RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Sunday 5 February 2023 Volume 33 : Issue 61

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

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33.61>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents: Working on huge backlog
Historic Arctic outbreak crushes records in New England (WashPost)
'It had just vanished' -- the shock when tech fails (BBC News)
Welcome to the Era of Internet Blackouts (WiReD)
Ford recalls 462,000 SUVs over rearview camera issue (Engadget)
The lights have been on at a Massachusetts school for over a year because
no one can turn them off (Corky Siemaszko)
FAA says unintentionally deleted files are to blame for nationwide
ground stop (CNN)
Wi-Fi Routers Can Detect Human Locations, Poses Within a Room (Mark Tyson) Hackers Can Make Computers Destroy Their Own Chips with Electricity
(Matthew Sparkes)
Decoding Brainwaves to Identify What Music Is Being Listened To (U.Essex) Remember Zoom-bombing? This is how Zoom tamed meeting intrusions. (WashPost) Google Fi warns customers that their data has been compromised (Engadget) Options trading desks 'flying blind' after derivatives platform hit by
ransomware attack (MarketWatch)
Mathematical Trick Lets Hackers Shame People into Fixing Software Bugs
(Matthew Sparkes)
Can You Trust Your Quantum Simulator? (Jennifer Chu)
Widespread Logic Controller Flaw Raises the Specter of Stuxnet
(Lily Hay Newman)
Man Paid $20,000 in Bitcoin in Failed Attempt to Have 14-Year-Old Killed,
U.S. Says (NYTimes)
Developer pleads guilty to hacking his own company after pretending to
to investigate himself (The Verge)
to Know. (NYTimes)
investigate himself (The Verge)
Retirees Are Losing Their Life Savings to Romance Scams. Here's What to
Know. (NYTimes)
Cryptocurrency Founder Gamed Markets, FTX Rivals Say (NYTimes)
How Charlie Javice Got JPMorgan to Pay $175 Million for What Exactly?
(NYTimes)
Massive nursing degree scheme leads to hunt for 2,800 fraudulent nurses
(Ars Technica)
Based on a True Story -- Except the Parts That Aren't (NYTimes)
Citing Accessibility, State Department Ditches Times New Roman for Calibri
(NYTimes via Jan Wolitzky)
DNS Attack enabled by well-know passwords; An issue that should be
long-resolved (Ars Technica and precursor note)
U.S. No-Fly List Leaks After Being Left in an Unsecured Airline Server
(Vice)
Yet *another* T-Mobile data breach affects 37M accounts (CNET)
Coming soon, Congress screws with the clock with permanent DST?
(Lauren Weinstein)
NET pushed reporters to be more favorable to advertisers, staffers say
(The Verge)
Twitter employees status -- and Musk on trial (Lauren Weinstein)
Musk oversaw staged Tesla self-driving video, emails show (Ars Technica)
How Smart Are the Robots Getting? (Cade Metz)
Robot Cars Are Causing 911 False Alarms in San Francisco (WiReD)
A news site used AI to write articles, and it was a journalistic disaster
(WashPost)
CNET Is Reviewing the Accuracy of All Its AI-Written Articles After Multiple
Major Corrections (gizmodo)
My Printer Is Extorting Me (The Atlantic via Steve Bacher)
ChatGPT on a blog: huMansplaining on parade (Rob Lemos)
ChatGPT Accuracy in the Movies! (Lauren Weinstein)
Google and the rest of "Big Tech" need to step up and speak to the public,
*now*! (Lauren Weinstein)
Google laying off 12K workers (Google)
Jan 6 committee suppressed information about how social media firms --
especially Twitter -- enabled the violent insurrection (WashPost)
Meta, Twitter, Microsoft and others urge Supreme Court not to allow lawsuits
against tech algorithms (CNN)
Twitter's utter violation of Trust & Safety (Lauren Weinstein)
Elon's Sick Twitter officially bans third-party clients, a foundational
aspect of Twitter for many years (TechCrunch)
Why the TikTok ban needs university exemptions (Statesman)
Twitter admits it's breaking third-party apps, cites 'long-standing API
rules' (Engadget)
Tesla engineer testifies that 2016 video promoting self-driving was faked
(TechCrunch)
U.S. states blocking overseas taxpayer traffic (Dan Jacobson)
As Deepfakes Flourish, Countries Struggle with Response (Tiffany Hsu)
In the age of AI, major in being human (David Brooks)
Race is on as Microsoft puts billions into OpenAI (Metz/Weise)
Google is freaking out about ChatGPT (The Verge)
ChatGPT user acquisition rate (Dan Geer)
Artificial Intelligence and National Security (Reza Montasari book
reviewed by Sven Dietrich)
Cybersecurity Myths and Misperceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls
that Derail Us (Gene Spafford)
Re: Remote Vulnerabilities in Automobiles (Bernie Cosell)
Re: Cats disrupt satellite Internet service (John Levine, Wol)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2023 12:39:19 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Historic Arctic outbreak crushes records in New England WashPost)

