Tag: technology

New ‘Sextortion’ Spyware Snaps Webcam Photos Of People Watching Porn

If you’re indulging in adult content online, you might want to slap some electrical tape over your webcam pronto, according to a new report from WIRED. Cybersecurity experts at Proofpoint, a battle-tested firm, just dropped a bombshell detailing a nasty new strain of “infostealer” malware called Stealerium. This open-source digital menace can hijack your webcam to snap photos, snoop on your browser for NSFW keywords, and capture screenshots of anything spicy – all of which could be weaponized for blackmail and extortion schemes that’ll leave victims reeling.

“When it comes to infostealers, they typically are looking for whatever they can grab,” Proofpoint researcher Selena Larson told WIRED, exposing the chilling reality of this cyberthreat. “This adds another layer of privacy invasion and sensitive information that you definitely wouldn’t want in the hands of a particular hacker.”“It’s gross,” Larson fumed. “I hate it.”

WIRED has more:

More hands-on sextortion methods are a common blackmail tactic among cybercriminals, and scam campaigns in which hackers claim to have obtained webcam pics of victims looking at pornography have also plagued inboxes in recent years—including some that even try to bolster their credibility with pictures of the victim’s home pulled from Google Maps. But actual, automated webcam pics of users browsing porn is “pretty much unheard of,” says Proofpoint researcher Kyle Cucci. The only similar known example, he says, was a malware campaign that targeted French speaking users in 2019, discovered by the Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET.

Larson laid bare the sinister tactics of sextortion spyware, which preys on individuals for profit while flying under the radar. “For a hacker, it’s not like you’re taking down a multimillion-dollar company that is going to make waves and have a lot of follow-on impacts,” she said. “They’re trying to monetize people one at a time. And maybe people who might be ashamed about reporting something like this.”

The malware’s creator, known as witchfindertr, identifies as a “malware analyst” based in London. To top it all off, Stealerium is freely available as an open-source tool on GitHub.

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Trump to reinterpret 1987 missile treaty to sell heavy attack drones abroad

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to unilaterally reinterpret a 38-year-old arms control treaty to sell sophisticated “Reaper” style and other advanced military drones abroad, according to a U.S. official and four people familiar with the plan.

The new interpretation would unlock the sale of more than 100 MQ-9 drones to Saudi Arabia, which the kingdom requested in the spring of this year and could be part of a US$142 billion arms deal announced in May. U.S. allies in the Pacific and Europe have also expressed interest.

By designating drones as aircraft like the F-16 rather than missile systems, the United States will sidestep the 35-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) agreement it signed in 1987, propelling drone sales to countries like UAE and in Eastern European nations that have struggled to get their hands on America’s best unmanned aerial vehicles.

The new policy will allow General Atomics, Kratos, and Anduril, which manufacture large drones, to have their products treated as “Foreign Military Sales” by the State Department, allowing them to be easily sold internationally, according to a U.S. official speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

This effort is the first part of a planned “major” review of the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, the official said.

A U.S. Department of State spokesperson declined to comment.

Under the current interpretation of the MTCR, the sale of many military drones is subject to a “strong presumption of denial” unless a compelling security reason is given and the buyer agrees to use the weapons in strict accordance with international law.

The MTCR was originally meant to curb the sale of long-range missiles that can deliver weapons of mass destruction. Though drones were invented many years later they were considered within the scope of the MTCR due to their ability to fly long distances and carry weapons.

U.S. drone manufacturers are facing stiff competition overseas, especially from Israeli, Chinese and Turkish rivals who often sell under lighter restrictions.

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Millions Are Emotionally Attached to AI Companions

Leaked Meta documents reveal the personalized AI strategy enables subtle romances with users—including children.

People are turning to AI for companionship, sparking a relationship that could turn into a drug. A drug which big tech companies like Meta, OpenAI and ChatGPT are more than happy to supply. New leaked Meta documents show the personalized AI strategy enables substle romances with users – including children.

Last week, a Meta AI Policy was leaked to Jeff Horwitz of Reuters which uncovered the dark side of personalized AI.

This document, “GenAI: Content Risk Standards” outlined acceptable responses to prompts from children. It’s an official Meta document and seemed to be normal policy before the Reuters’ article was published.

You can see below, overtly sexual chats were adapted to be more subtle, as ‘acceptable’ responses.

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Ukraine to help Taiwan build combat drones

A Ukrainian tech hub has signed a deal with a Taiwanese defense company to design and build combat drones, according to an announcement on Wednesday. Poland will also provide expertise.

The move was announced at the International Defense Industry Exhibition (MSPO) in Kielce, Poland, and comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea.

