Notices by 404 Media (404mediaco@mastodon.social), page 2

All bad Amazon bosses are now named "Wayne"

https://www.404media.co/bad-amazon-bosses-wayne/

The Xz backdoor highlights all of the good things about open source projects and also all of the vulnerabilities and weirdness associated with relying on essentially random volunteers to build software that huge parts of the internet use

https://www.404media.co/the-xz-backdoor-highlights-the-vulnerability-of-open-source-software-and-its-strengths/

We are very very excited to announce that 404 Media now has full text RSS feeds for our paying subscribers!!! Get your feed link here and learn more about why and how we did this:

https://www.404media.co/404-media-now-has-a-full-text-rss-feed/

AI generated scientific papers and papers that have language copy-pasted from ChatGPT are increasingly finding their way into real journals:

https://www.404media.co/scientific-journals-are-publishing-papers-with-ai-generated-text/

The safeguards ElevenLabs put in to prevent people from cloning politician voices ahead of the election can be bypassed in 2 seconds, which we did accidentally and then were able to repeat over and over

https://www.404media.co/elevenlabs-block-on-cloning-bidens-voice-easily-bypassed/

many many AI-generated Kara Swisher biographies, including "KARA SWISHER BOOK" are flooding Amazon if you search "Kara Swisher" the week that her own book comes out

https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-kara-swisher-biographies-flood-amazon/

NEW: Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to internal documentation we've reviewed

https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/

NEW: Apple is lobbying against right to repair, six months after lobbying for right to repair. This is the first time an Apple exec has publicly testified; in the past everything happened behind the scenes:

https://www.404media.co/apple-is-lobbying-against-right-to-repair-again/

New from @josephcox:
An investigation into Israeli company called 'Patternz,' a government surveillance firm that tracks billions of phone profiles using ads in phone apps

https://www.404media.co/inside-global-phone-spy-tool-patternz-nuviad-real-time-bidding/

a new, year-long study found Google Search really has gotten worse, and top-ranking sites are "on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality" Also evidence of AI-generated top-ranking results

https://www.404media.co/google-search-really-has-gotten-worse-researchers-find/

The Polish hackers who heroically fixed a series of NEWAG passenger trains that the manufacturer had artificially bricked with DRM are now being threatened with lawsuits from NEWAG. NEWAG has also filed a complaint with Polish authorities and has demanded the trains be removed from service.

Hackers fixed the trains *with permission from the trains' owner*

Repair expert told us this is "classic OEM bullshit," just on a train this time

https://www.404media.co/polish-hackers-repaired-trains-the-manufacturer-artificially-bricked-now-the-train-company-is-threatening-them/

the stuff of absolute nightmares: Verizon gave an armed stalker who pretended to be a cop access to his victim's phone records. Man forged a search warrant:

https://www.404media.co/verizon-gave-phone-data-to-stalker-edrs-search-warrant-pose-as-cop/

A Taylor Swift fan account on TikTok with millions of views is doxing completely random people who have done nothing wrong using Pimeyes and other off-the-shelf facial recognition tech, showing you can no longer exist in public without potentially getting doxed for no reason at all

https://www.404media.co/the-end-of-privacy-is-a-taylor-swift-fan-tiktok-account-armed-with-facial-recognition-tech/