Null Byte

California's Governer Gavin Newsom has just vetoed the AI safety bill which would have seen AI models at any scale undergo much needed oversight, restriction and reporting to government regulatory bodies. These regulations would have the potential to reduce the creation of deep fake algorithms, which would help thwart the creation and proliferation of misinformation and revenge porn. Other public protections would see developers provide regulatory bodies access to the AI models for the purposes of auditing via a third party. Also regulatory reports to keep developers responsible and laws to protect whistleblowers working within AI. Governer Newsom did acknowledge that the bill would protect against catastrophic harm but argued in his Veto letter that it would only apply to the largest of models and warned threats could emerge from small models outside the scope of this bill that could emerge to be a much greater threat, if gone unchecked.

The US Department of Justice alongside other federal and international law enforcement agencies have successfully brought charges against a Russian national, named Ivanov, who was involved in selling stolen credit cards via crypto payment processors. Ivanov developed UAPS, PinPays and PM2BTC. All crypto payment processing platforms used for money laundering.  The US Secret service will seize the domains for UAPS and PM2BTC. Blockchain investigations revealed crypto wallets associated with these money laundering platforms was responsible for laundering $1.15Billion from July 2013 to August 2024. The investigations allege the following: - $158million of all Bitcoin transferred to Ivanov represented fraudulent transactions. - $8.8million where from known payments from ransomware - $4.7million came directly from drug markets on the darkweb. In a separate investigation the US secret service will seize and take control of two crypto exchanges run by Cryptex. These crypto exchanges direct...

German authorities have seized and shutdown 47 cryptocurrency exchanges, all of which where used for money laundering and ransomware gangs. These exchanges where all hosted in Germany and despite these exchanges claims of anonymity, policy of never saving data, the German law enforcement put out a statement which said they now have these these servers, the development servers, production servers and backup servers. Putting out a warning that if you uses these exchanges they now have your information.  No arrests have been made but the operation is still ongoing.

Cybercriminals from the ransomware group Rhysida shared screenshots of the data they have claimed to have stolen. Data included a scanned US Passport, tax forms and miscellaneous personal information. The group has threatened to sell the data stolen from the Port of Seattle if the 100 Bitcoin demand is not met. The Port refuses to pay. An ongoing investigation is still underway, while the Port has said they will notify those affected.

Europol along with an international effort has shutdown an online encrypted messaging platform known as GHOST. The seizure saw authorities take possession of 1.1million Euros, dismantled a drug lab, plus weapons and other drugs. 51 people have been arrested.

Israel planted small plastic explosives into pagers bound for Lebanon and Syria. The target was Hezbollah but citizens where also caught up in the attack which saw over 3000 wounded and a 12 year old girl dead Early reports state about a dozen died, while thousands where injured. The small plastic explosives, concealed inside the pager units where simultaneously activated, causing the widespread and indescriminate devastation, set off by the state of Israel.