Edition 64: the dangerous reality of porn bots and fake nudes

(This newsletter was sent to email subscribers on October 28, 2020.)

Happy Wednesday, muggles. Tired of hearing the ice cream machine is broken at McDonald’s again? A 24-year-old created a map so you’re never disappointed again. The software engineer reverse engineered McDonald’s own app to create a map of every broken ice cream machine in the U.S. McDonald’s seems to be a fan of this fan, and several franchise owners are teaming up to try to find a permanent solution to their soft serve problems. While they work on that, we’re tracking some other problems.

CRIME

A dangerous plot to kill Biden ends with a teen arrested for child pornography

Fri Oct 23

In May, bank employees in North Carolina called police about an abandoned white van in their parking lot, and what officers discovered was shocking. Inside the van they found an AR-15 rifle, a canister of explosive material, a handgun, books on bomb making, drawings of swastikas, and about $500,000 in cash.

Who did the van belong to?

19-year-old Alexander Hillel Treisman, who had walked into the bank a little later, asked about the van, and was then arrested. The money is believed to be his inheritance, and all the weapons and information pointed to a plot to assassinate Joe Biden. Court documents revealed that the teen had searched online for Biden’s home, and even went to a fastfood restaurant four miles away from Biden’s home in Delaware.

But Treisman hasn’t been arrested for the weapons or the alleged assassination plot, instead he’s been indicted on child pornography charges. During the search, federal officials reportedly found thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse imagery on eight different digital devices. He has pleaded not guilty to the child pornography charges, but is being held without bail.

SOURCES: The Washington Post, ABC7 News, NPR

HEALTH

Poland imposes a near-total ban on abortions

Thu Oct 22

In a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, a Polish court has now ruled that abortions for fetal abnormalities go against the country’s constitution — and the decision cannot be appealed.

Wait, what?

Previously, Poland allowed pregnancy terminations in the case of incest or rape, a threat to woman’s life, or for fetal abnormalities. Now, the latter won’t be allowed, even though it made up 98% of all legal abortions performed last year.

Now, women’s rights activists and supporters are risking the pandemic to go out and protest. Abortion rights advocates also worry that tightening legal abortion restriction will lead to more women seeking illegal abortions or going abroad for the medical procedure. Poland has also been criticized recently over restricting minority and LGBTQ rights, and the judiciary branch’s — which includes the constitutional tribunal that handed down the abortion decision — lack of independence from political influences.

This judiciary branch is supposed to be the main check on the governing party. Sound familiar, United States? Last week, the U.S. signed an anti-abortion declaration along with 32 other countries. While the document is nonbinding, it says that the nations are committed to working together to “reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion.”

SOURCES: NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, ABC News

PRIVACY

A porn bot is creating thousands of fake nude images with real women’s faces

Tue Oct 20

In a scary new reality, it turns out a photo of a fully-dressed portrait is all it takes to create fake nudes. This has become possible through an AI-powered bot that creates a fake nude body, and then seamlessly superimposes a given face to produce a convincing final nude image.

More than 680,000 women have been targeted, including underage girls, according to a recent report from deepfake-monitoring firm Sensity. The report also found that the bot, used by people on a messaging app called Telegram, is making money. The bot would even watermark the images unless the users paid.

The report also revealed that many users obtained fake nudes of people they knew in real life. This finding underscores the extensive harm deepfakes* can cause, from disinformation campaigns to large scale forms of revenge porn. In fact, 96% of deepfake videos online last year were non-consensual pornography.

What is being done about this?

Unfortunately, non-consensual deepfakes are quite difficult to control for a number of reasons.

• A lot of them fall into legal gray area since they aren’t considered “real”
• Revenge porn and privacy laws vary greatly in different states
• The problem is not just about technology, but society; sexist, abusive, misogynistic attitudes are leading to the online abuse

📝 What can you do?

If you’re feeling upset, like we are, you can donate money or volunteer your time with the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. The nonprofit is working for a world where law, policy, and technology align to protect civil rights and liberties, and supports victims of nonconsensual pornography.

*Deepfakes are fake images created from a mix of real ones using artificial intelligence, often to make someone look like they are doing or saying something they never did

SOURCES: Business Insider, Wired, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, CNET

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That’s all for today. Have a magical week.✨