Policy

reddit-must-share-ip-addresses-of-piracy-discussing-users,-film-studios-say

Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say

piracy, Policy, reddit, Social Media / /
A keyboard icon for piracy beside letter v and n

For the third time in less than a year, film studios with copyright infringement complaints against a cable Internet provider are trying to force Reddit to share information about users who have discussed piracy on the site.

In 2023, film companies lost two attempts to have Reddit unmask its users. In the first instance, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ruled in the US District Court for the Northern District of California that the First Amendment right to anonymous speech meant Reddit didn’t have to disclose the names, email addresses, and other account registration information for nine Reddit users. Film companies, including Bodyguard Productions and Millennium Media, had subpoenaed Reddit in relation to a copyright infringement lawsuit against Astound Broadband-owned RCN about subscribers allegedly pirating 34 movie titles, including Hellboy (2019), Rambo V: Last Blood, and Tesla.

In the second instance, the same companies sued Astound Broadband-owned ISP Grande, again for alleged copyright infringement occurring over the ISP’s network. The studios subpoenaed Reddit for user account information, including “IP address registration and logs from 1/1/2016 to present, name, email address, and other account registration information” for six Reddit users, per a July 2023 court filing.

In August, a federal court again quashed that subpoena, citing First Amendment rights. In her ruling, Beeler noted that while the First Amendment right to anonymous speech is not absolute, the film producers had already received the names of 118 Grande subscribers. She also said the film producers had failed to prove that “the identifying information is directly or materially relevant or unavailable from another source.”

Third piracy-related subpoena

This week, as reported by TorrentFreak, film companies Voltage Holdings, which are part of the previous two subpoenas, and Screen Media Ventures, another film studio with litigation against RCN, filed a motion to compel [PDF] Reddit to respond to the subpoena in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The studios said they’re seeking the information concerning claims they’ve made that the “ability to pirate content efficiently without any consequences is a draw for becoming a Frontier subscriber” and that Frontier Communications “does not have an effective policy for terminating repeat infringers.” The film studios are claimants against Frontier in its bankruptcy case. The studios are represented by the same lawyers used in the two aforementioned cases.

The studios are asking that the court require Reddit to provide “IP address log information from 1/1/2017 to present” for six anonymous Reddit users who talked about piracy on Reddit. Although, Reddit posts shared in the court filing only date back to 2021.

Reddit responded to the studios’ subpoena with a letter [PDF] on January 2 stating that the subpoena “does not satisfy the First Amendment standard for disclosure of identifying information regarding an anonymous speaker.” Reddit also noted the two previously quashed subpoenas and suggested that it did not have to comply with the new request because the studios could acquire equivalent or better information elsewhere.

As with the previously mentioned litigation against ISPs, Reddit is a non-party. However, since the film companies claimed that Frontier had refused to produce customer identifying information and Reddit responded with a denial to the requests, the film companies filed their motion to compel.

The studios argue that the information requests do not implicate the First Amendment and that the rulings around the two aforementioned subpoenas are not applicable because the new subpoena is only about IP address logs and not other user-identifying information.

“The Reddit users do not have a recognized privacy interest in their IP addresses,” the motion says.

Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say Read More »

child-abusers-are-covering-their-tracks-with-better-use-of-crypto

Child abusers are covering their tracks with better use of crypto

Bitcoin, child abuse, Cryptocurrency, csam, Monery, Policy, syndication, Zcash / /
silhouette of child

For those who trade in child sexual exploitation images and videos in the darkest recesses of the Internet, cryptocurrency has been both a powerful tool and a treacherous one. Bitcoin, for instance, has allowed denizens of that criminal underground to buy and sell their wares with no involvement from a bank or payment processor that might reveal their activities to law enforcement. But the public and surprisingly traceable transactions recorded in Bitcoin’s blockchain have sometimes led financial investigators directly to pedophiles’ doorsteps.

Now, after years of evolution in that grim cat-and-mouse game, new evidence suggests that online vendors of what was once commonly called “child porn” are learning to use cryptocurrency with significantly more skill and stealth—and that it’s helping them survive longer in the Internet’s most abusive industry.

Today, as part of an annual crime report, cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis revealed new research that analyzed blockchains to measure the changing scale and sophistication of the cryptocurrency-based sale of child sexual abuse materials, or CSAM, over the past four years. Total revenue from CSAM sold for cryptocurrency has actually gone down since 2021, Chainalysis found, along with the number of new CSAM sellers accepting crypto. But the sophistication of crypto-based CSAM sales has been increasing. More and more, Chainalysis discovered, sellers of CSAM are using privacy tools like “mixers” and “privacy coins” that obfuscate their money trails across blockchains.

Perhaps because of that increased savvy, the company found that CSAM vendors active in 2023 persisted online—and evaded law enforcement—for a longer time than in any previous year, and about 57 percent longer than even in 2022. “Growing sophistication makes identification harder. It makes tracing harder, it makes prosecution harder, and it makes rescuing victims harder,” says Eric Jardine, the researcher who led the Chainalysis study. “So that sophistication dimension is probably the worst one you could see increasing over time.”

Better stealth, longer criminal lifespans

Scouring blockchains, Chainalysis researchers analyzed around 400 cryptocurrency wallets of CSAM sellers and more than 10,000 buyers who sent funds to them over the past four years. Their most disturbing finding in that broad economic study was that crypto-based CSAM sellers seem to have a longer lifespan online than ever, suggesting a kind of relative impunity. On average, CSAM vendors who were active in 2023 remained online for 884 days, compared with 560 days for those active in 2022 and just 112 days in 2020.

