RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 8 Nov 2024 Volume 34 : Issue 48

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

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Contents: [Sorry for the 3-week gap. Life caught up with me. PGN]
Falsehoods from Russia on Election Were Brazen (NTYimes)
1700 letters from the tax office: Daylight exit messed up
(Debora Weber-Wulff)
Username Over 52 Characters with No Password says Okta (Presale1)
X is the latest social media site letting 3rd parties use your data to train
AI models (CBC)
Australia plans social media ban for under-16s (BBC)
Man who made 'depraved' child images with AI jailed (BBC)
14-year-old obsessed with AI chatbot commits suicide
Election Officials Are Prepared for a Lot More Than You Might Think
(NYTimes)
Annoyed Redditors tanking Google Search results illustrates perils of AI
scrapers (Ars Technica)
FBI says hackers are sending fraudulent police data requests ot
tech giants to steal people's private information (TechCrunch)
AI in radio: A Polish interviewer fired (Jim Geissman)
When Google's AI agent messes with ya' (Lauren Weinstein)
Nobody wants Copilot Pro AI for Office365, so Microsoft will
force-bundle it and raise the price? (Pivot to AI)
Microsoft, Google and Amazon turn to nuclear energy
to fuel the AI boom (CBC)
Why Tech Employees Are Ready to Revolt: AI
Anthropic Wants Its AI Agent to Control Your Computer (WiReD)
AI decodes oinks and grunts to keep pigs happy (Reuters)
AI frisking (LA Times)
Tribal digital sovereignty in today's dystopia (Douglas Lucas)
SF Muni finally ditching floppies (ArsTechnica)
Law enforcement operation takes down 22,000 malicious IP
addresses worldwide (Ars Technica)
LA man wearing GPS ankle monitor is accused of a robbery string.
Officials can't track him (LA Times)
Yet another danger of cryptocurrencies ... (Rob Slade)
The FTC comes after neobank Dave for misleading marketing,
hidden fees (TechCrunch)
Intel Floundry -> Solyntel (Henry Baker)
Intel 2024 = Sow's Ear (Semafor via Henry Baker)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2024 15:32:57 PST
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Falsehoods from Russia on Election Were Brazen (NYTimes)

The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming.
*old movie title from 1966)

The Russians came to Brexit until the 23 June 2016 election in the
United Kingdom (Great Britain is now less great), and quite
extensively influenced the UK-wide referendum with rampant
misinformation. (Of course, the British government did also.)

Today's issue of *The New York Times* has an article
on the front page of the Buiness section by Steven Lee
Meyers and Julian E. Barnes with the above subject
line and the subtitle:

The Kremlin did not bother to hide its efforts to influence U.S. voters.

In the final days before Tuesday's election, Russia abandoned any pretense
that it was not trying to interfere in the American presidential election.

(Of course, the election was also flooded with domestic disinformation,
blatant lies, and whatever seemed to catch the eye. In some sense, it was a
prefabricated House, Senate, and Presidential election. PGN (some perhaps
even thrown together by chatbots?).

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

Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2024 13:40:19 +0100
From: Debora Weber-Wulff <weberwu@HTW-Berlin.de>
Subject: 1700 letters from the tax office: Daylight exit messed up

Another story for the time-change files:

[Apparently not enough daylight and too much simultaneously. PGN]

A man in the northern German state of Schleswig-Hostein rather rubbed
his eyes as a crate of letters was deposited at his doorstep. It was
around 1700 letters from the tax office! All the ones he opened had the
same contents: his login password for the online tax system, Elster.

The tax office says that the problem was the switch from daylight
savings time back to standard time. The machine was in the process of
printing one letter when the time changed, and it ended up reprinting
and reprinting the same letter during the additional hour. Since
everything is completely automated, the letters were put in envelopes
and postage paid (a sum north of 1000 €) for the letters. The tax office
offered to pick up and dispose of the collection, but the man said he
could dispose of them himself.

Reported as a dpa dispatch in Tagesspiegel:

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/kuriose-panne-steuerzahler-erhalt-1700-briefe-vom-finanzamt-12651971.html

One hopes that a new password would be generated in just one copy
for the taxpayer. And perhaps having a human in the loop is not
a bad idea.

Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff
Lehrbeauftragte, HTW Berlin, FB 4
http://people.f4.htw-berlin.de/~weberwu/

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

Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2024 13:47:26 +0000
From: Presale1
Subject: Username Over 52 Characters with No Password says Okta

In what has to be one of the most bizarre security advisories of recent
times, authentication provider Okta has confirmed that usernames of 52
characters or more meant that anyone could access the account.

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

Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 22:21:31 -0600
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com
Subject: X is the latest social media site letting 3rd
parties use your data to train AI models (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/x-third-parties-user-data-1.7356152

Elon Musk's X was already using your data to train its own artificial
intelligence. Soon, it'll let other companies do the same.

Starting Nov. 15, the social media site formerly known as Twitter will share
user data -- including posts, likes, bookmarks and reposts -- with
third-party platforms that may use the information to train AI models.

The company updated its privacy policy on Wednesday to detail the changes.
When the policy takes effect, users are automatically opted in until they
opt out.

"Depending on your settings, or if you decide to share your data, we may
share or disclose your information with third parties," the updated policy
reads.

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

Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2024 06:37:16 -0700
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com>
Subject: Australia plans social media ban for under-16s (BBC)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzd62g1r3o

Australia's government says it will introduce "world-leading" legislation
to ban children under 16 from social media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed laws, to be tabled in
parliament next week, were aimed at mitigating the "harm" social media was
inflicting on Australian children.

"This one is for the mums and dads... They, like me, are worried sick about
the safety of our kids online. I want Australian families to know that the
government has your back," he said.

[There's always Kangaroom for improvement, but
not this way.

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

Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2024 13:59:04 +0200
From: Amos Shapir <amos083@gmail.com>
Subject: Man who made 'depraved' child images with AI jailed (BBC)

A UK man was sentenced to 18 years in prison for various offences involving
images of abuse of children.

However, the headlines are somewhat misleading. Details of the case
indicate that most of the harsh sentence is the result of crimes against
real children, which are not related to AI; and due to the images which were
generated being based on images of real children.

IANAL, but it seems to me that the legal problems created by AI-generated
content depicting criminal offenses against children -- but where no real
children are involved nor hurt -- are still not resolved in this case.

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

Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2024 06:28:39 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: 14-year-old obsessed with AI chatbot commits suicide
(NYTimes)

[To hell with this tech.]

I don't see ANY positive aspects to this tech. None. We don't
need a world of children (or adults) building relationships with
AI large language models to the benefit of Big Tech companies that
will disclaim responsibility when people are hurt. To hell with this tech.

Notice the (somewhat indirect) Google tie-in to this. -L

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suic
ide.html

[Steve Bacher noted the follow-on:
Now his devastated mom is suing the creator
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/character-ai-suicide-lawsuit-sewell-setzer-iii-death-b2634706.html
PGN]

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

Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2024 18:13:25 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Election Officials Are Prepared for a Lot More Than You Might Think
(The New York Times)