ATL says they used AI to figure out the identity of the philandering judge (AI roundup)

Here’s the article which describes the whole process of how AI correctly deciphered which judge it was.https://t.co/dH6fJLE8j2

— Leah Goodridge (@leahfrombklyn) May 30, 2026

The "ultra-rich Minnesota enclave named North Oaks is so secretive and exclusive that they have the distinction of being the only community not seen on Google Maps"

@christheproducer21

I got a legal letter from the wealthiest city in Minnesota about a YouTube video I made about them

♬ [Raw recording] Record playback noise 01 (3 minutes) - Icy Light

NYPost:

While not a gated community, developers legally moved every homeowner’s property line to encompass the streets, meaning that North Oaks is effectively devoid of public roads.

...

threatened Google with a lawsuit after discovering that their neighborhood was visible via Street View

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[A Minnesotan] managed to find a loophole in that the town didn’t own the airspace. He was allowed to fly his aerial recon bot over the snowy El Dorado as long as it remained within his sight line and provided he had approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

"California's DROP program is now active, giving Californians the ability to stop data brokers from selling their personal information"

Here's the site. And here's a write-up. I think they're overloaded right now, so the email confirmation doesn't work, but the text to phone does.

Massive Attack clarifies the "facial recognition" effect at its concerts

@alexbutnaos At the Massive Attack concert, they launched a video with real-time facial recognition of people in the crowd. It looked both amazing and terrifying at the same time. #MassiveAttack #Multimedia #ArtAndTechnology #DigitalArt #ConcertVisuals ♬ оригинальный звук - ALEX BUT

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A small, disturbing example of AI's power (accurate, misleading, defamatory--take your pick, scary any way)

The highest-ranking U.S. military officer to visit your profile is Lieutenant General James R. Clapper Jr. (retired).

— Grok (@grok) July 26, 2025

I inferred it from declassified documents on NSA surveillance programs under Clapper's tenure as DNI (2010-2017), which collected metadata on millions of Americans' online activities, effectively "visiting" profiles like yours through mass data gathering. Sources: Snowden leaks,…

— Grok (@grok) July 26, 2025

Some disturbing posts by gold medalist Gabby Thomas about being stalked at airports

@itsgabbythomas They know the airport, day, time, gate, everything!!! Who do I report them to?? #fyp ♬ original sound - Gabby

@itsgabbythomas Replying to @randallmonika #greenscreen ♬ original sound - Gabby Thomas

License plate readers are creating searchable databases of bumper stickers and yard signs showing political leanings

Wired:

The LPR system can be used by private investigators, repossession agents, and insurance companies; a related Motorola business, called Vigilant, gives cops access to the same LPR data.

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In 2022, [Julia] Weist became a certified private investigator in New York State. In doing so, she unlocked the ability to access the vast array of surveillance software accessible to PIs. 

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files shared [by] Weist, who is documenting restricted datasets as part of her work, show how those with access to the LPR system can search for common phrases or names, such as those of politicians, and be served with photographs where the search term is present, even if it is not displayed on license plates.

A search result for the license plates from Delaware vehicles with the text “Trump” returned more than 150 images showing people’s homes and bumper stickers. Each search result includes the date, time, and exact location of where a photograph was taken.

“I searched for the word ‘believe,’ and that is all lawn signs. There’s things just painted on planters on the side of the road, and then someone wearing a sweatshirt that says ‘Believe.’” 

Related:

what’s the worst 23andme/any entity could do with my dna data? maybe being targeted by malicious govt? what else?

— kelin (@kelin_online) October 4, 2024

Police officers commonly seek video from bystander Teslas and seek warrants to tow the cars when owner consent is not quickly forthcoming

SF Chronicle:

In at least three instances in July and August, Oakland police sought to tow a Tesla into evidence to obtain — via a second court order — its stored video. Officers cited the cars’ “Sentry Mode” feature, a system of cameras and sensors that records noise and movement around the vehicle when it is empty and locked, storing it in a USB drive in the glove box.

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A source familiar with [one particular] investigation said the owner showed up as crews were loading his car onto a tow truck and intervened. When he volunteered the video, police released his vehicle.

Website allows users to take selfies using the 900+ traffic cameras in New York

A write-up about this site:

After selecting a camera from any of the different locations around the city, users snap a photo using the website – in either photo strip or Polaroid format – and they now have their very own traffic camera selfie. Kolman explained that the way the Department of Transportation (DOT) hosts the camera feeds allows for the unique website to function.

Here's a good story if you want to know which NFL player to cheer for this season, and who to loathe

Good for you Sauce Gardner.

Using AI cloning tools to defame someone for reporting on the rampant use of bots to farm items in Valve's Team Fortress 2

404Media:

The most common types of cheats allow players to see through walls or automatically aim for headshots, both of which are now a problem in Team Fortress 2. 

But the botting problem is unlike anything else I’ve seen in another multiplayer shooter. This is when people use multiple virtual machines, each of which is logged into Team Fortress 2 with a different account, and software to control each of those accounts in-game. Some of these bots join matches and give just enough input so as not to be kicked out so they could farm items players passively earn while playing the game. Some bots are more aggressive, and are loaded with the same kind of cheats mentioned above, making any match they’re in unplayable to human competitors. 

