Latest news with #Salter
The Age
3 days ago
- The Age
Police searched the man's laptop for malware. What they found is becoming all too common
'We have commercial image generation sites that you can go to right now, and you don't even have to look for child sexual abuse material because the generation of [it] is so popular that these sites often have trending pages, and I've seen sections where the keyword is 'pre-teen', or 'tween', or 'very young'.' In a 2024 report, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found a 380 per cent increase in reported cases of AI-generated child sexual abuse content online, noting that the material was becoming 'significantly more realistic' and that perpetrators were finding 'more success generating complex 'hardcore' scenarios' involving penetrative sexual activity, bestiality or sadism. 'One user shared an anonymous webpage containing links to fine-tuned models for 128 different named victims of child sexual abuse.' Internet Watch Foundation's July 2024 AI child sexual abuse material report The IWF found evidence that AI models that depict known child abuse victims and famous children were being created and shared online. In some of the most perverse cases, this could include the re-victimisation of 'popular' real-life child abuse victims, with AI models allowing perpetrators to generate new images of an abused minor. The report acknowledged that the usage of these fine-tuned models, known as LoRAs, likely went much deeper than the IWF could assess, thanks to end-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer networks that were essentially inaccessible. Moreover, Australia's eSafety Commission warns that child sexual abuse material produced by AI is 'highly scalable'. '[It requires] little effort to reproduce en masse once a model is capable of generating illegal imagery,' a spokesperson said. Commercial interests The rapid escalation of the amount of content available online is partially attributed to how AI has enabled the commercialisation of child sexual abuse material. 'Offenders who are quite adept at creating material are essentially taking orders to produce content, and this material is increasingly realistic,' Salter says. Jones says that in the span of his career, he's seen the provision of child sexual abuse content go from physical photocopies being shared in small groups to it being available online in a couple of clicks. 'Unfortunately, there is a particular audience for child sexual abuse material, and what AI can do is generate that content, so [commercialisation] is serving a demand that is out there.' In one of the biggest stings involving an AI-child abuse enterprise, Danish police, in conjunction with Europol, uncovered a subscription service that commercialised access to the content. The global operation saw two Australian men charged, and 23 others apprehended around the world. 'There were over 237 subscribers to that one matter,' Moses says of Operation Cumberland. 'When we talk about proliferation and people profiting from this type of activity, this is of great concern to us.' Swamped by the growing sea of content, officers now face the difficulty of identifying which situations depict real children being abused, as opposed to an AI-generated child who doesn't exist. 'It also means that police have to spend quite a lot of time looking at material to determine whether it's real or not, which is quite a serious trauma risk for police as well,' Salter says. Moses from the ACCCE agrees that it's 'very difficult work' for officers. 'Whilst it is very confronting material, it doesn't compare to the trauma that child victims endure, and there's very much a focus on identifying victims.' The influx of AI-generated content has complicated its mission in many ways, Moses says, including by robbing crucial resources from ACCCE's primary goal of rescuing children who are being abused. 'It takes a lot of time to identify real victims, and the concern for us ... is that the [AI-generated content] is becoming increasingly harder [to detect], and it takes time away from our people who are trying to identify real victims.' Law enforcement 'overwhelmed' While prosecutions for offences involving fake abuse material have increased, the rate hasn't kept up with the pace of the increase in the amount of content found online. Salter says resourcing is one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement. 'Law enforcement is so overwhelmed with really egregious online sexual exploitation cases … their primary priority is to prevent and rescue the abuse of actual kids.' He says it's a struggle he's heard across all jurisdictions. 'They're really struggling in terms of people power, in terms of access to the technology that they need to conduct these investigations and to store that amount of material,' Salter says. 'There needs to be a huge uplift right across the law enforcement space.' Additionally, AI-generated child sexual abuse content requires a whole reset of the way the content is detected. Old machine methods of detecting the content online involved scraping for verified abuse content, which means it has to have already been assessed by a human as illegal content to be detected. 'The obvious challenge we see with AI-generated material is that it's all new, and so it's very unlikely, through current detection technologies, that we can proactively screen it,' Salter says. Unregulated threat let loose It's a global issue that crosses jurisdictions and exists on the internet's severely under-regulated new frontier. But that hasn't deterred Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, from introducing world-first industry standards to hold tech companies to account for the content they platform. The standards came into force in December 2024 and require storage services like Apple's iCloud and Google Drive, messaging services, and online marketplaces that offer generative AI models to prevent their products from being misused to store or distribute child sexual abuse material and pro-terror content. 