Reddit has filed its initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC on Thursday. "The company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'RDDT,'" reports CNBC. From the report: Its market debut, expected in March, will be the first major tech initial public offering of the year. It's the first social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019. Reddit said it had $804 million in annual sales for 2023, up 20% from the $666.7 million it brought in the previous year, according to the filing. The social networking company's core business is reliant on online advertising sales stemming from its website and mobile app.

The company, founded in 2005 by technology entrepreneurs Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, said it has incurred net losses since its inception. It reported a net loss of $90.8 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023, compared with a net loss of $158.6 million the year prior. [...] Reddit said it plans to use artificial intelligence to improve its ad business and that it expects to open new revenue channels by offering tools and incentives to "drive continued creation, improvements, and commerce." It's also in the early stages of developing and monetizing a data-licensing business in which third parties would be allowed to access and search data on its platform.

For example, Google on Thursday announced an expanded partnership with Reddit that will give the search giant access to the company's data to, among other uses, train its AI models. "In January 2024, we entered into certain data licensing arrangements with an aggregate contract value of $203.0 million and terms ranging from two to three years," Reddit said, regarding its data-licensing business. "We expect a minimum of $66.4 million of revenue to be recognized during the year ending December 31, 2024 and the remaining thereafter." On Wednesday, Reddit said it plans to sell a chunk of its IPO shares to 75,000 of its most loyal users.

Longtime Slashdot reader Rei writes: In a blog post today, Bluesky, the social media network founded by Jay Graber, announced that they have finally opened to federation. Users can now operate their own PDS (backend) servers. How to do so is discussed on the developers' blog and a new Discord channel for PDS administrators.

As the blog notes, there are key differences between the AT Protocol/Bluesky federation and ActivityPub/Mastodon federation, including: global conversation (rather than local-server based with remote content only brought in from follows); a decentralized user account not bound to a specific host; user-composable moderation lists not inherently tied to a specific server, offsetting the need for defederation; user-composable feeds/algorithms, not tied to servers; and full account portability, without the need to be initiated by your server, protecting users from rogue admins or servers that disappear.

Despite the difference, a number of projects, such as Bridgy-Fed, plan to bridge Bluesky and Mastodon together, with all of Bluesky appearing as a single Mastodon server on ActivityPub, and Mastodon users being translated to a decentralized identifier (DID) for AT Protocol (atproto) calls.

Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant's AI models. Reuters: The contract with Alphabet-owned Google is worth about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources. The deal underscores how Reddit, which is preparing for a high-profile stock market launch, is seeking to generate new revenue amid fierce competition for advertising dollars from the likes of TikTok and Meta Platform's Facebook.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS: Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor linked to the nation's top policing agency and other parts of its government -- a trove that catalogs apparent hacking activity and tools to spy on both Chinese and foreigners. Among the apparent targets of tools provided by the impacted company, I-Soon: ethnicities and dissidents in parts of China that have seen significant anti-government protests, such as Hong Kong or the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang in China's far west. The dump of scores of documents late last week and subsequent investigation were confirmed by two employees of I-Soon, known as Anxun in Mandarin, which has ties to the powerful Ministry of Public Security. The dump, which analysts consider highly significant even if it does not reveal any especially novel or potent tools, includes hundreds of pages of contracts, marketing presentations, product manuals, and client and employee lists. They reveal, in detail, methods used by Chinese authorities used to surveil dissidents overseas, hack other nations and promote pro-Beijing narratives on social media.

The documents show apparent I-Soon hacking of networks across Central and Southeast Asia, as well as Hong Kong and the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. The hacking tools are used by Chinese state agents to unmask users of social media platforms outside China such as X, formerly known as Twitter, break into email and hide the online activity of overseas agents. Also described are devices disguised as power strips and batteries that can be used to compromise Wi-Fi networks. I-Soon and Chinese police are investigating how the files were leaked, the two I-Soon employees told the AP. One of the employees said I-Soon held a meeting Wednesday about the leak and were told it wouldn't affect business too much and to "continue working as normal." The AP is not naming the employees -- who did provide their surnames, per common Chinese practice -- out of concern about possible retribution. The source of the leak is not known. Jon Condra, an analyst with Recorded Future, a cybersecurity company, called it the most significant leak ever linked to a company "suspected of providing cyber espionage and targeted intrusion services for the Chinese security services." According to Condra, citing the leaked material, I-Soon's targets include governments, telecommunications firms abroad and online gambling companies within China.

