Daily Digest | 27 April 2026

Your daily dose of Privacy, Data Protection, AI & Cybersecurity news.

5 stories you should not miss.

Read more: https://www.nicfab.eu/daily-digest/

#Privacy #AI #GDPR #Cybersecurity #TechLaw

I saw a meme post on Facebook suggesting that no one earns a billion dollars except by wage theft, that no one works a billion times harder than other hardworking people who make ordinary wages. That seems a fair claim. I wrote this next paragraph in response, kind of as a spur of the moment thought, but it's something I want to spend more time thinking about:

I used to think that one solution to this was the practice of asking CEOs to not make more than some fixed multiple of their lowest-paid employee. But now I see the goal is to not employ anyone either. A lot of the benefits for corporations are justified on the idea that they employ people, so helping them helps people. Now that this assumption is on a path to being increasingly violated, we need to reconsider our special treatment of corporations as well.

#ai #corporations #billionaires #NoBilliionaires #LateStageCapitalism #ShareholderCapitalism #RegulatoryCapture #society #ethics #unemployment #automation #law #CapitalGains #CapitalGainsTax #WealthTax #inequality #fascism #feudalism #oligarchy

I worked on improving Acuitas' trial-and-error learning algorithms this month, so he can get better at playing "guess my rule" games: https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/04/acuitas-diary-96-april-2026.html
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #chatbots #NLP #SymbolicAI

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Photo of a board game called Azul. An assortment of colorful square tiles are laid out on a five-by-five grid in the game tray. The rest of the tray has diagrams and empty squares that might be places to put additional tiles.

A teacher’s gift to the world: MIT professor who taught the math behind AI for 60 years has made his lectures free online | - The Times of India

#ai #lecture #online

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/a-teachers-gift-to-the-world-mit-professor-who-taught-the-math-behind-ai-for-60-years-has-made-his-lectures-free-online/articleshow/130524783.cms

If anybody here happens to have a GitHub account, it would help a great deal to drop Pearl a star. Right now, the project is buried in search despite having a (small but present) user base and being actively maintained.

No pressure of course, but it would help a lot!

https://github.com/pdschneider/Pearl
#github #pearl #software #ai

Stop SLOP - How To Apply SLOP Sign Branding

1. Download SLOP graphic below
2. Open https://www1.lunapic.com/editor/
3. Upload >>> Choose File >>> [your slop imagename] >>> Upload
4. Edit >>> Paste from... >>> Choose File >>> [SLOP Sign filename] >>> Upload >>> Continue on to paste this image >>> place/resize >>> Apply >>> Download now

Thanks to Dave Rahardja @drahardja for the graphics work on the SLOP sign.

#SLOP #AI #StopSLOP

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SLOP graphic in the shape of a STOP sign

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Slop image Branded with a SLOP SIgn

📰 Privacy Advocate Accuses US Government of Investing in AI-Powered Mass Surveillance

The Conversation published this warning from privacy/tech law/electronic surveillance attorney Anne Toomey McKenna (also an affiliated faculty member at Penn State's Institute for Computational and...

📰 Source: Slashdot
🔗 Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/04/26/0541202/privacy-advocate-accuses-us-government-of-investing-in-ai-powered-mass-surveillance?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence

ICYMI: Ad tech braces for AI agents: ChatGPT ads reach logged-out users, IAB Tech Lab forms a programmatic governance council, SECURE Data Act targets state privacy laws, and Google resets its spam tools. https://ppc.land/ad-tech-braces-for-ai-agents/ #AdTech #AI #ChatGPT #ProgrammaticAdvertising #DigitalMarketing

OpenAI Privacy Filter

https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai-privacy-filter/

#HackerNews #OpenAI #Privacy #Filter #technology #privacy #AI #ethics #security

https://newrepublic.com/article/209132/mark-zuckerberg-ai-replacement-ceo

Let’s replace all CEOs with #AI bots

🐧 BleachBit 6.0 Introduces New Cookie Manager, Improves Browser Cleaning

BleachBit 6.0 open-source and free disk space cleaner, privacy manager, and computer system optimizer software is now available for download with many improvements and major changes.

📰 Source: Tux Machines
🔗 Link: https://tuxmachines.org/n/2026/04/26/BleachBit_6_0_Introduces_New_Cookie_Manager_Improves_Browser_Cl.shtml

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence

The small British Columbia town of Tumbler Ridge is still reeling from the shooting that killed eight people in February. @Techcrunch tells us why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has apologized to the community:

https://flip.it/K6ndNc

#Tech #OpenAI #ChatGPT #AI #Technology #ArtificialIntelligence

#California Coastal Community Must Reject CBP's AI-Powered #Surveillance Tower

Customs and Border Protection (#CBP ) is seeking permission from the California city of #SanClemente to install an #Anduril Industries surveillance tower on a cliff that would allow for constant #monitoring of entire coastal neighborhoods.
#privacy #ai #security

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/california-coastal-community-must-reject-cbps-ai-powered-surveillance-tower

This week the Court of the Tangerine Tyrant accused the Chinese of stealing the intellectual property of US AI-labs 'on an industrial scale'...

