Environmentally sustainable buildings are losing their appeal


By Dr. Tim Sandle

SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

December 19, 2025


Eco-building, Hampstead, UK. Image by Tim Sandle.

A new sustainability report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reveals that the green buildings market is losing momentum.

The demand for sustainable real estate appears to be cooling in most regions, many projects are stalling over high upfront costs and uncertain payback, and almost half of construction professionals still do not measure carbon on their projects – a share that has actually grown over the past year.

Energy-efficiency experts from Exergio, a company developing AI tools for energy efficiency in real estate, say the sector is stuck not for lack of ambition but because three systemic failures remain unresolved:

Stalled demand,

Unclear financial value,

Weak operational follow-through.

Donatas Karčiauskas, CEO of Exergio, explains to Digital Journal that without scalable, AI-driven optimisation of day-to-day operations, even certified or renovated buildings will keep missing climate and performance targets.

Karčiauskas explains that the global demand for sustainable buildings has been sliding for several years now, with the latest RICS report showing another drop from 41% to 30%. Investors and developers mostly blame unclear returns: 35-46% cite uncertain ROI, payback periods or operational savings as their main barrier to investing.

“Investors aren’t against building sustainably – they just need proof it pays back. If a project requires expensive materials, equipment and certifications but the real-world performance doesn’t translate into measurable savings, why would anyone scale it? Until buildings can demonstrate clear, verifiable returns, demand will keep sliding,” Karčiauskas explains.

Drawing on his own company’s approach, Karčiauskas says that by using AI to optimise existing systems, Exergio typically cuts energy use in large commercial buildings by up to 30% and that translates to more than €1 million in annual savings – the kind of proof investors are looking for. But money isn’t the only problem, the report shows.

RICS data reveals a growing split between what occupiers value and what investors prioritise. Occupiers favour performance – 94% cite indoor environmental quality and 88% name energy efficiency as top priorities – while investors still focus on certification (86%) and resilience features (78%).

The market talks about sustainability as if it were one thing, but in practice, different players are chasing different goals, according to Karčiauskas.

“Occupiers care about how a building works; investors care about how it’s labelled. Until performance and certification point in the same direction, we’ll keep building assets that look sustainable on paper but don’t deliver it in practice. The real solution is to measure what happens inside the building, every day – that’s when both groups finally get what they’re paying for,” Karčiauskas clarifies.

The RICS report shows that this kind of measurement is still the exception, not the rule. Across regions, roughly half of respondents don’t measure embodied carbon at all, and only about 16% say their assessments change design choices. Just 17% believe the industry has enough sustainability knowledge, and only 10% are very familiar with whole-life carbon methods.

Karčiauskas believes this is because the respondents do not know how to measure the emissions:

“You can’t improve what you don’t measure, and you can’t measure what you don’t have the skills to assess. Right now, most carbon decisions are built on assumptions instead of real evidence.”

In his opinion, the combination of missing carbon data, limited expertise, and inconsistent measurement is precisely where AI can accelerate progress. AI systems can gather performance data automatically, interpret it without specialised training, and adjust building systems continuously – something human teams cannot do at scale.

“AI closes the gap the industry can’t close on its own. It proves ROI with real performance data, aligns what occupiers want with what investors pay for, and automates optimisation that today requires scarce expertise. If we want sustainability targets to become real outcomes, this is the only lever big enough to work at scale,” concludes Karčiauskas.

Global nuclear arms control under pressure in 2026

NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER


By AFP
December 21, 2025


The Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons takes place every four or five years - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS

Fabien Zamora

The fragile global legal framework for nuclear weapons control faces further setbacks in 2026, eroding guardrails to avoid a nuclear crisis.

The first half of the year will see two key events: the US-Russia bilateral treaty, New START, expires on February 5, and in April, New York hosts the Review Conference (RevCon) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) — the cornerstone of global nuclear security frameworks.

The RevCon, held every four to five years, is meant to keep the NPT alive. But during the last two sessions, the 191 signatory states failed to agree on a final document, and experts expect the same outcome in April.

“I think this is going to be a difficult RevCon,” said Alexandra Bell, head of US-based global security nonprofit the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, at a UN-hosted online conference in early December.

“In terms of the current state and near future prospects of nuclear arms control architecture, things are bleak,” she added.

Anton Khlopkov, director of Russian think-tank the Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS), took an even starker point of view, saying at the same event that “we are at the point of almost complete dismantlement of arms control architecture”.

