Le principali aziende tecnologiche come Google , Apple e Discord stanno facilitando l’accesso rapido degli utenti a siti dannosi che utilizzano l’intelligenza artificiale per “spogliare” le persone nelle fotografie, creando immagini di nudo senza il loro consenso. Nel corso di diversi mesi, più di una dozzina di questi siti hanno utilizzato i sistemi di autorizzazione di queste società, che consentivano agli utenti di registrarsi facilmente su tali risorse.

Un’analisi di WIRED ha identificato 16 dei più grandi siti di immagini di nudo false che utilizzano l’infrastruttura di accesso tramite Google, Apple, Discord, Twitter, Patreon e Line. Questa integrazione ha creato l’illusione di legittimità per tali siti, consentendo agli utenti di creare rapidamente account e acquistare crediti per la generazione di immagini.

Il numero di siti che creano immagini intime senza consenso è aumentato in modo significativo con l’avvento dell’intelligenza artificiale generativa. È particolarmente allarmante che tali tecnologie siano state utilizzate attivamente dagli adolescenti che creano immagini dei loro coetanei. Nonostante l’ovvietà del problema, le grandi aziende tecnologiche non hanno fretta di adottare misure per combattere tali siti, che vengono facilmente trovati attraverso i motori di ricerca, promossi attivamente attraverso la pubblicità sui social network e finiscono persino negli app store.

I sistemi di accesso utilizzati su questi siti consentono agli utenti di registrarsi tramite i propri account esistenti. Google era presente su 16 di questi siti, Discord su 13 e Apple su sei. Quando sono state contattate da WIRED, alcune società hanno affermato di aver preso provvedimenti per rimuovere gli account sviluppatore associati ai siti, ma altre società non hanno commentato o hanno rifiutato di discutere di siti specifici.

Negli ultimi anni, le tecnologie deepfake hanno reso molto più semplice la creazione di tali immagini e i siti impegnati in questa attività hanno iniziato a operare come aziende. Spesso nascondono informazioni sui proprietari e sulle modalità operative, offrono i propri servizi in diverse lingue e si sviluppano attivamente, aggiungendo nuove funzionalità come la possibilità di personalizzare il proprio aspetto e scaricare immagini da Instagram.

Alcuni siti creano persino le proprie criptovalute per pagare i servizi. Nonostante le critiche e le affermazioni secondo cui tali tecnologie contribuiscono alla violenza sessuale e allo sfruttamento delle donne, i siti continuano a funzionare e il loro traffico non fa che crescere.

Le forze dell’ordine e le organizzazioni pubbliche continuano a combattere tali siti, ma il problema rimane ancora rilevante. La richiesta da parte dei giganti della tecnologia di una regolamentazione più rigorosa e di una restrizione dell’accesso a tali tecnologie si fa sempre più forte, ma per ora la maggior parte delle misure vengono adottate solo dopo un’ampia copertura mediatica della questione.

L'articolo Come Google, Apple e Discord Diffondono siti AI per “Spogliare” le Persone proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

When you think of Sony, you probably think of a technology company that’s been around forever. However, as [Asianometry] points out, it really formed in the tough years after World War II. The two people behind the company’s formation were an interesting pair. One of them was a visionary engineer and one was a consummate businessman.

While it is hard to imagine today, securing a license to produce transistors was difficult in the early days. What’s worse is, even with the license, it was not feasible to use the crude devices in a radio.

The devices were poor by today’s standards, and while transistors would work at audio frequencies for hearing aids, getting them to work at AM radio frequencies was a challenge. The Sony founders had to decide whether to use alloy transistors or grown crystal transistors.

Western Electric did not want to share its crystal-growing technology, so in 1954, the team created an alloy transistor. However, it failed to work well at radio frequencies, so they shifted to growing crystals, which seemed more amenable to scaling. One of the team tried using phosphorous and indium doping and created a transistor that could work at higher frequencies. But there was a problem.

Despite the transistor’s superior performance, they couldn’t make another one. Common wisdom at the time was that phosphorus doping was a dead end, but it had worked once. It just took time to find the right way to do it. By 1955, they produced usable transistors, even though the yield was at around 5%.

Texas Instruments beat them to market with a transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, in 1954, but in 1955, they produced the TR-55. Of the five transistors inside, some were alloyed transistors, and some were grown crystals. The factory had to hand-select crystal transistors to make each unit work. The radios were on sale for about 19,000 yen (the TR-1 cost about 50 bucks; recall that in 1954, that was nearly $600 in today’s money). Adjusting for inflation, in today’s money, a Japanese teenager would shell out about $850 for the TR-55.

The TR-55 wasn’t the first Sony radio to have transistors. The TR-52 was a prototype, but it had case problems and never made it into the hands of the public. The radio didn’t make it to the United States until 1957. By then, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, and GE all had radios available, too.

It is a fascinating look into the history of an iconic electronics brand and a window into another world that, honestly, wasn’t that long ago. We couldn’t help but note similarities with Apple, who also had a businessman and engineer combination. Sony would go on to innovate in a number of areas, including optical data storage.

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hackaday.com/2024/09/04/how-so…

Whether you have full use of your hands or not, a foot-operated keyboard is a great addition to any setup. Of course, it has to be a lot more robust than your average finger-operated keyboard, so building a keyboard into an existing footstool is a great idea.

When [Wingletang]’s regular plastic footrest finally gave up the ghost and split in twain, they ordered a stronger replacement with a little rear compartment meant to hold the foot switches used by those typing from dictation. Settling upon modifiers like Ctrl, Alt, and Shift, they went about designing a keyboard based on the ATmega32U4, which does HID communication natively.

For the switches, [Wingletang] used the stomp switches typically found in guitar pedals, along with toppers to make them more comfortable and increase the surface area. Rather than drilling through the top of the compartment to accommodate the switches, [Wingletang] decided to 3D print a new one so they could include circuit board mounting pillars and a bit of wire management. Honestly, it looks great with the black side rails.

If you want to build something a little different, try using one of those folding stools.

hackaday.com/2024/09/04/floorb…

[Peter Demchenko] wanted to use a low power TS555 in an ESR meter design. The problem is, he needed to handle significant current sink requirements for cases where the capacitor under test had a low ESR. The TS555 wasn’t up to the task.

However, [Peter] made an interesting observation. the output pin of the device can sink or source current. However, the discharge pin is exactly the same output but can only sink current.

But what if you tied them together? Using some equalizing resistors, that’s exactly what he did, and this roughly doubles the rated current sink capability. According to [Peter], you do make the circuit more sensitive to power supply variations, but that could be an acceptable trade, depending on your application.

The meter schematic confused us for a moment because the R3 and R4 designations are corrupted. Both the equalizing resistors, it appears, are 110 ohms. The schematic legend should read “R3 110” not “3 110.” The same for R4 which appears as “4 110.”

We do love unusual ways to use a 555. If you need to read ESR, and you have one of those ubiquitous component testers handy, they will give you a reading of ESR, among other things.

hackaday.com/2024/09/04/humble…

!Programmer Humor
Hi, this is a question that popped into my mind when i saw an article about some AWS engineer talking about ai assistants taking over the job of programmers, this reminded me that it's not the first time that something like this was said.

My software engineering teacher once told me that a few years ago people believed graphical tools like enterprise architect would make it so that a single engineer could just draw a pretty UML diagram and generate 90% of the project without touching any code,
And further back COBOL was supposed to replace programmers by letting accountants write their own programs.

Now i'm curious, were there many other technologies that were supposedly going to replace programmers that you remember?

i hope someone that's been around much more than me knows something more or has some funny stories to share