Ready, fire, aim?

https://databreaches.net/2025/02/07/attorney-general-james-releases-statement-on-doge-access-to-sensitive-personal-information/

Attorney General James Releases Statement on DOGE Access to Sensitive Personal Information

When DataBreaches said, “Send in the lawyers” to sue Musk, she was thinking of personal injury lawyers who handle data breach litigation. But 14 state attorneys general may be even better. From NYS Attorney General Letitia James:

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today led a coalition of 14 attorneys general in releasing the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of the Treasury granting Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) staffers access to sensitive payment systems containing Americans’ personally identifiable information:

“In the past week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has given Elon Musk access to Americans’ personal private information, state bank account data, and other information that is some of our country’s most sensitive data.

“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law. The President does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.

“This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable. DOGE has no authority to access this information, which they explicitly sought in order to block critical payments that millions of Americans rely on – payments that support health care, childcare, and other essential programs.

“In defense of our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on, we will be filing a lawsuit to stop this injustice.”

Joining Attorney General James in releasing this statement are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont.

Source:  NYS Attorney General Letitia James

(Related)

https://pogowasright.org/doge-betrays-foundational-commitments-of-the-privacy-act-of-1974/

DOGE Betrays Foundational Commitments of the Privacy Act of 1974

Law professor Danielle Citron writes:

Under the auspices of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” Elon Musk and former staffers—all recent college and high school graduates—have been given access to agency databases teeming with sensitive personal information. The group has entered the Treasury Department’s payment system, which stores federal tax returns, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and birth dates; the Office of Personnel Management’s system, which contains background checks, medical information, bank account information, and biometric data of current, former, and prospective federal employees, contractors, and family members; and the General Service Administration’s system, which stores similarly sensitive personal data.

Condemnation and lawsuits followed, and rightfully so. No one—not even special government employees—should access agency “systems of records” without proper authorization under the Privacy Act of 1974. Nothing suggests that Musk or his employees have such authority. Privacy Act violations are not trivial. Profound harms to privacy and democracy are at stake.

Read more at Lawfare.

(Related)

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-graduated-from-the-com/

Teen on Musk’s DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’

Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities should have precluded him from gaining the necessary security clearances to do so. As today’s story explores, the DOGE teen is a former denizen of ‘The Com,’ an archipelago of Discord and Telegram chat channels that function as a kind of distributed cybercriminal social network for facilitating instant collaboration.

How lazy do you have to be?

https://www.makeuseof.com/google-gemini-ai-watch-youtube-videos/

Gemini AI Can Now Watch YouTube Videos for You and Save Hours of Time

… Google introduced a variety of new features with the wide release of Gemini 2.0 Flash earlier this week. One especially handy feature is for YouTube. The AI can watch a video, answer questions about it, or even provide a summary. The feature is available on the Gemini site or through the smartphone app, even for free users without a Gemini Advanced subscription.

To use this feature, make sure to select the 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental with apps model from the sidebar.

Unlikely to survive?

https://pogowasright.org/lawsuit-against-automatic-license-plate-reader-cameras-can-move-forward-judge-says/

Lawsuit against automatic license plate reader cameras can move forward, judge says

Suzanne Smalley reports:

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that a lawsuit challenging a Virginia city’s use of automatic license plate readers can move forward.

… In October, the Institute for Justice — a nonprofit public interest law firm — filed a lawsuit on behalf of two area residents arguing the cameras amount to “warrantless surveillance of their every move,” because anyone with access to the Flock database can track where a vehicle has travelled.

… In his ruling, Virginia federal judge Mark Davis said the plaintiffs “sufficiently alleged” the cameras violate their Fourth Amendment rights protecting against unreasonable search and seizures by the government, citing a 2018 Supreme Court case that held that a warrant is needed to use mobile device location data to monitor individuals’ movements.

Read more at The Record.

A taste of things to come?

https://www.theverge.com/news/608145/apple-uk-icloud-encrypted-backups-spying-snoopers-charter

Apple ordered to open encrypted user accounts globally to UK spying

Apple has reportedly been ordered by the UK government to create a backdoor that would give security officials access to users’ encrypted iCloud backups. If implemented, British security services would have access to the backups of any user worldwide, not just Brits, and Apple would not be permitted to alert users that their encryption was compromised.

