The daily rap sheet of the machine age.
9 items
Chicago Tribune Company filed a complaint against Perplexity AI in the Southern District of New York on December 4, 2025, with copyright and trademark claims. Judge Loretta A. Preska accepted New York Times v. Perplexity AI as a related case, and on April 17, 2026 Perplexity moved to dismiss counts II and III of the Tribune's amended complaint.
Original report: Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity AI over copyrights and trademark
NHTSA has demanded that Waymo answer questions by January 20 after Texas officials said the Alphabet unit's self-driving cars had illegally passed school buses 19 times since the school year began. The Austin Independent School District says five came after Waymo said it had updated its software, and that Waymo refused to halt operations near schools at pick-up and drop-off.
Original report: NHTSA presses Waymo over self-driving cars passing school buses archived copy of NHTSA presses Waymo over self-driving cars passing school buses
Police in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany and Israel acted in November against companies and suspects Europol says were part of 'affiliate marketing' infrastructure promoting fake crypto investment platforms, making two arrests. Europol now puts the network's laundering at 700 million euros and says phony ads impersonating celebrities and politicians, often featuring deepfake videos, have become a 'significant challenge'.
Original report: Four-country crackdown targets ad firms behind crypto investment scams archived copy of Four-country crackdown targets ad firms behind crypto investment scams
A 17-year-old high school student was served an arrest warrant on suspicion of breaching the server of Kaikatsu Frontier, operator of Kaikatsu Club internet cafes, using a program generated by a conversational AI, an investigative source said. He allegedly sent unauthorised commands some 7.24 million times to export personal data; the parent company said 7.3 million customers' data may have leaked.
Original report: Teen suspected of hacking internet cafe chain with AI-written program
The European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into a WhatsApp business API policy, due to take effect in January, that bans general-purpose AI chatbots such as ChatGPT while leaving Meta's own Meta AI on the app. WhatsApp called the claims 'baseless', saying chatbots strain its systems and people can reach rival AI services in many other ways.
Original report: EU opens antitrust probe into Meta over WhatsApp chatbot ban
A court in Roskilde found a 22-year-old man guilty of aggravated assault and sentenced him to 10 months in prison for hitting his former father-in-law twice on the head with a rubber mallet. The prosecutor says he used AI to research how to hurt him without killing him, getting around its safeguards by claiming he was writing a book.
Original report: Man who planned mallet attack with AI gets 10 months archived copy of Man who planned mallet attack with AI gets 10 months
Brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, 34, previously convicted of hacking the State Department, are charged over deleting government databases minutes after being fired as federal contractors on February 18, prosecutors say. One minute after deleting Homeland Security data, Muneeb allegedly asked an AI tool 'how do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases.'
Original report: Fired contractors allegedly wiped databases, then asked AI for cleanup tips archived copy of Fired contractors allegedly wiped databases, then asked AI for cleanup tips
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia referred a South Australian solicitor and two Victorian barristers, one a King's Counsel, to regulators after an appeal document drafted with AI help contained 'inaccurate and misleading references to case law'. The solicitor, who said her paralegal had used the AI, was ordered by consent to pay a further $10,000 in costs for correcting the errors.
Original report: Three lawyers referred to regulators over AI-generated fake citations archived copy of Three lawyers referred to regulators over AI-generated fake citations
Three teenagers were arrested in Iowa after a sheriff's office found digitally altered images depicting multiple juveniles undressed being shared among students at a local school, the office said. They face charges including first-degree harassment and sexual exploitation of a minor, with two also charged with disseminating obscene material; the charges went to juvenile court.
Original report: Three Iowa teenagers arrested over AI-generated images of minors archived copy of Three Iowa teenagers arrested over AI-generated images of minors