To explain that new longevity for some of the most harmful actors on the Internet, Chainalysis points to how CSAM vendors are increasingly laundering their proceeds with cryptocurrency mixers—services that blend users’ funds to make tracing more difficult—such as ChipMixer and Sinbad. (US and German law enforcement shut down ChipMixer in March 2023, but Sinbad remains online despite facing US sanctions for money laundering.) In 2023, Chainalysis found that about 46 percent of CSAM vendors used mixers, up from around 22 percent in 2020.

Chainalysis also found that CSAM vendors are increasingly using “instant exchanger” services that often collect little or no identifying information on traders and allow them to swap bitcoin for cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash—”privacy coins” designed to obfuscate or encrypt their blockchains to make tracing their cash-outs of profits far more difficult. Chainalysis’ Jardine says that Monero in particular seems to be gaining popularity among CSAM purveyors. In the company’s investigations, Chainalysis has seen it used repeatedly by CSAM sellers laundering funds through instant exchangers, and in multiple cases it has also seen CSAM forums post Monero addresses to solicit donations. While the instant exchangers did offer other cryptocurrencies, including the privacy coin Zcash, Chainalysis’ report states that “we believe Monero to be the currency of choice for laundering via instant exchangers.”

Child abusers are covering their tracks with better use of crypto Read More »

report:-deepfake-porn-consistently-found-atop-google,-bing-search-results

Report: Deepfake porn consistently found atop Google, Bing search results

Bing, deepfake porn, Deepfakes, Google, Policy / /

Shocking results —

Google vows to create more safeguards to protect victims of deepfake porn.

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Report: Deepfake porn consistently found atop Google, Bing search results

Popular search engines like Google and Bing are making it easy to surface nonconsensual deepfake pornography by placing it at the top of search results, NBC News reported Thursday.

These controversial deepfakes superimpose faces of real women, often celebrities, onto the bodies of adult entertainers to make them appear to be engaging in real sex. Thanks in part to advances in generative AI, there is now a burgeoning black market for deepfake porn that could be discovered through a Google search, NBC News previously reported.

NBC News uncovered the problem by turning off safe search, then combining the names of 36 female celebrities with obvious search terms like “deepfakes,” “deepfake porn,” and “fake nudes.” Bing generated links to deepfake videos in top results 35 times, while Google did so 34 times. Bing also surfaced “fake nude photos of former teen Disney Channel female actors” using images where actors appear to be underaged.

A Google spokesperson told NBC that the tech giant understands “how distressing this content can be for people affected by it” and is “actively working to bring more protections to Search.”

According to Google’s spokesperson, this controversial content sometimes appears because “Google indexes content that exists on the web,” just “like any search engine.” But while searches using terms like “deepfake” may generate results consistently, Google “actively” designs “ranking systems to avoid shocking people with unexpected harmful or explicit content that they aren’t looking for,” the spokesperson said.

Currently, the only way to remove nonconsensual deepfake porn from Google search results is for the victim to submit a form personally or through an “authorized representative.” That form requires victims to meet three requirements: showing that they’re “identifiably depicted” in the deepfake; the “imagery in question is fake and falsely depicts” them as “nude or in a sexually explicit situation”; and the imagery was distributed without their consent.

While this gives victims some course of action to remove content, experts are concerned that search engines need to do more to effectively reduce the prevalence of deepfake pornography available online—which right now is rising at a rapid rate.

This emerging issue increasingly affects average people and even children, not just celebrities. Last June, child safety experts discovered thousands of realistic but fake AI child sex images being traded online, around the same time that the FBI warned that the use of AI-generated deepfakes in sextortion schemes was increasing.

And nonconsensual deepfake porn isn’t just being traded in black markets online. In November, New Jersey police launched a probe after high school teens used AI image generators to create and share fake nude photos of female classmates.

With tech companies seemingly slow to stop the rise in deepfakes, some states have passed laws criminalizing deepfake porn distribution. Last July, Virginia amended its existing law criminalizing revenge porn to include any “falsely created videographic or still image.” In October, New York passed a law specifically focused on banning deepfake porn, imposing a $1,000 fine and up to a year of jail time on violators. Congress has also introduced legislation that creates criminal penalties for spreading deepfake porn.

Although Google told NBC News that its search features “don’t allow manipulated media or sexually explicit content,” the outlet’s investigation seemingly found otherwise. NBC News also noted that Google’s Play app store hosts an app that was previously marketed for creating deepfake porn, despite prohibiting “apps determined to promote or perpetuate demonstrably misleading or deceptive imagery, videos and/or text.” This suggests that Google’s remediation efforts blocking deceptive imagery may be inconsistent.

Google told Ars that it will soon be strengthening its policies against apps featuring AI-generated restricted content in the Play Store. A generative AI policy taking effect on January 31 will require all apps to comply with developer policies that ban AI-generated restricted content, including deceptive content and content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children.

Experts told NBC News that “Google’s lack of proactive patrolling for abuse has made it and other search engines useful platforms for people looking to engage in deepfake harassment campaigns.”

Google is currently “in the process of building more expansive safeguards, with a particular focus on removing the need for known victims to request content removals one by one,” Google’s spokesperson told NBC News.

