Plus: The first ever ‘cyber-farting’ UK court case ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

January 30, 2025 | Read online
# 2260. OpenAI learns about irony, telcos sharing coverage and Aussie-led company funds deepfake porn website Plus: The first ever ‘cyber-farting’ UK court case
Issue 2260 - Thursday 30 January, 2025
# In Today’s Issue
OpenAI: Don’t steal from me, that’s my move Telcos sharing because of the carrot and the stick Australian-led company funds world’s worst deepfake porn site The first ever ‘cyber-farting’ UK court case Cheap Anko bluetooth speaker, Casio watches, amaysim SIM start pack, DJI Osmo Action 4, Galax GeForce RTX 4060, Samsung Galaxy tablet, BYO GPU PCs and Lenovo ThinkPads.
# The News
### OpenAI complains about DeepSeek theft, learns about irony
Sorry to write about DeepSeek again but how could I resist? OpenAI ‘reviewing’ allegations that its AI models were used to make DeepSeek (The Guardian). Alternative headline: Thief: ‘Someone Stole From Me. Help!’ Beyond revelling in the schadenfreude, there are few things to note: Firstly, Sam Altman isn’t positioning for a copyright infringement lawsuit. No, OpenAI is trying to get the United States government do something — tighten trade restrictions? ban DeepSeek? — a signal that was immediately picked up by Trump’s “AI Czar” David Sacks (Bloomberg, $). The second part is that while DeepSeek probably “distilled” — or in common parlance, yoinked — from OpenAI, it also appears to have legitimately come up its own “genuine and impressive innovations” that others can build on too, according to competing AI company Anthropic CEO’s interesting blog post (Dario Amodei). In all the excitement, DeepSeek was the target of a cyberattack (Reuters) and a leak (WIRED, $); while their Chinese compatriots at Alibaba got in on the fun and released its own Qwen 2.5 AI model that it claims outperforms everyone else (Reuters).
### Telcos sharing because of the carrot and the stick
TPG’s network sharing arrangement with Optus goes live today which means that Vodafone’s coverage will reportedly “double” (The Australian, $). The raw numbers: the shared network will increase coverage from 400,000sq km to more than 1,000,000sq km which is supposed to cover 98.4% of the population, says TPG CEO Iñaki Berroeta. Speaking of sharing, telcos are reportedly working on the ability to temporarily serve customers from telcos if their carrier’s coverage has been interrupted by a natural disaster or technical faults (Information Age). This already happens in the US where their Federal Communications Commission requires telcos to do it. Apparently the federal government is “weighing” up making it mandatory here too.
### Australian-led company funds world’s worst deepfake porn site
The internet’s foremost platform for non-consensual deepfaked sexually explicit content is MrDeepFakes. It gets millions of views every month and is a massive facilitator in the lucrative online trade of deepfake pornographic content of almost exclusively women. Creators of deepfake porn use it to host samples of their work and offer longer version or bespoke content for sale elsewhere. The website, whose ownership is unknown, makes money off this mass violation by selling memberships. Investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat published a report (Bellingcat)today that identified one of the website’s major advertisers as a Australian-led “AI girlfriend” chatbot service called Candy.ai. Last year, the AFR revealed former ASX-listed pet-sitting business Mad Paws CEO Alexis Soulopoulos was the chief of Candy.ai’s company EverAI (AFR, $), which reportedly has millions of users who pay up to US$100 a year to create a custom AI woman who chats, speaks and shares images. In response to the Bellingcat investigation, EverAI blamed its affiliate marketing program and said it had directed MrDeepFakes to remove its ads. It really sucks that the future was supposed to be hover cars but we got this instead.
# Oh, Also
### Plus: The first ever ‘cyber-farting’ UK court case
Sometimes I’ll summarise something for y’all, but there are times when I can’t do the source material justice. This is one of those times.
Read ‘Woman in court for aggressively farting at her boyfriend’s ex’ (Metro). It’s impossibly difficult to pick out one quote because each line is a banger, but I think it’s share the stakes of the court case: “The case is believed to be the first instance of legal action against ‘cyber-farting’ in the UK.”
# Bargains
Anko Portable Bluetooth Bamboo Speaker - $5 at Kmart Samsung Bar Plus USB Drive Champagne Silver - $19.05 at Amazon US Casio watches: F-91W for $22.56, G-Shock Classic for $66.01, G-Shock ‘Stealth’ for $118.47 and G-Shock 211 Series for $181 at Amazon amaysim 28-Day 64GB Prepaid SIM starter pack - $30 from amaysim WD Blue SN580 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD - $75 at Centre Com TP-Link Festa F65 AX3000 Ceiling Mount Wi-Fi 6 Access Point - $99 at Amazon Verbatim Vi3000 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD - $119 at Centre Com Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD - $179 at Centre Com Vodafone Oppo A60 5G 4GB RAM/128GB Storage + $35 Prepaid Starter Kit - $179 Delivered at Vodafone & BIG W Z834-PLUS MINIX NEO Fanless Mini PC - $199 at Radio Parts DJI Osmo Action 4 Standard Combo - $299 at JB Hi-Fi Galax GeForce RTX 4060 8GB 1-Click OC 2X V2 Graphics Card - $401 at Centre Com Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ Wi-Fi 128GB - $689 at Amazon BYO GPU PCs from Nebula PC - from $748 Lenovo ThinkPad X12 i5-1130G7, 16GB, 256GB, 12.3" FHD+ IPS 400nit Touch 2-in-1 + Cable - $788.90 refurbished at Mobileciti Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 8 (14'' Touch, Intel Core i5-1335U CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1749 at Emporium Electronics
# The End
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