'We have engaged with both AI purveyors and the platforms and libraries that host them to ensure they are aware of their obligations under the standards,' an eSafety commission spokesperson said. 'We believe the standards are a significant step in regulating unlawful and seriously harmful content and align with our broader efforts to ensure that AI tools, such as those used to create deepfakes, are held to the highest safety standards.' The recent passage of the Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2024 also expanded on the available criminal offences relating to non-consensual, sexually explicit AI-generated material. While international companies can face multi-million dollar penalties for breaches of the eSafety Commission's standards in Australia, major tech players like Meta are increasingly adopting end-to-end encryption, which means even the companies themselves can't see what content they're hosting, let alone law enforcement. Interpol works at the forefront of these issues, often acting as a bridge between authorities and the private sector. Jones observes that while interventions like Australia's new standards play an important role in setting high standards for tech companies, encryption and other privacy policies make it 'very hard for law enforcement to get those data sets'. International cooperation is crucial for successfully prosecuting commercial child sexual abuse content cases, and Jones says that in best practice examples, when a global chain is identified, the tech industry is brought in as part of the investigation. 'I'm seeing more of an involvement in the tech sector around supporting law enforcement. But that's sometimes at odds with encryption and things like that,' Jones says. Loading 'I think the tech industry has a duty of care to the communities that they serve. So I don't think it's good enough to say, 'Oh, well, it's encrypted. We don't know what's there'.' Salter takes a more pessimistic view of the tech industry's actions, arguing that most companies are moving away from, not towards, proactively monitoring the presence of child sexual abuse content. 'The emergence of AI has been something of a vortex of doom in the online child protection space,' Salter says. Online child protection efforts were already overwhelmed, he says, before the tech sector 'created a new threat to children' and 'released [it] into the wild with no child protection safeguards'. 'And that's very typical behaviour.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Police searched the man's laptop for malware. What they found is becoming all too common
'We have commercial image generation sites that you can go to right now, and you don't even have to look for child sexual abuse material because the generation of [it] is so popular that these sites often have trending pages, and I've seen sections where the keyword is 'pre-teen', or 'tween', or 'very young'.' In a 2024 report, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found a 380 per cent increase in reported cases of AI-generated child sexual abuse content online, noting that the material was becoming 'significantly more realistic' and that perpetrators were finding 'more success generating complex 'hardcore' scenarios' involving penetrative sexual activity, bestiality or sadism. 'One user shared an anonymous webpage containing links to fine-tuned models for 128 different named victims of child sexual abuse.' Internet Watch Foundation's July 2024 AI child sexual abuse material report The IWF found evidence that AI models that depict known child abuse victims and famous children were being created and shared online. In some of the most perverse cases, this could include the re-victimisation of 'popular' real-life child abuse victims, with AI models allowing perpetrators to generate new images of an abused minor. The report acknowledged that the usage of these fine-tuned models, known as LoRAs, likely went much deeper than the IWF could assess, thanks to end-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer networks that were essentially inaccessible. Moreover, Australia's eSafety Commission warns that child sexual abuse material produced by AI is 'highly scalable'. '[It requires] little effort to reproduce en masse once a model is capable of generating illegal imagery,' a spokesperson said. Commercial interests The rapid escalation of the amount of content available online is partially attributed to how AI has enabled the commercialisation of child sexual abuse material. 'Offenders who are quite adept at creating material are essentially taking orders to produce content, and this material is increasingly realistic,' Salter says. Jones says that in the span of his career, he's seen the provision of child sexual abuse content go from physical photocopies being shared in small groups to it being available online in a couple of clicks. 'Unfortunately, there is a particular audience for child sexual abuse material, and what AI can do is generate that content, so [commercialisation] is serving a demand that is out there.' In one of the biggest stings involving an AI-child abuse enterprise, Danish police, in conjunction with Europol, uncovered a subscription service that commercialised access to the content. The global operation saw two Australian men charged, and 23 others apprehended around the world. 