Microsoft’s spokesperson told Ars that Microsoft updated its process for reporting concerns with Bing searches to include non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) used in “deepfakes” last August because it had become a “significant concern.” Like Google, Microsoft allows victims to report NCII deepfakes by submitting a web form to request removal from search results, understanding that any sharing of NCII is “a gross violation of personal privacy and dignity with devastating effects for victims.”

In the past, Microsoft President Brad Smith has said that among all dangers that AI poses, deepfakes worry him most, but deepfakes fueling “foreign cyber influence operations” seemingly concern him more than deepfake porn.

This story was updated on January 11 to include information on Google’s AI-generated content policy and on January 12 to include information from Microsoft.

Report: Deepfake porn consistently found atop Google, Bing search results Read More »

epa-expands-“high-priority”-probe-into-at&t,-verizon-lead-contaminated-cables

EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables

AT&T, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, lead contamination, lead exposure, Policy, telcos, telecommunications companies, verizon / /
EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding its investigation into potential risks posed by lead-covered cables installed nationwide by major telecommunications companies, The Wall Street Journal revealed in an exclusive report Thursday.

After finding “more than 100 readings with elevated lead near cables,” the EPA sent letters to AT&T and Verizon in December, requesting a meeting later this month, the Journal revealed. On the agenda, the EPA expects the companies to share internal data on their own testing of the cables, as well as details from any “technical reports related to the companies’ testing and sampling,” the WSJ reported.

The EPA’s investigation was prompted by a WSJ report published last July, alleging that AT&T, Verizon, and other companies were aware that thousands of miles of cables could be contaminating soils throughout the US, “where Americans live, work and play,” but did nothing to intervene despite the many public health risks associated with lead exposure.

In that report, tests showed that the telecom cables were likely the source of lead contaminated soils because “the amount measured in the soil was highest directly under or next to the cables and dropped within a few feet.” WSJ also spoke to residents and former telecom employees in areas tested who had contracted illnesses commonly linked to lead exposure.

Immediately, WSJ’s report spurred lawmakers to demand a response from USTelecom—a telecommunications trade association representing companies accused—with Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) suggesting that telecom giants were seemingly committing “corporate irresponsibility of the worst kind.”

Since then, the EPA has followed up and developed “its own testing data” in West Orange, New Jersey, southwest Pennsylvania, and Louisiana—the same locations flagged by the WSJ. In all locations, the EPA found lead contamination exceeding the “current recommendation for levels of lead it believes are generally safe in soil where children play,” 400-parts-per-million, the WSJ reported. In West Orange, two testing sites found lead “at 3,300 parts per million or higher.”

According to the EPA, initial testing by a national working group led to a conclusion that none of these sites poses an immediate health risk or requires an emergency response, but that finding hasn’t stopped the probe. The EPA told the WSJ that it still needs to address unanswered questions to decide “whether further actions may be required to address risks from the lead-containing cables.”

“While some locations sampled show concentrations above screening levels for long term exposures, existing data is not sufficient to determine whether lead from the cables poses a threat, or a potential threat, to human health or the environment,” the EPA said in a Reuters report.

Companies maintain that evidence from their own testing has shown lead cables do not pose public health risks requiring remediation.

USTelecom, speaking on behalf of Verizon and other telecom companies, told the WSJ that “our industry has been engaging with the EPA and our companies look forward to meeting with the EPA to discuss agency and industry testing results. We will continue to follow the science, which has not identified that lead-sheathed telecom cables are a leading cause of lead exposure or the cause of a public health issue.”

AT&T told the WSJ that it “will continue to work collaboratively with the EPA as it undertakes its review of lead-clad telecommunications cables. We look forward to the opportunity to meet with the EPA to discuss recent testing and other evidence that contradicts the Wall Street Journal’s assertions.”

An EPA spokesperson, Nick Conger, told Bloomberg that there is no date set for the meeting yet.

EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables Read More »

ebay-hit-with-$3m-fine,-admits-to-“terrorizing-innocent-people”

eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”

eBay, fbi, harassment, intimidation, Policy, stalking / /

“Never-ending nightmare” —

eBay must pay maximum fine for putting Massachusetts couple “through pure hell.”

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eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”

eBay has agreed to pay $3 million—the maximum criminal penalty possible—after employees harassed, intimidated, and stalked a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their critical reporting of the online marketplace in 2019.

“Today’s settlement holds eBay criminally and financially responsible for emotionally, psychologically, and physically terrorizing the publishers of an online newsletter out of fear that bad publicity would adversely impact their Fortune 500 company,” Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Division, said in a Justice Department press release Thursday.

eBay’s harassment campaign against the couple, David and Ina Steiner, stretched for 18 days in August 2019 and was led by the company’s former senior director of safety and security, Jim Baugh. It started when then-CEO Devin Wenig and then-chief communications officer Steven Wymer decided to “take down” the Steiners after growing frustrated with their coverage of eBay in a newsletter called EcommerceBytes.

Executing the “take down,” Baugh and six co-conspirators “put the victims through pure hell,” acting US attorney Joshua S. Levy wrote in the DOJ’s press release.

The former eBay employees turned the Steiners’ world “upside-down through a never-ending nightmare of menacing and criminal acts,” Levy said. That included “sending anonymous and disturbing deliveries,” such as “a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig and a funeral wreath and live insects,” the DOJ said. The intimidation also included publishing a series of “Craigslist posts inviting the public for sexual encounters at the victims’ home.”

