What does the new age of surveillance mean for the work of investigative journalists? Last year, I was preparing to fly from London to a country in the Middle East for a sensitive reporting trip. I wasn’t worried about my own safety – but now I have to take extraordinary measures to protect the security of my data.
Bringing my own laptop or personal phone was out of the question. Instead I bought a completely new phone. I made sure not to sign into any of my accounts from the phone, and I did not save any numbers in the blank address book. Before I left, I created a temporary email address specifically for this trip, where sources could reach me.
Counterintelligence in journalism used to be the domain of reporters digging into matters of national security or liaising with sensitive government whistleblowers; but increasingly those tactics are necessary across the board. Read More
Daily Archives: July 26, 2021
Researchers Hid Malware Inside an AI’s ‘Neurons’ And It Worked Scarily Well
In a proof-of-concept, researchers reported they could embed malware in up to half of an AI model’s nodes and still obtain very high accuracy.
Neural networks could be the next frontier for malware campaigns as they become more widely used, according to a new study.
According to the study, which was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Monday, malware can be embedded directly into the artificial neurons that make up machine learning models in a way that keeps them from being detected. The neural network would even be able to continue performing its set tasks normally. Read More
The Metaverse: A brave, new (virtual) world
If we accept the premise that on the Internet “if you’re not paying, you’re the product”, in the Metaverse you will become a walking — talking billboard.
Intro: Video games now
Amongst the changes that “lockdowns” and “new normality” have brought, there is a revalorization of digital interactions as valuable and meaningful. Ironically, what was once regarded as isolationist or a poor substitute for “real life” (an expression used as an interchangeable semantic proxy for “in-person”) experiences, has become the glue that holds the social fabric together. Read More
The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I.
The death of the woman he loved was too much to bear. Could a mysterious website allow him to speak with her once more?
Joshua Barbeau, a 33-year-old freelance writer living in Bradford, Canada provided old message exchanges from his wife, plus some necessary background information, a website called Project December, where you can talk to chatbots with state-of-the-art AI systems, to create a new bot, named “Jessica Courtney Pereira.” Read More
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