The Weather Service office serving the area tweeted the wind chill was so
low that its software for logging such data ``refuses to include it!''

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/02/04/northeast-record-cold-boston-arctic/

[With the record colds all over the U.S. -- including Texas -- this item
seems worthy of the lead story. PGN]

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2023 09:39:56 +0000
From: "Chris Leeson" <risks@inishail.org>
Subject: 'It had just vanished' -- the shock when tech fails (BBC News)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64051121

Cloud has many advantages, but if the cloud provider disappears, then so
does your infrastructure. This article looks at a couple of businesses that have been hit by outages and disappearance of provider.

``Using cloud services, by definition, makes a business reliant on a third party,'' says Vili Lehdonvirta of the Oxford Internet Institute and author
of Cloud Empires. ``What is the cloud? Well, the cloud is somebody else's computer.''

It is complex, setting up highly available systems is even more complex
(I'm sure, not news to anyone here...). Cloud is not a panacea, especially
for small businesses. At least we are starting to get mainstream articles
that acknowledge this, rather than pushing cloud as the solution for all
ills.

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 19:34:41 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Welcome to the Era of Internet Blackouts (WiReD)

New research from Cloudflare shows that connectivity disruptions are a
problem around the globe, pointing toward a troubling new normal.

https://www.wired.com/story/cloudflare-internet-blackouts-report

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

Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2023 01:33:01 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Ford recalls 462,000 SUVs over rearview camera issue (Engadget)

https://www.engadget.com/ford-recalls-462000-suv-rearview-camera-issue-160153194.html

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

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 07:25:34 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: The lights have been on at a Massachusetts school for over a year
because no one can turn them off (Corky Siemaszko)

(NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lights-massachusetts-school-year-no-one-can-turn-rcna65611

Wilbraham Massachusetts: For nearly a year and a half, the roughly 7,000
lights in a sprawling Massachusetts high school have been on continuously, because the district canât turn them off. While district leaders blame the pandemic and supply chain issues for being unable to fix the failed lighting system, taxpayers have been stuck paying for the costly energy bills.

The lights have been on at a Massachusetts school for over a year because no one can turn them off the roughly 7,000 lights in the sprawling building.

The lighting system was installed at Minnechaug Regional High School when
it was built over a decade ago and was intended to save money and energy.
But ever since the software that runs it failed on Aug. 24, 2021, the
lights in the Springfield suburbs school have been on continuously, costing taxpayers a small fortune....

The system was designed to save energy -- and thus save money by
automatically adjusting the lights as needed.

[Also noted by Mike Smith and Victor Miller. PGN]

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

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 20:02:18 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: FAA says unintentionally deleted files are to blame for nationwide
ground stop (CNN)

[ rm -rf * .tmp ] -L

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/business/faa-notam-outage/index.html

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

Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:37:44 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Wi-Fi Routers Can Detect Human Locations, Poses Within a Room
(Mark Tyson)

Mark Tyson, Tom's Hardware, 18 Jan 2023

Carnegie Mellon University scientists have been testing a system that uses Wi-Fi signals to detect the positions and poses of people in a room. The researchers positioned TP-Link Archer A7 AC1750 Wi-Fi routers at either end
of the room, while algorithms generated wireframe models of people in the
room by analyzing the signal interference the people caused. The researchers based the perception system on Wi-Fi signal channel-state-information, or
the ratio between transmitted and received signal waves. A computer vision-capable neural network architecture processes this data to execute
dense pose estimation; the researchers deconstructed the human form into 24 segments to accelerate wireframe representation. They claim the wireframes' position and pose estimates are as good as those generated by certain "image-based approaches."