But the intimidation did not stop there. After sending tweets and DMs threatening to visit the couple’s home, former eBay employees escalated the criminal activity by traveling to Massachusetts and installing a GPS tracker on the Steiners’ car. Spotting their stalkers, the Steiners called local police, who coordinated with the FBI to investigate what Levy called an “unprecedented stalking campaign” fueled by eBay’s toxic corporate culture.

Once police got involved, the former eBay employees tried to cover their tracks. Baugh and his team falsified records and deleted evidence to throw the cops “off the trail,” the DOJ said. Baugh was also caught making false statements to police and internal investigators and subsequently became the first eBay employee involved who was imprisoned in 2022 for “terrorizing innocent people,” Levy said.

In a press release, eBay confirmed that the company admitted to all the relevant facts that law enforcement uncovered in the case.

“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” said Jamie Iannone, eBay’s CEO. “From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities. We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured.”

Cohen acknowledged that the settlement “cannot erase the significant distress this couple suffered” but said that the DOJ hopes slapping eBay with the maximum fine “will deter others from engaging in similar conduct.”

“No one should ever feel unsafe in their own home,” Cohen said.

Ars could not immediately reach the Steiners’ lawyer for comment on the settlement.

Under eBay’s agreement with the DOJ, eBay must “retain an independent corporate compliance monitor” to ensure the company’s corporate culture never pushes employees to engage in such criminal conduct again.

All seven former eBay employees have been convicted on felony charges, the DOJ said. As the “ringleader,” Baugh was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. Others have received prison sentences between 12 and 24 months. Two former employees were sentenced to a year of home confinement. One co-conspirator has pleaded guilty and is still awaiting sentencing.

In the end, the DOJ said that “eBay was charged criminally with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice, and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.”

Through the deferred prosecution agreement, eBay must remain compliant and fully cooperate with the DOJ’s terms for three years. If that process is successful, the US attorney will “dismiss the criminal information against eBay.”

The DOJ announced criminal penalties during Stalking Awareness Month, when advocates work to raise awareness that stalking is a serious crime.

After taking responsibility for the misconduct of its former employee, eBay seems ready to put the harassment campaign in its past.

“Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training,” eBay said. “eBay remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct and ethics and to making things right with the Steiners.”

eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people” Read More »

starlink-shows-off-first-texts-to-t-mobile-phones-sent-via-spacex-satellite

Starlink shows off first texts to T-Mobile phones sent via SpaceX satellite

Policy, spacex starlink, starlink t-mobile / /

Such texting —

Starlink’s Direct to Cell satellites to fill in dead spots in T-Mobile network.

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A batch of Starlink satellites prior to launch

Enlarge / Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell capability.

SpaceX

SpaceX is showing off the first text messages sent between T-Mobile phones via one of Starlink’s low Earth orbit satellites. “On Monday, January 8, the Starlink team successfully sent and received our first text messages using T-Mobile network spectrum through one of our new Direct to Cell satellites launched six days prior,” a Starlink update said.

SpaceX last week launched the first six Starlink satellites that can provide cellular transmissions to standard LTE phones. The service from what Starlink calls “cellphone towers in space” is expected to provide text messaging sometime this year for customers of T-Mobile in the US and carriers in other countries, with voice and data service beginning sometime in 2025.

SpaceX posted a photo of the two iPhones that exchanged the texts, which included messages such as “Such signal” and “Much wow.” The process that allowed those texts to be sent was pretty complicated, Starlink said.

“Connecting cell phones to satellites has several major challenges to overcome,” Starlink said. “For example, in terrestrial networks cell towers are stationary, but in a satellite network they move at tens of thousands of miles per hour relative to users on Earth. This requires seamless handoffs between satellites and accommodations for factors like Doppler shift and timing delays that challenge phone to space communications.”

Mobile phones have “low antenna gain and transmit power,” making it “incredibly difficult” to communicate with satellites hundreds of kilometers away, the company said. But Starlink’s new satellites “are equipped with innovative new custom silicon, phased array antennas, and advanced software algorithms that overcome these challenges and provide standard LTE service to cell phones on the ground.”

The satellite-to-phone service should work just about anywhere on the planet, but there would be no point in using it when you can connect to a ground-based cellular tower. As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk pointed out, the limited bandwidth means that “it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks.”

T-Mobile said last week that field testing of Starlink satellites with the T-Mobile network will begin soon but did not announce a start date for actual service. T-Mobile said the Starlink connectivity will be useful in areas of the US where it has no coverage “due to terrain limitations, land-use restrictions,” and other factors.

Starlink shows off first texts to T-Mobile phones sent via SpaceX satellite Read More »

actor-paid-to-pose-as-crypto-ceo-“deeply-sorry”-about-$1.3-billion-scam

Actor paid to pose as crypto CEO “deeply sorry” about $1.3 billion scam

Cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency hedge fund, cryptocurrency mining, cryptocurrency scam, facebook, hyperverse, pimeyes, Policy / /
A screenshot from Jack Gamble's video outing Stephen Harrison as HyperVerse's fake CEO, posted on Gamble's

Enlarge / A screenshot from Jack Gamble’s video outing Stephen Harrison as HyperVerse’s fake CEO, posted on Gamble’s “Nobody Special Finance” YouTube channel.

