Researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory say that a dataset used to train AI image generation tools contains at least 1,008 validated instances of child sexual abuse material. The Stanford researchers note that the presence of CSAM in the dataset could allow AI models that were trained on the data to generate new and even realistic instances of CSAM.

LAION, the non-profit that created the dataset, told 404 Media that it "has a zero tolerance policy for illegal content and in an abundance of caution, we are temporarily taking down the LAION datasets to ensure they are safe before republishing them." The organization added that, before publishing its datasets in the first place, it created filters to detect and remove illegal content from them. However, 404 points out that LAION leaders have been aware since at least 2021 that there was a possibility of their systems picking up CSAM as they vacuumed up billions of images from the internet. 

According to previous reports, the LAION-5B dataset in question contains "millions of images of pornography, violence, child nudity, racist memes, hate symbols, copyrighted art and works scraped from private company websites." Overall, it includes more than 5 billion images and associated descriptive captions. LAION founder Christoph Schuhmann said earlier this year that while he was not aware of any CSAM in the dataset, he hadn't examined the data in great depth.

It's illegal for most institutions in the US to view CSAM for verification purposes. As such, the Stanford researchers used several techniques to look for potential CSAM. According to their paper, they employed "perceptual hash‐based detection, cryptographic hash‐based detection, and nearest‐neighbors analysis leveraging the image embeddings in the dataset itself." They found 3,226 entries that contained suspected CSAM. Many of those images were confirmed as CSAM by third parties such as PhotoDNA and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque trained Stable Diffusion using a subset of LAION-5B data. Google's Imagen text-to-image model was trained on a subset of LAION-5B as well as internal datasets. A Stability AI spokesperson told Bloomberg that it prohibits the use of its test-to-image systems for illegal purposes, such as creating or editing CSAM.“This report focuses on the LAION-5B dataset as a whole,” the spokesperson said. “Stability AI models were trained on a filtered subset of that dataset. In addition, we fine-tuned these models to mitigate residual behaviors.”

Stable Diffusion 2 (a more recent version of Stability AI's image generation tool) was trained on data that substantially filtered out 'unsafe' materials from the dataset. That, Bloomberg notes, makes it more difficult for users to generate explicit images. However, it's claimed that Stable Diffusion 1.5, which is still available on the internet, does not have the same protections. "Models based on Stable Diffusion 1.5 that have not had safety measures applied to them should be deprecated and distribution ceased where feasible," the Stanford paper's authors wrote.

The European Union says three porn sites are now subject to stricter rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The bloc has designated Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos as "very large online platforms" (VLOPs) after determining that they each have an average of more than 45 million monthly users in the EU. As such, the three sites are subject to the same stringent rules as the likes of Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.

The European Commission (the EU's executive arm) says VLOPs have until February 17 to comply with the DSA's general requirements. Those include making it easy for users to flag illegal content, prioritizing reports from "trusted flaggers," providing a means of appeal for content moderation decisions, publishing an annual transparency report detailing content moderation processes and bolstering their systems to "ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety of minors."

The three porn sites also have four months to comply with additional obligations. For instance, they're required to have mitigation measures in place to prevent the spread of illegal content. This, according to the Commission, includes "child sexual abuse material and content affecting fundamental rights, such as the right to human dignity and private life in case of non-consensual sharing of intimate material online or deepfake pornography." The three sites must also offer researchers publicly available data and be subject to an annual external independent audit. The Commission says these measures will "empower and protect users online, including minors, and duly assess and mitigate any systemic risks stemming from their services."

The Commission says it will keep a close eye on the three porn sites to make sure they comply with the rules, "especially concerning the measures to protect minors from harmful content and to address the dissemination of illegal content."

The penalties for failing to comply with the DSA's requirements are severe. Platform holders can be fined up to six percent of their annual global revenue. The Commission may also issue penalties of up to five percent of average daily worldwide revenue for each delayed day that VLOPs fail to abide by remedies, interim measures or commitments. In extreme cases, the EC can also ask national courts to temporarily block access to a given service.

The Commission, which designated its first 19 Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines under the DSA in April, is already holding some VLOPs to account. Earlier this week, the EU opened formal infringement proceedings into X over potential violations of the DSA. Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the platform is doing enough to mitigate risks to "civic discourse and electoral processes." They're also examining the "suspected deceptive design" of features such as paid checkmarks. In October, the EU said it was looking into Meta's and TikTok's handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas under the DSA.

Volkswagen is the latest automaker to embrace Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) in electric vehicles. Subsidiaries Audi, Porsche and Scout Motors will implement the NACS in their North American EVs starting in 2025 as well.

