Web users enter their email addresses into online forms for
a variety of reasons, including signing in or signing up for a
service or subscribing to a newsletter. While enabling such
functionality, email addresses typed into forms can also be
collected by third-party scripts even when users change their
minds and leave the site without submitting the form. Email
addresses—or identifiers derived from them—are known to
be used by data brokers and advertisers for cross-site, cross-
platform, and persistent identification of potentially unsuspect-
ing individuals. In order to find out whether access to online
forms is misused by online trackers, we present a measure-
ment of email and password collection that occurs before the
form submission on the top 100, 000 websites. We evaluate
the effect of user location, browser configuration, and inter-
action with consent dialogs by comparing results across two
vantage points (EU/US), two browser configurations (desk-
top/mobile), and three consent modes. Our crawler finds and
fills email and password fields, monitors the network traffic
for leaks, and intercepts script access to filled input fields.
Our analyses show that users’ email addresses are exfiltrated
to tracking, marketing and analytics domains before form
submission and without giving consent on 1, 844 websites
in the EU crawl and 2, 950 websites in the US crawl. While
the majority of email addresses are sent to known tracking
domains, we further identify 41 tracker domains that are not
listed by any of the popular blocklists. Furthermore, we find
incidental password collection on 52 websites by third-party
session replay scripts. Read More
Monthly Archives: May 2022
The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question
Web3 advocates promise decentralization on an unprecedented scale. Excessive centralization can stymie coordination and erode freedom, democracy, and economic dynamism—decentralization is supposed to be the remedy. But the term on its own is too vague to be a coherent end goal. Getting the job done takes the right kind of decentralization, and we worry that Web3 is thus far heading down the wrong track.
In particular, we worry about the focus on degree, rather than type, of decentralization. Focusing on degree—whether we want more or less decentralization—can lead Web3 advocates to mischaracterize both the reality of existing centralization, as well as the possibility of pure decentralization. On the one hand, existing “centralized” systems are not nearly as centralized as Web3 advocates commonly describe. “Legacy” banks delegate many activities to local branches, and even central banks are often consortia. Architecturally, “centralized” clouds are rarely so centralized in practice; they are usually scattered around a range of geographies and train large machine-learning models in a distributed fashion. Read More
China has been quietly building a blockchain platform
In a speech in 2019, the Chinese leader said blockchain was an “important breakthrough in independent innovation of core technologies.”
Since then, China has quietly been building a platform that aims to facilitate the deployment of blockchain technology for enterprises. It is called Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN).
BSN, which has links to the Chinese government, is aiming to go global but could face challenges. Read More
How a Machine Can Tell If You’re an Asshole
An interview with the designers behind the “Are You The Asshole” bot
Reddit’s r/AmITheAsshole is one of the most entertaining subreddits on the entire site. Though it started in 2013, the subreddit’s popularity increased during the pandemic when people, isolated from social interaction, started stewing about the little things. Are you the asshole when you punched your roommate after they ate all your food? How about when you screamed at your parents when they made you the supermarket gopher? Well, if you ask, thousands of people will give their opinion to let you know whether or not you’re the asshole.
Internet artist Morry Kolman, along with developer Alex Petros, dove into the immense data set of r/AmITheAsshole and built Are You The Asshole, a bot that helps teach us about bias, machine learning, and the beauty of human-computer interaction. Read More
Robots are creating images and telling jokes. 5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI
f you’ve seen photos of a teapot shaped like an avocado or read a well-written article that veers off on slightly weird tangents, you may have been exposed to a new trend in artificial intelligence (AI).
Machine learning systems called DALL-E, GPT and PaLM are making a splash with their incredible ability to generate creative work. Read More
A Generalist Agent
Inspired by progress in large-scale language modelling, we apply a similar approach towards building a single generalist agent beyond the realm of text outputs. The agent, which we refer to as Gato, works as a multi-modal, multi-task, multi-embodiment generalist policy. The same network with the same weights can play Atari, caption images, chat, stack blocks with a real robot arm and much more, deciding based on its context whether to output text, joint torques, button presses, or other tokens. In this report we describe the model and the data, and document the current capabilities of Gato. Read More
Paper
Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland
Web3 is off to a rocky start. Optimists may rattle on about progress on the horizon, but at present the space is rife with fraud, hacks, and collapses. In this Q&A with Web3 critic Molly White, creator of the website Web3 Is Going Just Great, White argues that as this technology becomes more mainstream, its ability to do harm — financial, emotional, and reputational — will grow, and fast. For one, blockchain technology is often applied in ways, or to problems, to which it is not suited, and companies frequently don’t understand the consequences of their decision to utilize it. Additionally, some issues are being overlooked, such as privacy concerns, which could make it more difficult to address online harassment. Finally, for all the rhetoric from Web3 proponents about opportunity and democratization, crypto projects have mostly served to make the rich and powerful even more rich and powerful. Read More
How Will Machine Learning Impact Economics?
The AI 50 2022
The mad scramble to adopt Artificial Intelligence amid the Covid-19 crisis is officially old news. We interact with AI as seamlessly as we do our smartphones, through voice assistants, customer service, automated tasks, self-checkout, fraud detection, in healthcare decisions and infinitely more invisible applications that affect our daily lives. Investments in AI research and applications are set to hit $500 billion by 2024, according to research firm IDC. And PwC predicts AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. With all that money flowing, it can be hard to figure out what the coming thing is, but certain trends do emerge.
Our fourth annual AI 50 list, produced in partnership with Sequoia Capital, recognizes standouts in privately-held North American companies making the most interesting and effective use of artificial intelligence technology. This year’s list launches with new AI-generated design and and multiple funding round announcements that came about after our esteemed panel of judges laid down their metaphorical pencils. Inductees reflect the booming VC interest as well as the growing variability in AI-focused startups making unique uses of existing technologies, others developing their own and many simply enabling other companies to add AI to their business model. Read More
Kendrick Lamar uses deepfakes in latest music video
American rapper Kendrick Lamar has made use of deepfakes for his latest music video.
Deepfakes use generative neural network architectures – such as autoencoders or generative adversarial networks (GANs) – to manipulate or generate visual and audio content.
Lamar is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. However, he’s regularly proved his creative mind isn’t limited to his rapping talent.
For his track ‘The Heart Part 5’, Lamar has made use of deepfake technology to seamlessly morph his face into various celebrities including Kanye West, Nipsey Hussle, Will Smith, and even O.J. Simpson. Read More
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Rick's Cafe AI 