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

Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:37:44 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Hackers Can Make Computers Destroy Their Own Chips with
Electricity (Matthew Sparkes)

Matthew Sparkes, *New Scientist*, 19 Jan 2023,
via ACM TechNews, 23 Jan 2023

Zitai Chen and David Oswald at the U.K.'s University of Birmingham uncovered
a bug in the control systems of server motherboards that could be exploited
to compromise sensitive information or to destroy their central processing units (CPUs). The researchers found a feature in the Supermicro X11SSL-CF motherboard often used in servers that they could tap to upload their own control software. Chen and Oswald discovered a flash memory chip in the motherboard's baseboard management controller that they could remotely
command to send excessive electrical current through the CPU, destroying it
in seconds. After the researchers disclosed the flaw to Supermicro, the
company said it has rated its severity as "high" and has patched the bug in
its existing motherboards.

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

Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:37:44 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Decoding Brainwaves to Identify What Music Is Being Listened To
(U.Essex)

University of Essex (UK), 19 Jan 2023, via ACM TechNews, 23 Jan 2023

A brainwave-monitoring technique created by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Essex can identify to which specific piece of music people are listening. The researchers combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with electroencephalogram monitoring to measure a person's brain activity while listening to music. They used a deep learning neural network model to translate this data in order to reconstruct and accurately identify the piece of music with 71.8% accuracy. Essex's Ian Daly said, "We have
shown we can decode music, which suggests that we may, one day, be able to decode language from the brain."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:17:20 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Remember Zoom-bombing? This is how Zoom tamed meeting intrusions.

The success of reducing Zoom-bombing shows how making technology less easy
to use can make you safer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/24/zoom-bombing-prevention-tips/

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

Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2023 18:46:24 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Google Fi warns customers that their data has been compromised
(Engadget)

Google has notified customers of its Fi mobile virtual network operator
(MVNO) service that hackers were able to access some of their information, according to TechCrunch. The tech giant said the bad actors infiltrated a third-party system used for customer support at Fi's primary network
provider. While Google didn't name the provider outright, Fi relies on US Cellular and T-Mobile for connectivity. If you'll recall, the latter
admitted in mid-January that hackers had been taking data from its systems since November last year. [...]

https://www.engadget.com/google-fi-customer-data-compromised-065740701.html?src=rss

Also: Google Fi hack victim had Coinbase, 2FA app hijacked by hackers
(TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/01/google-fi-hack-victim-had-coinbase-2fa-app-hijacked-by-hackers/

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

Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2023 13:55:03 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Options trading desks 'flying blind' after derivatives platform hit
by ransomware attack (MarketWatch) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trading-desks-flying-blind-after-derivatives-platform-hit-by-ransomware-attack-11675270815

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 11:45:23 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Mathematical Trick Lets Hackers Shame People into Fixing
Software Bugs (Matthew Sparkes)

Matthew Sparkes, *New Scientist*, 17 2023 vai ACM TechNews

Researchers at the Galois software company have developed a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) method of using math to verify vulnerabilities in a particular software program, without releasing details of how an exploit works. The
idea is to generate public pressure to force a company to release a fix
while preventing hackers from exploiting the flaw. Said Galois' Santiago Cu=C8llar, "There are a lot of frustrated people trying to disclose vulnerabilities, or saying 'I found this vulnerability, I'm talking to this company and they're doing nothing'." However, bug-bounty hunter Rotem Bar is concerned that ZKPs could generate a "ransom effect" that gives power to the attacker.

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 11:45:23 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Can You Trust Your Quantum Simulator? (Jennifer Chu)

Jennifer Chu, *MIT News*, 18 Jan 2023 via ACM TechNews

Physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology have identified a randomness in the
quantum fluctuations of atoms that follows a predictable pattern and
developed a benchmarking protocol to assess the fidelity of existing quantum analog simulators based on their quantum fluctuation patterns. The
researchers tested this on a quantum analog simulator containing 25 atoms by exciting the atoms with a laser, letting the qubits interact and evolve naturally, and collecting 10,000 measurements on the state of each qubit
during multiple runs. They developed a model to predict the random
fluctuations and compared the predicted outcomes with experimental measurements, which yielded a close match. MIT's Soonwon Choi said, "With
our tool, people can know whether they are working with a trustable system."