I mean really you couldn't make it up.... the development of AI has been built on the wholesale use & theft of intellectual property as part of its 'training' - I guess no-one has ever pointed out to them the old truism: 'live by the sword, die by the sword'.

It's just one more incidence of the US' rampant political hypocrisy!

#AI #China #US
h/t FT

The people who want us to stop making things are the people who never made anything.

#AI #ChatGPT #Claude #Gemini #GenAI #Midjourney #StableDiffusion

I do not want the future
#AI #privacy #cars https://www.gadgetreview.com/federal-surveillance-tech-becomes-mandatory-in-new-cars-by-2027

#Microsoft now lets admins uninstall #Copilot on enterprise devices

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-now-lets-admins-uninstall-copilot-on-enterprise-devices/

#cybersecurity #AI #privacy #Windows

"Take a moment to think before you dive in. That’s the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation. That means Gemini seeing who you know and what you do. You likely have tens or hundreds of thousands of photos. They’re all exposed if you update.

We’re talking Personal Intelligence, Google’s latest AI upgrade path which lets users opt-in to connecting Google apps to Gemini. Why search for a doctor’s appointment when Google has access to all your calendar events. Why search for a party invite when it reads all your emails. And why search for a specific photo of you and your loved ones to create an image, when it sees all your photos.

This is the latest iteration in the ongoing battle between convenience and privacy playing out on our phones and computers. “Previously, to get a result that felt truly personal, you had to write long, detailed descriptions and manually upload a reference photo just to give Gemini the right context.” Not any more, Google says. Its AI can scan everything to form its own views of you and everyone you know."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/04/20/google-starts-scanning-all-your-photos-as-new-update-goes-live/

#AI #GenerativeAI #Google #Gemini #Privacy #DataProtection

The bright #LLM future, next part.

git.gentoo.org is now effectively dead, being DDoS-ed by almost a million different IPs every day. Most of them are just performing a single request at a totally random URL. How are people supposed to deal with that? How can we distinguish a legitimate user who hit some URL from a scraper that distributes its operations over thousands of IP addresses?

If you use LLM crap, you're part of the problem. You support these bastards. You should be ashamed of yourself.

#Gentoo #NoAI #NoLLM #AI

This article gets simply to the heart of how the US government gets the techbros to collect your data as you go about your everyday life and then it purchases it to use it against you.

The US government is side stepping the Constitution and it wants you to think this is inevitable and right.

#DataCollection
#personaldata
#AI

https://theconversation.com/us-government-ramps-up-mass-surveillance-with-help-of-ai-tech-data-brokers-and-your-apps-and-devices-277440

Missouri Independent: Missouri House forges ahead with bill targeting AI deepfakes and youth social media use. “The legislation would require social media companies to implement age verification measures and prohibit them from targeting youth with ‘manipulative or addictive’ design features. It would also make it a felony to share deepfakes.”

Another customer of troubled startup #Delve suffered a big security incident

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/23/another-customer-of-troubled-startup-delve-suffered-a-big-security-incident/

#cybersecurity #AI #ContextAI #Lovable

So, it now seems that McKinsey & Cambridge Econometrics analysis of the likely environmental impact of the build-out of AI-related data centres in the UK was off by around ten times; that is, new (independent) projections suggest (and now adopted by the Govt.) that the environmental impact (via carbon emissions) is likely to be TEN times what the consultancies predicted.

(water usage predictions have also been raised)

Funny that...I wonder who else McKinsey work for???

#AI #DataCentres
h/t FT

Ad tech braces for AI agents: ChatGPT ads reach logged-out users, IAB Tech Lab forms a programmatic governance council, SECURE Data Act targets state privacy laws, and Google resets its spam tools. https://ppc.land/ad-tech-braces-for-ai-agents/ #AdTech #AI #ChatGPT #DigitalMarketing #ProgrammaticAdvertising

AI/ML Security

<https://openssf.org/groups/ai-ml-security/> @openssf @linuxfoundation

＂This working group is situated at the intersection between security and artificial intelligence (AI). We explore the security risks associated with Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI (GenAI), and other forms of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML), and their impact on open source projects, maintainers, their security, communities, and adopters. Furthermore, we explore using AI and ML to strengthen the security of other open source projects.

This group in collaborative research and peer organization engagement to explore topics related to AI and security. This includes security for AI development (e.g., supply chain security) but also using AI for security. We are covering risks posed to individuals and organizations by improperly trained models, data poisoning, privacy and secret leakage, prompt injection, licensing, adversarial attacks, and any other similar risks.

