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Online Predators’ Favorite Target? Your Kids’ Webcams.
There has been a tenfold increase in sexual abuse imagery created with webcams and other recording devices worldwide since 2019, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.
Social media sites and chatrooms are the most common methods used to facilitate contact with kids, and abuse occurs both online and offline. Increasingly, predators are using advances in technology to engage in technology-facilitated sexual abuse.
We are criminologists who study cybercrime and cybersecurity. Our current research examines the methods online predators use to compromise children’s webcams. To do this, we posed online as children to observe active online predators in action.
We began by creating several automated chatbots disguised as 13-year-old girls. We deployed these chatbots as bait for online predators in various chatrooms frequently used by children to socialize. The bots never initiated conversations and were programmed to respond only to users who identified as over 18 years of age.
The Global Battle to Regulate AI Is Just Beginning
At the core of the debate about regulating AI is the question of whether it’s possible to limit the risks it presents to societies without stifling the growth of a technology that many politicians expect to be the engine of the future economy.
The discussions about risks should not focus on existential threats to the future of humanity, because there are major issues with the way AI is being used right now, says Mathias Spielkamp, cofounder of AlgorithmWatch, a nonprofit that researches the use of algorithms in government welfare systems, credit scores, and the workplace, among other applications. He believes it is the role of politicians to put limits on how the technology can be used.
“Take nuclear power: You can make energy out of it or you can build bombs with it,” he says “The question of what you do with AI is a political question. And it is not a question that should ever be decided by technologists.”
The lobbying by Big Tech companies, including Alphabet and Microsoft, is something that lawmakers worldwide will need to be wary of, says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, another think tank. “I think we’re seeing an emerging playbook for how they’re trying to tilt the policy environment in their favor,” she says.
TikTok Answered Hundreds of Lawmakers’ Questions. Here Are the Highlights.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced an onslaught of questions when he testified before the House in March, but his congressional grilling did not end there. After the hearing, lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee peppered Chew with hundreds more written follow-up questions, ranging in topic from TikTok’s ties to China to its handling of children’s safety.
TikTok responded in a 54-page letter to the panel released Friday, where it pushed back on suggestions it could be influenced by the Chinese government, tackled concerns about its privacy practices and disclosed more details about its moderation efforts.
Seeking to address lawmaker fears that it could be used as a surveillance tool, TikTok said it “does not collect any face or voice information that would enable us to identify a unique individual.” The company also said it no longer collects “precise or approximate GPS information from U.S. users,” though older versions of the app as late as August 2020 did.
TikTok disputed Rep. Gus Bilirakis’s (R-Fla.) claim that its algorithm sends teenage users “sad, depressing and suicide-promoting videos,” saying it was not “an accurate sentiment” and that it prohibits content “promoting, normalizing, or glorifying activities that could lead to suicide.”
Teachers Union Slams House GOP Over ‘Fishing Expedition’
Lawyers for the American Federation of Teachers on Friday condemned the Republican-led COVID-19 oversight panel’s request for their president’s phone records as an “improper” expansion of its investigation.
House lawmakers are investigating the deliberations around pandemic-spurred school closures and the CDC’s February 2021 school reopening guidance. On Thursday, House Coronavirus Pandemic Select Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup penned a letter pressing AFT President Randi Weingarten to turn over phone and text records for any communication between the CDC, the Biden transition team and the Executive Office of the President.
AFT Counsel Michael Bromwich wrote to the panel on Friday, “We will simply not accede to these unreasonable requests.”
Republicans have long sparred with teachers’ unions, but the pandemic exacerbated tension as schools remained closed while school teachers pushed for more safety protocols to return to the classroom. GOP lawmakers have since characterized AFT and other teachers’ unions as having undue influence over the nation’s school reopening plan.
It’s 2023 and Patients Are Still Being Denied Medical Treatment Because of COVID Vaccines
The Epoch Times reported on April 23 the appalling case of a 41-year-old Georgia woman who has been rejected for a kidney transplant, even though she is on dialysis and potentially facing death. The seriousness of her condition necessitates her undergoing dialysis three times per week to keep her life.
The reason for such a rejection? The woman, who has already had COVID-19, refuses to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on religious and medical grounds. Regardless of her acquired natural immunity, Doe, a mother of seven young children, has not obtained an exemption from the COVID-19 vaccinations, although serious issues associated with vaccinating someone with mRNA inoculation were one of the primary bases of her medical objections.
Similarly, here in Australia, another mother has been denied the opportunity to receive a lifesaving organ transplant. Vicki Derdarian, a mother of three, suffered from heart failure in 2020 and is now in desperate need of a lifesaving heart transplant. And yet, she has been turned away by Alfred Hospital in Melbourne because of vaccine mandates that are still enforced by the government of Victoria.
This Is the Solution to the COVID Learning Loss Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a flood of loss — of lives, of jobs and, in a less-discussed tragedy, of learning. Students are still suffering the effects of the months and even years spent away from the classroom. The longer schools dawdle in catching them up, the less chance they have of succeeding.
The problem was not just that some students lacked internet access; it was also that online learning, the evidence suggests, did not work as well as in-person instruction. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, an evaluation commonly referred to as the nation’s report card, came in last year with alarmingly low marks for the country’s children: Two decades’ worth of progress in math and reading among 9-year-olds was gone.
Eighth-graders’ math scores fell in 49 of 50 states. Worse, those already the furthest behind fell behind further still. Black and Hispanic students, as well as students in high-poverty districts, suffered particularly. The longer kids took classes remotely, the worse the numbers look.
These declines matter. Already, there has been a national dip in college enrollment among recent graduates — in single digits overall but almost 30% the year the pandemic began among low-income students. A study by a Stanford University economist estimates that pandemic-related learning loss could reduce lifetime earnings by an average of $70,000.
High-dosage tutoring is essential to make up for the learning loss COVID-19 has wrought. It could also help ensure future students don’t lose so much, to begin with.
EU Lawyers Say Plan to Scan Private Messages for Child Abuse May Be Unlawful
An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.
Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.
The providers issued with a so-called “detection order” by national bodies would have to alert police if they found evidence of suspected harmful content being shared or the grooming of children.
Privacy campaigners and service providers have already warned that the proposed EU regulation and a similar online safety bill in the U.K. risk end-to-end encryption services such as WhatsApp disappearing from Europe.
EU Expected to Delay Fingerprinting and Facial Recognition Checks at Dover
The EU is expected to delay introducing fingerprinting and facial recognition checks in Dover amid fears it could mar travel to next year’s summer Olympics in Paris.
The move, which will be discussed by the EU in June, would come as a relief to coach operators and transport bosses, whose passengers endured delays of up to 14 hours at Easter trying to go to Calais, and who feared “pandemonium” if fingerprinting were added to passport checks at Dover, Eurotunnel in Folkestone and the Eurostar terminal in London.
Under the new entry and exit system (EES) the EU planned to introduce in November, passengers would have to agree to fingerprinting and facial image capture the first time they arrived on the continent. After that, the data, including any record of refused entry, should allow quicker processing, said John Keefe, the head of public affairs at Eurotunnel.
