Features
‘HELLO BOSS’: Inside the Chinese Realtime Deepfake Software Powering Scams Around the World
404 Media has obtained a copy of ‘Haotian AI’, a popular piece of realtime deepfake software marketed to scammers. It can turn a fraudster's face into anyone else's on WhatsApp, Zoom, and Teams.
The Abstract
Scientists Studied 906 Mafia Marriages and Found Something Surprising
Scientists analyzed over 900 marriages within the ’Ndrangheta, one of the most infamous mafia syndicates, to understand how “matrimonial ties relate to power and cohesion within the organization.”
News
University Claims Withholding Water From Nuclear Weapons Data Center Is 'Unlawfully Discriminatory' to Data Centers
The University promised “to pursue all rights and claims for necessary relief” if a small Michigan community won’t pump water into a data center.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Storage Woes and RSS
This week, we discuss storage, RSS, and a big reporting project.
Canvas Hack
'The Biggest Student Data Privacy Disaster in History': Canvas Hack Shows the Danger of Centralized EdTech
Messages could include "medical circumstances, accessibility accommodations, disputes, sexual assault allegations," and more.
ICE
ICE Plans to Develop Own Smart Glasses to ‘Supplement’ Its Facial Recognition App
A DHS official and another person who attended a recent conference described the plans to 404 Media.
Features
‘HELLO BOSS’: Inside the Chinese Realtime Deepfake Software Powering Scams Around the World
404 Media has obtained a copy of ‘Haotian AI’, a popular piece of realtime deepfake software marketed to scammers. It can turn a fraudster's face into anyone else's on WhatsApp, Zoom, and Teams.
The Abstract
Scientists Gave ‘Aggressive’ Fish Psychedelic Drugs. A Breakthrough Came Next
“We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into,” said one researcher involved in the first-of-its-kind study that dosed fish with psilocybin, the component in magic mushrooms.
Podcast
Podcast: Flock Used Cameras at a Children’s Gymnastics Center for a Sales Pitch
A Flock sales pitch; a retracted paper on ChatGPT; and Chinese interference in RightsCon.
trading cards
Man Finds $1 Million Worth of Yu-Gi-Oh Cards in a Dumpster
It was already a sordid tale of online drama, blurry photographs, and erratic TikToks. Then his mom started posting.
age verification
UK iPhone and iPad Users Can Watch Porn Again
Following the latest iOS update which requires UK mobile Apple device users to verify their ages, Pornhub’s parent company Aylo is lifting its ban—but only for people using iPads and iPhones.
AI
The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet
The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.
News
'Nature' Retracts Paper on the Benefits of ChatGPT in Education
“What educators, parents and policy officials really needed was high quality data and evidence to help guide them. What they have had to deal with instead is some substandard research.”