Technology

In order to help train its AI models, Meta (and others) have been using pirated versions of copyrighted books, without the consent of authors or publishers. The company behind Facebook and Instagram faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, and one in which it has already scored a major (and surprising) victory: The Californian court concluded last year that using pirated books to train its Llama LLM did qualify as fair use.

You'd think this case would be as open-and-shut as it gets, but never underestimate an army of high-priced lawyers. Meta has now come up with the striking defense that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. It further goes on to claim that this is double good, because it has helped establish the United States' leading position in the AI field.

Meta further argues that every author involved in the class-action has admitted they are unaware of any Llama LLM output that directly reproduces content from their books. It says if the authors cannot provide evidence of such infringing output or damage to sales, then this lawsuit is not about protecting their books but arguing against the training process itself (which the court has ruled is fair use).

Judge Vince Chhabria now has to decide whether to allow this defense, a decision that will have consequences for not only this but many other AI lawsuits involving things like shadow libraries. The BitTorrent uploading and distribution claims are the last element of this particular lawsuit, which has been rumbling on for three years now, to be settled.

The publishers allege the shadow library is facilitating "staggering" levels of piracy. While the site's owners are not likely to put up a defense, the publishers' main goal appears to be to obtain an injunction that can apply further pressure on domain registrars and registries.

After becoming the first country to ban under-16s from social media, Australia has now gone further by implementing one of the world’s most comprehensive age verification regimes for underage users, covering AI chatbots, app stores, online gaming, search engines, messaging services and pornography sites. The rules are already drawing criticism from some firms: Aylo, the owner of explicit sites including Pornhub, has responded by blocking Australian users from its platforms entirely.

On Monday, the country implemented the Age-Restricted Material Codes, requiring designated platforms to introduce age verification measures, such as facial age estimation, digital wallets and photo IDs, for materials such as high-impact violence, pornography, self-harm material and dangerous content such as suicide and disordered eating.

The article in full: https://bret.dk/every-single-board-computer-i-tested-in-2025/

From the official Dutch Intelligence and Security Service

information.

“Despite their end-to-end encryption option, messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp should not be used as channels for classified, confidential or sensitive information,” states Director of the MIVD, vice-admiral Peter Reesink.

Individual accounts

An interesting aspect of this Russian campaign is that it does not exploit any technical vulnerabilities of the messaging services. The attackers instead make malicious use of legitimate security features of the apps. Director-General of the AIVD Simone Smit states, “It is not the case that Signal or WhatsApp as a whole have been compromised. Individual user accounts are being targeted.”

To increase resilience against this Russian campaign, MIVD and AIVD have published a Cyber Advisory explaining how to identify and respond to attacks. The advisory also give instructions for Signal users on how to identify potentially compromised contacts.

All Signal users can personally check whether there are any potentially compromised contacts in their group chats. If you see any people who appear twice in the list of members (under the same or a slightly different name), this may be evidence of either a compromised account or a new account created by a victim.If you suspect this to be the case, report this to the information security department of your organisation. Together you can try to verify (preferably using a channel other than Signal or WhatsApp, such as an email or a telephone call) whether it is correct that the account in question appears twice in the chat group contact list. Should this not be the case, ask the group administrator to remove both accounts from the group chat, after which the legitimate account holder can request to rejoin the group. Please remain vigilant for group members who are not recognised by the rest of the group. The actor may occasionally change the display name of a compromised account to remain unnoticed in chat groups, for example to names such as 'Deleted account'. If a member’s display name changes, the group will receive a notification. When the change is the legitimate transition to 'Deleted account', no notification is sent. Actor-controlled accounts can also gain entry to the group via an obtained Group Link, of which the group always receives a notification. In all such unauthorised scenarios, ask the group administrator to remove the offending accounts from the chat.If there is any indication that the group administrator themselves may have been compromised, it is advisable to exit the group and create a new one. |

AI has made it vastly easier for malicious hackers to identify anonymous social media accounts, a new study has warned.

In most test scenarios, large language models (LLMs) – the technology behind platforms such as ChatGPT – successfully matched anonymous online users with their actual identities on other platforms, based on the information they posted.

The AI researchers Simon Lermen and Daniel Paleka said LLMs make it cost effective to perform sophisticated privacy attacks, forcing a “fundamental reassessment of what can be considered private online”.

In their experiment, the researchers fed anonymous accounts into an AI, and got it to scrape all the information it could. They gave a hypothetical example of a user talking about struggling at school, and walking their dog Biscuit through a “Dolores park”.

In that hypothetical case, the AI then searched elsewhere for those details and matched @anon_user42 to the known identity with a high degree of confidence.

Study link - https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16800

Starting in Firefox version 142, Mozilla released a “Link Previews” feature whose main purpose is to push AI onto its users.