According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Reddit plans to sell a chunk of its IPO shares to 75,000 of its most loyal users. Reuters reports: It aims to reserve an as-yet-undetermined number of shares for 75,000 of its most prolific so-called redditors when it goes public next month, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The users will have the opportunity to buy Reddit shares at its initial public offering (IPO) price before the stock starts trading, a privilege normally reserved only for big investors, the report said. Reddit's IPO, which has been in the works for more than three years now, would be the first from a major social media company since Pinterest's debut in 2019.

Starting in July, the Vietnamese government will begin collecting biometric information from its citizens when issuing new identification cards. The Register reports: Prime minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed the nation's Ministry of Public Security to collect the data in the form of iris scans, voice samples and actual DNA, in accordance with amendments to Vietnam's Law on Citizen Identification. The ID cards are issued to anyone over the age of 14 in Vietnam, and are optional for citizens between the ages of 6 and 14, according to a government news report. Amendments to the Law on Citizen Identification that allow collection of biometrics passed on November 27 of last year.

The law allows recording of blood type among the DNA-related information that will be contained in a national database to be shared across agencies "to perform their functions and tasks." The ministry will work with other parts of the government to integrate the identification system into the national database. [...] Vietnam's future identity cards will incorporate the functions of health insurance cards, social insurance books, driver's licenses, birth certificates, and marriage certificates, as defined by the amendment.

As for how the information will be collected, the amendments state: "Biometric information on DNA and voice is collected when voluntarily provided by the people or the agency conducting criminal proceedings or the agency managing the person to whom administrative measures are applied in the process of settling the case according to their functions and duties whether to solicit assessment or collect biometric information on DNA, people's voices are shared with identity management agencies for updating and adjusting to the identity database."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Union will investigate whether ByteDance's TikTok breached online content rules aimed at protecting children and ensuring transparent advertising, an official said on Monday, putting the social media platform at risk of a hefty fine. EU industry chief Thierry Breton said he took the decision after analyzing the short video app's risk assessment report and its replies to requests for information, confirming a Reuters story. "Today we open an investigation into TikTok over suspected breach of transparency & obligations to protect minors: addictive design & screen time limits, rabbit hole effect, age verification, default privacy settings," Breton said on X.

The European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies to all online platforms since Feb. 17, requires in particular very large online platforms and search engines to do more to tackle illegal online content and risks to public security. TikTok's owner, China-based ByteDance, could face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover if TikTok is found guilty of breaching DSA rules. TikTok said it would continue to work with experts and the industry to keep young people on its platform safe and that it looked forward to explaining this work in detail to the European Commission.

The European Commission said the investigation will focus on the design of TikTok's system, including algorithmic systems which may stimulate behavioral addictions and/or create so-called 'rabbit hole effects'. It will also probe whether TikTok has put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors. As well as the issue of protecting minors, the Commission is looking at whether TikTok provides a reliable database on advertisements on its platform so that researchers can scrutinize potential online risks.

The first human patient implanted with a brain-chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup's founder Elon Musk said late on Monday. From a report: "Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking," Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X. Musk said Neuralink was now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient. The firm successfully implanted a chip on its first human patient last month, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in September.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: Reddit has signed a contract allowing an AI company to train its models on the social media platform's content, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter... The agreement, signed with an "unnamed large AI company", could be a model for future contracts of a similar nature, Bloomberg reported.
Mashable writes that the move "means that Reddit posts, from the most popular subreddits to the comments of lurkers and small accounts, could build up already-existing LLMs or provide a framework for the next generative AI play." It's a dicey decision from Reddit, as users are already at odds with the business decisions of the nearly 20-year-old platform. Last year, following Reddit's announcement that it would begin charging for access to its APIs, thousands of Reddit forums shut down in protest... This new AI deal could generate even more user ire, as debate rages on about the ethics of using public data, art, and other human-created content to train AI.
Some context from the Verge: The deal, "worth about $60 million on an annualized basis," Bloomberg writes, could still change as the company's plans to go public are still in the works.