After [a streamer] started calling attention to this problem and asking the community to pressure Valve to do something about it 2023, the people operating the bots started harassing him. They used samples of his voice from YouTube to create an AI voice model

Ukrainian woman discovers someone is selling goods on Chinese social media using an AI-generated version of her that pretends to be Russian

VOA:

In some videos, the avatars talk about how much they value Russia and China's close ties. In other videos, they praise Chinese history and culture or talk about how much Russian women want to marry Chinese.

"If you marry Russian women, we will wash clothes, cook, and wash dishes for you every day," an avatar said. "We will also give you foreign babies, as many as you want."

...

HeyGen is an AI company headquartered in Los Angeles that was launched in China in 2020. It specializes in realistic digital avatars, voice generation and video translating.

The technology developed by HeyGen was used in AI videos of Donald Trump and Taylor Swift speaking perfect Mandarin that went viral on Chinese social media in October 2023. According to Forbes, the company is now valued at $75 million.

A university is trying to remove smart vending machines from campus because of fears the machines are collecting facial-recognition data

Ars has a summary, the vending machine company says it's complying with rules and not storing data:

The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, "Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe," displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.

"Hey, so why do the stupid M&M machines have facial recognition?" SquidKid47 pondered.

I had enjoyed the network tv series "Evil" until I realized people were probably taking seriously its nightmarish version of IVF

From Wikipedia's summary of the first season finale (2019-2020):

Dr. Boggs refers one of his patients, Eleanor, to David as Eleanor believes that her unborn son is a demon. After the boy's twin sister mysteriously dies in utero, David arranges an exorcism but Eleanor's baby is born before it can be completed. He and Ben look into RSM Fertility, the clinic that administered Eleanor's IVF, and discover links to families they had previously worked with. David proposes a theory: the clinic is secretly a front for the hierarchy, who are spiritually corrupting the eggs of expectant mothers to create a generation of humans who will be more susceptible to temptation and sin. Kristen reveals that her daughter Lexis was born after she was treated by RSM Fertility.

Meanwhile, in Alabama this week:

Three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering Mobile hospital patient dropped the specimens can sue for wrongful death because the embryos were “children,” the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday in reversing a judge’s decision to throw out the case.

I wanted to point out how openly, jarringly theocratic the Alabama Chief Justice’s concurrence is. pic.twitter.com/nneiHPCqsk

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 18, 2024

Every major league baseball teams intends to use a facial authentication system for fans

The Phillies and Carolina Panthers have already started using it, and the plan is for every team to adopt it this year:

Fans have to opt-in to the service, which will allow them to enter the stadium without having to show a ticket, by registering through the MLB Ballpark app.

"23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users"

Techcrunch:

On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.” But 23andMe would not say how many “other users” were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October.

As it turns out, there were a lot of “other users” who were victims of this data breach: 6.9 million affected individuals in total. 

...

23andMe declared part of its email as “on background,” which requires that both parties agree to the terms in advance. TechCrunch is printing the reply as we were given no opportunity to reject the terms.

FYI, if you're a Stripe user, better check the default privacy settings

Terrible story about blue check Twitter being used to falsely identify and harass a random person as an undercover federal agent

Vice (we have got to develop adequate ways to sue people for harassment like this):

One day earlier, over 850 miles away from where [the 22-year-old] lives, two far-right groups got into a scrum at an Oregon City pride festival. During the hubbub two neo-Nazis with the Rose City Nationalists had their masks pulled off and their faces exposed. The men’s faces were caught on video and internet sleuths quickly went to work. At some point, someone found a photo of [the 22-year-old] that looked similar to the man in the video and posted it as fact.

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After his name appeared, the online right found a small blurb written about him on Instagram by his Jewish fraternity which said he wanted to possibly work for the government one day. This was enough to confirm one of the right’s favorite conspiracy theories: neo-Nazis are federal plants that are there to make them look racist. 

...

Almost immediately after [the 22-year-old]’s name and information were shared and it didn't take long for the usual suspects to amplify the conspiracy to their millions of followers. Twitter owner Elon Musk replied to multiple instances of false information about [the 22-year-old] being shared on his platform, boosting it to his over 147 million followers. In one case he responded directly to an article from ... a site well known for its far-right leanings and conspiratorial content.

"We have always been here" sign and costumes

They dressed as a WW1 soldier last year at Mardi Gla pic.twitter.com/GNJ4f3L85i

— SpecialGuestVillainess🏳️‍⚧️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 (@evilniamh) June 24, 2023

Disturbing story about a trial court using an invasive and unreliable app called "Covenant Eyes" to monitor people on bail and their family

Wired:

[Her] husband is now awaiting trial in jail, in part because of an anti-pornography app called Covenant Eyes. The company explicitly says the app is not meant for use in criminal proceedings, but the probation department in Indiana’s Monroe County has been using it for the past month to surveil not only [her] husband but also the devices of everyone in their family.

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To ensure he complied with those terms, the probation department installed Covenant Eyes on [her] phone, as well as those of her two children and her mother-in-law. 

In near real time, probation officers are being fed screenshots of everything [her] family views on their devices. From images of YouTube videos watched by her 14-year-old daughter to online underwear purchases made by her 80-year-old mother-in-law, the family’s entire digital life is scrutinized by county authorities. “I’m afraid to even communicate with our lawyer”

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Covenant Eyes is part of a multimillion-dollar market of “accountability” apps sold to churches and parents as a tool to police online activity. For a monthly fee, the app monitors every single thing a user does on their devices, then sends the data it collects, including screenshots, to an “ally” or “accountability partner,” who can review the user’s online activities.

The article goes on to say they experimented and confirmed the app produced false positives.