While the feature is problematic, commenters post pointed out that some previews are helpful – e.g. on Wikipedia, where a preview will appear when people hover over a wiki-linked page.

Screenshot of the a link preview of the Fediverse page on Wikipedia

Other commenters pondered about some minimal way to replicate this elsewhere, and it seemed to be worth investigation. Read on as I propose an enhancement to the Fediverse (and maybe even web standards) to make Link Previews great: the Link Preview Manifest.

X Users Find Their Real Names Are Being Googled in Israel After Using X Verification Software “Au10tix” Alan Macleod On January 30, the Department of Justice released its latest tranche of 3.5 million documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein. Years of emails, texts, and images were suddenly in the public domain. Epstein, a serial rapist, masterminded a global human trafficking and sexual abuse network, and could count princes, professors, and politicians among his closest friends and accomplices. MintPress News has been at the forefront of covering the Epstein saga, revealing his extremely close links to American and Israeli intelligence groups – a discovery that perhaps sheds light on why it took so long for the world’s most notorious pedophile to face accountability for his crimes. Many of the DOJ files have been heavily redacted in order to protect Epstein’s powerful clients. Still, they have exposed a massive elite nexus revolving around the New York billionaire, implicating presidents, diplomats, and plutocrats in his crimes, and imply that Epstein was significantly more powerful than first thought, shaping modern politics in ways never previously understood. With shocking new details emerging on a near-hourly basis, here are ten Epstein- related stories that have flown relatively under the radar. The Israeli Government Installed Surveillance Cameras at Epstein’s New York Apartment The Israeli government installed and maintained a hi-tech surveillance system at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment complex, including a network of alarms and cameras, emails show. Starting in 2016, the director of protective service at the Israeli mission to the United Nations controlled guests’ access to the Manhattan residence, and even performed background checks on prospective cleaners and other Epstein employees. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak admitted visiting the apartment up to 100 times, and stayed there for long periods of time. While Barak’s security may have been a concern, Epstein is known to have housed underage girls at the apartment, and many of his worst sexual crimes and most sordid parties were held there, raising questions as to what sort of images and data the Israeli government had access to. Epstein Plotted War With Iran

Ehud Barak became one of Epstein’s closest associates, staying for extended periods of time at the billionaire’s residences. The pair would email, text, call, and meet constantly. A search for “Ehud Barak” elicits more than 3500 results in the latest file dump alone. The pair would talk politics, and shared a vision of the United States attacking Iran. In 2013, with negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran stalling, Epstein emailed Barak stating, in typically poor spelling and grammar: “hopefully somone suggests getting authorization now for Iran. the congress woudl do it.” Epstein would get his wish in 2025, when his close associate Donald Trump began bombing the country. Noam Chomsky Considered Epstein His “Best Friend” Epstein arranged a meeting between Barak and renowned leftist academic (and vehement critic of the U.S. and Israel) Noam Chomsky. An unlikely friendship between the notorious pedophile and star professor blossomed, with the pair regularly meeting up at each other’s houses for dinner. Chomsky flew on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” jet to attend a dinner with Woody Allen in New York. He also expressed his desire to visit Little St. James Island, Epstein’s notorious Caribbean hideaway, and the center of his trafficking operation. Chomsky considered Epstein his “best friend” according to an email sent by his wife, Valeria. The usually curt and matter-of-fact academic signed off his emails to Epstein with unexpectedly flowery language, such as “Like real friendship, deep and sincere and everlasting from both of us, Noam and Valeria.” Chomsky strongly supported Epstein until his dying day in a Manhattan prison cell, taking it upon himself to act as his unofficial crisis manager, describing his accusers as “publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts,” and denouncing the media as a “culture of gossip-mongers” destroying his stellar character. “Ive watched the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public,” he wrote, advising Epstein on tactics to fight the supposed smears against him. For a full rundown of the Chomsky-Epstein relationship, see the MintPress News investigation: “The Chomsky-Epstein Files: Unravelling a Web of Connections Between a Star Leftist Academic and a Notorious Pedophile.” Steve Bannon Developed a Plan to Help Epstein “Crush the Pedo Narrative” A second public figure running defense for Epstein was Steve Bannon. In public, the far-right strategist claimed that he was working on a documentary exposing Epstein.