An actor who was hired to pretend to be the highly qualified CEO of a shady, collapsed cryptocurrency hedge fund called HyperVerse has apologized after a YouTuber unmasked his real identity last week.

An Englishman currently living in Thailand, Stephen Harrison confirmed to The Guardian that HyperVerse hired him to pose as CEO Steven Reece Lewis. Harrison told The Guardian that he was “deeply sorry” to HyperVerse investors—who lost a reported $1.3 billion after buying into a cryptocurrency-mining operation that promised “double or triple returns,” but did not exist, Court Watch reported.

Harrison claimed that he had “certainly not pocketed” any portion of those funds. Instead, he told The Guardian that he was paid about $7,500 over nine months. To play the part of CEO, he was also given a “wool and cashmere suit, two business shirts, two ties, and a pair of shoes,” The Guardian reported.

Harrison said that he had no part in HyperVerse’s alleged scheme to woo investors with false promises of high returns.

“I am sorry for these people,” Harrison said. “Because they believed some idea with me at the forefront and believed in what I said, and God knows what these people have lost. And I do feel bad about this.”

He also said that he was “shocked” to find out that HyperVerse had falsified his credentials, telling investors that Harrison was a fintech whiz—supposedly earning prestigious degrees before working at Goldman Sachs, then selling a web development company to Adobe before launching his own IT startup.

Harrison claimed that he only found out about this resume fraud when The Guardian investigated and found that nothing on his resume checked out.

“When I read that in the papers, I was like, blooming heck, they make me sound so highly educated,” Harrison told The Guardian.

He confirmed that he had received general certificates of secondary education but that his expertise was “certainly not on that level” that HyperVerse claimed that it was.

“They painted a good picture of me, but they never told me any of this,” Harrison told The Guardian.

Getting hired as fake CEO

According to The Guardian, Harrison was working as an unpaid freelance sports commentator when a “friend of a friend” told him about the HyperVerse gig.

The contract that Harrison signed was with an Indonesian-based talent agency called Mass Focus Ltd. It stated that he would be hired as “presenter talent,” The Guardian reported. However, The Guardian could find “no record of a company of this name on the Indonesian company register.”

Harrison’s agent allegedly told him that it was common for companies to hire corporate “presenters” to “represent the business” and reassured him that HyperVerse was “legitimate.”

Even after those assurances, Harrison said that he was still worried that HyperVerse might be a “scam,” researching the company online but ultimately deciding that “everything seemed OK.”

“So, I rolled with it,” Harrison told The Guardian.

Harrison said that promotional videos that he recorded as HyperVerse CEO were filmed in “makeshift studios” in Bangkok. He said that he was asked to start using the fake name Steven Reece Lewis while filming the second video. When he questioned why a fake name was necessary, HyperVerse allegedly told him that he was “acting the role.”

His agent allegedly told him that this was “perfectly normal” and after that, he “never went online and checked about Steven Reece Lewis,” he told The Guardian.

“I looked on YouTube occasionally, way back when they put the presentations up, but apart from that I was detached from this role,” Harrison said.

Over nine months, Harrison mostly worked one to two hours monthly, making videos posing as HyperVerse’s CEO.

There was also a Twitter account launched under the fake name Steven Reece Lewis. The Guardian noted that the date of Harrison’s final paycheck from HyperVerse “coincided with the last date the Twitter account was active,” but Harrison told The Guardian that he “had no oversight” of that account. When he was ending his stint as fake CEO, Harrison told The Guardian that he “requested that the Twitter account be shut down.”

Harrison also told The Guardian that he had “no contact at any point” with HyperVerse heads Sam Lee and Ryan Xu, exclusively dealing with a local contact in Thailand.

Actor paid to pose as crypto CEO “deeply sorry” about $1.3 billion scam Read More »

us-judge-blocks-ohio-republicans’-“troublingly-vague”-social-media-law

US judge blocks Ohio Republicans’ “troublingly vague” social media law

ohio social media law, Policy / /
A boy's hands holding an iPhone showing the icons of various social media apps including YouTube, Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram.

Getty Images | Matt Cardy

A federal judge blocked an Ohio state law that would prevent minors from using social networks without parental consent, calling it a “troublingly vague” law that likely violates the First Amendment. Ohio’s “Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act” affects websites including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube.

“Foreclosing minors under sixteen from accessing all content on websites that the Act purports to cover, absent affirmative parental consent, is a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media’s harm to children,” US District Judge Algenon Marbley wrote in an order issued Tuesday. “The approach is an untargeted one, as parents must only give one-time approval for the creation of an account, and parents and platforms are otherwise not required to protect against any of the specific dangers that social media might pose.”

While more in-depth arguments will be made later, Marbley called it “unlikely that the government will be able to show that the Act is narrowly tailored to any ends that it identifies.” Marbley, a judge in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, granted a motion for a temporary restraining order sought by tech-industry lobby group NetChoice. Marbley did not rule on NetChoice’s related motion for a preliminary injunction but scheduled a February 7 hearing on the injunction request.

The temporary restraining order was granted quickly, as NetChoice sued to block the law on January 5. The state law was due to take effect on January 15, but the temporary restraining order will preserve the status quo while the motion for preliminary injunction is considered. A preliminary injunction would prevent the law from being enforced while the case goes to trial. The law was proposed by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, and approved by the state’s Republican-majority legislature last year.

NetChoice is separately challenging Florida and Texas state laws that regulate social networks in a First Amendment case that the US Supreme Court agreed to hear. The Supreme Court is holding oral arguments on the Florida and Texas laws on February 26.