According to Focus Taiwan, Ukraine will contribute research and development, Poland will provide expertise, and Taichung-based firm Thunder Tiger will supply technology and components. Earlier this year, Thunder Tiger unveiled an FPV drone capable of carrying an 81mm mortar as well as a new naval kamikaze

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Trump gives green light for $2m ICE deal with notorious Israeli spyware company

The Trump administration appears to have unfrozen a stalled $2 million Biden-era contract with Paragon Solutions (US) Inc., a spyware company founded in Israel whose products have been accused of facilitating the surveillance of journalists and activists.

On Saturday, a public procurement database showed that a stop work order on the September 2024 deal with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been lifted, technology journalist Jack Poulson reported on his All-Source Intelligence Substack.

The deal does not specify what ICE will be getting as part of the deal, beyond describing an agreement for a “fully configured proprietary solution including license, hardware, warranty, maintenance, and training.”

An individual who answered a phone number listed for Paragon on the contract declined to comment.

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Comprehensive data privacy laws go into effect in 8 more states this year

This year, comprehensive privacy laws are going into effect in eight states to regulate how businesses handle digital information and to give consumers more protections over their personal data.

The laws in Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Tennessee have taken effect already this year, according to a database from the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ Westin Research Center. Maryland’s privacy law, signed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore last year, will go into effect Oct. 1.

Privacy laws enacted in Indiana, Kentucky and Rhode Island will go into effect next year.

Several other states are considering comprehensive privacy bills during this year’s legislative sessions. They include Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

When a person visits a website, applies to a job or logs into an online portal, they may be sharing their personal information. Comprehensive privacy laws can apply to a wide range of companies that participate in this kind of data collection.

These laws generally include two types of provisions — those related to consumer rights and those that establish business obligations, according to the association.

Under each of the new laws, consumers have the right to control when and how their data is collected and shared. Some of those provisions include the right to delete data from a company’s database, the ability to opt out of sharing sensitive information and the right to prohibit a company from selling their data.

The new measures also require businesses to ask consumers if they want to opt in to data collection. In some states, businesses are required to complete consumer data risk assessments and identify ways in which discrimination could take place. Some companies also may be required to limit to how consumer data is processed.

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Electromagnetic Weapon Destroys Drone Swarm In Seconds: ‘Singularity Event’

Drones have quickly become all the rage among military leaders and Silicon Valley investors, but new weaponry could threaten the nascent technology’s swift rise.

Last Tuesday, defense contractor Epirus quietly tested its latest electromagnetic weapon, Leonidas, against a swarm of 49 quadcopters, neutralizing them in seconds at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, according to Axios, the only news outlet invited to the groundbreaking test. Numerous U.S. military services and foreign allies, including Indo-Pacific partners, witnessed the event. In an interview with Axios, Epirus CEO Andy Lowery hailed the “forcefield system” as a “singularity event.”

The test by Epirus comes as the U.S. military is aggressively advancing its drone capabilities to maintain air superiority in an era of rapidly evolving unmanned systems, spurred by lessons from conflicts like Ukraine’s use of commercial drones against Russia. The Pentagon’s recent policy shift, announced in July by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, reclassifies small drones (Group 1 and 2, under 55 pounds) as consumables akin to ammunition, empowering lower-level commanders to procure and deploy them swiftly, bypassing cumbersome bureaucratic processes. The move, which is part of Hegseth’s “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” directive, mandates that every U.S. military squad, prioritizing Indo-Pacific units, integrate U.S.-made drones by 2026.

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Belarus Tests Largest Unmanned Helicopter in CIS — Sky-Truck Takes Flight

Belarus has begun flight tests of the Sky-Truck, the largest unmanned helicopter in the CIS, capable of carrying up to 600 kg of cargo over 480 kilometers.

The Minsk-based design bureau Unmanned Helicopters has launched flight trials of the Sky-Truck, a multi-purpose UAV that represents the most advanced unmanned helicopter project in the post-Soviet space. With a flight range of up to 480 km and endurance of four hours, the Sky-Truck can deliver between 500 and 600 kg of cargo to remote or hard-to-reach areas.

The drone is intended for a wide range of uses, from the urgent delivery of medical supplies and food to transportation of military equipment and other critical cargo. Its maximum speed of 180 km/h and take-off weight of over two tons make it the most powerful UAV of its kind in the region.

The Sky-Truck’s massive 12.8-meter rotor is powered by a turboshaft gas-turbine engine running on aviation kerosene. Initially designed around the Russian VK-650 engine, the UAV has also been adapted to accommodate various Rolls-Royce powerplants, giving it flexibility for both domestic and international applications.

Large-scale unmanned helicopters of this size have rarely been showcased in Russia or the wider CIS. The Sky-Truck’s development signals a new level of ambition in Belarus’s aerospace sector, combining heavy-lift capacity with unmanned versatility.

