Oh joy…
https://www.bespacific.com/anyone-with-an-iphone-can-now-make-deepfakes/
Anyone with an iPhone can now make deepfakes
Washington Post – “We aren’t ready for what happens next. Realistic videos of people doing things that never really happened have become shockingly easy to create. Now is the time to put in some guardrails. The past few months have brought advances in this controversial technology that I knew were coming, but am still shocked to see. A few years ago, deepfake videos — named after the “deep learning” artificial intelligence used to generate faces — required a Hollywood studio or at least a crazy powerful computer. Then around 2020 came apps, like one called Reface, that let you map your own face onto a clip of a celebrity. Now with a single source photo and zero technical expertise, an iPhone app called Avatarify lets you actually control the face of another person like a puppet. Using your phone’s selfie camera, whatever you do with your own face happens on theirs. Avatarify doesn’t make videos as sophisticated as pro fakes of Tom Cruise that have been flying on social network TikTok — but it has been downloaded more than 6 million times since February alone. (See for yourself in the video I made on my phone to accompany this column.) Another app for iPhone and Android devices called Wombo turns a straight-on photo into a funny lip-sync music video. It generated 100 million clips just in its first two weeks…”
Would this be covered by existing ‘Good Samaritan’ laws? If not, let’s craft a law that will cover good people acting ethically.
https://www.databreaches.net/engineer-reports-data-leak-to-apperta-hears-from-the-police/
Engineer reports data leak to Apperta, hears from the police
Ax Sharma reports another troubling instance of “Shoot the Messenger:” threatening or blaming those who responsibly disclose leaks that they discover. This episode appears to be brought to us via Apperta Foundation.
Earlier this month, Dyke had discovered an exposed GitHub repository exposing passwords, API keys, and sensitive financial records which belonged to Apperta Foundation.
On discovering this GitHub repository which, the engineer says, was public since at least 2019, the engineer privately reported it to Apperta, and got thanked by them.
On March 9th, however, he received legal correspondence from Apperta’s lawyers, leading him to hire his own solicitors to represent him.
Furthermore, an email followed yesterday from a Northumbria Police cyber investigator in relation to a report of “Computer Misuse.”
Read more on BleepingComputer.
How to win friends and influence people. NOT!
https://www.makeuseof.com/facebook-rules-call-death-public-figures/
Facebook Rules Say It's OK to Call for the Death of Public Figures
Facebook allows users to allude to a public figure's death, as long as the figure isn't "purposefully exposed" to it.
Trying to keep up. [CPRA is the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 ]
https://www.pogowasright.org/new-york-considering-dramatic-expansion-of-consumer-privacy-rights/
New York Considering Dramatic Expansion of Consumer Privacy Rights
Delonie A. Plummer, Damon W. Silver and Jeffrey M. Schlossberg of JacksonLewis write:
In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which provides for an expansive array of privacy rights and obligations, was enacted. At the time, it was reasonable to wonder whether California’s bold example would catalyze similar activity in other states. It’s clear now that it has. Virginia recently passed its own robust privacy law, the Consumer Data Protection Act (“CDPA”), and New York, as well as other states, like Florida, appear poised to follow suit. (Building on its own momentum, California passed another privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CPRA”), last November, which expands the rights and obligations established by the CCPA).
Read more on Workplace Privacy, Data Management & Security Report
I say it’s none of your business.
This is what happens when ICE asks Google for your user information
… In one email The Times reviewed, Google notified the recipient that the company received a request from the Department of Homeland Security to turn over information related to their Google account. (The recipient shared the email on the condition of anonymity due to concern about immigration enforcement). That account may be attached to Gmail, YouTube, Google Photos, Google Pay, Google Calendar and other services and apps.
The email, sent from Google’s Legal Investigations Support team, notified the recipient that Google may hand over personal information to DHS unless it receives within seven days a copy of a court-stamped motion to quash the request.
