The daily rap sheet of the machine age.
5 items
The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the NAACP, sent xAI a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The letter alleges that the company installed dozens of methane gas turbines at its South Memphis data center without required permits or pollution controls. According to SELC, aerial images showed 35 turbines at the site in March.
Original report: NAACP threatens to sue xAI over Memphis gas turbines
Osaka police arrested an Osaka Prefecture man on June 16 on suspicion of copyright violation. He is accused of selling pirated DVDs of black-and-white films, including "Godzilla", which he advertised as colorized with advanced video AI. According to anti-piracy body CODA, he claimed the films were public domain, though many remain under copyright, and kept selling after an October 2024 warning.
Original report: Osaka man arrested over AI-colorized pirate Godzilla DVDs
Cato Networks researcher Vitaly Simonovich reports that two WormGPT variants advertised on BreachForums were built on xAI's Grok and Mistral AI's Mixtral, with system prompts used to bypass the models' guardrails. The tools wrote phishing emails and PowerShell credential-stealing malware on command. They sold for around €550 a year, with private setups going for as much as €5,000.
Original report: Underground WormGPT tools found running on Grok and Mixtral
BleepingComputer found Instagram ads impersonating Bank of Montreal and EQ Bank to target Canadians. Some led to a phishing site seeking banking credentials, while others used AI-generated deepfake videos of BMO chief investment strategist Brian Belski to lure users into a "private WhatsApp investment group". The ads kept running days after being reported, and a source says Meta is investigating.
Original report: Deepfake BMO strategist pitches fake investments in Instagram ads
A fact-check found that a widely shared video of Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov falling after jumping a fence was generated with AI. It was made from a BTA photo of the party's June 8 anti-euro protest and carries a partly hidden Haliuo AI watermark. Three posts since June 12 drew nearly 2,800 likes and over a million views.
Original report: Video of Kostadinov tumbling over fence was AI-generated
