Policy

apple-watch-redesigned-without-blood-oxygen-monitoring-to-avoid-import-ban

Apple Watch redesigned without blood oxygen monitoring to avoid import ban

Apple, apple watch, patent infringement, Policy, smartwatch, Tech / /

Masimo patent battle —

Apple preps update should patent-infringing Watch Series 9, Ultra 2 be banned again.

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Apple Watch Series 9

Enlarge / The Apple Watch Series 9.

Apple

Apple has developed a backup plan for if the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 are import banned again. As it currently appeals the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC’s) ruling that its watches violate a patent owned by Masimo, Apple has come up with a software workaround that strips its current smartwatches of their controversial blood oxygen monitoring capabilities.

In January 2023, the ITC ruled that the Watch violated one of California-headquartered Masimo’s light-based pulse oximetry patents. The Apple Watch Series 6, which came out in 2020, was the first Apple smartwatch to use a pulse oximeter sensor.

Facing a US import ban of the current Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2, both released in September 2023, Apple started pulling the smartwatches on December 21. But on December 27, Apple, which filed its appeal against the ITC’s ruling on December 26 (after US President Joe Biden declined to overrule the ITC ruling), received an emergency interim stay from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, allowing it to continue selling the Watch.

On Monday, Masimo sent a letter [PDF] to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as spotted by 9to5Mac, stating that US Customs and Border Protection decided on January 12 that Apple has redesigned the Watches so that they do not contain pulse oximetry functionality.

Apple accomplished this through a “software workaround” for smartwatches recently shipped to its physical stores, according to a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman on Monday. However, the stores will not sell the redesigned watches until Apple headquarters tells them to, Bloomberg reported.

The publication noted that Apple will probably only release the Watches that can’t monitor blood oxygen levels if the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denies Apple’s request that its stay be upheld for the duration of its appeal against the ITC ruling, which Apple expects to be at least a year, an Apple spokesperson told Ars Technica. Apple expects that ruling to come as early as today.

Currently, the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 are still available with blood oxygen monitoring, an Apple spokesperson confirmed to Ars. But Apple hasn’t confirmed how long that will be the case, jeopardizing demand and the perceived value for Apple’s latest smartwatches.

Longer term, Bloomberg also reported that Apple is developing a software update that alters the watches’ blood oxygen monitoring app and algorithms so that users can still check out their blood oxygen but without Apple infringing on any patents.

For the ITC’s part, it responded to Apple’s requests for an extended stay on the import ban in a court filing on January 10 [PDF]. It stated that Apple has provided “a weak and unconvincing case” and that the tech giant’s arguments “amount to little more than an indisputably adjudicated infringer requesting permission to continue infringing the asserted patents.”

Prospective owners of the Apple Watch who value blood oxygen monitoring should keep an eye open for the appeals court’s ruling because it could swiftly result in Apple Watches that they’re considering buying missing a key feature.

Apple Watch redesigned without blood oxygen monitoring to avoid import ban Read More »

supreme-court-denies-epic-v.-apple-petitions,-opening-up-ios-payment-options

Supreme Court denies Epic v. Apple petitions, opening up iOS payment options

App Store, Apple, Apple v Epic, epic, fortnite, gaming, Google, Policy, Supreme Court, Tech / /

Epic v. Apple —

Most of Epic’s arguments are moot now, but one point will change the App Store.

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Fortnite characters looking across the many islands and vast realm of the game.

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of iOS developers after today’s Supreme Court ruling, surveying a new landscape of payment options and subscription signaling.

Epic Games

The Supreme Court declined to hear either of the petitions resulting from the multi-year, multi-court Epic v. Apple antitrust dispute. That leaves most of Epic’s complaints about Apple’s practices unanswered, but the gaming company achieved one victory on pricing notices.

It all started in August 2020, when Epic sought to work around Apple and Google’s app stores and implemented virtual currency purchases directly inside Fortnite. The matter quickly escalated to the courts, with firms like Spotify and Microsoft backing Epic’s claim that Apple’s App Store being the only way to load apps onto an iPhone violated antitrust laws.

The matter reached trial in May 2021. The precise definitions of “games” and “marketplace” were fervently debated. Epic scored a seemingly huge victory in September 2021 when a Northern California judge demanded that Apple allow developers to offer their own payment buttons and communicate with app customers about alternate payment options. An appeals court upheld that Apple’s App Store itself wasn’t a “walled garden” that violated antitrust laws but kept the ruling that Apple had to open up its payments and messaging.

