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The News

Australia to crack down on nudify/stalking apps… somehow?

The federal government says it’s going to “further strengthen” Australia’s online safety rules to crack down on so-called “nudify” (a.k.a. non-consensual sexually explicit deepfake) and stalking apps (Department of Comms). It plans to do this by “restrict[ing] access” by “engaging closely with industry”, which I assume means using various powers under the Online Safety Act.

The Sizzle: When it comes to tech for creating non-consensual explicit material of others, the cat’s out of the bag. But that doesn’t mean that we should accept that people are profiting by selling the apps (Crikey, $) to platforms are letting those app makers to promote their abuse tools (Crikey, $). It’s a good thing for government to act on but this isn’t anything yet. When I emailed the Minister’s office, they said “We are committed and the work starts now.”

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Russia suspected in EU President plane’s GPS jamming attack

Russia is suspected of jamming the GPS of the EU President’s plane as it was trying to land (FT, $). On Sunday afternoon, a plane carrying Ursula von Der Leyen was approaching a Bulgarian airport when its GPS stopped working, despite other aircraft in the area having their instruments unaffected, before the pilots manually landed using a paper map. Bulgarian authorities pointed the finger at Russia which denied it was them.

The Sizzle: Once limited to military use, GPS jamming and spoofing is becoming more common. particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Reading this longer piece on “GPS warfare” (FT, $), I was interested to find out disruption isn’t purely an offensive tactic with countries like Russia and Israel using jammers in their own country to protect themselves. Also, I lol’d at “Residents of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon complain the interference has made it impossible to use taxi, takeaway or dating apps.”

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

P*rn sites that don’t age check have been swamped with traffic

P*rn websites refusing to comply with the UK’s age check laws have seen a surge of traffic.(Washington Post, gift link). Out of the top 90 adult websites, there were 14 not doing any age checks — and every single one of them had seen an increase in visitors since the UK’s new Online Safety rule came into effect. The regulator Ofcom says its launched four investigations into websites for failing to comply.

The Sizzle: With this law — like the teen social media ban — there is no further discussion about how people will circumvent it beyond “ah well”. Clearly, there is a point at which a policy becomes useless, perhaps even harmful if you think routing people to dodgier websites is a greater risk. So what is that point? If you want to prohibit access to something, and if you really care about protecting children, maybe we should talk about this.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

This is why you should always check the footnotes

I wanted to share this delightful Bluesky thread from Guardian Australia’s Nick Miller who actually read the footnotes (Bluesky). He saw a claim from Australia’s business lobby that AI could “free up to 30 percent of a clinician’s time” and traced it all the way back to an journal article reviewing a pilot of My Health Record … which did not mention AI. Funny that! (This gives me a good excuse to share a recent, but instant hall-of-fame article about “checking someone’s working” by Derek Thompson).

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.