News
Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War
“White House videos—AI or otherwise—are like group-chat in-jokes aimed at keeping cohesion.”
Surveillance
eBay Removes Listing for StingRay Cellphone Spying Tech
The StingRay was listed at $100,000 before being removed for violating the platform’s policy on not selling electronic surveillance equipment.
Podcast
Podcast: Replacing 404 Media with AI
Emanuel's AI-powered ripoff news site; we listen to the music that has record labels suing startups; and chatbots have changed their personalities overnight.
News
Self Tanner and Cheap Ties: Bankruptcy Filings Reveal Rudy Giuliani's Amazon Purchases
Court documents show what the former mayor of NYC has been buying on Amazon lately, including a lot of socks, ties, and self-tanning lotion.
News
Researchers Prove Rabbit AI Breach By Sending Email to Us as Admin
The researchers claim they could see “all Rabbit R1 responses ever given."
News
ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses
As social networks and porn sites move towards a verified identity model, the actions of one cybersecurity researcher show that ID verification services themselves could get hacked too.
chatbots
‘No Bot is Themselves Anymore:’ Character.ai Users Report Sudden Personality Changes to Chatbots
The company denied making "major changes," but users report noticeable differences in the quality of their chatbot conversations.
News
California Apple Manufacturing Facility Has 19 ‘Potential Violations’ of EPA Regulations
A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that Apple also miscalculated the effectiveness of its hazardous compound air filters.
News
I Paid $365.63 to Replace 404 Media With AI
Paying a freelancer on Fiverr to create a plagiarizing ChatGPT-powered news site revealed an industry of middlemen and services trying to game Google Search.
News
Researcher Infects His Own Meta Quest VR Headset With Ransomware
A cybersecurity researcher set out to prove whether Meta’s virtual reality headset is susceptible to a certain flavor of ransomware.
Udio
Listen to the AI-Generated Ripoff Songs That Got Udio and Suno Sued
The record industry has filed a list of thousands of songs it believes have been scraped without permission, and has recreated versions of famous songs using Udio and Suno.
Has Facebook Stopped Trying?
Facebook has been overrun with AI spam and scams. Experts say Facebook has stopped asking them for help.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Presidential 'Cheapfakes' and Internet Addiction
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss Joe Biden "cheapfakes," the idea of porn-addicted tribes, and feedback.