AI Voice Synthesis Lawsuit, Net Neutrality, PlugX Malware Sinkholing

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Former athletic director Dazhon Darien arrested for using AI voice synthesis to impersonate Principal Eric Eiswert, sparking racism controversy at Pikesville High School. Police investigation and response discussed. Technology behind AI misuse and broader concerns for cybersecurity professionals explored. [Original article: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/alleged-ai-voice-imitation-leads-to-arrest-in-baltimore-school-racism-controversy/]
FCC restores net neutrality, reclassifying broadband service as Title II telecommunications for consumer protection and national security. Decision prohibits blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization of lawful content. Enhanced FCC authority to monitor service outages and regulate foreign-owned broadband entities addressed. [Original article: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2024/04/25/net-neutrality-restored/]
Researchers at Sekoia sinkhole PlugX malware server, intercepting 2.5 million unique IP connections in six months. Global impact, infection analysis, disinfection challenges, and historical context of PlugX malware outlined. Ongoing threat and control complexities discussed. [Original article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/researchers-sinkhole-plugx-malware-server-with-25-million-unique-ips/]

Tags: AI voice synthesis, controversy, manipulations, Dazhon Darien, racism, antisemitism, arrest, net neutrality, FCC, broadband service, Title II telecommunications service, internet access, regulations, PlugX malware, sinkholing, command and control server, IP addresses, computer security

Search phrases:

1. Dazhon Darien AI voice synthesis controversy

2. FCC broadband service reclassification impact

3. Net neutrality and FCC decision

4. PlugX malware sinkholing research

5. IP addresses capture by sinkholing

6. Cleaning computers infected with PlugX malware

7. Protecting devices from PlugX worm

8. AI voice synthesis manipulation prevention

9. Dazhon Darien arrest and implications

10. Internet regulations in the United States

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The former athletic director of Pikesville High School in Baltimore used AI voice synthesis to frame the school’s principal using racist and anti semitic comments, which led to uproar in the community, and the principal had to take a leave of absence.

What technology did this former athletic director use, and what’s going to happen to him?

Net neutrality has been restored as the FCC votes to reclassify broadband service in order to protect consumers and ensure a fast, open, fair and reliable Internet.

How will this decision impact Internet regulations and access across the United States and the world?

Security researchers were able to take control

of a variant of the PlugX By sinkholing one of its command and control servers that saw over 2. 5 million unique IP addresses in just the last 6 months.

What strategies are these security researchers proposing in order to get rid of this malware from end devices?

You’re listening to The Daily Decrypt.

Researchers at Sequoia have successfully sinkholed a command and control server for a variant of the PlugX malware, intercepting over 2. 5 million connections from unique IP addresses in the last six months.

These security researchers at Sequoia were able to access the actual command and control server through a web shell,

which allowed them to not only shut it down, but to continue receiving the requests from the infected hosts,

and they’ve shown over 90, 000 daily requests across 170 countries. Now, some of those requests were through VPNs, and so the country might not be accurate.

But it’s very interesting for them to be able to observe the malware’s behavior as if it was still under control of this server.

Sequoia acquired control of this IP by working closely with the internet service provider who provides this IP and They just paid seven bucks to transfer ownership to them

And again, VPNs make it hard, but they’re assuming this has something to do with China, as the top infected countries are related to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

But this malware has had over four years to spread to wherever it can, so this conclusion should be taken with a grain of salt.

But now that researchers have control over the Command and Control server They’re faced with this legal dilemma of how are they going to rid the end devices from this malware. First of all, it’s illegal to interact with devices that you don’t own.

So, crafting some sort of packet to send back to this malware to self delete would be crossing some legal boundaries. Also, this PlugX malware is trained to replicate and spread on its own automatically, so even if they were able to rid the device of this malware, it’s likely going to spread or be spread to again.

But as of now, the researchers are working on

Some procedures for end users to rid their devices of this malware and maybe harden their security. I’m not sure how they’re going to disseminate this information, but we’ll probably reach out to the internet service providers to push a message to the owners of those IP addresses.

But either way, this is pretty cool, especially from a security research perspective. So be sure to check out the show notes for the article that has a ton of more information on their findings when observing the malware’s behavior.

Alright, you know I’m a sucker for a good AI story. Well, a former athletic director at a Pikesville high school in Baltimore used AI voice synthesis To put racist and anti semitic words into his principal’s mouth.

Now, I don’t know what kind of beef this guy had with his principal, but that’ll do it. That’ll take care of it. Now before I move on, this former athletic director is, has been arrested by the Baltimore police and accused of using AI voice synthesis to clone his principal’s voice, but

the clip likely used technologies like 11 labs which do a very good job of cloning voices.

The clip in question was posted to a popular Instagram account and I won’t repeat the comments from the clip But you can check out the link by Ars Technica in the show notes to read what it said. You won’t be surprised

It’s very racist and anti semitic

But I can only imagine being a parent of a kid or someone on the PTO board or something like that Hearing these out of the principal’s voice. They instantly believed it. They believed it to be true according to this article, and why wouldn’t they? We’re still in this day and age where we all know AI voice synthesis is a thing, yet we haven’t trained our brains to question everything we hear.

That’s a big ask of your brain. So the principal was completely embarrassed and took some time off and denies making these comments, but what can you do?

And it’s kind of like watching a villain on a movie. If you see that person who plays the villain in real life, you’re gonna have a gut reaction because you hated seeing them so much on the silver screen, right? So, his voice is already out there saying these things and people for a while, while there was an investigation, started to hate this man, started to have feelings about him. And so now that it’s proven that he didn’t say that, those feelings are still going to linger. So this is a very damaging thing, and it’s only going to get worse. So we, as consumers of media, have to be vigilant about not believing everything we hear. Especially if there’s no video attached, or if the video looks weird.

We just can’t be trusting everything we see or hear.

And finally, the FCC has voted to restore net neutrality, reclassifying broadband service as a Title II telecommunications service to ensure a fast, open, and fair internet.

This allows the FCC to protect the open internet by preventing internet service providers or other service providers on the internet from throttling.

or blocking legal content. They also can’t pay for prioritization of internet. It has to be free and fair for all. Now, I’m sure there are some caveats that not everyone will agree with,

but this is good, and this restores the rules that were upheld by the DC Circuit in 2016. The Commission will also have the ability to revoke the authorizations of foreign owned entities. who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the United States, which is an authority the Commission has previously executed

by revoking the operating authorities of four Chinese state owned carriers to provide voice services in the United States.

The FCC is also allowed to get involved in internet outages. Now, If students can’t go to school or remote workers can’t go to work, the FCC can get involved and help restore those internet services. So TLDR, they’re essentially treating internet like the critical infrastructure that it is.

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