The VW brands are also looking into providing owners of existing models with adapters so they can tap into Tesla's Supercharger network. There are more than 15,000 Supercharger stations in North America. VW's EVs will be able to charge at those in addition to more than 3,800 DC fast charging outlets run by Electrify America and Electrify Canada.

With so many carmakers adopting the NACS, Tesla's charging solution is becoming a de facto standard. GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid and others have all pledged to support NACS charging within the next couple of years.

On the other hand, ChargePoint started rolling out support for the NACS across its EV charging network in October. Electrify America plans to offer the NACS connector at its stations by 2025 as well.

Blue Origin is taking another stab at its first launch in 15 months as New Shepard's 24th mission is scheduled to take flight on Tuesday. The company had to scrub a planned launch on Monday due to a ground system issue. Today's launch window opens at 11:37AM ET and the webcast starts 20 minutes beforehand. You can watch the launch below.

The uncrewed science mission has 33 payloads, more than half of which were developed by NASA, Blue Origin says. The other payloads are from K-12 schools, universities and STEAM-centric organizations. The manifest also includes 38,000 student postcards from the Club for the Future initiative.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded New Shepard after an uncrewed launch attempt in September 2022 didn't go as planned. The booster failed after takeoff but it was able to separate successfully from the capsule. Although the capsule made a safe parachute landing, the booster was destroyed when it hit the ground in a designated hazard area.

Xfinity says a data breach likely led to attackers obtaining customers' usernames and hashed passwords. Other personal information may have been exposed, such as names, contact information, the last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and secret questions and answers. The company added that its analysis of the attack is ongoing, which may explain why it hasn't disclosed the number of customers who have been affected. Xfinity also notes that it informed law enforcement about the incident.

On October 10, Citrix disclosed a vulnerability in software that Xfinity and many other businesses use. It provided guidance on how to mitigate the vulnerability on October 23 and Xfinity said it swiftly patched the problem. However, while carrying out a routine cybersecurity check two days later, Xfinity spotted suspicious activity in its systems. It later determined that bad actors accessed its internal network between October 16 and 19.

Xfinity says it's informing customers of the incident via its website, email and by other means. It's urging them to change their passwords, to make sure they don't use the same passwords on different accounts and to enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Xfinity also suggested that folks who use the same login credentials on other accounts change their passwords on those.

This isn't the first security incident Xfinity has had to deal with. Back in 2018, it emerged there was a bug in a Comcast website used to activate Xfinity routers. The issue led to some customers' home addresses being exposed, along with the name and password for their Wi-Fi networks.

Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder of Nikola, was just sentenced to four years in prison on three counts of fraud. 

In October 2022, a jury found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Milton faced up to 60 years in prison. Prosecutors asked the judge for an 11-year prison sentence and a $5 million fine, according to The New York Times, while the defense argued for probation. 

After announcing the sentence at a federal court hearing in New York City, U.S. District Judge Edgar Ramos spoke directly to Milton. "As difficult as it may be for you or your family to hear, I believe the jury got it right," Ramos said, as transcribed Reuters.

Milton addressed the court before sentencing was handed down, saying "I did not intend to harm anyone and I did not commit those crimes levied against me." He also spoke at length about his rural upbringing and recited biblical verse. 

Prosecutors claimed that Milton pumped up the value of the company's stock by lying to investors about "nearly all aspects" of Nikola's business. Among other things, Milton claimed his company had a fully functional electric truck. The company released a video that made it appear as though a Nikola One prototype was able to move by itself. However, an indictment alleged that the truck was actually rolling down a hill and that Milton was involved in the video's creation.

In addition, Milton was accused of lying about Nikola having billions of dollars worth of pre-order reservations and that it was producing hydrogen fuel at four times less than market rates. Prosecutors also said Milton falsely claimed Nikola had developed "game-changing" battery tech.

Nikola is still in business and it plans to resume deliveries of its battery electric truck in early 2024 following a recall over battery issues that cost around $61.8 million to resolve. In the nine months to September 30, Nikola produced 96 trucks and shipped 79.

The company's stock price has dropped by 99 percent since 2020 and investors are said to have lost more than $660 million. Milton sold around $100 million of his Nikola stock in 2020 and spent most of that on luxury goods such as a plane and real estate, according to the Times. It's likely that Milton will appeal this conviction, as he's already asked Ramos for a new trial following the jury's guilty verdict.

If you're planning to buy an Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2 for someone as a holiday gift, you should probably act quickly. Apple says it will soon suspend sales of both devices in the country due to a patent dispute over the blood oxygen sensor on the wearables. The Apple Watch SE will remain available for purchase as it doesn't have a blood oxygen sensor.

"A Presidential Review Period is in progress regarding an order from the US International Trade Commission on a technical intellectual property dispute pertaining to Apple Watch devices containing the Blood Oxygen feature," the company told 9to5 Mac in a statement. "While the review period will not end until December 25, Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply should the ruling stand. This includes pausing sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24."

