Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Bumble Open Sourced Its AI That Detects Unsolicited Nudes (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As part of its larger commitment to combat “cyberflashing,” the dating app Bumble is open sourcing its AI tool that detects unsolicited lewd images. First debuted in 2019, Private Detector (let’s take a moment to let that name sink in) blurs out nudes that are sent through the Bumble app, giving the user on the receiving end the choice of whether to open the image. “Even though the number of users sending lewd images on our apps is luckily a negligible minority — just 0.1% — our scale allows us to collect a best-in-the-industry dataset of both lewd and non-lewd images, tailored to achieve the best possible performances on the task,” the company wrote in a press release.

Now available on GitHub, a refined version of the AI is available for commercial use, distribution and modification. Though it’s not exactly cutting-edge technology to develop a model that detects nude images, it’s something that smaller companies probably don’t have the time to develop themselves. So, other dating apps (or any product where people might send dick pics, AKA the entire internet?) could feasibly integrate this technology into their own products, helping shield users from undesired lewd content. When Bumble first introduced this AI, the company claimed it had 98% accuracy.

Submission + - RNC Sues Google Over Spam Email Filters (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Alphabet's Google on Friday for allegedly sending its emails to users' spam folders. The U.S. political committee accuses the tech giant of "discriminating" against it by "throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views," according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in California. "Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building," the RNC said in the lawsuit.

Spam filters on email services typically weed out unsolicited "spam" messages and divert them to a separate folder. The RNC said that for most of the month, nearly all of its emails end up in users’ inboxes but at the end of the month, which is an important time for fund-raising, nearly all of their emails end up in spam folders. "Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful," the lawsuit said, adding that it does not matter whether the email is about donating, voting or community outreach. The committee said the "discrimination" had been going on for about 10 months despite its best efforts to work with Google. It said the alleged routing of its emails to spam folders had eaten up revenue and that more money would be lost in coming weeks as midterm elections loom.

Submission + - ISC2 proposes to take away membership oversight (portswigger.net)

Submitted by mencik
mencik writes: The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) is the body that issues the CISSP among other certifications to people in the Information Security business. The Board has proposed changes to the by-laws which remove the ability of the membership to elect new members to the Board, and restricts their ability to provide any meaningful oversight. "The Daily Swig" reports on the group's defense of these undemocratic proposals.

Another group is campaigning to get members to vote "no" on the adoption of these changes, the vote for which opened on 10/19/22. They are also proposing their changes which would increase transparency, and those can be found at http://jsweb.net/isc2. Only ISC2 members can vote.

Submission + - AI-Assisted Guns Deployed By Israel to Track Targets in the West Bank (stltoday.com)

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: A Euronews video features footage of Sharone Aloni, Research and Development VP of Sharp Shooter, demonstrating one of the company's devices with an automatic Fire Control System. "Inside here, you have the computer running all the artificial intelligence, computer vision algorithms, which makes this what we call a true fire control system," Aloni says. "It's not only just relying on static information. It actually considers the human, the soldier, which is not stable. He's under pressure. He's tired. Sometimes he didn't get enough training. And also, the target is usually dynamic, and it's moving all the time."

The company's web site promises the systems "significantly increase weapon accuracy." And according to Euronews, Israel's army "says the tech protects soldiers, who can fire more accurately at a distance." But Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's director for Israel and Palestine, counters that when he hears claims of a reduction in risks, "that's often a one-sided kind of risk. It might minimize the risk for the occupying force or the army deploying it, but often it invariably increases the risk to affected communities." Sophisticated weapons systems "will lack elements of human control and agency that are often the difference between life and death." Euronews adds that "Palestinians and human rights experts say the weapons are dehumanizing, dangerous and unaccountable."

Sharp Shooter has a response to that, according to Eurnoews: the robotic guns are not fully automated, so a soldier must always pull the trigger, with the system only firing "after algorithms assess factors like wind speed, distance and velocity." And Michal Mor, Sharp Shooter's CEO and founder, also describes its utility in fighting a terrorist. "Usually the terrorist will be inside a civilian environment with many people that we do not want to hurt.

"We're enabling the soldier to look through his fire control system, to make sure that the target that he wants to hit is the legitimate target. Once he locks on the target, the system will make sure that the round will be released when he presses the trigger, only on the legitimate target, and none of the bystanders can be hit by the weapon."

Slashdot Top Deals

FORTRAN rots the brain. -- John McQuillin

Close