Joel Scanlan

Industrial-scale deepfake abuse caused a crisis in South Korean schools. Here’s how Australia can avoid the same fate AI-generated deepfake abuse material is easy to create – but there’s plenty we can do to stop it spreading in our schools.

Last year 500 schools were targeted in an organised fashion with deepfake imagery of students in Korea - I think the rest of the world needs to pay more attention as it could be what awaits the rest of us.

theconversation.com/industrial-s...

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.

America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

Watch and share his message.

We're looking forward to welcoming @joelscanlan.com as our guest speaker for next month's Te Puna Haumaru Seminar Series. Dr Scanlan will speak on The Impact of AI on CSAM Offending and Deterrence Efforts. See poster for more details. To register, click here 👉 tinyurl.com/y548k8vf

Rich white men, use your platform. Don't be such fucking cowards all the fucking time, you have one life to live. How much money do you really need in a lifetime? Christ. How can you just sit there watching young women - especially young women of color - taking every risk, speaking truth to power?

This is the way to stand up to these bullies! Respect ✊

White supremacists hiding the achievements of non-white people is a pretty good indication that they know white people aren’t supreme.

The UK’s Online Safety Act is enforceable from today.

And the regulator, Ofcom, has started an “enforcement programme” focussed on cloud platforms hosting child sexual abuse material. Ofcom recomends platforms use perceptual hash matching

Interesting given ongoing Apple/UK encryption fight 👀

Trump Admin Nixed Contract Helping Kidnapped Ukrainian Kids: Sources The fate of abducted Ukrainian children is a white-hot issue for peace negotiations—and it looks like the State Department may have just undercut the cause.

SCOOP --> Trump's State Department quietly terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of Russian abductions of Ukrainian kids to European law enforcement, two sources familiar with the situation tell me.

Details here:
newrepublic.com/article/1927...

The news has been more than a bit grim of late, so hooray for @carbonbrief.org providing some genuine and really meaningful **good** news: the UK's carbon emissions in 2024 were the lowest since 1872, because demand for fossil fuels just keeps decreasing.

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

Mike spotted this before the rest of us. 🫡

Publications from 2025 are shared more on Bluesky than on X/Twitter.

Nailed it - a nationwide problem with the sector.

Really enjoyable two days at the #AIC2025Confernce in Canberra this week - so much great research being done to minimise online harms

Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’

“A person familiar with the matter… said analysts were verbally informed that they were not to follow or report on Russian threats, even though this had previously been a main focus for the agency.

“The person said work that was being done on something “Russia-related” was in effect “nixed””

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

(in that I think this kind of infrastructure will be used for harm a lot in the years to come, with multiple constellations going up, we are going to need to be vigilant to keep on top of them)

While the core of the story I feel shouldn't matter who owns the company, and so needn't be in the title; however, it does highlight that there is plenty of problems he should be working on in his own companies instead of what he is doing..

Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Keeping Modern Slavery Compounds Online A WIRED investigation reveals that criminals who make billions from scam compounds in Myanmar—where tens of thousands of people are enslaved—are using Starlink to get online.

NEW: Elon Musk’s Starlink is being used at scam compounds that have fleeced billions from people around the world, a @WIRED investigation shows

Between November 2024 and Feb, hundreds of phones at eight scam compounds in Myanmar logged 40,000 uses of Starlink, mobile data shows

If these men whining about traditional masculinity wanted real heroes they would glom onto Zelensky. But no, they prefer their masculinity avatars to play golf (Trump),have lots of money (Elon), traffic women (Tate, allegedly), lie unashamedly(Trump & Elon), & celebrate cruelty (Trump & Elon).

This is the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time.

Asanda Zondi received a startling phone call last Thursday, with orders to make her way to a health clinic in Vulindlela, South Africa, where she was participating in a research study that was testing a new device to prevent pregnancy and H.IV. infection. The trial was shutting down, a nurse told her. The device, a silicone ring inserted into her vagina, needed to be removed right away. When Ms. Zondi, 22, arrived at the clinic, she learned why: The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded the study, had withdrawn financial support and had issued a stop-work order to all organizations around the globe that receive its money. The abrupt move followed an executive order by President Trump freezing all foreign aid for at least 90 days. Since then, the Trump administration has taken steps to dismantle the agency entirely. Ms. Zondi’s trial is one of dozens that have been abruptly frozen, leaving people around the world with experimental drugs and medical products in their bodies, cut off from the researchers who were monitoring them, and generating waves of suspicion and fear.

the human cost

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...

Some useful Surveillance Self Defense links for people who want to lock their shit down right now:

Attending a protest: ssd.eff.org/module/atten...

How to Use Signal: ssd.eff.org/module/how-t...

Security starter pack: ssd.eff.org/playlist/wan...

Fellow NSA - National Security Agency veterans. Look at what’s happened at the National Cryptologic Museum. They covered up with brown paper the photos of Women in American Cryptology. All in response to President Trump’s anti-diversity executive order.

Grace Tame on an Australian $5 note wearing a FUCK MURDOCH tshirt

Legendary

I was writing about deterrence today and remembered my favourite way of explaining it

Just saw the headline "Elon Musk accused of making what appeared to be fascist salute" from CBC. Is mainstream journalism too cowardly to call a straight up, broad daylight nazi salute for what it is now? How can you still be in denial about it?

By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement the U.S. joins Libya, Iran, Yemen, and that's it.

All other countries in the world remain committed to fighting climate change.

So, in case anyone's in any doubt, yes. Yes, you are the baddies now.

#ClimateAction

"Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision. What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to. Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met. David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human. He was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are. They are our breath. While the world has lost a remarkable artist, I’ve lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own. I can see him now, standing up to greet me in his backyard, with a warm smile and big hug and that Great Plains honk of a voice. We’d talk coffee, the joy of the unexpected, the beauty of the world, and laugh. His love for me and mine for him came out of the cosmic fate of two people who saw the best things about themselves in each other. I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone. David, I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale. Thank you for everything."

was mostly keeping it together until I read Kyle MacLachlan's tribute to David Lynch