Today’s denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its “anti-steering” language anticompetitive. Links and messaging from developers should soon be able to send users to alternative payment options for apps rather than forcing them to stay entirely inside Apple’s App Store, resulting in a notable commission for Apple.

Epic’s goals to see Fortnite restored to the App Store or see third-party stores or sideloading on iPhones remain unfulfilled. This is not the case with Epic’s antitrust suit against Google, which in mid-December went strongly in Epic’s favor. With a unanimous jury verdict against Google, a judge this month will determine how to address Google’s violations—potentially including Epic’s request that it and other developers be allowed to issue their own app stores and payment systems on Android devices.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that the Supreme Court’s denial means the “battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States” and that it was a “sad outcome for all developers.” Sweeney noted that as of today, developers on Apple’s platforms can “tell US customers about better prices on the web.” And he noted that regulatory and policy actions around the world, including the upcoming EU Digital Markets Act, may have further impact.

Apple has yet to comment on today’s Supreme Court decision.

Supreme Court denies Epic v. Apple petitions, opening up iOS payment options Read More »

verizon-won’t-stop-charging-$3.30-“telco-recovery”-fee,-may-raise-it-again

Verizon won’t stop charging $3.30 “Telco Recovery” fee, may raise it again

Policy, verizon administrative charge, verizon class action settlement / /
A large Verizon logo on the outside of one of the company's stores.

Enlarge / A Verizon store in New York on July 3, 2023.

Getty Images | Bloomberg

Verizon Wireless customers may get up to $100 each as part of a $100 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over Verizon’s monthly “Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge.”

But as is typical in class-action settlements, Verizon isn’t admitting any wrongdoing. It also plans to keep charging the monthly fee and says it may raise it in the future.

Settlement notification emails with unique codes for submitting claims have been going out to eligible Verizon customers over the past week. The emails were still being distributed as of last night, so you might still be in line for a payout even if you haven’t received one yet. Postcard notices are also being sent.

Verizon’s Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge for wireless phones and other devices is $3.30 per line after being raised from $1.95 in mid-2022. It was originally called the “Administrative Charge” but was renamed to include “telco recovery” at around the same time as the price increase.

“Verizon has denied and continues to deny that it did anything wrong and that the lawsuit has any merit,” the settlement notification emails say. “Verizon states that it will continue to charge the Administrative Charge and that it has the right to increase the Administrative Charge.”

The emails direct customers to the settlement website. US-based customers “who received postpaid wireless or data services from Verizon and who were charged and paid an Administrative Charge between January 1, 2016 and November 8, 2023” are eligible and must file a claim by April 15, 2024, to receive a payment.

Verizon fee covers taxes, normal business costs

Like other vaguely explained telco fees, the Verizon charge makes the real price paid by consumers higher than the rates Verizon advertises. The fee is not mandated by the government, but Verizon tells customers that it covers regulatory obligations, taxes, and various expenses that are just part of the cost of doing business for an operator of a nationwide cellular network.

As Verizon’s website states, the charge helps cover a wide range of expenses, such as the “costs of complying with regulatory and industry obligations and programs, such as E911, wireless local number portability and wireless tower mandate costs; property taxes; and costs associated with our network, including facilities (e.g., leases), operations, maintenance and protection, and costs paid to other companies for network services.”

The class-action complaint filed in a New Jersey Superior Court alleged that “the Administrative Charge is never adequately or honestly disclosed to customers… Verizon utilizes the Administrative Charge to unlawfully charge its customers more per month for Verizon wireless services without having to advertise the higher monthly rates.”

The charge was introduced in 2005 at a rate of $0.40 per month, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit did not try to force Verizon to stop charging the fee but said Verizon should “honestly and adequately disclose the Administrative Charge and its true nature and basis in Verizon’s customer bills and in communications with Class members at or before the time the wireless services contract is created,” and reimburse users “for any and all undisclosed (or inadequately disclosed) extra-contractual fees they were forced to pay.”

Verizon won’t stop charging $3.30 “Telco Recovery” fee, may raise it again Read More »

report:-black-market-keeps-nvidia-chips-flowing-to-china-military,-government

Report: Black market keeps Nvidia chips flowing to China military, government

AI chips, biden administration, china, Chinese community part, people's liberation army, Policy, semiconductors, us chips ban / /

Out of control —

Unknown suppliers keep Nvidia’s most advanced chips within China’s reach.

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An Nvidia H100 graphics processor chip.

Enlarge / An Nvidia H100 graphics processor chip.

China is still finding ways to skirt US export controls on Nvidia chips, Reuters reported.