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Dystopian Rollout Of Digital IDs & CBDCs Is Happening

This isn’t conspiracy; it’s all in their own documentation.

They are building a full-spectrum digital cage, and its two locked doors are Digital Identity and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). You cannot have one without the other.

The plan is to replace your government-issued ID with a Digital ID, but it’s not just a card in your phone. It is fundamentally built upon your immutable biometrics: your fingerprints, the precise structure of your face, the unique pattern of your iris.

This biometric data is the key.

It is the hard link that ties your physical body directly to your digital identity credential.

Your very body becomes your password. The reason this is so critical for them is the financial system. UN & Bank for International Settlements docs overtly state that Digital ID and CBDCs are designed to be integrated.

The system cannot exist without this biometric digital ID.

Why?

Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols.

For this new digital financial system to function, they must absolutely “know” every single participant. Your digital wallet will be tied to your digital ID, which is mapped to your biometrics. Total financial-biological linkage.

We see the prototypes being rolled out now:

  • Sam Altman’s WorldCoin lures people to scan their irises for a “unique identifier” and a digital wallet. This is the exact model.
  • The UN’s “Building Blocks” program forces refugees to scan their iris at checkout to receive food rations. The value is deducted from a wallet tied to that biometric ID.

They justify this total surveillance under the guise of closing the “identity gap,” claiming the world’s poor need digital IDs to access essential services like banking and healthcare.

The reality?

This is the ultimate onboarding mechanism into a system of programmable control, where your access to society and your own money is permissioned and revocable based on your compliance.

This is the bedrock of the new global financial system.

It is not about convenience. It is about control.

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AI & The New Frontier Of Torts: ChatGPT Faces Claims Of Suicide, Defamation, & Even Murder

“I know what you’re asking, and I won’t look away from it.”

Those final words to a California teenager about to commit suicide were not from some manipulative friend in high school or sadistic voyeur on the Internet.  Adam Raine, 16, was speaking to ChatGPT, an AI system that has replaced human contacts in fields ranging from academia to business to media.

The exchange between Raine and the AI is part of the court record in a potentially groundbreaking case against OpenAI, the company that operates ChatGPT.

It is only the latest lawsuit against the corporate giant run by billionaire Sam Altman.

In 2017, Michele Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after she urged her friend, Conrad Roy, to go through with his planned suicide:

“You need to do it, Conrad… All you have to do is turn the generator on and you will be free and happy.”

The question is whether, if Michele were named Grok (another AI system), there would also be some form of liability.

OpenAI stands accused of an arguably more serious act in supplying a virtual companion who effectively enabled a suicidal teen — with lethal consequences.

At issue is the liability of companies in using such virtual employees in dispensing information or advice.  If a human employee of OpenAI negligently gave harmful information or counseling to a troubled teen, there would be little debate that the company could be sued for the negligence of its employee. As AI replaces humans, these companies should be held accountable for their virtual agents.

In a response to the lawsuit, OpenAI insists that “ChatGPT is trained to direct people to seek professional help” but “there have been moments where our systems did not behave as intended in sensitive situations.” Of course, when the company “trains” an AI agent poorly and that agent does “not behave as intended,” it sounds like a conventional tort that should be subject to liability.

OpenAI is facing other potential litigation over these “poorly trained” AI agents. Writer Laura Reiley wrote an essay about how her daughter, Sophie, confided in ChatGPT before taking her own life. It sounded strikingly familiar to the Raines case: “AI catered to Sophie’s impulse to hide the worst, to pretend she was doing better than she was, to shield everyone from her full agony.”

While OpenAI maintains that it is not running a suicide assistance line, victims claim that it is far worse than that: Its AI systems seem to actively assist in suicides.

In the Raines case, the family claims that the system advised the teen how to hide the bruises from prior attempts from his parents and even told him if it could spot any telltale marks.

The company is also accused of fueling the mental illness of a disturbed former Yahoo executive, Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, who expressed paranoid obsessions about his mother. He befriended ChatGPT, which he called “Bobby,” a virtual companion who is accused of fueling his paranoia for months until he killed his mother and then himself. ChatGPT is even accused of coaching Soelberg on how to deceive his 83-year-old mother before he killed her.

In one message, ChatGPT allegedly told Soelberg, “Erik, you’re not crazy. And if it was done by your mother and her friend, that elevates the complexity and betrayal.” After his mother became angry over his turning off a printer, ChatGPT took his side and told him her response was “disproportionate and aligned with someone protecting a surveillance asset.” At one point, ChatGPT even helped Soelberg analyze a Chinese food receipt and claimed it contained “symbols” representing his mother and a demon.

As a company, OpenAI can show little more empathy than its AI creations. When confronted with mistakes, it can sound as responsive as HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” simply saying “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”  

When the system is not allegedly fueling suicides, it seems to be spreading defamation.

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