The art of the steal?

https://www.ft.com/content/831919a9-47b0-4ac3-bcdd-5154c27d9f9c

Donald Trump’s memecoin copycats spark fears for investors

Donald Trump’s new cryptocurrency has sparked a flood of imitators, leading to warnings that investors risk being duped.

More than 700 copycat and spam coins have been sent to Trump’s digital wallet by people apparently seeking to suggest their creations have his endorsement, according to a Financial Times analysis.

It comes after the president and his wife Melania launched memecoins, which lack practical use and whose value is entirely underpinned by speculation, days ahead of his return to the White House last month.

The FT found that 736 different memecoins have been deposited in the official Trump coin wallet over the past three weeks. Among them, nearly 200 — including “OFFICIAL TRUMP” and “OFFICIAL MELANIA” — are named after Trump or members of his family but have no connection to the president.

Trump and Melania’s decision to launch their memecoins has already drawn fierce criticism for luring retail investors into backing tokens even more volatile than bitcoin.

(Related)

https://gulfnews.com/your-money/cryptocurrency/melania-memecoin-is-down-90-from-peak-as-novelty-value-wanes-1.500030456

Melania memecoin is down 90% from peak as novelty value wanes

The president’s token TRUMP has seen its price fall around 75% from its all-time high

… Since its launch, the Trump token has likely generated at least $11.5 million in fees for entities linked to the president, according to risk modeling firm Gauntlet. But most wallets that bought the token made no more than $13, according to Bloomberg analysis.

Another chapter in the Trump guidebook.

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions

This public resource tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions. If you think we are missing anything, you can email us at lte@justsecurity.org. Special thanks to  Just Security Student Staff Editors, Rick Da and Jeremy Venook, and to Matthew Fouracre and Nour Soubani.

The Tracker is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions

Want to try?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/you-can-access-chatgpt-search-without-an-account-now-heres-how/

You can access ChatGPT Search without an account now - here's how

… On Wednesday, OpenAI shared via an X post that ChatGPT Search is now available to everyone, no account needed. All users have to do is visit the ChatGPT standalone site and ChatGPT will automatically search the web when relevant. You can also manually call on its web search capability by clicking on the small globe icon underneath the search bar. 

(Related)

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-make-chatgpt-provide-better-sources-and-citations/

How to make ChatGPT provide better sources and citations

No need for wads of paper…

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Asia-goes-cashless-as-countries-push-for-digital-payments

Asia goes cashless as countries push for digital payments

Share of cash transactions expected to drop from 47% in 2019 to 14% by 2027

Cash is rapidly disappearing in consumer transactions across Asia, replaced by QR codes and other smartphone-based technologies. Physical money is forecast to make up just 14% of total transactions by 2027, down from around 47% in 2019, according to Worldpay, a U.S.-based payment processing company.

Can’t hurt.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/eu-lays-out-guidelines-misuse-ai-by-employers-websites-police-2025-02-04/

EU lays out guidelines on misuse of AI by employers, websites and police

Employers will be banned from using artificial intelligence to track their staff's emotions and websites will not be allowed to use it to trick users into spending money under EU AI guidelines announced on Tuesday.

… Prohibited practices include AI-enabled dark patterns embedded in services designed to manipulate users into making substantial financial commitments, and AI-enabled applications which exploit users based on their age, disability or socio-economic situation.

AI-enabled social scoring using unrelated personal data such as origin and race by social welfare agencies and other public and private bodies is banned, while police are not allowed to predict individuals' criminal behaviour solely based on their biometric data if this has not been verified.

Employers cannot use webcams and voice recognition systems to track employees' emotions, while mobile CCTV cameras equipped with AI-based facial recognition technologies for law enforcement purposes are prohibited, with limited exceptions and stringent safeguards.