'There were over 237 subscribers to that one matter,' Moses says of Operation Cumberland. 'When we talk about proliferation and people profiting from this type of activity, this is of great concern to us.' Swamped by the growing sea of content, officers now face the difficulty of identifying which situations depict real children being abused, as opposed to an AI-generated child who doesn't exist. 'It also means that police have to spend quite a lot of time looking at material to determine whether it's real or not, which is quite a serious trauma risk for police as well,' Salter says. Moses from the ACCCE agrees that it's 'very difficult work' for officers. 'Whilst it is very confronting material, it doesn't compare to the trauma that child victims endure, and there's very much a focus on identifying victims.' The influx of AI-generated content has complicated its mission in many ways, Moses says, including by robbing crucial resources from ACCCE's primary goal of rescuing children who are being abused. 'It takes a lot of time to identify real victims, and the concern for us ... is that the [AI-generated content] is becoming increasingly harder [to detect], and it takes time away from our people who are trying to identify real victims.' Law enforcement 'overwhelmed' While prosecutions for offences involving fake abuse material have increased, the rate hasn't kept up with the pace of the increase in the amount of content found online. Salter says resourcing is one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement. 'Law enforcement is so overwhelmed with really egregious online sexual exploitation cases … their primary priority is to prevent and rescue the abuse of actual kids.' He says it's a struggle he's heard across all jurisdictions. 'They're really struggling in terms of people power, in terms of access to the technology that they need to conduct these investigations and to store that amount of material,' Salter says. 'There needs to be a huge uplift right across the law enforcement space.' Additionally, AI-generated child sexual abuse content requires a whole reset of the way the content is detected. Old machine methods of detecting the content online involved scraping for verified abuse content, which means it has to have already been assessed by a human as illegal content to be detected. 'The obvious challenge we see with AI-generated material is that it's all new, and so it's very unlikely, through current detection technologies, that we can proactively screen it,' Salter says. Unregulated threat let loose It's a global issue that crosses jurisdictions and exists on the internet's severely under-regulated new frontier. But that hasn't deterred Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, from introducing world-first industry standards to hold tech companies to account for the content they platform. The standards came into force in December 2024 and require storage services like Apple's iCloud and Google Drive, messaging services, and online marketplaces that offer generative AI models to prevent their products from being misused to store or distribute child sexual abuse material and pro-terror content. 'We have engaged with both AI purveyors and the platforms and libraries that host them to ensure they are aware of their obligations under the standards,' an eSafety commission spokesperson said. 'We believe the standards are a significant step in regulating unlawful and seriously harmful content and align with our broader efforts to ensure that AI tools, such as those used to create deepfakes, are held to the highest safety standards.' The recent passage of the Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2024 also expanded on the available criminal offences relating to non-consensual, sexually explicit AI-generated material. While international companies can face multi-million dollar penalties for breaches of the eSafety Commission's standards in Australia, major tech players like Meta are increasingly adopting end-to-end encryption, which means even the companies themselves can't see what content they're hosting, let alone law enforcement. Interpol works at the forefront of these issues, often acting as a bridge between authorities and the private sector. Jones observes that while interventions like Australia's new standards play an important role in setting high standards for tech companies, encryption and other privacy policies make it 'very hard for law enforcement to get those data sets'. International cooperation is crucial for successfully prosecuting commercial child sexual abuse content cases, and Jones says that in best practice examples, when a global chain is identified, the tech industry is brought in as part of the investigation. 'I'm seeing more of an involvement in the tech sector around supporting law enforcement. But that's sometimes at odds with encryption and things like that,' Jones says. Loading 'I think the tech industry has a duty of care to the communities that they serve. So I don't think it's good enough to say, 'Oh, well, it's encrypted. We don't know what's there'.' Salter takes a more pessimistic view of the tech industry's actions, arguing that most companies are moving away from, not towards, proactively monitoring the presence of child sexual abuse content. 'The emergence of AI has been something of a vortex of doom in the online child protection space,' Salter says. Online child protection efforts were already overwhelmed, he says, before the tech sector 'created a new threat to children' and 'released [it] into the wild with no child protection safeguards'. 'And that's very typical behaviour.'
USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Top returning quarterbacks in the Big 12 per Pro Football Focus
Top returning quarterbacks in the Big 12 per Pro Football Focus The Big 12 is set to feature some of the most talented and highest-potential quarterbacks in all of college football in 2025. Always a conference known for its offense, the conference hasn't been this stacked at the quarterback position for some time. While Buffaloes Wire has already ranked the quarterbacks, the leader in football analytics, Pro Football Focus, has ranked the top six returning quarterbacks. PFF used the players' 2024 grades to rank them and included transfers like Colorado Kaidon Salter in the list. With that said, let's jump into the rankings. 6. Behren Morton - 79.7 Morton provided much-needed stability for the Red Raiders last season, who have been searching for a quarterback since Patrick Mahomes. In 2024, he totaled almost 3,000 passing yards and 25 touchdowns while taking good care of the football, throwing only eight interceptions. Texas Tech brought in the No. 1-ranked transfer portal class over the offseason, which should provide Morton a boost in 2025. 5. Avery Johnson - 81.7 The former Pop Tart Bowl MVP, Johnson, has filled out his trophy case during his time as a Wildcat. Setting a school record with 25 passing touchdowns last season, he added 2,712 passing yards, 606 rushing yards and seven more scores on the ground. Kansas State is the favorite to win the Big 12, according to ESPN's SP+ ranking, and Johnson's experience will play a key role in the Wildcats' title aspirations. 4. Kaidon Slater - 82.3 Salter is facing a jump in competition, leaving the Conference USA behind for the Big 12. With that said, however, Salter's career at Liberty was undeniably fantastic, leading the FBS in total touchdowns in the last two seasons. While Salter's ability in the air wasn't entirely on display last season, as he threw for just 15 touchdowns, 1,886 yards and six interceptions, his scambling ability will bring new life to the Colorado offense. In his two years at Liberty, Salter ran for 19 touchdowns and around 1,600 yards. 3. Josh Hoover - 83.3 Hoover was a breakout star for TCU and is slated to take an even larger leap in 2025. Throwing for almost 4,000 yards and 27 touchdowns last season, Hoover excelled in taking care of the football and taking what the defense gave him. While Hoover lost a significant part of his receiving corps to the NFL, if he continues his ascent in TCU's air raid offense, the Horned Frogs will be a threat in the Big 12. 2. Sam Leavitt - 89.1 The last returner from the Big 12 last season, Leavitt, is a player who passes the eye test alongside a high-scoring PFF ranking. The Sun Devils' star has dual-threat capabilities, totaling over 3,000 total yards and 29 total touchdowns in 2024. A rising top-tier wideout will aid Leavitt in Jordan Tyson as Arizona State seeks to defend its Big 12 Conference title. 1. Devon Dampier - 89.9 The newest Utah Ute, Dampier, brings incredible athletic ability to the quarterback position. His passing stats from last season, New Mexico, 12 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, might make some write him off, but one glance at his rushing ability and it's easy to see why the Utes brought him in. Dampier ran for 1,166 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns, including an 85-yard score, last season. He'll be a crucial element if Utah wants to return as a contender in the Big 12. Contact/Follow us @BuffaloesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Colorado news, notes and opinions.