“We should be realistic in the current circumstances. At best, I think we should try to preserve what we have,” he said.



– ‘Crumbling’ safeguards –



From US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to Russia’s test of the new Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and US President Donald Trump’s remarks about possibly resuming nuclear tests — the international nuclear landscape darkened in 2025.

At the same time, “the arms control architecture is crumbling”, Emmanuelle Maitre of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) told AFP.

A key challenge hinges on a shift in global relations.

Nuclear control had been built over decades around a Moscow-Washington axis, but China’s growing power and rapid technological advances have shifted the international playing field, which is simultaneously increasingly strained.

“The growing interlinkage between nuclear and conventional forces and the emergence of disruptive technologies (such as the US Golden Dome defence system and new hypersonic weapons) have transformed traditional nuclear deterrence into a multi-domain concept, especially in a multipolar world,” said Peking University’s Hua Han.

“This trilateral configuration introduces complexities far beyond the Cold War-era bilateral model. Increasing China-Russia cooperation further complicates deterrence calculations, particularly in the two main theatres of concern: Europe and the Asia-Pacific,” she added, according to the minutes of an April event held by Pakistan’s Center for International Strategic Studies.

A likely result of the changing landscape is the lapse of New START, which sets weapon limits and includes inspection systems.

“The entire inspection component is no longer functioning, the notifications when a missile is moved, etc, all of that has vanished. What remains is only the voluntary commitment to stay within the limits,” said Maitre.



– ‘Collective solutions’ –



But allowing New START to lapse is “in American interest”, according to Robert Peters of the influential Heritage Foundation, reflecting the stance of much of the US strategic community to avoid tying Washington’s hands to Moscow alone.

Beijing, which currently has fewer weapons, has so far refused to engage in trilateral disarmament talks.

“China is the fastest growing nuclear power on the planet. It’s building 100 new warheads a year and now has more ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) silos than the US has active Minuteman III silos,” Peters said at a recent online International Institute for Strategic Studies event.

“New START does nothing to address” that issue, he added.

However, Maitre said, a New START lapse doesn’t mean the world should expect serious consequences as early as February 6.

In both Washington and Moscow, “there is a small margin to bring some weapons back into service, but the numbers cannot be very significant. There are bottlenecks” that will slow any buildup, she said.

Nor will the lack of a final document from the RevCon cause “immediate or damaging consequences” to the NPT, she said.

But, she warned, fewer safeguards risks leaving the world without diplomatic tools to resolve tensions.

“The less functional the NPT becomes, the harder it is to forge collective solutions in the event of a crisis.”

Banned film exposes Hong Kong’s censorship trend, director says


By AFP
December 21, 2025


Hong Kong director Kiwi Chow says the local film industry has stepped up self-censorship after Beijing imposed a strict national security law - Copyright AFP Holmes CHAN
Holmes Chan

After four months of restless waiting, filmmaker Kiwi Chow received a dreaded, but not altogether unexpected, message: Hong Kong censors had banned his new movie from reaching the big screen.

The 46-year-old’s career, which took off in 2015 with an award-winning dystopian tale, encapsulates how a film industry once known for its audacious spirit and sardonic humour has dimmed to leave artists describing a creative straitjacket.

His latest thriller “Deadline” tells the story of an elite school rattled by warnings of an impending suicide, Chow told AFP in an interview on Wednesday, describing the work as an allegory for hyper-competition under capitalism.

The movie was filmed in Taiwan but set in what Chow called an “imaginary world”.

“(Censors) determined that it was ‘contrary to the interests of national security’… But how? Nobody gave an explanation,” the director said, calling the decision “absurd”.

Beijing imposed a strict national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the finance hub. Film censorship rules were tightened a year later.

After that, Chow said, the film industry stepped up self-censorship.

“If it involves Hong Kong’s real political situation, absolutely no one will make a movie about it,” he said.

Asked about “Deadline”, the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration said it would not comment on individual applications.

Censors banned 13 films, citing national security reasons, between 2021 and July this year, while 50 films were “required to be modified”, the office told AFP.

Hong Kong banned no films between 2016 and 2020, but that figure jumped to 10 in 2023.

Chow said he believes his film was rejected not because of its content, but because his years flouting Beijing’s taboos have put him on an informal blacklist.

“I want to collaborate with actors, seek out locations and investors, but it is very difficult,” he said.

“I felt so lonely,” he said of making “Deadline”.