In October, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) upheld a ruling that the Apple Watch violated medical tech company Masimo's patents. That sent the case to the White House for a 60-day Presidential Review Period. Although President Biden has one more week to decide whether to veto the ITC ruling, Apple has opted to preemptively comply with the commission's decision. If the president decides against a veto, Apple can appeal to Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, reach a settlement with Masimo or issue software updates that nullify patent infringements (i.e. by deactivating blood oxygen features).

This story is developing; please refresh for updates.

Adobe is abandoning its planned $20 billion acquisition of Figma after the companies determined that there was no clear path to obtaining approval from UK and European Union regulators. The two sides have signed an agreement that fully resolves all aspects of the failed deal. Adobe will pay collaborative design platform Figma a previously agreed $1 billion termination fee.

In November, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission both cited concerns over the proposed acquisition's impact on competition. The CMA said in its provisional findings that that the merger would “eliminate competition between two main competitors.” The competition watchdog said it was considering either blocking the deal or requiring Adobe to sell Figma's core product, Figma Design, along with Adobe XD.

Earlier on Monday, Adobe claimed that it wouldn't offer the CMA any potential remedies. “It is clear that no realistic remedy would satisfy the concerns the CMA is maintaining,” an Adobe spokesperson told Bloomberg. “We believe that the best path forward is to continue our ongoing engagement with the CMA on the merits.”

Meanwhile, Adobe had anticipated a potential lawsuit from the US Department of Justice in an attempt to block the deal Stateside. The company and Figma reportedly met with DOJ officials last week to try and secure approval for their merger. 

This story is developing; please refresh for updates.

A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives have urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether Apple violated antitrust laws by attempting to block Beeper Mini's access to iMessage. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), along with Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Ken Buck (R-CO), have asked an assistant attorney general to look into “potentially anticompetitive conduct” by Apple.

There have been a number of efforts in recent months to provide Android users with access to iMessage via workarounds. Earlier this month, Beeper said it was able to reverse engineer the iMessage protocol and support it on Android devices. Within a couple of days, Beeper Mini's iMessage integration was acting up and Apple (without elaborating too much) soon confirmed it had blocked an iMessage exploit.

It didn't take long for Beeper to find yet another way to get iMessage working on Android, though this time it required an Apple ID. Last week, the company said it suspected Apple was "deliberately blocking iMessages from being delivered" to around five percent of Beeper Mini users and that it was working on a solution.

The back and forth between Beeper and Apple caught the attention of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). "Green bubble texts are less secure. So why would Apple block a new app allowing Android users to chat with iPhone users on iMessage? Big Tech executives are protecting profits by squashing competitors," Warren wrote on X. "Chatting between different platforms should be easy and secure." 

Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to a question about improving iOS-Android communication compatibility by telling a journalist to "buy your mom an iPhone." 

"Interoperability and interconnection have long been key drivers of competition and consumer choice in communications services," lawmakers noted in their letter to the DOJ. "But consumers will never benefit from competition if dominant firms are allowed to snuff out that competition at its incipiency."

As such, the officials are "concerned that Apple's recent actions to disable Beeper Mini harm competition, eliminate choices for consumers and will discourage future innovation and investment in interoperable messaging services. We also fear these types of tactics may more broadly chill future investment and innovation from those that seek to compete with existing digital gatekeepers. Thus, we refer this matter to the Antitrust Division to investigate whether this potentially anticompetitive conduct by Apple violated the antitrust laws."

Apple has made at least one commitment to improving messaging interoperability. The company has pledged to support the RCS protocol starting in 2024, after years of Google openly pressuring Apple to do so. Adopting RCS will mean that messaging between iPhone and Android will be more secure than SMS and allow for higher-quality media sharing.

Amazon and Games Workshop have confirmed they're working on TV shows and movies based on Warhammer 40,000. The news comes 12 months after the two sides reached an agreement in principle to develop adaptations of the miniature wargame for big and small screens. 

The companies have now inked a full agreement, which gives Amazon the exclusive rights to develop films and TV shows based on the intellectual property. In turn, the adaptations could help Games Workshop attract new Warhammer 40K tabletop players.

Games Workshop says an "elite band" of screenwriters is coming together to create the shows and movies. Assisting them will be Henry Cavill, a long-time Warhammer 40K fan, who will be an executive producer and perhaps star in some of the TV shows and films.

Don't expect to see a Warhammer movie hitting Prime Video anytime soon, though. As Games Workshop notes, it typically takes at least a couple of years for a project to go from the development phase to something you can actually watch. Still, the ball is officially rolling on Amazon's Warhammer adaptations. Games Workshop says it will share some details about what's in store as soon as it's able.