Fashion Network
20-05-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
World Retail Congress: Saks Global/Authentic say JV means "luxury on Amazon" will become very natural
The Saks Global and Authentic Brands Group partnership has been a big talking point of late so it was good timing that Authentic's CEO Jamie salter and Saks' executive chairman Richard Baker were on stage together on day two of the World Retail Congress in London this week. They said they believe the Authentic Luxury Group JV could boost margins, take control of luxury away from vendors and towards retail and make the most of the brand strength of Saks to drive global partnerships. Authentic is well known as the acquisitive buyer of brands such as Nautica, Volcom, Aéropostale, Lucky Brand, Nine West, Ted Baker, Juicy Couture and many more. But while it had a presence at the higher-end, its 50/50 joint venture link-up with Saks Global last autumn was key. 'We wanted to get into the luxury space but it's all about distribution,' said Salter. 'When we look at brands, what is really important with us is that they can make the right margin. If you look at the business model today, margin is everything. Getting together with Saks was critical for us. If you are not making low-to-high-60s in the maintained margin it's very difficult.' Baker also commented on the rationale for the partnership, saying that in premium and luxury, there were too many vendors, too much discounting, and not enough margin. "We had to do it, or there would be no industry left in the United States.' With more than $9 billion in GMV, control of over 60% of the US luxury market, and the backing of Amazon, Salter and Baker believe they're creating a next-gen model where retail, data, licensing and media converge. The JV has bold ambitions and Salter said 'the model truly works. But we're not just in retail, we're also in hospitality business, we'll see Saks branded residences going out, which also means people will buy home products for those. We already have projects on the go, and have people in the Middle East and Asia Pacific looking at doing a Saks store, a condo and a hotel'. For now, a key part of the deal is the newly launched Saks store within Amazon — a digital 'walled garden' that preserves brand integrity while giving access to Amazon's mega-sized global audience. Salter said that with Amazon building similar luxury platforms in the UK, Japan, India and the Middle East, within five years 'luxury on Amazon is going to be the most natural thing you ever imagined because they have the most elegant execution and most reach of anyone in the world online'. The link-up between the two also sees them overhauling the Saks business, cutting underperforming brands and prioritising premium partnerships. And they're helped in this process by customer data as they share over 250 million customer profiles across their businesses, offering them up-to-the-minute insight into who's buying what, where, and why. With that weapon to wield, Saks is likely to edit out 500-600 brands out and shift towards 'controlled brands', with a larger margin, aiming at around 20% of sales from these product ranges.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brands, Retailers Navigate Changes at World Retail Congress
LONDON — Kicking off the last day of the World Retail Congress, Authentic Brands Group founder, chairman, and CEO Jamie Salter and Saks Global executive chairman Richard Baker discussed Authentic Luxury Group, a new partnership, first reported by WWD last October, between the two that took 12 years to finalize. During a 20-minute discussion, they emphasized the importance of margin, data-driven insights, and expanding into hospitality and content to enhance the luxury shopping experience. More from WWD Richemont Jewelry Sales Surge at the End of a Difficult Year for Luxury Libby Wadle Takes on a Trip to Europe These Ugg Boots Were Made for Dancing Saks Global runs a business with over $9 billion of gross merchandise value per year, representing around 60 percent of luxury distribution in the U.S. Salter sees the deal as mutually beneficial. 'What's important for us is working with our licensees and retailers to make sure that they can make the right margin. If you look at what the business model is today, vertical margin is everything. If you are not making somewhere in the low 60s to high 60s on a maintain margin, it's very difficult to make money in the retail space,' he said. 'On Baker's part, he needs that vertical margin also. Authentic Luxury Group is a 50/50 joint venture. We collect a lot of royalties selling Vince to Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, but we're also going to collect a lot of royalties selling those brands all over the world and to other retailers all over the world. Saks Global is now not only making the margin in their store, but they're also getting a 50 percent share in all of the royalties that are being created from Authentic Luxury Group,' Salter continued. He also sees great value in consumer data from Saks Global, which can help ABG brands to better adjust their product mix and stay competitive, in addition to getting guaranteed support across all Saks Global channels. During the talk, Baker revealed the retailer will slash 500 to 600 brands that don't work within the portfolio, a figure that's roughly in line with the 25 percent cut revealed in February. It was the first time that Baker specified the number of proposed cuts to the vendor matrix. 