Disgruntled artists have exploited a flaw in artificial intelligence image generators to "poison" their learning. They are looking for revenge on AI operators who use artwork without permission to train their tools. Like most generative AI, image ... tools learn by analyzing millions of pictures and accompanying captions. In turn, the AI creates its own checklist for what particular words or phrases mean. They also learn styles of image and art. While some AI tools are "trained" with permission on libraries of licenses of images, others simply trawl the Internet and use any images they can find. ... (view more)

Apple says it will demand a court order before handing over details of a user's push notifications. It follows revelations that foreign officials were using the tactics for surveillance, with questions asked about whether the Department of Justice ... does the same in the US. A push notification is a message created by an app and shown on the phone screen even if the app itself is closed. This could be anything from a summary of a new email to a breaking story from a news app. Senator Ron Wyden wrote to the DOJ earlier this month to report a tip that both US and foreign governments (said to be ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Stuart V. writes: " Dear Dennis, Both my wife (Suzanne) and I are running Windows 22H2 (version 10.0.19045) on a shared home network. Suzanne's printer is an older HP 4250 Laser Printer (circa 2015) which she has connected to her ... PC via USB connection, and is marked as a 'shared printer'. However, when I try to connect to her printer (via This PC -> Network -> Her Computer -> Right click HP 4250 -> Connect), it gives me an error 'Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation failed 0x0000011b '. I have tried everything I can think of but can't fix this. Can ... (view more)

Apple is beefing up security measures to reduce the damage caused by iPhone thefts. The new "Stolen Device Protection" feature is opt-in, possibly because it comes at the expense of convenience. The feature is designed for cases when somebody steals ... a device and successfully enters the passcode. That could happen when a thief spots somebody typing in the passcode before they steal the handset. It could also happen if the thief knows some details about the victim and they have a predictable passcode such as a birth date. Anyone who unlocks a phone will still be able to use it and access apps ... (view more)

The next generation of WiFi will be available by spring, 2024. WiFi 7 should be up to four times faster than the previous generation. The theoretical maximum speed of 46 Gbps (gigabit) is not something anyone is likely to see in their home setup. ... However, it could make it more likely that users will be able to take full advantage of even the fastest home broadband connections. For those unaware, one gigabit is equal to 125 megabytes. Therefore, 46 gigabits is 5750 megabytes. Most standard hard drives today transfer speeds of around 100+ megabytes per second (not includes NVMe or SSD). For ... (view more)

Google has lost a major court battle with respect to the way people pay for mobile app services. It's a surprise verdict as Apple prevailed in an extremely similar case against the same opponent. Both cases involved antitrust cases brought by Epic ... Games, which makes the hugely popular game Fortnite. In both cases, Epic complained about the way Apple and Google take a cut of payments from app developers. In this case, Epic said Google's cut of 30 percent for apps in the official Play Store was too high. It said Google was able to set the rate because of a lack of alternative routes to ... (view more)

Google has removed more than a dozen Android apps which offered loans to desperate users, but were actually a scam involving fraud and blackmail. As usual with such removals, it only affects the Play Store and the apps are not automatically deleted ... from phones. The 18 apps in question have been collectively dubbed SpyLoan, and have more than 12 million combined downloads from Google Play this year. They were listed in a variety of language with English variants including Cashwow, 4S Cash and EasyCash. The main target audience appears to be people in countries with a large population and a ... (view more)

Google says it has significantly upgraded Gmail's spam filter to overcome a common scam tactic. It's now using AI to detect images that aren't technically text characters but are still readable by humans. It also says the new system will reduce the ... number of false positives: legitimate emails mistakenly flagged as spam. That's certainly felt like an increasing problem over the past year or so. The scammer tactic tackled with the update is called adversarial text manipulation. That takes account of the fact that a key part of spam filtering involves analyzing the text in an email and looking ... (view more)

Tougher rules mean digital device and software manufacturers will have to report security breaches more quickly. They'll also have to offer security patches for at least five years. The rules come from the European Union. They technically only cover ... products sold in EU member countries, though in many such cases manufacturers change their behavior worldwide to comply with the rules. The financial penalties for breaking the rules take into account global turnover. The rules, which will become the Cyber Resilience Act, cover "products with digital elements." These include smart and connected ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've managed to get myself caught up in Instagram sextortion and I don't know what to do. A few weeks ago this beautiful woman DM'd me on Instagram, claiming to be 21. After a bit of harmless ... back-and-forth, we exchanged some photos. Later on, things got a little more heated and I sent some nudes (but only after she initiated). She's got my phone number, though for the past week we've been communicating on Snapchat. A few days ago, her 'father' called me on the phone (from a New York area code) and claims she's under age and threatened to go ... (view more)