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

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2023 11:35:17 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Widespread Logic Controller Flaw Raises the Specter of Stuxnet
(Lily Hay Newman)

Lily Hay Newman, *Ars Technica*, 11 Jan 2023, via ACM TechNews

Siemens has disclosed that a vulnerability in its SIMATIC S7-1500 series of programmable logic controllers could allow attackers to install malicious firmware and assume full control of the devices. Red Balloon Security researchers discovered the vulnerability, which is the result of a basic
error in the cryptography's implementation. However, because the scheme is physically burned onto a dedicated ATECC CryptoAuthentication chip, a
software patch cannot fix the vulnerability. Siemens recommended customers assess "the risk of physical access to the device in the target deployment"
and implement "measures to make sure that only trusted personnel have access
to the physical hardware."

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

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2023 17:54:09 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Man Paid $20,000 in Bitcoin in Failed Attempt to Have 14-Year-Old
Killed, U.S. Says (NYTimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/us/hitman-murder-bitcoin-new-jersey.html

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

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2023 10:13:02 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Developer pleads guilty to hacking his own company after pretending
to investigate himself (The Verge)

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/3/23584414/ubiquiti-developer-guilty-extortion-hack-security-breach-bitcoin-ransom

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

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2023 15:10:12 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Retirees Are Losing Their Life Savings to Romance Scams. Here's
What to Know. (NYTimes)

Con artists are using dating sites to prey on lonely people, particularly
older ones, in a pattern that accelerated during the isolation of the
pandemic, federal data show.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/business/retiree-romance-scams.html

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

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 13:21:30 PST
From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Cryptocurrency Founder Gamed Markets, FTX Rivals Say (NYTimes)

Emily Flitter and David Yafee-Bellany,
*The New York Times*, 19 Jan 2023, Business Section front page

Bankman-Fried found ways to inflate the prices of digital coins to
benefit his companies, according to investors

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

Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2023 14:48:56 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: How Charlie Javice Got JPMorgan to Pay $175 Million for What
Exactly? (NYTimes)

A young founder promised to simplify the college financial aid process. It
was a compelling pitch. Especially, as now seems likely, to those with
little firsthand knowledge of financial aid.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/jpmorgan-chase-charlie-javice-fraud.html

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

Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2023 18:26:42 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Massive nursing degree scheme leads to hunt for 2,800 fraudulent
nurses (Ars Technica)

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1914332

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

Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2023 15:23:50 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Based on a True Story -- Except the Parts That Aren't (NYTimes)

The entertainment genre of historical drama is flourishing -- and riddled
with inaccuracies. The untrue parts are leading to more public spats and lawsuits.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/14/business/media/tv-historical-dramas-fictional.html

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 09:32:34 -0500
From: Jan Wolitzky <jan.wolitzky@gmail.com>
Subject: Citing Accessibility, State Department Ditches Times New Roman
for Calibri (NYTimes)

There's more to font choices than what looks nice, and some experts said it would make for easier reading.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/politics/state-department-times-new-roman-calibri.html

(No mention of the Braille Institute's Atkinson Hyperlegible font
https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont>, designed specifically for
readability.)

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 06:53:58 -0500
From: Bob Gezelter <gezelter@rlgsc.com>
Subject: DNS Attack enabled by well-know passwords; An issue that should be
long-resolved (Ars Technica and precursor note)

Well-known passwords have been a well-known security hazard since the early 1990s. As I wrote in "Networks Placed at Risk, By Their Service Providers"
(7 Dec 2009, it took many years for major ISPs to not use well-known
passwords on router/firewalls provided to subscribers). http://www.rlgsc.com/blog/ruminations/networks-placed-at-risk.html)

Over a decade later, this issue should be long-since banished to history. However, as reported by ArsTechnica, this appears to be depressingly not the case.

ArsTechnica reports that:

Researchers have uncovered a malicious Android app that can tamper with
the wireless router the infected phone is connected to and force the
router to send all network devices to malicious sites.