Ohio law fails to define key terms

The Ohio law purports to apply to websites that target children or are “reasonably anticipated to be accessed by children.” This “expansive language” makes it hard to determine exactly which websites are affected, the judge wrote.

“The Act provides an eleven-factor list that the Attorney General or a court may use to determine if a website is indeed covered, which includes malleable and broad-ranging considerations like ‘[d]esign elements’ and ‘[l]anguage.’ All of the listed considerations are undefined,” Marbley wrote.

Moreover, the law has what Marbley called “an eyebrow-raising exception for ‘established’ and ‘widely recognized’ media outlets whose ‘primary purpose’ is to ‘report news and current events.'” Marbley wrote that the law “provides no guardrails or signposts for determining which media outlets are ‘established’ and ‘widely recognized.’ Such capacious and subjective language practically invites arbitrary application of the law.”

DeWine said he was disappointed by the court’s ruling “and hope[s] it will be lifted as the case further proceeds so these important protections for children can take effect.” Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted said that Big Tech companies “were included in the legislative process to make sure the law was clear and easy to implement” but “were disingenuous participants in the process and have no interest in protecting children.”

“The negative effects that social media sites and apps have on our children’s mental health have been well documented, and this law was one way to empower parents to have a role in their kids’ digital lives,” DeWine said.

In a statement praising the judge’s ruling, NetChoice said the Ohio law “violates constitutional rights and rips away a parent’s authority to care for their child as they find appropriate.”

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost hasn’t submitted a written response to the NetChoice lawsuit yet, but the state made arguments during a conference on January 8. Ohio “seeks to cast the Act—and this case—as not about the First Amendment, but about the right to contract,” Marbley wrote. “At the Rule 65.1 conference, Defendant’s counsel explained that any effect that the Act has on First Amendment rights is incidental to its primary purpose, which is to require parental consent before minors under the age of sixteen enter into contracts with the operators to which the Act applies.”

US judge blocks Ohio Republicans’ “troublingly vague” social media law Read More »

amazon-lays-off-500-twitch-employees,-hundreds-more-at-mgm-and-prime-video

Amazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video

amazon layoffs, Policy, twitch layoffs / /

More Amazon layoffs —

Twitch reportedly still unprofitable, paid over $1 billion to streamers in 2023.

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Twitch logo displayed on a phone screen.

Getty Images | NurPhoto

Amazon today is laying off 500 employees at Twitch and several hundred more at its MGM and Prime Video divisions, the company announced. The 500 job cuts at Twitch reportedly amount to 35 percent of the game-focused live-streaming platform’s staff.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced the cuts in a blog post and email to staff. “As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch,” Clancy wrote.

Twitch is reportedly still unprofitable nine years after Amazon acquired it. Meanwhile, Senior VP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins sent a memo to staff announcing the elimination of “several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization.”

Amazon is also aiming to boost Prime Video revenue by showing ads to viewers unless they pay an extra $2.99 per month on top of their Amazon Prime subscription. Amazon completed an $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM in March 2022.

Amazon’s latest quarterly earnings report was issued in October. The company said its net sales “increased 13 percent to $143.1 billion in the third quarter.” Amazon’s net income rose to $9.9 billion in Q3 2023, compared to $2.9 billion in Q3 2022.

Amazon declined to answer specific questions about the layoffs but provided Ars with a copy of Hopkins’ memo. The Prime Video and MGM division has “identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact,” Hopkins wrote.

Amazon previously cut 27,000 jobs

Amazon already cut 27,000 jobs in the past year or so, including 400 at Twitch in March 2023. Amazon still had about 1.5 million full-time and part-time employees globally, excluding contractors and temporary personnel.

Previous job cuts included many roles in the Amazon hardware division that makes products, including Echo, Alexa, Fire, and Kindle devices. There were also cuts in Amazon Stores and human resources.

Clancy’s memo today said that despite previous cuts at Twitch, “it has become clear that our organization is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business. Last year we paid out over $1 billion to streamers. So while the Twitch business remains strong, for some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we’re at today.”

Today’s Twitch cuts are about “sizing our organization based upon the current scale of our business and conservative predictions of how we expect to grow in the future,” he wrote. The Twitch employees being laid off include workers in the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, and elsewhere.

Twitch recently announced plans to stop providing service in South Korea because “sending-party-pays” fees charged by network operators made it impossible to run without a significant loss in the country.

Hopkins’ memo about the Prime Video and MGM cuts said that “our industry continues to evolve quickly and it’s important that we prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business, while relentlessly focusing on what we know matters most to our customers.”

Layoff notifications were scheduled to be sent to affected employees this morning. “Notifications will be sent out shortly, and we expect all notifications in the Americas to be completed this morning (Pacific time), and most other regions by the end of the week,” Hopkins wrote.

Amazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video Read More »

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SEC says X account was hacked as false post causes bitcoin price swings

bitcoin etf, Policy, sec bitcoin, sec hack / /

Premature announcement —

X says hacker had control over phone number associated with SEC account.

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Gold coins with the bitcoin logo are pictured in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission seal.

Getty Images | Chesnot

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account was hacked yesterday and briefly displayed a post falsely announcing the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), causing an abrupt swing in bitcoin’s price.