'We had to right-size our vendor matrix. When we put all these companies together, it turned out we had 2,660 vendors. Too many and terms of many of these vendors weren't right. We had to reset our expectations for what vendor relationships would look like,' said Baker. Instead, Saks Global will work increasingly with 'controlled brands' via partnerships similar to Authentic Luxury Group. First reported by WWD last October, Authentic Luxury Group was formed to promote Authentic's high-end brands, including Barneys New York, Judith Leiber Couture, Hervé Léger, and Vince. The plan is to roll them out to retail locations or in-store shops, and widen their distribution in the U.S. and abroad. 'As part of our transaction, we have over $600 million a year in synergy. We all know how hard we have to work to make an additional $600 million a year, and [what was] first and most important was getting that figured out at Saks Global,' said Baker. 'If I can bring our mix to 20 percent controlled brands with a larger margin and an ownership position with Salter, that's a tremendous win for us, and a much more conservative and appropriate cash flow,' he continued. Salter added, 'You take 20 percent of $9 billion, that's $1.8 billion. He's gonna make 25 percent more on that product. That's almost a $400 million change. That's why this relationship is so critical.' Nadine Graf, president of EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa], U.K. & Ireland, and emerging markets at the Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., said she is closely navigating the generational shifts and the changes in consumer behavior that come with it. 'More than 90 percent of Gen Z are on TikTok every single day, multiple times, not for minutes, for hours. And they go there to be entertained, to learn, research, and shop, ultimately. They are highly hyper experimental,' she said. Graf said Estée Lauder is adapting and changing pretty much everything across the business to adapt to the new reality as part of its beauty reimagined vision to become the most consumer-centered prestige company in the world. 'We are putting a lot of effort into changing our entire value chain, into being faster, committed to accelerating triple our new product launches in less than 12 months,' she added. She is also embracing a 'glocal' mentality. 'The more consumer-centric we are, the more we need to adapt to the local realities. We have got global brands, strong global brand DNAs, but we flex them and translate them into local brands. The consumer is very different, skin tone, weather, everything that impacts the way they live and the way they look needs to be adapted,' Graf said At the same time, Estée Lauder is betting on the ageless market. Graf observed that around 70 percent of the ageless consumers do not feel seen or represented in beauty media or social media, in advertising. 'We celebrate beauty at every age,' she added. American designer Todd Snyder, founder of his namesake label, brought firsthand fashion experience to the retailers at the event, sharing his journey from working at major brands like Ralph Lauren and Gap to launching his label in 2011. The seasoned designer emphasized the importance of creating modern, high-quality essentials for men and the strategic shift to direct-to-consumer sales. He highlighted the success of his flagship in New York and the growth of his brand to 26 stores across the U.S. He also touched on the impact of brand collaborations, such as with Champion and Time and one that's coming next year, and his plans for international expansion, aiming to balance growth with maintaining brand authenticity. 'We have to be very precise. We'll do pop-ups before we do things that are a little bit more granular and thinking about what Todd Snyder Europe or Todd Snyder Japan look like. It terrifies me at the same time, because it's the one thing that can kill a brand. It can't be something that would just flood the markets,' added Snyder. Community was the buzzword of the conference with many brands attributing their success to their loyal following. Eshita Kabra-Davies, the founder of the peer-to-peer rental platform By Rotation revealed that the five-story townhouse pop-up she set up in October last year on Brook Street was getting extended to September. 'It's been a huge success for the Westminster council program and more brands are taking on pop-ups on the street, which is driving revenue for the council,' she said in an interview. Kabra-Davies has also closed another round of funding for By Rotation — details of which she didn't share while they're being finalized. She has a global thinking cap on when it comes to the rental platform. By Rotation will be launching in the United Arab Emirates at the end of the year. The region currently doesn't have any form of rental platforms, not even a peer-to-peer one. 'We're really interested to actually see what we can do with our app there. I wouldn't have done this maybe two, three years ago because there's a stigma associated around secondhand [in the region], but there's a growing population of expats and people who are already customers of By Rotation, who have recently moved to the U.A.E., we actually think that we have an early adopter base there,' said Kabra-Davies. Best of WWD The Definitive Timeline for Sean 'Diddy' Combs' Sean John Fashion Brand: Lawsuits, Runway Shows and Who Owns It Now What the Highest-paid CEOs at U.S. Fashion and Retail Companies Make Confidence Holds Up, But How Much Can Consumers Take? Sign in to access your portfolio
