Siri ‘regularly’ records sex encounters, sends ‘countless’ private moments to Apple contractors

Apple’s Siri AI assistant sends audio of sexual encounters, embarrassing medical information, drug deals, and other private moments recorded without users’ knowledge to human ‘graders’ for evaluation, a whistleblower has revealed.

Recordings from Apple’s Siri voice assistant are fed to human contractors around the world, who grade the AI based on the quality of its response and whether its activation was deliberate, according to an anonymous contractor who spoke to the Guardian. They claimed accidental activations are much more frequent than Apple lets on, especially with Apple Watch users – and wants the company to own up to the problem.

“There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data,” the whistleblower revealed.

“Apple is subcontracting out, there’s a high turnover. It’s not like people are being encouraged to have consideration for people’s privacy, or even consider it,” the whistleblower said, explaining that they are concerned these recordings, produced when Siri thinks it hears its “wake word,” could be used against the people who (accidentally) made them – especially given the “broad” amount of user data they claim contractors are “free to look through.” In what sounds like a sick joke on the part of some programmer, the sound of a zipper unzipping often triggers Siri to wake up.

https://www.rt.com/news/465181-apple-siri-human-contractors/

Troubled nuclear fuel plant in S. Carolina kept radioactive trash in LEAKY & RUSTY container

A rusty shipping container full of uranium-tainted trash was found to be seeping contaminated sludge into the soil at Westinghouse fuel rod factory in S. Carolina, adding another radiation spike to the facility’s list of troubles.

Uranium levels in the ground at one spot underneath the container are nearly double the 11ppm safety standard, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) reported on Friday, blaming the facility’s egregious waste storage protocol for the contamination. Rain entered through a hole in the 40-foot container’s roof, dousing the barrels full of radioactive trash stashed within, and the uranium-tainted water eventually trickled into the soil.

Irresponsibly-stored nuclear waste is only the most recent misfortune to plague the plant, located just outside the city of Columbia. Last year, the massive facility was found to be leaking uranium through a hole in its floor, and earlier this month a drum full of radioactive waste exploded and caught on fire. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been investigating the plant since 2016, when it was discovered uranium had been allowed to accumulate inside an air pollution control device at three times the federal safety standard. And Westinghouse had not even bothered to report earlier leaks in 2008 and 2011 to regulators. Groundwater beneath the factory is contaminated, and locals fear it will spread off the grounds – or that it already has.

Plant manager Mike Annacone blamed “a number of issues” for allowing dozens of shipping containers full of uranium-tainted garbage similar to the leaky one to build up on the grounds of the Westinghouse facility. The waste – mop heads and rags used to clean up radioactive material – is meant to be processed to recover usable uranium, but that processing has fallen impossibly far behind schedule, and the cursory once-overs given the aging, rusting boxes by plant workers have allowed appalling conditions to develop.

“We should not allow that condition to exist on our site,” Annacone said in a joint presentation with the DHEC at a community meeting on Thursday, promising to process the remaining material and test the soil underneath each container for contamination as it is emptied.

https://www.rt.com/usa/465179-westinghouse-nuclear-waste-leak/

Baltimore Named Nation’s Most Dangerous City By USA Today

February 19, 2018

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — USA Today has named Baltimore the most dangerous city in the country.

The paper analyzed police crime data in the nation’s 50 biggest cities, which revealed Baltimore had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation with nearly 56 murders per 100,000 people — a record for the city. The rate outpaced New Orleans and Detroit, with a rate of 40 and 39 killings per 100,000 people, respectively.

Baltimore’s 342 murders in 2017 was an increase from 318 in 2016.

Baltimore — the most populated city in Maryland with more than 615,000 residents — had more homicides last year than Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City.

https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2018/02/19/baltimore-named-nations-most-dangerous-city-by-usa-today/