Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Sinkholes and Site Seizures
This week, we discuss a ransomware gang, book bans, and infrastructure.
vance
'My Bad:' Babyface Vance Meme Creator On Norwegian Tourist's Detainment
404 Media spoke to Dave McNamee, the original creator of the babyface Vance meme, about free speech, our rights, and how it feels to see the thing you created being blamed for someone's denial of entry to the U.S.
News
Airline-Owned Data Broker Selling Your Flight Info to DHS Finally Registers as a Data Broker
It’s a legal requirement for data brokers to register in the state of California. ARC, the airlines-owned data broker that has been selling your flight information to the government for years, only just registered after being contacted by the office of Senator Ron Wyden.
Deepfakes
A Deepfake Nightmare: Stalker Allegedly Made Sexual AI Images of Ex-Girlfriends and Their Families
An Ohio man is accused of making violent, graphic deepfakes of women with their fathers, and of their children. Device searches revealed he searched for "undress" apps and "ai porn."
Flock
Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed
Following 404 Media’s reporting and in light of new legislation, automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock has stopped agencies reaching into cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia.
News
Balatro Ported to the Gameboy Advance’s e-Reader
A software engineer made a version of the game that runs off code printed onto a small card.
Podcast
Podcast: This Site Unmasks Cops With Facial Recognition
A tool that uses facial recognition to reveal cops' names, a big and complicated AI ruling, and the AI slop between Iran and Israel.
News
AI Models And Parents Don’t Understand ‘Let Him Cook’
LLMs are not familiar with “ate that up,” “secure the bag,” and “sigma,” showing that training data is not yet updated to Gen Alpha terminology.
AI
Judge Rules Training AI on Authors' Books Is Legal But Pirating Them Is Not
A judge rules that Anthropic's training on copyrighted works without authors' permission was a legal fair use, but that stealing the books in the first place is illegal.
platforms
Massive Creator Platform Fansly Bans Furries
Blaming payment processor restrictions, Fansly—a platform creators flocked to after OnlyFans announced it'd ban sex—announced it's changing the rules for multiple types of content.
News
‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops
A free tool that allows anyone to upload a photo of an LAPD officer to get their name and badge number.
retro
This Queer Online Zine Can Only Be Read Via an Ancient Internet Protocol
New Session publishes poetry via Telnet, rejecting the internet’s fast-paced enshittification.
AI
Meta's AI Model 'Memorized' Huge Chunks of Books, Including 'Harry Potter' and '1984'
Researchers found Meta’s popular Llama 3.1 70B has a capacity to recite passages from 'The Sorcerer's Stone' at a rate much higher than could happen by chance.