Are smart cops selling faulty encryption Apps to not-so-smart criminals? (Probably several)

https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/13/drug_arrests_sky_ecc/

'Top three Balkans drug kingpins' arrested after cops crack their Sky ECC chats

European police arrested three people in Belgrade described as "the biggest" drug lords in the Balkans in what cops are chalking up to another win in dismantling Sky ECC's encrypted messaging app last year.

Should we be gathering data? (Think how valuable open source scientific journals would be…)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/12/1072950/open-source-ai-google-openai-eleuther-meta/

The open-source AI boom is built on Big Tech’s handouts. How long will it last?

Greater access to the code behind generative models is fueling innovation. But if top companies get spooked, they could close up shop.

Last week a leaked memo reported to have been written by Luke Sernau, a senior engineer at Google, said out loud what many in Silicon Valley must have been whispering for weeks: an open-source free-for-all is threatening Big Tech’s grip on AI.

New open-source large language models—alternatives to Google’s Bard or OpenAI’s ChatGPT that researchers and app developers can study, build on, and modify—are dropping like candy from a piñata. These are smaller, cheaper versions of the best-in-class AI models created by the big firms that (almost) match them in performance—and they’re shared for free.

… If the trend toward closing down access continues, then not only will the open-source crowd be cut adrift—but the next generation of AI breakthroughs will be entirely back in the hands of the biggest, richest AI labs in the world.