Until recently, most AI companies trained their data on the open web without seeking permission. But that's proven to be legally questionable, leading companies to try to get data on firmer footing. It's not known what company Reddit made the deal with, but it's quite a bit more than the $5 million annual deal OpenAI has reportedly been offering news publishers for their data. Apple has also been seeking multi-year deals with major news companies that could be worth "at least $50 million," according to The New York Times.

The news also follows an October story that Reddit had threatened to cut off Google and Bing's search crawlers if it couldn't make a training data deal with AI companies.

"Would you like to live on Mars?" NASA asked Friday on social media.

"You can help us move humanity toward that goal by participating in a simulated, year-long Mars surface mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center." NASA is seeking applicants to participate in its next simulated one-year Mars surface mission to help inform the agency's plans for human exploration of the Red Planet. The second of three planned ground-based missions called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) is scheduled to kick off in spring 2025.

Each CHAPEA mission involves a four-person volunteer crew living and working inside a 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed habitat based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The habitat, called the Mars Dune Alpha, simulates the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, and other environmental stressors. Crew tasks include simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and crop growth.

NASA is looking for healthy, motivated U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are non-smokers, 30-55 years old, and proficient in English for effective communication between crewmates and mission control. Applicants should have a strong desire for unique, rewarding adventures and interest in contributing to NASA's work to prepare for the first human journey to Mars...

As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, CHAPEA missions provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions for future missions to the Red Planet. With the first CHAPEA crew more than halfway through their yearlong mission, NASA is using research gained through the simulated missions to help inform crew health and performance support during Mars expeditions.
You can see the simulated Mars habitat in this NASA video.

The deadline for applicants is Tuesday, April 2, according to NASA. "A master's degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new iOS and Android trojan named 'GoldPickaxe' employs a social engineering scheme to trick victims into scanning their faces and ID documents, which are believed to be used to generate deepfakes for unauthorized banking access. The new malware, spotted by Group-IB, is part of a malware suite developed by the Chinese threat group known as 'GoldFactory,' which is responsible for other malware strains such as 'GoldDigger', 'GoldDiggerPlus,' and 'GoldKefu.' Group-IB says its analysts observed attacks primarily targeting the Asia-Pacific region, mainly Thailand and Vietnam. However, the techniques employed could be effective globally, and there's a danger of them getting adopted by other malware strains. [...]

For iOS (iPhone) users, the threat actors initially directed targets to a TestFlight URL to install the malicious app, allowing them to bypass the normal security review process. When Apple remove the TestFlight app, the attackers switched to luring targets into downloading a malicious Mobile Device Management (MDM) profile that allows the threat actors to take control over devices. Once the trojan has been installed onto a mobile device in the form of a fake government app, it operates semi-autonomously, manipulating functions in the background, capturing the victim's face, intercepting incoming SMS, requesting ID documents, and proxying network traffic through the infected device using 'MicroSocks.'

Group-IB says the Android version of the trojan performs more malicious activities than in iOS due to Apple's higher security restrictions. Also, on Android, the trojan uses over 20 different bogus apps as cover. For example, GoldPickaxe can also run commands on Android to access SMS, navigate the filesystem, perform clicks on the screen, upload the 100 most recent photos from the victim's album, download and install additional packages, and serve fake notifications. The use of the victims' faces for bank fraud is an assumption by Group-IB, also corroborated by the Thai police, based on the fact that many financial institutes added biometric checks last year for transactions above a certain amount.

schwit1 writes: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won a preliminary injunction against the White House and other federal defendants in his suit alleging government censorship of his statements against vaccines on social media. The injunction, however, will be stayed until the US Supreme Court rules in a related case brought by Missouri and Louisiana. An injunction is warranted because Kennedy showed he is likely to succeed on the merits of his claims, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said Wednesday.

