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Feds test whether existing laws can combat surge in fake AI child sex images
Kids defenseless against AI-generated sex images as feds expand crackdown.
Cops aren’t sure how to protect kids from an ever-escalating rise in fake child sex abuse imagery fueled by advances in generative AI.
Last year, child safety experts warned of thousands of “AI-generated child sex images” rapidly spreading on the dark web around the same time the FBI issued a warning that “benign photos” of children posted online could be easily manipulated to exploit and harm kids.
So far, US prosecutors have only brought two criminal cases in 2024 attempting to use existing child pornography and obscenity laws to combat the threat, Reuters reported on Thursday. Meanwhile, as young girls are increasingly targeted by classmates in middle and high schools, at least one teen has called for a targeted federal law designed to end the AI abuse.
ULA is examining debris recovered from Vulcan rocket’s shattered booster nozzle
“I’m pretty confident… that we’ll get to the bottom of this pretty quickly and move on.”
When the exhaust nozzle on one of the Vulcan rocket’s strap-on boosters failed shortly after liftoff earlier this month, it scattered debris across the beachfront landscape just east of the launch pad on Florida’s Space Coast.
United Launch Alliance, the company that builds and launches the Vulcan rocket, is investigating the cause of the booster anomaly before resuming Vulcan flights. Despite the nozzle failure, the rocket continued its climb and ended up reaching its planned trajectory heading into deep space.
The nozzle fell off one of Vulcan’s two solid rocket boosters around 37 seconds after taking off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 4. There were some indications of a problem with the booster a few seconds earlier, as tracking cameras observed hot exhaust escaping just above the bell-shaped nozzle, which is bolted to the bottom of the booster casing.
Meta fires staffers for using $25 meal credits on household goods
Some workers pooled their money or had meals delivered to their homes.
Meta has fired about two dozen staff in Los Angeles for using their $25 meal credits to buy household items including acne pads, wine glasses, and laundry detergent.
The terminations took place last week, just days before the $1.5 trillion social media company separately began restructuring certain teams across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, its augmented and virtual reality arm, on Tuesday.
The revamp has included cutting some staff and relocating others, several people familiar with the decisions said, in a sign that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recent efficiency drive is still under way.
Duo accused of DDoSing some of the world’s biggest tech companies
Hospitals, government agencies, and a large roster of tech companies all targeted.
Federal authorities have charged two Sudanese nationals with running an operation that performed tens of thousands of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against some of the world’s biggest technology companies, as well as critical infrastructure and government agencies.
The service, branded as Anonymous Sudan, directed powerful and sustained DDoSes against Big Tech companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Riot Games, PayPal, Steam, Hulu, Netflix, Reddit, GitHub, and Cloudflare. Other targets included CNN.com, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the US departments of Justice, Defense and State, the FBI, and government websites for the state of Alabama. Other attacks targeted sites or servers located in Europe.
Two brothers, Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer, 22, and Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer, 27, were both charged with one count of conspiracy to damage protected computers. Ahmed Salah was also charged with three counts of damaging protected computers. Among the allegations is that one of the brothers attempted to “knowingly and recklessly cause death.” If convicted on all charges, Ahmed Salah would face a maximum of life in federal prison, and Alaa Salah would face a maximum of five years in federal prison.
Scientists found human hairs in teeth of 19th century lions
“Tsavo Man-Eaters” killed dozens of people in late 1890s, including Kenya-Uganda Railway workers.
For several months in 1898, a pair of male lions turned the Tsavo region of Kenya into their own human hunting grounds, killing many construction workers who were building the Kenya-Uganda railway. A team of scientists has now identified exactly what kinds of prey the so-called “Tsavo Man-Eaters” fed upon, based on DNA analysis of hairs collected from the lions’ teeth, according to a recent paper published in the journal Current Biology. They found evidence of various species the lions had consumed, including humans.
The British began construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in March 1898, with Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson leading the project. But mere days after Patterson arrived on site, workers started disappearing or being killed. The culprits: two maneless male lions, so emboldened that they often dragged workers from their tents at night to eat them. At their peak, they were killing workers almost daily—including an attack on the district officer, who narrowly escaped with claw lacerations on his back. (His assistant, however, was killed.)