– Decade in hindsight –



On December 17, 2015, “Ten Years” premiered in Hong Kong and showcased five dystopian vignettes — including one directed by Chow — at a time when many residents feared Beijing’s growing political influence in the semi-autonomous city.

Speaking to AFP exactly 10 years later, Chow recalled how crowds flocked to community screenings after some mainstream cinemas refused to show the film.

“Many people felt that ‘Ten Years’ depicted Hong Kong’s predicament… and how freedoms could be lost. (They felt) this was prophesied in the film and it came true,” Chow said.

Chow’s segment of the film, titled “Self-immolator”, ends with a fictional elderly woman dousing herself in petrol and flicking a lighter.

“The self-immolator was a symbol of sacrifice. I wanted to ask Hong Kongers: ‘How much are you willing to sacrifice for values like freedom and justice?'” he said, adding that his ideas on sacrifice are shaped by his Christian faith.

He said he got his answer during the 2019 pro-democracy protests, which were unprecedented in scale and ferocity and led to more than 10,200 arrests and more than 2,000 people sanctioned by law.

In 2019, Chow was near the end of the production cycle of a romantic drama film, but he also shot extensive footage of the protests that would become the documentary “Revolution of Our Times”.

The documentary premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in July 2021, but Chow never tried to screen it in Hong Kong and kept the entire production team anonymous.

“After making ‘Revolution of Our Times’, I expected not to be able to make movies for quite a long time, and was mentally prepared to go to jail,” he said.



– ‘Risk’ –



While the documentary did not land Chow in prison, the filmmaker said he paid a steep price as investors and collaborators deserted him, almost dooming “Deadline”.

Chow said he could not secure a single Hong Kong school as a filming location, prompting him to move the production to Taiwan, where the film was released last month.

The long-awaited Hong Kong censorship decision came as a blow, particularly for the film’s commercial prospects.

“The government took an official stance that this film was contrary to the interest of national security, which could be a first (for me), and adds some level of risk and anxiety,” Chow said.

Some of Chow’s supporters in Hong Kong travelled to Taiwan for special screenings of “Deadline”, though one organiser said he was searched by customs upon his return.

Hong Kong customs declined to comment on individual cases.

Chow did not want to “abandon” his city despite feeling that political censorship was creating headwinds for his work.

“Maybe I will lower my budget or change the script,” he said.

“As long as (the film) can be made in Hong Kong, then I haven’t given up.”

Southeast Asia bloc meets to press Thailand, Cambodia on truce

ANOTHER TRUMP PEACE DEAL

By AFP
December 21, 2025


A bridge in Cambodia damaged it Thai air strikes, part of reignited clashes that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people - Copyright AFP STR

Martin Abbugao

Southeast Asian foreign ministers are set to meet Monday in Malaysia for crisis talks aimed at halting deadly border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, which pressed on despite regional and international diplomacy.

Renewed fighting between the two neighbours this month has killed at least 22 people in Thailand and 19 in Cambodia, and displaced more than 900,000 on both sides, officials said.

Malaysia, which holds the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), expressed hope that the talks in Kuala Lumpur would help achieve a lasting ceasefire between the two countries, both members of the regional bloc.

“Our duty is to present the facts, but more importantly, to press upon them that it is imperative for them to secure peace,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said last week, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic”.

The reignited violence shattered a fragile truce reached after five days of clashes in July, with US, Chinese and Malaysian mediation.

In October, US President Donald Trump backed a follow-on joint declaration, touting new trade deals after they agreed in Kuala Lumpur to prolong their truce.

Each side has blamed the other for instigating the clashes, claiming self-defence and trading accusations of attacks on civilians.

On Sunday, both Cambodia and Thailand said Monday’s gathering could help de-escalate tensions. Both governments have confirmed they would send their top diplomats to the meeting.

Thai foreign ministry spokeswoman Maratee Nalita Andamo called it “an important opportunity for both sides”.

Cambodia’s foreign ministry said the talks aimed to restore “peace, stability and good neighbourly relations”.



– ‘Dialogue’ –



“Cambodia will reaffirm its firm position of resolving differences and disputes through all peaceful means, dialogue and diplomacy,” Phnom Penh added.

Maratee reiterated Bangkok’s earlier conditions for negotiations, including a demand that Cambodia be first to announce a truce, and cooperate in de-mining efforts at the border.

Those conditions, the spokeswoman told reporters, “will guide our interaction in the discussions tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur”.

