RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 14 Sep 2024 Volume 34 : Issue 45

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. *****
This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34.45>
The current issue can also be found at
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Contents:
The Social Impact of those Little Computers in Our Pockets
(Peter Bernard Ladkin)
The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare
(NYTimes via Susmit Jha)
The AI nightmare is already here, thanks to our own governments
(Lauren Weomsteom)
Hacker tricks ChatGPT into giving out detailed instructions for
making homemade bombs (TechCrunch)
AI Wants to Be Free -- Or at least very, very cheap (NYMag)
Tech giants fight plan to make them pay more for electric grid upgrades
(WashPost)
A tech firm stole our voices: then cloned and sold them (BBC)
The Bands and the Fans Were Fake. The $10 Million Was Real. (NYTimes_
Authors fighting deluge of fake writers and AI-generated books (CBC)
AI + Script-Kiddies: Malware/Ransomware explosion? (Henry Baker)
Insurance company spied on house from the sky. Then the real nightmare
began. (via GG)
AI worse than humans in every way at summarising information, government
trial finds (Crikey)
Generative AI Transformed English Homework. Math Is Next
(WiReD)
The national security threats in U.S. election software -- hiding in
plain sight (Politico)
He’s Known as *Ivan the Troll*. His 3D-Printed Guns Have Gone Viral.
(NYTimes)
Quantum Computer Corrected Its Own Errors, Improving Its
Calculations (Emily Conover)
Debloating Windows made me realize how packed with useless features
it is (Ada Developers)
50,000 gallons of water needed to put out Tesla Semi fire (AP News) (AP)
See How Humans Help Self-Driving Cars Navigate City Streets
(The New York Times)
Love (of cybersecurity) is a battlefield (ArsTechnica)
Senate Proposal for Crypto Tax Exemption Is Long Overdue (Cato Institute)
More on tariffs and bans against Chinese or other countries' goods
Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker,
It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong (WiReD)
The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down (NYTimes)
``It just exploded.'' Springfield woman claims she never meant to spark false
rumors about Haitians (NBC NEws)
Re: Feds sue Georgia Tech for lying bigly about computer security
(Cliff Kilby, Dylan Northrup, Cliff Kilby)
Re: Standard security policies and variances (Cliff Kilby)
Re: How Navy chiefs conspired to get themselves illegal warship WiFi
(Shapir, Stan Brown)
Re: Former Tesla Autopilot Head And Ex-OpenAI Researcher Says
'Programming Is Changing So Fast' That He Cannot Think Of Going Back To
Coding Without AI (Steve Bacher)
Re: Moscow's Spies Were Stealing U.S. Tech, Until the FBI Started a Sabotage
Campaign (djc)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2024 17:06:01 +0200
From: "Prof. Dr. Peter Bernard Ladkin" <ladkin@causalis.com>
Subject: The Social Impact of those Little Computers in Our Pockets

On Monday, 29 July, a Taylor-Swift-themed dance lesson for young kids was
being held in Southport near Liverpool. A knife-wielding youth entered,
stabbed and killed three young girls, aged 6, 7 and 9, and injured 8 other
kids and 2 adults.

Rumors were apparently spread on "social media" that the perpetrator was an
asylum seeker from -- I dunno -- the middle East or Africa or somewhere. He
isn't -- he is a born and bred Brit. An outdoor commemoration for the poor
kids the next day was overrun by a group of thugs who then attacked a
mosque. Hotels housing asylum seekers elsewhere were attacked, with attempts
to set them on fire (with the occupants present). A series of "flash riots",
so to speak.

Such riots spread in a couple of days to lots of cities. The government
response was rapid (PM Sir Kier Starmer had dealt with the 2011 riots and we
can presume he has his ideas about what went right and wrong with that
response.) There were plenty of onlookers and there [were] lots of video on
those little computers we nowadays carry along in our pockets. The police
set a massive rapid evaluation program in motion; courts and prisons were
put on standby (I understate; some prisons released inmates early to make
space for the expected influx). Rioters and those who encouraged them were
identified, arraigned, and sent to prison extremely rapidly, the first ones
within eight days from offence to prison:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/07/rioter-southport-jailed-far-right
.. Not only active rioters were jailed, but those who incited them in "social
media" messages.