A Reuters review of publicly available tender documents showed that last year dozens of entities—including “Chinese military bodies, state-run artificial intelligence research institutes, and universities”—managed to buy “small batches” of restricted Nvidia chips.

The US has been attempting to block China from accessing advanced chips needed to achieve AI breakthroughs and advance modern military technologies since September 2022, citing national security risks.

Reuters’ report shows just how unsuccessful the US effort has been to completely cut off China, despite repeated US attempts to expand export controls and close any loopholes discovered over the past year.

China’s current suppliers remain “largely unknown,” but Reuters confirmed that “neither Nvidia” nor its approved retailers counted “among the suppliers identified.”

An Nvidia spokesperson told Reuters that the company “complies with all applicable export control laws and requires its customers to do the same.”

“If we learn that a customer has made an unlawful resale to third parties, we’ll take immediate and appropriate action,” Nvidia’s spokesperson said.

It’s also still unclear how suppliers are procuring the chips, which include Nvidia’s most powerful chips, the A100 and H100, in addition to slower modified chips developed just for the Chinese market, the A800 and H800. The former chips were among the first banned, while the US only began restricting the latter chips last October.

Among military and government groups purchasing chips were two top universities that the US Department of Commerce has linked to China’s principal military force, the People’s Liberation Army, and labeled as a threat to national security. Last May, the Harbin Institute of Technology purchased six Nvidia A100 chips to “train a deep-learning model,” and in December 2022, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China purchased one A100 for purposes so far unknown, Reuters reported.

Other entities purchasing chips include Tsinghua University—which is seemingly gaining the most access, purchasing “some 80 A100 chips since the 2022 ban”—as well as Chongqing University, Shandong Chengxiang Electronic Technology, and “one unnamed People’s Liberation Army entity based in the city of Wuxi, Jiangsu province.”

In total, Reuters reviewed more than 100 tenders showing state entities purchasing A100 chips and dozens of tenders documenting A800 purchases. Purchases include “brand new” chips and have been made as recently as this month.

Most of the chips purchased by Chinese entities are being used for AI, Reuters reported. None of the purchasers or suppliers provided comments in Reuters’ report.

Nvidia’s highly sought-after chips are graphic processing units capable of crunching large amounts of data at the high speeds needed to fuel AI systems. For now, these chips remain irreplaceable to Chinese firms hoping to compete globally, as well as nationally, with China’s dominant technology players, such as Huawei, Reuters suggested.

While the “small batches” of chips found indicate that China could still be accessing enough Nvidia chips to enhance “existing AI models,” Reuters pointed out that US curbs are effectively stopping China from bulk-ordering chips at quantities needed to develop new AI systems. Running a “model similar to OpenAI’s GPT would require more than 30,000 Nvidia A100 cards,” research firm TrendForce reported last March.

For China, which has firmly opposed the US export controls every step of the way, these curbs remain a persistent problem despite maintaining access through the burgeoning black market. On Monday, a Bloomberg report flagged the “steepest drop” in the value of China chip imports ever recorded, falling by more than 15 percent.

China’s black market for AI chips

The US still must confront whether it’s possible to block China from accessing advanced chips without other allied nations joining the effort by lobbying their own export controls.

In October 2022, a senior US official warned that without more cooperation, US curbs will “lose effectiveness over time.” A former top Commerce Department official, Kevin Wolf, told The Wall Street Journal last year that it’s “insanely difficult to enforce” US export controls on transactions overseas.

Part of the problem, sources told Reuters in October 2023, is that overseas subsidiaries were “easily” smuggling restricted chips into China or else providing remote access to chips to China-based employees.

On top of that activity, a black market for chips developed quickly, selling “excess stock that finds its way to the market after Nvidia ships large quantities to big US firms” or else chips imported “through companies locally incorporated in places such as India, Taiwan, and Singapore,” Reuters reported.

The US has maintained that its plan is not to ensure that China has absolutely no access but to limit access enough to keep China from getting ahead. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that curbs could have the opposite effect. While China finds ways to skirt the bans and acquire chips to “inspire” advancements, US companies that have been impacted by export controls restricting sales in China could lose so much revenue that they fall behind competitively, Huang predicted.

One example likely worrying to Huang and other tech firms came last November, when Huawei shocked the US government by unveiling a cutting-edge chip that seemed to prove US sanctions weren’t doing much to limit China’s ability to compete.

Report: Black market keeps Nvidia chips flowing to China military, government Read More »

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 »

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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 »

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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 »