AFP infiltrates and takes down another encrypted messaging app network

The AFP's "uber nerds" have "dismantled" encrypted messaging app Ghost, created and administered by a 32-yo dude in Sydney who made it 9 years ago and used agents around the world to sell Samsung smartphones with the app pre-loaded to crooks, claiming it was more secure than Signal, WhatsApp, etc. The AFP knew about Ghost for a while, but only knew it was lead by someone in Sydney in 2021 and launched Operation Kraken with the intention to infiltrate it and bust all the crims using it. They haven't said exactly how they did this, but the SMH reckons the AFP "had to engineer a virus-like program and get it into the Administrator's computers" and Commander Rob Nelson told the ABC, "now we have to put what we've done before [an Australian] court and demonstrate to them the method which we've employed and give them confidence that was lawful". The AFP's press release has more detail if you're interested.

Various bits of AI news, good & bad, mostly bad

Lots of AI related news today:

• Lionsgate, a huge media company with titles like John Wick and The Hunger Games under its purview, entered an agreement with Runway (I've never heard of them either) for the "creation and training of a new AI model, customized on Lionsgate's proprietary catalog", "designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work". I bet the people who actually made these movies are delighted.
• LinkedIn added a setting for users to opt-out of having all their user data fed into whatever LLM/AI stuff Microsoft is cooking up. It's bad enough they're making users opt-out rather than opt-in, but they also didn't bother to update their terms of service to reflect the fact that everyone's data is being used for this now. Unless you're in in the EEA or Switzerland - Microsoft isn't pulling this bullshit there.
• Crikey is reporting that Australian radiology chain I-MED handed over the scans and x-rays of over 100,000 patients without their knowledge to a startup called Harrison.ai. Disregarding if it's any good or not (The Lancet medical journal calls it a "breakthrough as a support system for radiologists"), the fact they just used this data without patient consent is extremely gross. Just ask, give me an incentive to participate, stop stealing shit!
• I'm accused every now and then of being too harsh on AI and downplaying its benefits, or just generally being negative/cynical in general, so here's a good news story for ya - "a year-and-a-half-long study on Chartwatch, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that use of the AI system led to a striking 26% drop in the number of unexpected deaths among hospitalized patients". Perhaps when used purposefully and carefully, with human oversight, AI can be a good thing.

South Australia's plan to gives schools locally made Chromebooks isn't going well

Remember at the start of 2024 how I wrote in The Sizzle that the SA government wants Chromebooks for state schools built in SA, so they ran a pilot program with Google and local PC assembler Allied Corporation that they claimed would deliver more than 500 jobs? 60 Chromebooks were built by Allied and used in two schools, but after 6 months from that announcement the department of education did a $20m deal with HP to supply the state's schools with laptops and tablets. A spokesperson told Innovation Australia that the trial is still going and the Allied Chromebooks were "well received", but like, where's the money? Where's the jobs? Oh it was just another Peter Malinauskas hype moment? I'm shocked.

X tries to use Cloudflare to evade Brazil ban but Cloudflare rats them out

X is supposed to be banned in Brazil due to a court order (more info on that if this is news to you!) but X found a cheeky way to get around it - Cloudflare. They put X behind Cloudflare's huge CDN, so if the Brazilian ISPs want to block X, they also have to block Cloudflare, taking a huge amount of other traffic with it. Elon Musk probably thought he was so smart, but Cloudflare has already said they're going to "isolate" Brazilian traffic to X and block it themselves. Ah well, better luck next time Elon.