This group leverages prior art in the AI/ML space,draws upon both security and AI/ML experts, and pursues collaboration with other communities (such as the CNCF’s AI WG, LFAI & Data, AI Alliance, MLCommons, and many others) who are also seeking to research the risks presented by AL/ML to OSS in order to provide guidance, tooling, techniques, and capabilities to support open source projects and their adopters in securely integrating, using, detecting and defending against LLMs. …＂

#AI #ML #security #cybersecurity #infosec #Linux

[This is fine.] 🔥

#OpenBSD #LLM #LLMs #slop #NOAI #AInt #AI #BSD

I'm married, I haven't been #dating in over two decades

Just trying to imagine being a young person in this #socialMedia #scam-addled world feels like it has to be the most dreary hellscape for finding #romance

So when I read this headline, I have multiple levels of "oh hell no" going on in my head

' #Tinder takes action against #AI profiles by making users scan eyes for “proof of humanity”'

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/tinder-takes-action-against-ai-profiles-by-making-users-scan-eyes-for-proof-of-humanity-3356111/

"We have come to this cultural agreement that convenience is so important that it trumps everything else, forgetting that anything that matters in life is inconvenient [...] I think we should re-value difficulty, overcoming difficulty, and take pleasure in gaining mastery, because it is a form of empowerment"

#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #CarissaVéliz, author of #Prophecy

https://speakingoutofplace.buzzsprout.com/2084729/episodes/18709720-bullshit-and-infinity-why-ai-cannot-predict-anything-a-conversation-with-carissa-veliz

#AI #tech #artificialIntelligence #techCriticism #techFutures #BigTech #books @bookstodon

⚖️ California Coastal Community Must Reject CBP's AI-Powered Surveillance Tower

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking permission from the California city of San Clemente to install an Anduril Industries surveillance tower on a cliff that would allow for constant monit...

📰 Source: Deeplinks
🔗 Link: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/california-coastal-community-must-reject-cbps-ai-powered-surveillance-tower

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence

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Image for: California Coastal Community Must Reject CBP's AI-Powered Surveillance Tower

#Meta will now allow parents to see the topics their child discussed with #MetaAI

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/23/meta-will-now-allow-parents-to-see-the-topics-their-child-discussed-with-meta-ai/

#privacy #AI #parenting #Facebook #Instagram

Operation Legal Ride uses license plate readers and AI-assisted cameras.

The post NYC deploys surveillance tech to catch fake airport cabbies appeared first on Popular Science.

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NYC deploys surveillance tech to catch fake airport cabbies

📰 The Latest Push to Extend Key US Spy Powers Is Still a Mess

A US surveillance program that lets the FBI view Americans' communications without a warrant is up for renewal. A new bill aims to address mounting lawmaker concerns—with smoke and mirrors.

📰 Source: Feed: All Latest
🔗 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.wired.com/story/the-latest-push-to-extend-key-us-spy-powers-is-still-a-mess/

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence

"When he drives through his neighborhood now, Brian Page passes rows of police cars and AI‑powered cameras that track nearly every movement.

For most of his life, Page, who goes by “Scapegoat Jones,” felt safest in the community that Atlanta officials have since flooded with officers and surveillance technology in the name of “public safety.” He bought a house six minutes from the one he grew up in in DeKalb County, is raising his daughter in the same majority‑Black neighborhood, and cherished the forest trail where his family used to jog and ride bikes.

Now, a massive police training complex and an expanding web of surveillance rise in its place, and it makes him feel watched, not protected.

The network, he said, “certainly feels like an invasion of privacy.”

The 41-year-old’s unease about the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, more commonly known as “Cop City,” is at the center of a much larger experiment.

Built atop 85 acres of one of Atlanta’s last urban forests, the training center is now wired into what has become the most expansive surveillance network of any city in the U.S., part of more than 60,000 public and private cameras linked to law enforcement across the metro area."

https://capitalbnews.org/atlanta-cop-city-ai-policing-black-community/

#AI #AIPolicing #USA #CopCity #Atlanta #Surveillance

Doug Henwood welcomes #QuinnSlobodian and #BenTarnoff, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, to discuss "Elon’s world and what he wants to do to ours."

https://kpfa.org/episode/behind-the-news-april-23-2026/
#Musk #ElonMusk #AI #tech #BigTech #SiliconValleyRight #techOligarchs #techFutures #Tesla #Neuralink #books @bookstodon

Meta will cut 10% of workforce as company pushes deeper into AI.

CNBC reports: "Job cuts are picking up across the tech sector as companies reckon with the AI boom."

https://flip.it/xOIQ-p

#Meta #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Layoffs