The White House defendants, the Surgeon General defendants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defendants, the Federal Bureau of Investigation defendants, and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency defendants likely violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, Doughty said. Kennedy's class action complaint, brought with health care professional Connie Sampognaro and Kennedy's nonprofit, Children's Health Defense, alleges that the federal government, beginning in early 2020, began a campaign to induce Facebook, Google (YouTube), and X, formerly known as Twitter, to censor constitutionally protected speech.

Specifically, Kennedy said, the government suppressed "facts and opinions about the COVID vaccines that might lead people to become 'hesitant' about COVID vaccine mandates." Kennedy has sufficiently shown that these defendants "jointly participated in the actions of the social media" platforms by '"insinuating' themselves into the social-media companies' private affairs and blurring the line between public and private action," Doughty said.

The European Union is expanding its strict digital rulebook on Saturday to almost all online platforms in the bloc, in the next phase of its crackdown on toxic social media content and dodgy ecommerce products that began last year by targeting the most popular services. From a report: The EU's trailblazing Digital Services Act has already kicked in for nearly two dozen of the biggest online platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia. The DSA imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep internet users safe online, including making it easier to report counterfeit or unsafe goods or flag harmful or illegal content like hate speech as well as a ban on ads targeted at children.

Now the rules will apply to nearly all online platforms, marketplaces and "intermediaries" with users in the 27-nation bloc. Only the smallest businesses, with fewer than 50 employees and annual revenue of less than 10 million euros ($11 million), are exempt. That means thousands more websites could potentially be covered by the regulations. It includes popular ones such as eBay and OnlyFans that escaped being classed as the biggest online platforms requiring extra scrutiny.

Jordan Pearson reports via Motherboard: A peer-reviewed science journal published a paper this week filled with nonsensical AI-generated images, which featured garbled text and a wildly incorrect diagram of a rat penis. The episode is the latest example of how generative AI is making its way into academia with concerning effects. The paper, titled "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway" was published on Wednesday in the open access Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology journal by researchers from Hong Hui Hospital and Jiaotong University in China. The paper itself is unlikely to be interesting to most people without a specific interest in the stem cells of small mammals, but the figures published with the article are another story entirely. [...]

It's unclear how this all got through the editing, peer review, and publishing process. Motherboard contacted the paper's U.S.-based reviewer, Jingbo Dai of Northwestern University, who said that it was not his responsibility to vet the obviously incorrect images. (The second reviewer is based in India.) "As a biomedical researcher, I only review the paper based on its scientific aspects. For the AI-generated figures, since the author cited Midjourney, it's the publisher's responsibility to make the decision," Dai said. "You should contact Frontiers about their policy of AI-generated figures." Frontier's policies for authors state that generative AI is allowed, but that it must be disclosed -- which the paper's authors did -- and the outputs must be checked for factual accuracy. "Specifically, the author is responsible for checking the factual accuracy of any content created by the generative AI technology," Frontier's policy states. "This includes, but is not limited to, any quotes, citations or references. Figures produced by or edited using a generative AI technology must be checked to ensure they accurately reflect the data presented in the manuscript."

On Thursday afternoon, after the article and its AI-generated figures circulated social media, Frontiers appended a notice to the paper saying that it had corrected the article and that a new version would appear later. It did not specify what exactly was corrected. UPDATE: Frontiers retracted the article and issued the following statement: "Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the nature of its AI-generated figures. The article does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific rigor for Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology; therefore, the article has been retracted. This retraction was approved by the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. Frontiers would like to thank the concerned readers who contacted us regarding the published article."

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media: A trove of leaked emails shows how administrators of one of the most prestigious awards in science fiction censored themselves because the awards ceremony was being held in China. Earlier this month, the Hugo Awards came under fire with accusations of censorship when several authors were excluded from the awards, including Neil Gaiman, R. F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao, and Paul Weimer. These authors' works had earned enough votes to make them finalists, but were deemed "ineligible" for reasons not disclosed by Hugo administrators. The Hugo Awards are one of the largest and most important science fiction awards. [...]

