeland wrote. “We believe in the right of authors to benefit from their work; and we believe that libraries must be permitted to fulfill their mission of providing access to knowledge, regardless of whether it takes physical or digital form. Doing so upholds the principle that knowledge should be equally and equitably accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live or where they learn.”

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Citing national security, US will ban Kaspersky anti-virus software in July

The Biden administration will ban all sales of Kaspersky antivirus software in the US starting in July, according to reporting from Reuters and a filing from the US Department of Commerce (PDF).

The US believes that security software made by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab represents a national security risk and that the Russian government could use Kaspersky’s software to install malware, block other security updates, and “collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans,” said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

“When you think about national security, you may think about guns and tanks and missiles,” said Raimondo during a press briefing, as reported by Wired. “But the truth is, increasingly, it’s about technology, and it’s about dual-use technology, and it’s about data.”

US businesses and consumers will be blocked from buying new software from Kaspersky starting on or around July 24, 2024, 30 days after the restrictions are scheduled to be published in the federal register. Current users will still be able to download the software, resell it, and download new updates for 100 days, which Reuters says will give affected users and businesses time to find replacement software. Rebranded products that use Kaspersky’s software will also be affected.

Companies that continue to sell Kaspersky’s software in the US after the ban goes into effect could be subject to fines.

The ban follows a two-year national security probe of Kaspersky’s antivirus software by the Department of Commerce. It’s being implemented using authority that the government says it was given under a national defense authorization act signed during the Trump administration in 2018.

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