In April 2024, a mysterious somebody utilizing the web handles “Waifu” and “Judische” started posting demise threats on Telegram and Discord channels geared toward a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon.
These nameless personas focused Nixon as a result of she had grow to be a formidable menace: As chief analysis officer on the cyber investigations agency Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes’s condominium, she had constructed a profession monitoring cybercriminals and serving to get them arrested.
Although she’d carried out this work for greater than a decade, Nixon couldn’t perceive why the particular person behind the accounts was all of the sudden threatening her. And though she had taken an curiosity within the Waifu persona in years previous for crimes he boasted about committing, he hadn’t been on her radar for some time when the threats started, as a result of she was monitoring different targets.
Now Nixon resolved to unmask Waifu/Judische and others liable for the demise threats—and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing. Learn the total story.
—Kim Zetter
This story is from the subsequent print problem of MIT Expertise Evaluate journal, which is all about crime. If you happen to haven’t already, subscribe now to obtain future points as soon as they land.
ALS stole this musician’s voice. AI let him sing once more.
There are tears within the viewers as Patrick Darling’s music begins to play. It’s a heartfelt music written for his great-grandfather, whom he by no means acquired the prospect to fulfill. However this efficiency is emotional for an additional cause: It’s Darling’s first time on stage together with his bandmates since he misplaced the power to sing two years in the past.
The 32-year-old musician was recognized with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when he was 29 years outdated. Like different varieties of motor neuron illness, it impacts nerves that offer the physique’s muscle tissue. Individuals with ALS finally lose the power to manage their muscle tissue, together with those who permit them to maneuver, converse, and breathe.
Darling’s final stage efficiency was over two years in the past. By that time, he had already misplaced the power to face and play his devices and was struggling to sing or converse. However just lately, he was capable of re-create his misplaced voice utilizing an AI software educated on snippets of outdated audio recordings. One other AI software has enabled him to make use of this “voice clone” to compose new songs. Darling is ready to make music once more. Learn the total story.