The emails, which show the process of compiling spreadsheets of the top 10 works in each category and checking them for "sensitive political nature" to see if they were "an issue in China," were obtained by fan writer Chris M. Barkley and author Jason Sanford, and published on fandom news site File 770 and Sanford's Patreon, where they uploaded the full PDF of the emails. They were provided to them by Hugo Awards administrator Diane Lacey. Lacey confirmed in an email to 404 Media that she was the source of the emails. "In addition to the regular technical review, as we are happening in China and the *laws* we operate under are different...we need to highlight anything of a sensitive political nature in the work," Dave McCarty, head of the 2023 awards jury, directed administrators in an email. "It's not necessary to read everything, but if the work focuses on China, taiwan, tibet, or other topics that may be an issue *in* China...that needs to be highlighted so that we can determine if it is safe to put it on the ballot of if the law will require us to make an administrative decision about it."

The email replies to this directive show administrators combing through authors' social media presences and public travel histories, including from before they were nominated for the 2023 awards, and their writing and bodies of work beyond just what they were nominated for. Among dozens of other posts and writings, they note Weimer's negative comments about the Chinese government in a Patreon post and misspell Zhao's name and work (calling their novel Iron Widow "The Iron Giant"). About author Naseem Jamnia, an administrator allegedly wrote, "Author openly describes themselves as queer, nonbinary, trans, (And again, good for them), and frequently writes about gender, particularly non-binary. The cited work also relies on these themes. I include them because I don't know how that will play in China. (I suspect less than well.)"

"As far as our investigation is concerned there was no reason to exclude the works of Kuang, Gaiman, Weimer or Xiran Jay Zhao, save for being viewed as being undesirable in the view of the Hugo Award admins which had the effect of being the proxies Chinese government," Sanford and Barkley wrote. In conjunction with the email trove, Sanford and Barkley also released an apology letter from Lacey, in which she explains some of her role in the awards vetting process and also blames McCarty for his role in the debacle. McCarty, along with board chair Kevin Standlee, resigned earlier this month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: We already know thatOpenAI's chatbots can pass the bar exam without going to law school. Now, just in time for the Oscars, a new OpenAI app called Sora hopes to master cinema without going to film school. For now a research product, Sora is going out to a few select creators and a number of security experts who will red-team it for safety vulnerabilities. OpenAI plans to make it available to all wannabe auteurs at some unspecified date, but it decided to preview it in advance. Other companies, from giants like Google to startups likeRunway, have already revealed text-to-video AI projects. But OpenAI says that Sora is distinguished by its striking photorealism -- something I haven't seen in its competitors -- and its ability to produce longer clips than the brief snippets other models typically do, up to one minute. The researchers I spoke to won't say how long it takes to render all that video, but when pressed, they described it as more in the "going out for a burrito" ballpark than "taking a few days off." If the hand-picked examples I saw are to be believed, the effort is worth it.

OpenAI didn't let me enter my own prompts, but it shared four instances of Sora's power. (None approached the purported one-minute limit; the longest was 17 seconds.) The first came from a detailed prompt that sounded like an obsessive screenwriter's setup: "Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes." The result is a convincing view of what is unmistakably Tokyo, in that magic moment when snowflakes and cherry blossoms coexist. The virtual camera, as if affixed to a drone, follows a couple as they slowly stroll through a streetscape. One of the passersby is wearing a mask. Cars rumble by on a riverside roadway to their left, and to the right shoppers flit in and out of a row of tiny shops.

It's not perfect. Only when you watch the clip a few times do you realize that the main characters -- a couple strolling down the snow-covered sidewalk -- would have faced a dilemma had the virtual camera kept running. The sidewalk they occupy seems to dead-end; they would have had to step over a small guardrail to a weird parallel walkway on their right. Despite this mild glitch, the Tokyo example is a mind-blowing exercise in world-building. Down the road, production designers will debate whether it's a powerful collaborator or a job killer. Also, the people in this video -- who are entirely generated by a digital neural network -- aren't shown in close-up, and they don't do any emoting. But the Sora team says that in other instances they've had fake actors showing real emotions. "It will be a very long time, if ever, before text-to-video threatens actual filmmaking," concludes Wired. "No, you can't make coherent movies by stitching together 120 of the minute-long Sora clips, since the model won't respond to prompts in the exact same way -- continuity isn't possible. But the time limit is no barrier for Sora and programs like it to transform TikTok, Reels, and other social platforms."

