New ICE mobile app pushes biometric policing onto American streets

BiometricUpdate.com: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly deployed a new surveillance tool in its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arsenal – a smartphone app known as Mobile Fortify. Designed for ICE field agents, the app enables real-time biometric identity verification using facial recognition or contactless fingerprints. Based on leaked emails reported by 404 Media, the …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Here’s the list of websites gig workers used to fine-tune Anthropic’s AI models

Business Insider – Its contractor left it wide open. “An internal spreadsheet obtained by Business Insider shows which websites Surge AI gig workers were told to mine — and which to avoid — while fine-tuning Anthropic’s AI to make it sound more “helpful, honest, and harmless.” The spreadsheet allows sources like Bloomberg, Harvard University, and …

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

GAO has published the titles of new restricted reports

“The following products have been determined to contain either classified information or controlled unclassified information by the Executive Branch audited agencies and therefore cannot be publicly released. As such, they have not been posted to GAO’s website and have product numbers that end in C (classified) or SU (controlled unclassified information). Many also have an …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research

A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors

404 Media – no paywall: “When your laptop is infected with infostealing malware, it’s not just hackers that might get your passwords, billing and email addresses, and a list of sites or services you’ve created accounts on, potentially including some embarrassing ones. A private intelligence company run by a young founder is now taking that …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

Try these hidden ‘NOPE’ buttons to stop AI content

Washington Post via MSN: “Let’s say that you’re worried about artificial intelligence turning us into mushy-brained monsters, draining resources from the planet, slurping all your data and human knowledge, preying on vulnerable minds, wiping out jobs, choking your favorite websites, lying to you, or not being useful. Too bad. AI is becoming increasingly unavoidable in …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Privacy, Search Engines

Introducing Duck.ai Customizations

Right from the http://Duck.ai prompt box, now you can control: *the tone of responses *the length of responses *how you want http://Duck.ai to act *what you want to be called *and more. Any customizations get applied to all future conversations until reset or modified. You can see all additional instructions applied with the toggle on …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

Proton launches privacy-focused AI chatbot

The Verge: “Proton, the company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail, has launched an AI assistant aimed at preserving user privacy. The new chatbot, called Lumo, can summarize documents, generate code, write emails, and more, while storing data locally on users’ devices. Proton says it will protect this information using “zero-access” encryption, which grants …

Subjects: AI, E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

ChatGPT users send 2.5 billion prompts a day

TechCrunch: “ChatGPT receives 2.5 billion prompts from global users every day, OpenAI told Axios. About 330 million of those are coming from users in the U.S. These numbers show just how ubiquitous OpenAI’s flagship product is becoming. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, does not release daily search data, but recently revealed that Google receives 5 trillion …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines

Trump Administration to Slash Environmental Protection Rules for Rocket Launches

ProPublica: “A draft executive order viewed by ProPublica directs the secretary of transportation to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for launch licenses — a change Elon Musk’s SpaceX and others have long sought. The Trump administration is considering slashing rules meant to protect the environment and the public during commercial …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research, Transportation

Extreme Weather

“Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCHD) How a storm of false and misleading claims about extreme weather events spread unchecked on social media putting lives at risk. CCDH’s new research shows that social media companies are letting falsehoods about extreme weather events like the LA Fires and Hurricane Helene spread unchecked on their platforms. CCDH …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Internet, Social Media

Trump Action Tracker

Christina Pagel – “With the help of amazing volunteers, I’ve converted my Trump action tracker spreadsheet into an easy to use website – now up to 740 actions and counting. Today I’m launching TrumpActionTracker.info – a live, searchable list of authoritarian‑style actions from Trump’s second term (over 740 actions so far). Logging actions of the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research