Patterson finally managed to shoot and kill one of the lions on December 9 and the second 20 days later. The lion pelts decorated Patterson’s home as rugs for 25 years before being sold to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History in 1924. The skins were restored and used to reconstruct the lions, which are now on permanent display at the museum, along with their skulls.
X’s depressing ad revenue helps Musk avoid EU’s strictest antitrust law
X invoked tanking ad revenue to remove threat of DMA gatekeeper designation.
Following an investigation, Elon Musk’s X has won its fight to avoid gatekeeper status under the European Union’s strict competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
On Wednesday, the European Commission (EC) announced that “X does indeed not qualify as a gatekeeper in relation to its online social networking service, given that the investigation revealed that X is not an important gateway for business users to reach end users.”
Since March, X had strongly opposed the gatekeeper designation by arguing that although X connects advertisers to more than 45 million monthly users, it does not have a “significant impact” on the EU’s internal market, a case filing showed.
There’s another massive meat recall over Listeria—and it’s a doozy
No cases reported so far, but officials are scrambling to track tainted products.
Another nationwide meat recall is underway over Listeria contamination—and its far more formidable than the last.
As of October 15, meat supplier BrucePac, of Durant, Oklahoma, is recalling 11.8 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products after routine federal safety testing found Listeria monocytogenes, a potentially deadly bacterium, in samples of the company’s poultry. The finding triggered an immediate recall, which was first issued on October 9. But, officials are still working to understand the extent of the contamination—and struggling to identify the hundreds of potentially contaminated products.
“Because we sell to other companies who resell, repackage, or use our products as ingredients in other foods, we do not have a list of retail products that contain our recalled items,” BrucePac said in a statement updated October 15.
Student was punished for using AI—then his parents sued teacher and administrators
Parents claim there was no rule banning AI, but school cites multiple policies.
A school district in Massachusetts was sued by a student’s parents after the boy was punished for using an artificial intelligence chatbot to complete an assignment. The lawsuit says the Hingham High School student handbook did not include a restriction on the use of AI.
“They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened,” Jennifer Harris told WCVB. “They basically punished him for a rule that doesn’t exist.”
Jennifer and her husband, Dale, filed the lawsuit in Plymouth County Superior Court, and the case was then moved to US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Defendants include the superintendent, principal, a teacher, the history department head, and the Hingham School Committee.
FTC “click to cancel” rule seeks to end free trial traps, sneaky auto-enrollments
No more jumping through endless hoops to cancel subscriptions, FTC rule says.
It will soon be easy to “click to cancel” subscriptions after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) adopted a final rule on Wednesday that makes it challenging for businesses to opt out of easy cancellation methods.
“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” FTC chair Lina Khan said in a press release. “The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”
The heart of the new rule requires businesses to provide simple ways to cancel subscriptions. Under the rule, any subscription that can be signed up for online must be able to be canceled online. And cancellation paths for in-person sign-ups must be just as easy, offered either by phone or online.
Amazon the latest tech giant to announce investments in nuclear
What’s with the sudden interest in nuclear power among tech titans?
On Tuesday, Google announced that it had made a power purchase agreement for electricity generated by a small modular nuclear reactor design that hasn’t even received regulatory approval yet. Today, it’s Amazon’s turn. The company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) group has announced three different investments, including one targeting a different startup that has its own design for small, modular nuclear reactors and one that has not yet received regulatory approval.
Unlike Google’s deal, which is a commitment to purchase power should the reactors ever be completed, Amazon will lay out some money upfront as part of the agreements. We’ll take a look at the deals and technology that Amazon is backing before analyzing why companies are taking a risk on unproven technologies.
Money for utilities and a startup
Two of Amazon’s deals are with utilities that serve areas where it already has a significant data center footprint. One of these is Energy Northwest, which is an energy supplier that sends power to utilities in the Pacific Northwest. Amazon is putting up the money for Energy Northwest to study the feasibility of adding small modular reactors to its Columbia Generating Station, which currently houses a single, large reactor. In return, Amazon will get the right to purchase power from an initial installation of four small modular reactors. The site could potentially support additional reactors, which Energy Northwest would be able to use to meet demands from other users.