LinkedIn Policing ‘AI Slop’; Discord Bows End-toEnd Encryption on Voice and Video Calls; FBI Wants Real-Time Access to License Plate Cans Nationwide; GitHub Breached-3800 Repositories Exfiltrated

LinkedIn has had more than its share of AI slop. Now, they are moving to reduce the reach of posts that have hallmarks of AI-generated slop. Engadget.com reports that LinkedIn’s changes will target everything from outright engagement bait, to recycled “thought leadership” and other “generic” content that “lacks the authenticity and originality.” The company is also taking aim at posts and comments that have obvious signs of AI construction like “it’s not X, it’s Y,” phrasing. It would be great if Facebook would follow suit. I frequently see lengthy, verbose posts about someone famous or a historical figure that are obviously written by AI. LinkedIn notes that they aren’t going to take down the AI posts, they will just make sure they don’t appear in other users’ recommendations. The posts will still appear on the poster’s wall, and will be viewable by their direct connections and followers. This is really a good move, as LinkedIn positions itself as a more professional platform. Again…I hope other platforms will follow their lead. 

The online platform Discord is rolling out end-to-end encryption on all voice and video calls. If you aren’t familiar with Discord, it started as a gamer platform initially, but now has all sorts of communities…creators, businesses, and interest groups in addition to gaming. According to bleepingcomputer.com, Discord claims 690 million registered users and over 200 million monthly active users worldwide. I have some younger family members that have set up their own group of family and friends, and use it to chat and communicate frequently. 

In a giant overreach, the FBI wants immediate access to license plate cams nationwide. Talk about casting too wide a net, as the legal expression goes. Arstechnica.com says the feds will pay vendors to help it teach and search of vehicles in near real time. In a statement, the FBI says this is “To evaluate and manage threats to personal safety, property, and law enforcement, the FBI requires professional service firms that can provide License Plate Readers (LPRs) for tracking subjects on roads and highways over the US and its territories.” Flock and Motorola have the cams, and will likely bid on this contract. Flock has deals with over 12,000 cities, towns, counties, and business partners. Some cities have voted to remove the intrusive cams, as they pick up everyone driving past. Motorola sells license plate reader cams that can be installed on busy roadways or even on police cars. Some of the cam data has been handed over to ICE. Flock points out that sharing with the feds is off by default, and that cities and the like have to grant access. They claim that the data from the cams is the property of the agencies that own the cameras. More than ever, Big Brother is Watching!

After an employee device was compromised with what is being called a poisoned VS Code extension, GitHub has confirmed that cybercrime group TeamPCP has exfiltrated around 3800 internal repositories..such as customer enterprises, organizations, and repositories. Thenextweb.com notes that Microsoft-owned GitHub is the world’s largest code-hosting platform. The bad guys want $50,000 or they will leak the proprietary source code and internal organization files. The company moved quickly once it detected the intrusion, isolating the compromised device, removing the extension, and rotating critical credentials within hours. GitHub stressed that the activity involved exfiltration of internal repositories only and that it had found no evidence of impact to customer data, enterprise accounts, or user-hosted repositories. If a platform built on code review and version control can be penetrated through a rogue extension, the implications for less security-mature organizations are sobering.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.