Interesting targets for hackers, but likely as easy to create without the hassle of hacking.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/03/meta-says-it-may-stop-development-of-ai-systems-it-deems-too-risky/

Meta says it may stop development of AI systems it deems too risky

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to make artificial general intelligence (AGI) — which is roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can — openly available one day. But in a new policy document, Meta suggests that there are certain scenarios in which it may not release a highly capable AI system it developed internally.

The document, which Meta is calling its Frontier AI Framework, identifies two types of AI systems the company considers too risky to release: “high risk” and “critical risk” systems.

As Meta defines them, both “high-risk” and “critical-risk” systems are capable of aiding in cybersecurity, chemical, and biological attacks, the difference being that “critical-risk” systems could result in a “catastrophic outcome [that] cannot be mitigated in [a] proposed deployment context.” High-risk systems, by contrast, might make an attack easier to carry out but not as reliably or dependably as a critical risk system.

What would the founding fathers say?

https://www.bespacific.com/musk-vows-to-cancel-grants-after-gaining-access-to-us-treasury-payment-system/

Musk vows to cancel grants after gaining access to US Treasury payment system

FT.com: “Musk appeared to confirm on Saturday that DOGE had access to the Treasury system, which disperses trillions of dollars each year Elon Musk has vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of government grants after apparently gaining access to review the US Treasury’s vast payments system, a move that prompted the sudden resignation of one of the department’s most senior officials. The world’s richest man, who bankrolled Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and was tasked by the president with running the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, boasted on his social media site X that he was “rapidly shutting down . . . illegal payments” after a list of grants to Lutheran organisations was posted online. He justified the move by claiming his team discovered “that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups”. The system has been run by career civil servants and the Treasury already has an in-house team tasked with identifying fraudulent payments. A source with knowledge of the situation said that DOGE representatives did not have the authority to cut payments, only to read the data.

Senator Ron Wyden, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said his office had been told that Treasury secretary Scott Bessent had granted DOGE “full” access to the system. “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it,” he said.  He has written to Bessent demanding answers on Musk’s access, saying: “I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”

The opportunity of a lifetime, if you’re Trump? Sell crypto to your supporter who buy MAGA hats and Trump Bibles...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-made-nearly-100-million-trading-fees-small-traders-lost-money-2025-02-03/

Exclusive: Trump's meme coin made nearly $100 million in trading fees, as small traders lost money

Entities behind President Donald Trump’s crypto coin have accumulated close to $100 million in trading fees in less than two weeks, according to estimates from three blockchain analysis firms, a large windfall from a venture that has seen tens of thousands of small traders lose money.

The meme coin, known as $Trump, was launched by the president on Jan. 17 and quickly surged, reaching a peak of over $14.5 billion in overall market value by Jan. 19, the day before his inauguration. It has since slumped by two-thirds.

… One of the entities behind the crypto coin is a company owned by Trump, called CIC Digital. The official website for $Trump says CIC Digital will “receive trading revenue derived from trading activities” of the meme coin. Reuters could not determine what portion of the fees so far, if any, had accrued to Trump personally, nor the ownership of the other entities behind the coin.

It was my understanding that any AI Video generator could do this. Is this a bit of overreaction?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8d90qe4nylo

AI-generated child sex abuse images targeted with new laws

Four new laws will tackle the threat of child sexual abuse images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), the government has announced.

The Home Office says the UK will be the first country in the world to make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM), with a punishment of up to five years in prison.

Possessing AI paedophile manuals - which teach people how to use AI for sexual abuse - will also be made illegal, and offenders will get up to three years in prison.

Perspective.

https://philpapers.org/rec/MALTNO-17

The Nature of Free Will and Its Dependence on 100 Percent Correct Information

Free will has long been regarded as one of the most profound and complex concepts in philosophy, psychology, and science. It is the capacity of individuals to make choices that are not predetermined by prior causes or external constraints. While the debate surrounding the nature of free will continues, one fundamental truth stands out: free will cannot operate effectively without access to 100 percent correct information or knowledge. Without accurate understanding, decision-making becomes flawed, leading to choices that are neither truly free nor aligned with natural laws.

