ICE Block, an app that lets users warn others about the location of ICE officers, and which for a short while was the top of the social media App Store chart, does protect users’ privacy and doesn’t share your location with third parties, according to a recent analysis from a security researcher. ICE Block already…
In the two years that I’ve been reporting about Civitai, a platform for sharing AI image generation models that has been instrumental in the production of AI generated non-consensual porn, Civitai has consistently argued that the amount of adult content on the site has been overstated. But new research shows that, if anything, the amount…
Hugging Face, a company with a multi-billion dollar valuation and one of the most commonly used platforms for sharing AI tools and resources, is hosting over 5,000 AI image generation models that are designed to recreate the likeness of real people. These models were all previously hosted on Civitai, an AI model sharing platform 404…
Many trains in the U.S. are vulnerable to a hack that can remotely lock a train’s brakes, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the researcher who discovered the vulnerability. The railroad industry has known about the vulnerability for more than a decade but only recently began to fix it. Independent…
The Moderate Party of Sweden has removed an AI tool from its website after people used it to generate videos of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson asking Adolf Hitler for support.The tool allowed users to generate videos of Kristersson holding an AI-generated message in an attempt to promote the candidate ahead of the general election in…
On May 23, we got a very interesting email from Ghost, the service we use to make 404 Media. “Paid subscription started,” the email said, which is the subject line of all of the automated emails we get when someone subscribes to 404 Media. The interesting thing about this email was that the new subscriber…
As immigration raids roll out across the U.S., those affected are processing the experience in the normal 2025 way—via vertical video. Across social media, people are uploading clips with uncanny-valley titles like “A normal day for me after being deported to Mexico” and “3 things I wish I knew before self-deporting from the US!” These…
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies that caught my eye this week. First up, a bummer! NASA is facing devastating cuts to Earth science, and science in general, which is pretty important for an agency tasked with understanding the universe. I try to keep this newsletter relatively downer-free, but current events are…
Tensor.Art, an AI image creating and model sharing site announced on Friday that it is “temporarily” restricting AI models, tools, and posts related to pornographic content or the depiction of real-world celebrities due to pressure from payment processors. The announcement is yet another example of payment processors acting as the ultimate arbiter of what kind…
This week, we discuss choosing what to cover, fishing expeditions, and the library.