“The @SECGov X account was compromised, and an unauthorized post was posted,” the SEC said after the hack. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.” SEC Chair Gary Gensler also confirmed the hack and said the commission had not approved bitcoin ETFs.

While the incident highlighted ongoing concerns about the security of government or organizational accounts on X, the social network formerly named Twitter said in a post on its safety account that there was no breach of its systems.

“Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party. We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised. We encourage all users to enable this extra layer of security,” X said.

We contacted the SEC and will update this article if it provides more detail on the hack and whether it plans to use two-factor authentication going forward. The SEC told other media outlets that it “will work with law enforcement and our partners across government to investigate the matter and determine appropriate next steps relating to both the unauthorized access and any related misconduct.”

Despite false post, SEC approval expected soon

Despite yesterday’s post being false, the SEC is expected to approve bitcoin ETFs soon. As Reuters wrote, “The posting came as the SEC was widely expected on Wednesday to finally approve a batch of ETFs that track the price of bitcoin, in a potential watershed moment for the crypto industry. The unauthorized post surprised the industry, with insiders scrambling to find out whether it was true and why the SEC would first publish something on social media.”

The now-deleted X post from @SECGov said, “Today the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges. The approved Bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection.” The post had an attached image with a quote from Gensler saying, “Today’s approval enhances market transparency and provides investors with efficient access to digital asset investments within a regulated framework.”

The post was followed quickly by a surge in bitcoin price, and then a drop after the SEC confirmed that the ETF approval had not happened. As CoinDesk wrote, “BTC first rallied 2.5 percent to a fresh 19-month high of $47,900… with crypto observers prematurely celebrating the landmark decision. Then, bitcoin sharply declined nearly 6 percent to as low as $45,100 when it turned out the SEC’s account was compromised and SEC Chair Gary Gensler denied the news.”

Bitcoin’s price has doubled in the past year. The Wall Street Journal says the rise over the past year was partly fueled by “the expectation that approval would fuel further purchases of digital currencies.” The expected approval of bitcoin ETFs would give ordinary investors more options for buying the cryptocurrency.

“For now, everyday investors who want to buy and sell digital currencies using traditional brokerages must use futures-based bitcoin ETFs, which use derivatives contracts to provide exposure to bitcoin price moves, or products traded in the lightly regulated over-the-counter market,” the WSJ wrote.

SEC says X account was hacked as false post causes bitcoin price swings Read More »

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Regulators aren’t convinced that Microsoft and OpenAI operate independently

AI, anticompetitive behavior, Antitrust law, competition, competition and markets authority, European Commission, generative ai, microsoft, monopoly, openai, Policy, virtual worlds / /

Under Microsoft’s thumb? —

EU is fielding comments on potential market harms of Microsoft’s investments.

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Regulators aren’t convinced that Microsoft and OpenAI operate independently

European Union regulators are concerned that Microsoft may be covertly controlling OpenAI as its biggest investor.

On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced that it is currently “checking whether Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI might be reviewable under the EU Merger Regulation.”

The EC’s executive vice president in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said in the announcement that rapidly advancing AI technologies are “disruptive” and have “great potential,” but to protect EU markets, a forward-looking analysis scrutinizing antitrust risks has become necessary.

Hoping to thwart predictable anticompetitive risks, the EC has called for public comments. Regulators are particularly keen to hear from policy experts, academics, and industry and consumer organizations who can identify “potential competition issues” stemming from tech companies partnering to develop generative AI and virtual world/metaverse systems.

The EC worries that partnerships like Microsoft and OpenAI could “result in entrenched market positions and potential harmful competition behavior that is difficult to address afterwards.” That’s why Vestager said that these partnerships needed to be “closely” monitored now—”to ensure they do not unduly distort market dynamics.”

Microsoft has denied having control over OpenAI.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars that, rather than stifling competition, since 2019, the tech giant has “forged a partnership with OpenAI that has fostered more AI innovation and competition, while preserving independence for both companies.”

But ever since Sam Altman was bizarrely ousted by OpenAI’s board, then quickly reappointed as OpenAI’s CEO—joining Microsoft for the brief time in between—regulators have begun questioning whether recent governance changes mean that Microsoft’s got more control over OpenAI than the companies have publicly stated.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment. Last year, OpenAI confirmed that “it remained independent and operates competitively,” CNBC reported.

Beyond the EU, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and reportedly the US Federal Trade Commission have also launched investigations into Microsoft’s OpenAI investments. On January 3, the CMA ended its comments period, but it’s currently unclear whether significant competition issues were raised that could trigger a full-fledged CMA probe.

A CMA spokesperson declined Ars’ request to comment on the substance of comments received or to verify how many comments were received.

Antitrust legal experts told Reuters that authorities should act quickly to prevent “critical emerging technology” like generative AI from being “monopolized,” noting that before launching a probe, the CMA will need to find evidence showing that Microsoft’s influence over OpenAI materially changed after Altman’s reappointment.

The EC is also investigating partnerships beyond Microsoft and OpenAI, questioning whether agreements “between large digital market players and generative AI developers and providers” may impact EU market dynamics.

Microsoft observing OpenAI board meetings

In total, Microsoft has pumped $13 billion into OpenAI, CNBC reported, which has a somewhat opaque corporate structure. OpenAI’s parent company, Reuters reported in December, is a nonprofit, which is “a type of entity rarely subject to antitrust scrutiny.” But in 2019, as Microsoft started investing billions into the AI company, OpenAI also “set up a for-profit subsidiary, in which Microsoft owns a 49 percent stake,” an insider source told Reuters. On Tuesday, a nonprofit consumer rights group, the Public Citizen, called for California Attorney General Robert Bonta to “investigate whether OpenAI should retain its non-profit status.”