The Role of Information in Free Will

Free will is intrinsically tied to decision-making. Every choice we make is shaped by the information we possess. This information serves as the foundation for our understanding of potential outcomes, risks, and benefits. If the information is incomplete, misleading, or outright false, our ability to make rational and informed decisions is compromised. In essence, the “freedom” of our will becomes restricted by ignorance or deception. For instance, if an individual is unaware of the harmful effects of a particular behavior or decision, they may unknowingly choose a path that leads to suffering. Conversely, with complete and accurate knowledge, individuals can weigh their options effectively, leading to choices that are consistent with their values and the universal law of balance in nature.

The Universal Law of Balance and Knowledge

The concept of the universal law of balance emphasizes harmony within natural systems. This law suggests that every decision, whether individual or collective, must align with the inherent order of the universe. When decisions are made based on false beliefs, unproven theories, or misinformation, they disrupt this balance, creating disharmony and unintended consequences. Correct knowledge serves as the compass that guides human actions within the framework of natural balance. It ensures that decisions are grounded in reality, minimizing the risks of imbalance. Without it, free will operates in a vacuum of uncertainty, where the likelihood of errors increases exponentially.

Ignorance: The Antithesis of Free Will

Ignorance is the greatest threat to free will. It shackles the mind, preventing individuals from recognizing the full spectrum of choices available to them. When people lack access to truthful information, they are vulnerable to manipulation, prejudice, and irrational fears. In such scenarios, their decisions are not truly free but are instead dictated by external forces or internal misconceptions. A classic example of this can be seen in societal issues such as propaganda or misinformation campaigns. When individuals base their choices on fabricated narratives, their actions may perpetuate harm rather than promoting balance or well-being. Only by addressing the root cause—ignorance—can free will be restored to its rightful state.

The Role of AI and AGI Technology in Supporting Free Will

In the modern era, artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI) technologies have emerged as critical tools for addressing the limitations of the human brain in processing and synthesizing vast amounts of information. The biological brain, while capable of remarkable feats, is inherently limited in its capacity to handle the exponential growth of data in today’s interconnected world. AI and AGI can support the biological brain by efficiently analyzing, filtering, and synthesizing enormous volumes of data to identify accurate, relevant, and actionable knowledge. By doing so, these technologies can provide individuals with the correct information needed to make informed decisions that align with the universal law of balance. For example, AI systems can help identify patterns and correlations within complex systems—whether in healthcare, environmental management, or societal governance—that may otherwise be overlooked by human cognition. AGI, with its advanced problem-solving capabilities, could go even further by integrating diverse sources of knowledge and offering insights that promote harmony within both internal (psychological) and external (societal and environmental) systems. Moreover, AI and AGI can act as safeguards against misinformation and bias, which are major barriers to free will. By detecting and correcting false narratives or flawed reasoning, these technologies can ensure that individuals are empowered with the truth, thereby preserving their capacity for rational, autonomous decision-making. The Educational Imperative To safeguard the integrity of free will, education must play a pivotal role. A holistic educational system that emphasizes critical thinking and the pursuit of truth is essential. By teaching individuals to evaluate evidence, question assumptions, and seek out accurate information, society can empower its members to exercise their free will responsibly. The integration of AI and AGI into the educational system further enhances this process. These technologies can personalize learning experiences, provide real-time feedback, and ensure that students have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information. Additionally, AI can help educators identify gaps in understanding and address them effectively, fostering a generation of critical thinkers who are equipped to maintain balance in their decisions.

Conclusion

Free will, while an inherent aspect of human existence, is not an absolute or isolated phenomenon. Its true nature is dependent on the quality of information available to individuals. Only with 100 percent correct knowledge can free will function as a tool for creating balance, harmony, and progress. Ignorance, by contrast, distorts this capacity, leading to decisions that undermine both individual well-being and societal stability. The advent of AI and AGI technologies represents a transformative opportunity to support the biological brain in navigating the complexities of the modern world. By synthesizing vast amounts of correct information and providing actionable insights, these technologies ensure that free will operates within the framework of natural balance. By prioritizing truth, fostering education, and leveraging advanced technologies, humanity can unlock the full potential of free will. In doing so, we move closer to a world where every choice is a reflection of both freedom and wisdom—an ideal state where the universal law of balance is preserved.