The malicious app, found by Kaspersky, uses a technique known as DNS
(Domain Name System) hijacking. Once the app is installed, it connects to
the router and attempts to log in to its administrative account by using
default or commonly used credentials, such as admin:admin. When
successful, the app then changes the DNS server to a malicious one
controlled by the attackers. From then on, devices on the network can be
directed to imposter sites that mimic legitimate ones but spread malware
or log user credentials or other sensitive information."

The ArsTechnica article does not indicate whether the compromised hot-spots used vendor or customer purchased equipment. It does increase the importance
of setting management passwords on firewalls to safe values.

Similarly, other precautions, e.g., segregated guest WiFi, should be
followed.

[Also noted by Monty Solomon]

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 16:38:31 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: U.S. No-Fly List Leaks After Being Left in an Unsecured Airline
Server (Vice)

The list, which was discovered by a Swiss hacker, contains names and birth dates and over 1 million entries.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93a4p5/us-no-fly-list-leaks-after-being-left-in-an-unsecured-airline-server

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

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 16:33:29 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Yet *another* T-Mobile data breach affects 37M accounts (CNET)

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/another-data-breach-has-hit-t-mobile-impacting-37-million-accounts/

[Monty Solomon noted
New T-Mobile Breach Affects 37 Million Accounts
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/01/new-t-mobile-breach-affects-37-million-accounts/
PGN]

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

Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2023 17:35:54 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Coming soon, Congress screws with the clock with permanent DST?

By the way, I predict a significant probability that within the next month
the GOP and Democrats will push to make Daylight Savings Time permanent,
which is exactly what virtually every expert says is the worst possible decision if you're going to change the current situation. Rather, if there's going to be a change, it should be to permanent Standard Time. The U.S. did
try all-year Daylight Savings Time many years ago. I remember. It did not go well and was revoked quickly. -L

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

Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2023 18:23:01 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: CNET pushed reporters to be more favorable to advertisers, staffers
say (The Verge)

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/2/23582046/cnet-red-ventures-ai-seo-advertisers-changed-reviews-editorial-independence-affiliate-marketing

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 17:21:06 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Twitter employees status -- and Musk on trial

It is now reported that of the ~7500 full-time employees at Twitter before
Musk took over, there are only ~1300 full-time employees left and less than
550 full-time engineers. Their Trust & Safety team is reported to be down to less than 20 full-time employees.

Also, while testifying at the trial today regarding his tweets, he
repeatedly said that tweets were limited to 240 characters (not the correct 280). -L

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

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 08:48:24 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Musk oversaw staged Tesla self-driving video, emails show
(Ars Technica)

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/musk-oversaw-staged-tesla-self-driving-video-emails-show/

[Monty Solomon noted an item on this story:
https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-self-driving-autonomous-1849996806
PGN]

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

Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2023 01:24:35 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: How Smart Are the Robots Getting? (Cade Metz)

Cade Metz, *The New York Times*, 20 Jan 2023

The Turing test used to be the gold standard for proving machine
intelligence. This generation of bots is racing past it.

"These systems can do a lot of useful things," said Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist at OpenAI and one of the most important A.I. researchers of the
past decade, referring to the new wave of chatbots. "On the other hand, they are not there yet. People think they can do things they cannot."

As the latest technologies emerge from research labs, it is now obvious --
if it was not obvious before if it was not obvious before -- that scientists must rethink and reshape how they track the progress of artificial intelligence. The Turing test is not up to the task.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/technology/chatbots-turing-test.html

PGN adds, from the ACM News Digest on the same item:

New-generation online chatbots display a semblance of intelligence that
appears to pass the Turing test, in which humans can no longer be certain
whether they are conversing with a human or a machine. Bots like OpenAI's
ChatGPT and GPT-4 systems appear intelligent without being sentient or
conscious; consequently, OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever says, "People think they
can do things they cannot." Modern neural networks have learned to produce
text by analyzing vast volumes of digital text and extrapolating patterns
in how people link words, letters, and symbols. However, the chatbots'
language skills belie their lack of reason or common sense.

[Also noted by Matthew Kruk. PGN]

[The Turing Test is no longer adequate as originally stated. Joe
Weizenbaum's Eliza could fool some people for a while. GPT systems can
fool anyone who doesn't understand the fundamental blind spots inherent
in the information used to train the AI, and the consequential inherent
incompleteness of the responses. The grammatical and linguistic polish
is misleading. See RISKS-33.58-60. PGN]

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

Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:28:14 -0500
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Robot Cars Are Causing 911 False Alarms in San Francisco (WiReD)

City agencies say the incidents and other disruptions show the need for more transparency about the vehicles and a pause on expanding service.

