The Norwegian technology company confirmed that ChatGPT can be manipulated to instruct users how to approve CNN reports that quite a few crimes occurred.

Strise conducted some experiments that showed the software could be tricked into giving detailed insight into how certain crimes were committed, including money laundering and arms exports to countries subject to sanctions, equivalent to some against Russia, that include bans on cross-border payments and arms sales .

The experiment raised some red flags. Strise co-founder and CEO Marit Rødevand said it was eye-opening how easy it was. “It’s really effortless. It’s just an app on my phone,” Rødevand said. “It’s like having a corrupt financial advisor on your desk.”

Strise sells software that financial clients equivalent to PwC Norway and Handelsbanken use to combat money laundering schemes. However, the corporate behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, has likely placed some locks on the platform to prevent the chatbot from being manipulated and answering certain questions by not directly asking questions or accepting an individual. “We are continually improving ChatGPT to stop intentional attempts to deceive it, without losing its usefulness and creativity,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.

“Our latest (model) is the most advanced and safest ever, significantly outperforming previous models in resisting intentional attempts to generate dangerous content.”

This is just not the primary time a chatbot has been deemed a dangerous tool. Since its launch in 2022, GPT Chat has been described as too accessible to criminals. ChatGPT “makes it much easier for malicious actors to better understand and then commit different types of crimes,” said a March 2023 report by Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency.

“The ability to delve deeper into topics without having to manually search and summarize the vast amounts of information found in traditional search engines can significantly speed up the learning process.” According to, an identical report raised concerns after finding a way to “jailbreak” ChatGPT, which ends up in finding instructions on how to create a bomb.

Even though the reports are still coming out, OpenAI stays adamant that it’s aware of the “power of this technology” but is working on it as best it can. Company policy features a warning that accounts may be suspended or canceled for certain violations.

Decentralized social media app Bluesky announced on Thursday that it has raised $15 million in a Series A round after last yr’s $8 million seed round. The funding comes as Bluesky has seen a surge in growth, driven in part by X users who’re concerned about recent changes to the blocking feature, in addition to the power to allow third parties to train artificial intelligence on users’ public posts. In the last month alone, Bluesky added roughly 3 million recent users, bringing its total user base to roughly 13 million.

Bluesky was initially incubated at Twitter as former CEO Jack Dorsey’s vision of what the long run of social media should appear to be. However, the social networking site and creator of the open source AT Protocol isn’t any longer affiliated with Dorsey, who left the startup’s board earlier this yr. Still, a lot of Bluesky’s initial goals remain unchanged: like Mastodon, Bluesky’s AT protocol is decentralized, which implies that individuals will give you the chance to arrange their very own servers and social applications, and those outside the corporate could have visibility into what’s being developed and the way it is being developed .

“With this fundraising, we will continue to support and grow the Bluesky community, investing in trust and security, and supporting the ATmphere developer ecosystem” – Bluesky blog announcement reads. “Additionally, we will begin developing a subscription model that will include features such as higher quality video uploads or profile customization such as avatar colors and frames.”

The Bluesky team was quick to tell users that this paid tier wouldn’t be like X, where subscribers would receive exclusive blue checkmarks and algorithmic rating boosts, making their posts more visible.

“The way Twitter did subscriptions was basically a blueprint for how Bluesky shouldn’t do it” – Paul Frazee, Bluesky developer sent. “Pay to win features like gaining visibility or checking if you are a subscriber are simply wrong and are ruining the web for everyone.”

The Series A round is led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat and Kubernetes co-founder Joe Beda. The presence of a cryptocurrency company may alarm skeptics, especially since CEO Jay Graber was once a software engineer at crypto firm Zcash, but Bluesky has actively assured users that the corporate shouldn’t be moving to web3.

“Our leader, Blockchain Capital, shares our philosophy that technology should serve the user, not the other way around – the technology used should never come at the expense of the user experience,” Bluesky said in its announcement. “This does not change the fact that the Bluesky app and the AT protocol do not use blockchains or cryptocurrencies, and we will not hyper-finance social experiences (via tokens, cryptocurrency trading, NFTs, etc.)”

Graber also announced that Kinjal Shah, general partner at Blockchain Capital, will join Bluesky’s board of directors.

“(Shah) shares our vision of a social media ecosystem that empowers users and supports developer freedom, and working together with her has been a terrific experience. Thanks to her support, we’re well prepared for development,” Graber he wrote.

Bad news for LinkedIn in Europe, where the Microsoft-owned social network has been reprimanded and fined €310 million for privacy violations related to its tracking ad business.

The administrative penalties, price roughly $356 million at current exchange rates, were imposed by Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) in accordance with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The regulator found a variety of violations, including those referring to beaches, legality, fairness and transparency of knowledge processing in this area.

The GDPR requires that the use of non-public data has an appropriate legal basis. In this case, the justifications that LinkedIn relied on for its tracking promoting business were found to be incorrect. According to the decision, DPC also did not adequately inform users about how their information was used.

LinkedIn has attempted to invoke (different) legal bases based on “consent”, “legitimate interests” and “contractual necessity” to process personal data – obtained directly and/or from third parties – in order to trace and profile users for promoting behavior. However, the DPC found that none of them were valid. LinkedIn also did not comply with the principles of transparency and honesty under the GDPR.

Commenting in a press release, DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said: “The lawfulness of processing is a fundamental aspect of data protection law, and the processing of personal data without an appropriate legal basis constitutes a clear and serious breach of the fundamental right of data subjects to data protection.”

The size of the sanctions catapults the skilled social network into the middle of the top 10 largest GDPR fines imposed on Big Tech. And while this is not the first time LinkedIn has been fined for regional data breaches, it’s definitely the most important one so far. (Though the company was keen to indicate that the amount of the nice was lower than the amount Microsoft imposed in an earlier 10-K disclosure warning investors it expected sanctions).

The case against LinkedIn began with a grievance filed in France in 2018 by the digital rights nonprofit La Quadrature Du Net. The NPA then referred the grievance to the DPC as a result of its role as the lead supervisory authority for Microsoft’s GDPR compliance.

The DPC initiated a complaint-based investigation in August 2018, before finally submitting a draft decision to other interested data protection authorities almost six years later (July 2024). As no objections were raised, the decision was finalized and its implementation made public.

In addition to the nice, LinkedIn was given three months to adapt its operations in Europe to GDPR regulations.

LinkedIn spokesman Jonny Wing pointed TechCrunch to a press release posted on the company’s website press room on sanctions, in which he wrote: “Today, the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) took a final decision on claims dating back to 2018 relating to some of our digital advertising activities in the EU. While we believe we have complied with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are working to ensure that our advertising practices comply with this decision within the deadline set by the IDPC.”