In private messaging, however, Bannon, like Chomsky, was advising Epstein on how best to repair his image. Just weeks before Epstein’s arrest and subsequent death, Bannon was messaging him, devising a complex media strategy to clear his name. “First we need to push back on the lies; then crush the pedo/trafficking narrative; then rebuild your image as philanthropist,” he wrote. While Epstein publicly aligned himself more with the Clintonite wing of the Democratic Party, he was also deeply drawn toward much of the philosophy of the modern alt-right, led by Bannon. Epstein and Maxwell’s Influence on Internet Culture and the Modern Alt-Right Indeed, there is significant circumstantial evidence to suggest that Jeffrey Epstein had far more of an effect on modern far-right politics than previously thought. In fact, he could have been among its creators. In 2011, Epstein met with Christopher “Moot” Poole, the founder of infamous internet message board, 4chan. At the time of his meeting with Poole, Epstein and Bill Gates advisor Boris Nikolic were sharing articles and discussing via email how 4chan could be used to alter public opinion and whip up the masses into hysteria. “This article describes why I find moot interesting. The potential for manipulation is huge,” Nikolic wrote Epstein. On the same day as the Epstein/Poole meeting, the latter created Politically Incorrect (/pol/), a political message board on 4chan that would serve as the birthplace and incubator for the modern alt-right, as well as a number of the most outlandish conspiracy theories, including QAnon and Pizzagate. Gaining prominence during Trump’s first term in office, Pizzagate was an elaborate conspiracy theory claiming that global elites partook in satanic rituals around trafficking, raping, killing and eating children in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizzeria. Given the timing of the meeting and the emails surrounding it, there is the very real possibility that Epstein himself influenced the creation of many outlandish theories about global pedophile rings, perhaps in order to discredit the notion in the first place. Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, may have been, if anything, even more influential in shaping online culture. Maxwell is rumored to be Reddit power user MaxwellHill, moderator of a number of gigantic Subreddits, including, /r/WorldNews, /r/Technology, /r/Politics, /r/Science, /r/Travel, /r/Health, and /r/Environment. MaxwellHill was at one point the most popular Redditor on the platform, being the first to reach one million karma (akin to likes on other platforms). Believers point to the account’s use of British English, its admission that they were

born in December (like Ghislaine), and the fact that it vanished from the platform forever at exactly the time she was arrested and imprisoned. If true, it would mean that Epstein and Maxwell were crucial in shaping online politics and internet culture more generally. Bill Gates’ Affairs and Sexually Transmitted Infection Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates contracted a sexually transmitted infection from sex with “Russian girls,” then asked Epstein to provide him with antibiotics to “surreptitiously” give to his wife, Melinda, so that she not find out about his infidelity. That is according to 2013 emails Epstein wrote, but did not send. Gates initially vehemently denied the claims. “Jeffrey wrote an email to himself, that email was never sent. That email is, you know, false” he said, adding, “It just reminds me, you know, every minute I spent with regret and I, you know, apologize that I did that.” Later, however, he admitted to having affairs with two Russian women. When Melinda was asked about the claims, however, she did not refute them, saying she felt “unbelievable sadness” being reminded of a “painful time” in her life. In 2021, she divorced Bill, citing his friendship with Epstein as among the factors in the breakdown of their marriage. Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled the pro-Israel Lobby Documents reveal that Epstein was one of the Israel Lobby’s most generous funders, the billionaire donating to a wide range of pro-Israel groups, including the Hillel Foundation, The United Jewish Association of New York, and Yeshiva. In 2005 alone, Epstein donated $25,000 to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, a group that purchases equipment for the Israeli military. That same year, he gave $15,000 to the Jewish National Fund, an organization that builds illegal Jewish settlements in occupied Palestine. Even years after his conviction for sex crimes, Harvard Hillel was soliciting donations from Epstein. Epstein was a vocal and committed Zionist, a 2012 email he sent insists that “Palestine has never historically existed.” MintPress News was at the forefront of uncovering the connections between Epstein and Israeli intelligence, publishing a series of investigations into their links. The new tranche of documents also hints at this relationship. In 2018, Epstein sent Barack an email stating “you should make clear that I don’t work for Mossad,” followed by a smiley face. A Dalai Lama/Epstein Connection? The Dalai Lama is mentioned over 150 times in the new Epstein files, the emails showing that the billionaire was keen to associate himself with the Tibetan spiritual leader. If journalist Michael Wolff is to be believed, he got his wish. Wolff noted that he met the Dalai Lama at a soirée at Epstein’s infamous New York mansion. The Central Tibetan Administration has categorically denied Wolff’s assertion. Epstein did, however, meet with Tenzin Priyadarshi, a Tibetan monk and director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at M.I.T. in Boston. For more on this story, see the MintPress News investigation: “The Dalai Lama – Epstein Connection.” U.S. Ambassador May Have Raped, Impregnated 11- Year-Old Child One of the most explosive documents shows an FBI informant linking the U.S. Embassy to Epstein’s worldwide trafficking network. Kenneth Darrell Turner told the FBI that, in 2014, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne impregnated an 11-year-old Mexican child while at a U.S. Consulate-controlled building in Ciudad Juárez. The mother gave birth to a child and received a positive DNA match with Wayne. The allegations have been largely ignored in corporate press. One outlet covering the story, however, was The Eagle, a student newspaper at American University in Washington, D.C., where Wayne now teaches. The news led to protests on campus, with students calling for authorities to review the allegations. Wayne has categorically rejected the assertions against him, pointing out inconsistencies in Turner’s story. “The claims originate from a disjointed email chain that makes outlandish claims, including international conspiracies and other events that demonstrably never happened, as they would have been matters of public record or reported in the media at the time they occurred, and they were not,” he said. Trump “Authorized” Epstein Murder – Epstein’s Brother Jeffrey Epstein’s family do not believe that he killed himself in prison. “I have reason to believe he was killed because he was about to name names,” his brother, Mark, told the FBI in 2023, concluding that “I believe President Trump authorized his murder.” Epstein was found dead in his cell in July 2019. Although officially labeled a suicide, many have suspected foul play, given the billionaire’s extensive connections that could compromise the rich and powerful. The Trump administration has repeatedly denied any involvement in Epstein’s death. “The claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they

certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the Department of Justice wrote. The Epstein Files has shocked the world, leading to political scandals on both sides of the Atlantic. While a number of senior figures in Europe, including the former prime minister of Norway, have been arrested, the U.S. Department of Justice appears to be unwilling to do the same. And with their announcement that they do not intend to release any more of the Epstein Files still in their possession, it appears that the DOJ is attempting to kill the Epstein story itself. With so much interest in the story, however, it seems unlikely that they will be able to dampen public’s demands to know just how far this scandal goes.

Because even if they say "no mass donestic surveillance," and "no autonomous weapons", the pentagon just has other companies for that.

The second-generation Blade battery can charge from 10-70% in just about five minutes and from 10-97% in under 10 minutes. More impressively, the company showcased the battery charging flawlessly from 20-97% at -22°F (-30°C) in just about 12 minutes, only around three minutes slower than it charges in normal temperatures.

...

The EV was plugged in at 9% state of charge with 93 kilometers of range (57 miles). In 9 minutes and 51 seconds, it charged up to 97% with the range prediction in their gauge cluster displaying 1,008 kilometers (626 miles). This is likely calibrated for the China Light-Duty Test Cycle (CLTC), which tends to be more optimistic than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) test cycle in the U.S.

Still, these charging speeds are way faster than the 20-40 minute charging stops on the latest EVs in the U.S. The new BYD EVs can basically recharge in nearly the same time it takes to refill a gas car. Even the new 1,500 kilowatt (1.5 megawatt) Flash charging stations are arranged like a traditional gas station for cars to quickly drive in and drive out.

New U.S laws designed to protect minors are pulling millions of adult Americans into mandatory age-verification gates to access online content, leading to backlash from users and criticism from privacy advocates that a free and open internet is at stake. Roughly half of U.S. states have enacted or are advancing laws requiring platforms — including adult content sites, online gaming services, and social media apps — to block underage users, forcing companies to screen everyone who approaches these digital gates.

Reddit.

The patent called “STATE MANAGEMENT FOR VIDEO GAME HELP SESSIONS” describes multiple examples where a pop-up might ask a player to let a helper take over the gameplay for a while.

Imagine if a user were struggling to find a rare gem in an RPG; if allowed, the helper would take control from the player. They would proceed to chat and guide the user through the process of acquiring the gem.

OpenAI claims it has accomplished what Anthropic couldn’t: securing a Pentagon contract that won’t cross professed red lines against dragnet domestic spying and the use of artificial intelligence to order lethal military strikes. Just don’t expect any proof.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the company’s big win with the Defense Department in a post on X on February 27.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” he wrote. The Pentagon “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

The deal came after the very public implosion of what was to be a similar contract between the U.S. military and Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s chief rivals. Anthropic had said negotiations collapsed because it could not enshrine prohibitions against killer robots and domestic spying in its contract. The company’s insistence on these two points earned it the wrath of the Pentagon and President Donald Trump, who ordered the government to phase out use of Anthropic’s tools within six months.

But if the government booted Anthropic for refusing mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, how could OpenAI take over the contract without having the same problem?

OpenAI has attempted to square this circle through a string of posts to X by company executives and researchers, including Katrina Mulligan, its national security chief, and a claim by Altman that the company negotiated stricter protections around domestic surveillance.

The company and the government, however, are not releasing the only proof that matters: the contract itself.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.

Implementation of the White House’s return-to-office directive will be aided by the tech firm Palantir. It remains unclear why a spy-tech company should be tasked with things like “employee seat assignments.”

The Foundation sees this as a contradiction to the EU's own interoperability goals. Although XLSX is standardized as OOXML according to ISO/IEC 29500, Microsoft's implementations often deviate from the specifications. Furthermore, features often change undocumented, which complicates compatibility with open-source software such as LibreOffice.