I was driving home Saturday on Highway 110 when the music on the radio was interrupted by a phone call. The number displayed on the dashboard was (111) 111-1111 – an obviously fake number. I should have just let it go straight to voicemail, but for some reason I answered.

“Dad, you have to help me!” said a young, almost hysterical voice. “Please help me!”

It didn’t sound like it was any of my sons, but the caller was so upset, I couldn’t be sure. “Who is this?” I asked.

“Dad, it is I! I need help!” The caller replied, but then a different voice appeared and the elder asked if I would help my child. He said that if not, he was ready to put a bullet into the child’s brain.

I was sure that the crying child was not my eldest son. And I knew exactly where my youngest son was, so I was sure that it wasn’t him either. But when I demanded some evidence that this was, in fact, a baby of mine, the older caller threatened to send me baby fingers.

He pushed me to make a decision: Either agree to help (he hadn’t yet put a price on it), or say goodbye and send my child to a cartel south of the border, where some unspeakable atrocity awaited him. By then, I had recognized the call as a scam. I said goodbye.

It was an easy and correct decision, but still nerve-wracking. My wife checked in with my oldest son, who said he was fine and that the call was fake. My youngest son came out of his engagement just over an hour later.

My blood pressure returned to normal sometime after that.

How does the scam work?

Eric Arbuthnot, an FBI special agent, said that this type of “virtual kidnapping for ransom” is usually the work of prisoners in foreign prisons. Arbuthnot said they had been victimizing Hispanics in the United States for years until the operation expanded in 2015 with the help of English-speaking inmates in Mexico. Now, he said, bogus kidnappers are making thousands of cold calls to the United States from foreign boiler rooms every day, hoping to hit the phone of someone with a child or young relative.

These phone extortion schemes work like this: When you answer the phone, the caller will yell or cry something along the lines of, “Mom, Dad, help me!” The caller is counting on you to divulge the name of the child you think is in trouble, Arbuthnot said. Then the caller hands the phone to another person who threatens to kill, maim, or turn your child over to a cartel unless you send the money right away.

Typically, these scammers demand a ransom of just a few hundred dollars, Arbuthnot said, which they’ll want to send via Western Union or MoneyGram. The amounts are relatively modest because US laws and regulations discourage scammers from transferring large sums of money to other countries. But the scammers make up for this by falling back on their crimes in volume.

Aside from pretending to be on the phone, scammers don’t do much to cover their tracks. Arbuthnot said this is because they are already in prison and are not afraid of being sued in the United States.

Arbuthnot said the scammers ask their victims in California to wire money to Mexico, using the name of a real person who has some connection to the prison but who might not be wise to the scam. This person will then deliver the money to the jail for a small deduction. The goal is to collect the money as soon as it comes in, before the victim realizes it and tries to stop the payment.

“Once it’s collected, it’s gone,” he said.

What should you do

If you receive a call like this, the FBI’s advice is simple: hang up and track down your son or daughter to make sure the call was a hoax. It’s okay if you can’t find your child right away and have to jump through a few extra hoops to make sure — in the unlikely event that it’s a real ransom demand, the kidnapper will keep calling, Arbuthnot said.

He added that the number of actual kidnappings for ransom is dwarfed by the number of phantom kidnappings. Kidnappings of children on their way back from school, he said, are “extremely rare,” and these kidnappers will not contact you because they are not looking for money.

The New York State Department suggests trying to confirm the identity of the relative involved by asking the caller several questions that only your relative would be able to answer. Given the number of details people share about themselves on social media, however, this may not be a foolproof way to spot scams, warns Soren Mihajlovici, founder of cheat detector.

The person who called me and pretended to be my child didn’t use a name or suggest a gender, waiting to fill in those blanks. I wondered if I could get the older caller to put his hand away by tricking him into saying something patently false—say, by asking where he was holding my daughter—but I suspect he was up for it.

My wife offered a better idea: give my sons a secret phrase to say if they really do need urgent help, and don’t tell anyone else about it. But then we all have to remember what it is.

similar schemes

Other relatives in trouble scams use the same basic techniques but without the threat of imminent violence. The goal is to make you panic, and before you have a chance to really think through the situation, push the money.

One example is the “grandparenting scam,” where a senior gets a call from someone who says their grandchild needs help immediately—perhaps bailed out of jail or flown to a hospital after a car crash.

Scammers may tip their hand by claiming a payment method that doesn’t make sense in context. Arbuthnot said there are scammers asking for prepaid gift cards; In one case, a fraudster posing as an FBI agent wanted to be paid into Google Play cards. “The FBI never asks people for money, and if we did, it wouldn’t be in Google Play cards,” he said.