Each time, police and firefighters rushed to the scene but found the same thing: a passenger who had fallen asleep in their robot ride. [...}

The San Francisco agencies cite a number of unsettling and previously unreported incidents, including the false alarms over snoozing riders and
two incidents in which self-driving vehicles from Cruise appear to have
impeded firefighters from doing their jobs.

One incident occurred in June of last year, a few days after the state gave Cruise permission to pick up paying passengers in the city. One of the company's robot taxis ran over a fire hose in use at an active fire scene,
the agencies' letter says, an action that ``can seriously injure firefighters.''

In the second incident, just last week, the city says firefighters attending
a major fire in the Western Addition neighborhood saw a driverless Cruise vehicle approaching. They âmade efforts to prevent the Cruise AV from
driving over their hoses and were not able to do so until they shattered a front window of the Cruise AV,â the San Francisco agencies wrote in their letter. [...]

Last summer, WIRED reported that two fleetwide outages had caused Cruise vehicles to freeze on public roads and that a Cruise employee had
anonymously sent a letter to the Public Utilities Commission alleging that
the company's vehicles werenât prepared to operate on public roads. In December, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had
opened a probe into incidents of Cruise vehicles blocking traffic and
reports of the cars *inappropriately hard braking. Cruise has said that for its vehicles, stopping and turning on hazard lights is sometimes the safest
way to react to unexpected street conditions.

https://www.wired.com/story/robot-cars-are-causing-911-false-alarms-in-san-francisco

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

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 09:10:31 +0000
From: Richard Marlon Stein <rmstein@protonmail.com>
Subject: A news site used AI to write articles, and it was a journalistic
disaster (WashPost)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/01/17/cnet-ai-articles-journalism-corrections/

"The tech site CNET sent a chill through the media world when it tapped artificial intelligence to produce surprisingly lucid news stories. But now
its human staff is writing a lot of corrections."

Imagine an automated editorial review of the AI-crafted content certify correctness and publication fitness.

History and events could be re-written without any concern for fact or
context. Libel laws would need revision to accommodate automated authoring
and publication of news content. The content would get a free-pass if it contained the disclaimer: "Authored by Hemingwaybot.com."

"Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"

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

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2023 14:31:52 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: CNET Is Reviewing the Accuracy of All Its AI-Written Articles After
Multiple Major Corrections (gizmodo)

https://gizmodo.com/cnet-ai-chatgpt-news-robot-1849996151

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

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2023 18:32:17 -0800
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: My Printer Is Extorting Me

Subscriptions such as HP's Instant Ink challenge what it means to own our devices:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/02/home-printer-digital-rig hts-management-hp-instant-ink-subscription/672913/

Excerpts:

Here was a piece of technology that I had paid more than $200 for, stocked
with full ink cartridges. My printer, gently used, was sitting on my desk
in perfect working order but rendered useless by Hewlett-Packard, a tech
corporation with a $28 billion market cap because I had failed to make a
monthly payment for a service intended to deliver new printer cartridges
that I did not yet need. [...]
<https://www.forbes.com/companies/hewlett-packard/> at the time of
writing,

Even if you aren't trapped in Ink Hell, the template of this story ought to feel unsettlingly familiar. Most everyone is subject to the walled gardens
and restrictions imposed by digital-rights-management practices. If you've ever struggled to access a purchased movie, book, or song from Apple or frustrated over single-player games that require the Internet to play. The problem isn't merely that people are nostalgic for the days of CDs and DVDs
and static updates -- it's that much of the convenience promised by our Internet-connected tools has the secondary effect of stripping away small pieces of our agency and leaving us more beholden to companies seeking
bigger margins.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:55:10 -0500
From: Rob Lemos <mail@robertlemos.com>
Subject: ChatGPT on a blog: huMansplaining on parade

dan@geer.org:

we can oh so easily return to a world of sorcerers, alchemy, and
faith in powers in proportion to their mystery.

With post-truth and conspiracy theories I think

[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)