A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters that the source’s information was inaccurate, reiterating that the terms of Microsoft’s agreement with OpenAI are confidential. Microsoft has maintained that while it is entitled to OpenAI’s profits, it does not own “any portion” of OpenAI.

After OpenAI’s drama with Altman ended with an overhaul of OpenAI’s board, Microsoft appeared to increase its involvement with OpenAI by receiving a non-voting observer role on the board. That’s what likely triggered lawmaker’s initial concerns that Microsoft “may be exerting control over OpenAI,” CNBC reported.

The EC’s announcement comes days after Microsoft confirmed that Dee Templeton would serve as the observer on OpenAI’s board, initially reported by Bloomberg.

Templeton has spent 25 years working for Microsoft and is currently vice president for technology and research partnerships and operations. According to Bloomberg, she has already attended OpenAI board meetings.

Microsoft’s spokesperson told Ars that adding a board observer was the only recent change in the company’s involvement in OpenAI. An OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC that Microsoft’s board observer has no “governing authority or control over OpenAI’s operations.”

By appointing Templeton as a board observer, Microsoft may simply be seeking to avoid any further surprises that could affect its investment in OpenAI, but the CMA has suggested that Microsoft’s involvement in the board may have created “a relevant merger situation” that could shake up competition in the UK if not appropriately regulated.

Regulators aren’t convinced that Microsoft and OpenAI operate independently Read More »

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FCC plans shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program as GOP withholds funding

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Discounts on the way out —

FCC must start winding down low-income program as Congress fails to add money.

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FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel pictured at an event.

Enlarge / FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at the National Press Club on September 19, 2022.

Getty Images | Tom Williams

The Federal Communications Commission is about to start winding down a program that gives $30 monthly broadband discounts to people with low incomes, and says it will have to complete the shutdown by May if Congress doesn’t provide more funding.

The 2-year-old Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was created by Congress, and Democrats have been pushing for more funding to keep it going. But Republican members of Congress blasted the ACP last month, accusing the FCC of being “wasteful.”

In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed. They threatened to withhold funding and criticized what they called the “Biden administration’s reckless spending spree.” The letter was sent by the highest-ranking Republicans on committees with oversight responsibility over the ACP, namely Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio).

With no resolution in sight, the FCC announced that it would have to start sending out notices about the program’s expected demise. “With less than four months before the projected program end date and without any immediate additional funding, this week the Commission expects to begin taking steps to start winding down the program to give households, providers, and other stakeholders sufficient time to prepare,” the FCC said in an announcement yesterday.

The Biden administration has requested $6 billion to fund the program through December 2024. As of now, the FCC said it “expects funding to last through April 2024, running out completely in May.”

FCC to stop enrolling new households

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has repeatedly asked Congress for more ACP funding, and sent a letter to lawmakers yesterday in which she repeated her plea. The chairwoman’s letter said that 23 million households are enrolled in the discount program.

“If Congress does not provide additional funding for the ACP in the near future, millions of households will lose the ACP benefit that they use to afford Internet service,” Rosenworcel wrote. “This also means that roughly 1,700 Internet service providers will be affected by the termination of the ACP and may cut off service to households no longer supported by the program.”

Since no funding has been added, Rosenworcel said the FCC will soon have to “announce a date for stopping the enrollment of new households in the ACP.”

“While this step will preclude additional households from benefiting from this important program, it is necessary to slow the depletion of the remaining funding and reduce volatility in the program. This step will also stabilize the number of households affected by the end of the ACP and reduce consumer confusion,” Rosenworcel wrote.

The FCC will give ISPs “guidance on the timing and requirements for notifying participating households about the projected end of the ACP,” she wrote. “To avoid consumer confusion and minimize the risk of consumer bill shock, providers must give consumers specific, frequent notice about the projected end of the program and their ACP discount, and how that will impact their Internet bill.”

Rosenworcel warned that the impending ACP shutoff “would undermine the historic $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program,” a different program created by Congress to subsidize ISPs’ expansion of broadband networks throughout the US. The discount and deployment programs complement each other because “the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas,” Rosenworcel wrote.

GOP support needed to keep program alive

GOP support is needed to keep the program alive, given the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Rosenworcel defended the program at a recent House hearing, and her testimony was criticized by Republicans who disputed her statement that households would be “unplugged” from the Internet without continued discounts.

“While you have repeatedly claimed that the ACP is necessary for connecting participating households to the Internet, it appears the vast majority of tax dollars have gone to households that already had broadband prior to the subsidy,” the Republicans’ December 2023 letter to Rosenworcel said.

That may be partly explained by the fact that many ACP recipients were getting a different discount under a predecessor program that ended once the ACP was implemented. The $30 monthly ACP benefit replaced the previous $50 monthly subsidy from the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program that started enrolling users in May 2021.

A household is eligible for the ACP if its income is at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines or if it participates in other federal assistance programs such as Medicaid or the Free and Reduced-Price School Lunch Program. Losing the $30 monthly discount could force families to choose between broadband and other necessities, the White House said when it asked Congress for more ACP funding.

FCC plans shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program as GOP withholds funding Read More »