Not all relatives scams involve cold calling. Mihajlovici said some scammers will do some research on their victims first, “then contact credible reasons to claim a reward.” Arbuthnot said scammers may also choose targets by buying “lead lists” on the dark web of people who have fallen for scams in the past.

Mihajlovici said social media makes the task of gathering personal details easier. The scammers can identify parents or grandparents on Facebook, find their cell phone numbers online, and then “create personalized threatening conversations using children’s names, so victims really believe the scammers have children”.

“They throw in some other personal information (also collected from Facebook), such as certain hobbies of the kids, distinctive clothes, hairstyle or other assets they have, and then they paint a pretty believable picture of the parents/grandparents,” Mihailovici said. “That’s when they pay over the phone, or give away [credit card] Preparation.”

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission noted that scammers had started Collect cash in personFollow up on their calls by sending a rep to the victim’s home. One reason, Arbuthnot said, is that in-person deliveries can involve much larger sums of cash collected by agents (often inadvertently), who then send the money back from the United States in multiple batches. The other thing is that they work best for older victims who don’t have the ability or desire to find a Western Union office.

The pressure to act immediately and not consult anyone else is Giant red flag, says the FTC on its website. “Scammers play with your feelings,” says the agency. “They are counting on you to act quickly to help your family or friends. And they are counting on you to push nonstop to check if there really is an emergency. If you get a call like this, you can be sure it is a scam.”

Another tip-off, Mihailovici said, is when someone wants to get paid right away, while you’re on the phone. “If they ask you to pay now over the phone,” he said, “it’s 100% fraud.” That’s because legitimate companies or people who ask for real reminders of your final payments never ask for payment. [the] spot.”

If you are a victim of a scam

If you have fallen victim to a scam, you must report the scam to FTC through his online portal and into the FBI. The FTC also provides a list of steps you can take Try to get your money back; Whether you can do this depends on your payment method and how quickly you seek to cancel the payment.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, banks and finance companies that issue credit and debit cards can reverse fraudulent transactions. The same goes for money transfer companies like Western Union, but only if you’re in business before collecting the money. And if you mail cash, the US Postal Service may be able to intercept the package.

pay in CryptocurrencyThe FTC said, however, that would leave you with few remedies. So, too, you’ll be paying from your bank account through Zelle, which banks generally consider an authorized transfer and so Not reimbursable.

The lawsuit claims that Stable Diffusion was trained on billions of images removed from the Internet without consent, including those owned by this trio of artists. If products and services supported by Generative AI products are allowed to run, a press release by Saveri He saysThe expected result is that they will replace the same artists whose plagiarized works are supported by these AI products with whom they compete.

Ortiz, a concept illustrator who has worked on video games and Hollywood movies such as jurassic world And Dr. StrangeShe told BuzzFeed News that art is her “happy place”. She added that she is obsessed with technology.

In early 2021, Ortiz stumbled upon DiscoDiffusion, a former text-to-image AI creator, and discovered that the tool was capable of creating images in her style and those of other artists she knew. “It felt invasive in a way I’d never experienced before,” she said.

Concerned, she began organizing town halls around the topic with the Concept Artists Association, an organization for artists in the entertainment industry on whose board she sits. She also reached out to machine learning experts to better understand the technology and connect with other artists. In November, she saw News of the co-pilot suit and contacted Savery about filing a suit of her own. The company agreed.

In December, Ortiz saw McKiernan’s tweet spread about generative AI, and an opinion piece by Andersen books in the New York Times about how alt-right members of 4chan imitated its art style to create pro-Nazi comedy segments. I reached out to the two of them immediately, and they both agreed to be a part of the lawsuit with her.

“Artists have a right to say what happens to their hard-earned work,” Andersen told BuzzFeed News via email. “It is clear from the way the AI ​​generators were deployed that there was no regard for the artists, our wishes or our rights, and that it was our only option to listen to them.”

Concept Artists Association offline Fundraising To hire a lobbyist to protect creators from the march of generative AI.

“It’s gross to me,” Ortiz said of AI-powered apps and services that stream art instantly based on a text message. They trained these models through our work. They have taken away our right to decide whether or not we want to be a part of this.”

Reports that the Biden administration is threatening to ban TikTok, and most downloaded And one of most used Apps in the country caused users to erupt in suspicion and indignation on Thursday.

Some have called it a violation of the First Amendment. Others claimed it was a hoax to help Instagram Reels, the short video service from Facebook Meta owner. Some have questioned why TikTok is classified as a threat, considering the number of apps that collect personal data of their users.

Some simply appealed to policymakers for sympathy. “Please don’t ban TikTok. My teenage son and I had a lot of fun there,” said a Twitter user named Amy Vance. chirpthen added, “Together…”

Here’s a quick summary of what’s happening and why, along with some pros and cons of the management stance.