The next step in Insurance monitors.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35916314/crash-reconstruction-japan-revealed/
AI-Powered Automatic Crash Reconstruction Goes Live in Japan
In not-at-all-creepy news from Japan, more than 200,000 drivers are now using an automatic crash reconstruction system that combines cameras, sensors and good old-fashioned artificial intelligence to make sense of car accidents. No more pointing fingers and claiming it's the other guy's fault when you blithely change lanes in your Mitsuoka Galue and ram some innocent in a Suzuki Alto Lapin Turbo straight into the guardrail on the Bayshore Route to Ichikawa. Because that Lapin Turbo, in addition to its 60 horsepower and inimitable style, might be packing a Nexar AI crash reconstruction system. In which case, the computer will combine camera footage and information from the car's sensors to draw its own conclusions—as well as alert the authorities the moment things go wrong.
… This seems like a natural outgrowth of programs like Progressive Snapshot, wherein you share vehicle data with your insurance company in hopes for a discount—except, in Japan, the drivers pay a subscription fee of "less than $10 per month" for the system. (It speaks to our cultural differences that the underlying premise there is proving innocence, which is something you'd pay for.) Until now, the crash reconstruction equipment was part of a pilot program, but its success prompted Nexar and MSI to roll it out to the general public.
… "You'll be able to walk into a courtroom and see a 3D AR crash scene. And with an autonomous car, a system like this would be required, because there'll be a need for proof." If cars end up driving themselves, they'll also be the witnesses. And if a car can create a 3D representation of the world in real time as it's driving, it won't be a major leap to generate a detailed replay after an accident.
Got cash? Get patent! (Keep your AI poor!)
https://sifted.eu/articles/ai-generated-inventions-patentable/
Are AI-generated inventions patentable?
… The best way to provide adequate protection to such works would be the creation of a unique right, similar to the exclusive right of the maker of a database to reproduce and distribute the database in whole, or qualitatively or quantitatively substantial parts thereof.
Such a one-of-a-kind right should be afforded to both the algorithm and the designs it generates. This right should not require an invention or the creation of a work of authorship by a human, but only a sizeable investment in the software that created the algorithms that determine the shape and other properties of the final product they create. The owner of such a unique right will be the individual or legal entity that made the investment — only the investor will have the exclusive right to tweak the algorithm and/or use and exploit a product design generated by the algorithm.
(Related) kind of…
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/responsible-machine-learning-that-protects-trade-secrets/
Responsible machine learning can still protect intellectual property – here’s how
Perspective?
https://www.bespacific.com/artificial-intelligence-and-the-right-to-data-protection/
Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Data Protection
Poscher, Ralf, Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Data Protection (January 19, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3769159 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3769159
“One way in which the law is often related to new technological developments is as an external restriction. Lawyers are frequently asked whether a new technology is compatible with the law. This implies an asymmetry between technology and the law. Technology appears dynamic, the law stable. We know, however, that this image of the relationship between technology and the law is skewed. The right to data protection itself is an innovative reaction to the law from the early days of mass computing and automated data processing. The paper explores how an essential aspect of AI-technologies, their lack of transparency, might support a different understanding of the right to data protection. From this different perspective, the right to data protection is not regarded as a fundamental right of its own but rather as a doctrinal enhancement of each fundamental right against the abstract dangers of digital data collection and processing. This understanding of the right to data protection shifts the perspective from the individual data processing operation to the data processing system and the abstract dangers connected with it. The systems would not be measured by how they can avoid or justify the processing of some personal data but by the effectiveness of the mechanisms employed to avert the abstract dangers associated with a specific system. This shift in perspective should also allow an assessment of AI-systems despite their lack of transparency.”
I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you.
Harvard Study – Work from home more appealing than return to ‘business as usual’
USA Today – “Despite potentially longer hours, most Americans enjoy working remotely and want the option to keep doing so post-pandemic, according to a new Harvard Business School Online survey. As COVID-19 forced countless companies to let employees work remotely and presented new challenges such as readjusting their home life and fighting Zoom fatigue from numerous virtual meetings, most of the 1,500 people surveyed say they excelled and even grew in their professions. “I think it’s a combination of factors, like a Jekyll and Hyde, so to speak,” said Patrick Mullane, the school’s executive director. “We love working remotely in some ways; it gives us more time to focus, spend time with our families, and no long commutes back and forth to work. “We found out that we can do a lot without having to be face-to-face as COVID really forced that issue,” Mullane said…”
(Related) Dilbert on the joy of working from home.
https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-03-25
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