It quietened down relatively quickly. There has been talk of some 1,000 or
so offences that were to be prosecuted and likely to lead to jail terms (it
is generally unwise to plead "not guilty" when the police have veridical
film of you doing what you did).

The "flash riots" were organised through those little digital computers that
everyone carries around in their pockets. They were encouraged -- "fed" is
probably an appropriate word -- by a well-known "extreme rightist" and
ex-football hooligan, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, from, of ael places,
Cyprus. And by a cameo from new MP Nigel Farage, he of Brexit fame, who said
there were "questions" about the attack and attacker that needed answers
that did not appear to be forthcoming. He was, of course, "just asking
questions" but the intent seemed to be to suggest something was being
covered up by the "authorities".

Neither Yaxley-Lennon nor Farage could have done what they did with the
effects it had without those little computers in everyone's pockets. It used
to be that political actors had to pretty much persuade (or own!) a
professional journalist to print their words in a newspaper. And those words
wouldn't necessarily be printed the way the actor wants. For example, if
Farage had spoken to a journalist about his "questions", the journalist
would have been able quickly to ascertain the reality and it is unlikely
that there would have been anything there worth publishing. I can't recall
newspapers ever printing verbatim much of what Yaxley-Lennon seems to want
to say (although there are quite a few words about what he's done and was
doing).

On the other hand, those little computers were also used by others to make
videos of what was going on, which led from offence to prison so rapidly.

There are significant personal consequences in this technology-fueled
behaviour. If you are going to punch a policeman at such a gathering (see
below), someone likely has you on film. If you are identifiable, that could
well lead to your arrest and conviction. Lay people would be surprised by
the ways there are of identifying people, even masked people, from film. 
The police can appeal to the public for information, and there are often
plenty of people, not all of them your friends, who know what you look
like. (We can note in addition that such techniques surely can also be used
by authoritarian states pursuing critics just as well as they can be used by
British police pursuing rioters.)

We can and probably should also remark what people not otherwise involved
can be led to do. There is a 53-year-old woman who lives a "sheltered life"
in a smallish village (2,201 inhabitants) miles away from any riots, caring
for her ill husband at home, who lost her cool once on a Facebook group and
has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for it:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/14/woman-53-jailed-over-blow-the-mosque-up-facebook-post-after-southport-riots

hat of the future? The videos the police assessed here were most likely to
be veridical. We might have to think much harder in the future about
deepfake videos, and how videos should be assessed. Are we really so
certain that we technologists will still be able to tell the real from the
fake? There have been a few hefty scandals in the UK involving politicians
and alleged sexual abuse of minors. Here is one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Smith But there are dissimulators, such
as Carl Beech
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/22/how-nick-the-serial-child-abuse-accuser-became-the-accused who falsely accused Lords Bramall, Brittan and
former MP Harvey Proctor of abusing him. What happens when such people have
film? Are we going to be able to tell the veridical from the fake?

------------------------------

Fate: Fri, 13 Sep 2024 8:51:34 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare
(The New York Times)

Possible URL:
https://www.NewYorkTimes.com/ai-drones-robot-war-pentagon

[Thanks to Susmit Jha. For some unknown reason, I cannot find who wrote
it, or when it ran. PGN]

Techno-skeptics who argue against the use of AI in warfare are oblivious to
the reality that autonomous systems are already everywhere -- and the
technology is increasingly being deployed to these systems' benefit.
Hezbollah's alleged use of explosive-laden drones has displaced at least
60,000 Israelis south of the Lebanon border . Houthi rebels are using
remotely controlled sea drones to threaten the 12 percent of global shipping
value that passes through the Red Sea, including the supertanker Sounion,
now abandoned, adrift and aflame, with four times as much oil as was carried
by the Exxon Valdez.