"In order to make a professional movie, you need so much expensive equipment," says Bill Peebles, another researcher on the project. "This model is going to empower the average person making videos on social media to make very high-quality content."

Further reading: OpenAI Develops Web Search Product in Challenge To Google

An anonymous reader shares a report: For some Apple Vision Pro buyers, the honeymoon is already over. It's no coincidence that there's been an uptick on social media of Vision Pro owners saying they're returning their $3,500 headsets in the past few days. Apple allows you to return any product within 14 days of purchase -- and for the first wave of Vision Pro buyers, we're right about at that point.

Comfort is among the most cited reasons for returns. People have said the headset gives them headaches and triggers motion sickness. The weight of the device, and the fact that most of it is front-loaded, has been another complaint. Parker Ortolani, The Verge's product manager, told me that he thought using the device led to a burst blood vessel in his eye. At least one other person noted they had a similar experience with redness. (To be fair, VR headset users have anecdotally reported dry eyes and redness for years.)

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a lawsuit against four of the nation's largest social media companies, accusing them of fueling a "national youth mental health crisis." From a report: The lawsuit was filed to hold TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube Accountable for their damaging influence on the mental health of children, Adams said. The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court, alleged the companies intentionally designed their platforms to purposefully manipulate and addict children and teens to social media applications. The lawsuit pointed to the use of algorithms to generate feeds that keep users on the platforms longer and encourage compulsive use.

"Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis," Adams said. "Our city is built on innovation and technology, but many social media platforms end up endangering our children's mental health, promoting addiction, and encouraging unsafe behavior." The lawsuit accused the social media companies of manipulating users by making them feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action.

"These platforms take advantage of reciprocity by, for example, automatically telling the sender when their message was seen or sending notifications when a message was delivered, encouraging teens to return to the platform again and again and perpetuating online engagement and immediate responses," the lawsuit said. The city is joining hundreds of school districts across the nation in filing litigation to force the tech companies to change their behavior and recover the costs of addressing the public health threat.

At least six major tech companies, including Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and TikTok, plan to sign an agreement this week that details how they'll attempt to stop the use of AI-generated election misinformation and deepfakes. ABC News reports: "In a critical year for global elections, technology companies are working on an accord to combat the deceptive use of AI targeted at voters," said a joint statement from several companies Tuesday. "Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok and others are working jointly toward progress on this shared objective and we hope to finalize and present details on Friday at the Munich Security Conference."

The companies declined to share details of what's in the agreement. Many have already said they're putting safeguards on their own generative AI tools that can manipulate images and sound, while also working to identify and label AI-generated content so that social media users know if what they're seeing is real.

Indian tech services giant Infosys has been named as the source of a data leak suffered by the Bank of America. From a report: Infosys disclosed the breach in a November 3, 2023, filing that revealed its US subsidiary Infosys McCamish Systems LLC (IMS) "has become aware of a cyber security incident resulting in non-availability of certain applications and systems in IMS." A data breach notification filed in the US state of Maine this week describes the incident as "External system breach (hacking)" and reveals the improperly accessed data includes "Name or other personal identifier in combination with: Social Security Number."

The notification was submitted by an outside attorney working on behalf of the Bank of America, names IMS as the source, and revealed that information on 57,028 people was leaked. A sample of the letter sent to those impacted by the incident reveals that on November 24, "IMS told Bank of America that data concerning deferred compensation plans serviced by Bank of America may have been compromised. Bank of America's systems were not compromised." Things then get a bit scary: "It is unlikely that we will be able to determine with certainty what personal information was accessed as a result of this incident at IMS. According to our records, deferred compensation plan information may have included your first and last name, address, business email address, date of birth, Social Security number, and other account information."