What do you want management?

President Biden is trying to do the same as President Trump sought to do: Take TikTok out of the hands of a Chinese company subject to Chinese law. The app was created by ByteDance, an internet-focused company founded in China in 2012. Although ByteDance has attracted some global investors, it is still controlled by its Chinese founders.

The Trump administration went so far as to ban TikTok in the US in 2020. That was it It was blocked by two federal courtshowever, which considered that the administration had overstepped its authority.

Recently, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a group of federal agencies that studies national security issues raised by such investments, gave ByteDance an ultimatum, according to a Wall Street Journal And many more niches: Sell your TikTok or face a ban in the US. A TikTok spokesperson said it’s a sale It will not address national security concerns Because it will not put any new restrictions about accessing the app’s data.

TikTok’s CEO is set to testify at a congressional hearing next week. The company proposed that US users’ data be stored in that country, with technical and corporate protections designed to prevent Chinese government access. But US officials seem unconvinced that this approach will effectively address their concerns.

Congress, meanwhile, is considering national ban On apps controlled by the Chinese government. And the federal government, like many national and local governments around the world, has TikTok is banned On devices issued to its employees. Orange County Join their ranks Tuesday.

Could the government really ban TikTok?

Telecom industry experts say this is technically possible, but there are issues.

The two main players here are the two companies that make operating systems and the dominant mobile app stores, Apple and Google. They could help the government enforce compliance by removing TikTok from their app stores, which would force anyone who wanted to install or update software on their phone to “sideload” it from another source.

This isn’t difficult on an Android phone, but on an Apple iPhone it’s much more complicated — at least for now. under pressure from the United States And European governmentsApple will reportedly allow side-loading in its new operating system that is expected to be released this year.

Apple and Google could go further, using their control over the software on their devices to make their phones incompatible with TikTok. At the very least, they could force existing TikTok users to stick with the current version of the software, whose performance will likely deteriorate over time.

There is a trade-off with this approach, said Emma Lanseau, director of the Free Speech Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Without regular privacy and security updates, she said, the app would become “a great target for people looking to exploit outdated software,” adding: “It creates another type of vulnerability that will affect millions of people, including many young adults.”

If the government officially bans TikTok, network operators can block traffic between the company’s servers and US users. Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at New America, said the app’s massive user base may rush to find ways to circumvent any barriers, such as using virtual private networks to connect to TikTok through other countries. “Smart Chinese can do it, so [it] It should be much easier here,” Calabrese said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a thing.”

Why is TikTok a target?

The Biden administration and members of Congress from both parties have been raising concerns about TikTok for months. Although some lawmakers have complained about the network’s content and its impact on young people, the main issue is the network’s owners.

It’s the potential for exploitation by China’s authoritarian government that makes the app’s privacy threats unique, said Sarah Collins, senior policy advisor for advocacy group Public Knowledge. “If TikTok were magically owned by an American company, we’d be talking about it at the same time we’re talking about Google or Facebook,” she said.

Collins said TikTok collects a lot of data about its users, including their locations and contacts. Other companies do too, largely because federal law doesn’t protect that information. In fact, Collins said, “There’s a whole industry of data brokers selling this data.”

“It’s hard to solve the TikTok problem when the US has a privacy problem,” she said.

One concern, however, is that Chinese Communist Party or Chinese government officials will demand access to the data for far less benign purposes than personalizing your video stream. Under Chinese law, ByteDance is required to turn over personal information related to national security whenever requested by the government.

It’s not clear what sensitive data, if any, the government in Beijing has collected from TikTok. Part of the challenge in assessing the Biden administration’s position, Lanso said, is that the intelligence community has not shared the information behind its concerns about TikTok — and probably never will.

However, in December, the public got a glimpse into the potential for TikTok to suffer when the company admitted that some of its employees had used the app to Track the location of journalists. TikTok said employees had been tracking news leaks within the company, but for some critics, the episode showed what the Chinese government could do with the platform.

Not only will the Chinese government take advantage of the data TikTok already collects, critics say, it could force the app to collect additional information solely for government purposes. On top of the surveillance threat, they say, China could manipulate TikTok video feeds or the app itself to further its propaganda.

At a congressional hearing last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said TikTok raised a number of national security concerns. “It includes the possibility that the Chinese government can use it to control the collection of data on millions of users or to control the recommendation algorithm, which can be used for influence operations if they choose to do so, or to control software on millions of devices, giving them an opportunity to technically hack personal devices,” Ray said. , According to National Public Radio.

There again, neither China nor TikTok is unique, Lansu said. She said that anyone who uses social media networks must assume that many governments are trying to influence them — not just authoritarian regimes, but Western democracies as well.