The Thai government gave no guarantee that the meeting would produce a truce, saying in a statement that a “ceasefire can only be achieved when it is based primarily on the Thai military’s assessment of the situation on the ground”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week Washington hoped for a new ceasefire by Tuesday.

Trump, who helped broker an earlier truce, claimed this month that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to halt the fighting.

But Bangkok denied any such truce existed, with clashes continuing for two weeks and spreading to nearly all border provinces on both sides of the frontier.

The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometre (500-mile) border and a smattering of ancient temple ruins situated on the frontier.

burs-mba/sco/jhe/ami/abs

CCS

CO2 soon to be buried under North Sea oil platform


By AFP
December 22, 2025


CCS technology is a key tool for reducing the CO2 footprint of cement and steel industries - Copyright AFP Jonathan NACKSTRAND
Camille BAS-WOHLERT, with Pierre-Henry DESHAYES

In the North Sea where Denmark once drilled for oil, imported European carbon dioxide will soon be buried under the seabed in a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project nearing completion.

CCS technology is one of the tools approved by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to curb global warming, especially for reducing the CO2 footprint of industries like cement and steel that are difficult to decarbonise.

But the technology is complex and costly.

Led by British chemicals giant Ineos, the Greensand project 170 kilometres (105 miles) off the Danish coast consists of a deep, empty reservoir beneath a small, wind-swept oil platform in the North Sea.

In its first phase due to begin in the next few months, Greensand is slated to store 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

It’s “a very good opportunity to reverse the process: instead of extracting oil, we can now inject CO2 into the ground,” Mads Gade, Ineos’s head of European operations, told AFP.

Liquefied CO2 sourced mainly from biomass power plants will be shipped from Europe via the Esbjerg terminal in southwestern Denmark to the Nini platform above an empty oil reservoir, into which it will be injected.

“The reason why the North Sea is seen as a vault for CO2 storage is because of the enormous amounts of data that we have collected through over 50 years of petroleum production,” said CCS coordinator Ann Helen Hansen at the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sodir).

This area of the North Sea is teeming with depleted oil and gas fields like Nini, as well as deep rock basins.

According to Sodir, the Norwegian part of the North Sea alone theoretically has a geological storage capacity of around 70 billion tonnes (70 Gt) of CO2. On the British side, the figure is 78 Gt, according to the British government.

In Denmark, the geological institute has no overall data, but the Bifrost project, led by TotalEnergies, estimates it could store 335 million tonnes of CO2.

By comparison, the European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions amounted to about 3.2 Gt last year.

– Costly solution –

Under the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), the EU has set a legally binding target to have a storage capacity of at least 50 million tonnes per year by 2030.

Installations are gradually being put in place.

Greensand plans to increase its carbon dioxide injection capacity to up to eight million tonnes per year by 2030.

In neighbouring Norway, the world’s first commercial CO2 transport and storage service, dubbed Northern Lights, carried out its first CO2 injection in August into an aquifer 110 kilometers off Bergen on the western coast.

Its owners — energy giants Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies — have agreed to increase annual capacity from 1.5 to five million tonnes of CO2 by the end of the decade.

And in Britain, authorities have just launched a second tender, after already awarding 21 storage permits in 2023. A first injection of CO2 is expected in the coming years.

But customers are still nowhere to be found.

For industrial actors, the cost of capturing, transporting and storing their emissions remains far higher than the price of purchasing carbon allowances on the market.

And even more so when it involves burying them at sea.

“Offshore is probably more expensive than onshore but with offshore there’s often more public acceptance,” said Ann Helen Hansen.

To date, the Northern Lights consortium has signed only three commercial contracts with European companies to store their CO2.

The consortium would probably never have seen the light of day without generous financial support from the Norwegian state.

While it supports the use of CCS for sectors that are hard to decarbonise, the Norwegian branch of Friends of the Earth says CCS has been used as an excuse to avoid having to exit the oil era.

“The idea that the region responsible for the problem could now become part of the solution is a very seductive narrative,” said the head of this environmental NGO, Truls Gulowsen.

“But that’s not really what we’re seeing. Fossil fuels and climate emissions from the North Sea are far larger than anything we could ever put back there with CCS.”

Court lifts injunction on trans law after Alberta uses notwithstanding clause

This is a cruel and dangerous move by a government that will harm vulnerable young people,


Protestors take part in a Gay Straight Alliance rally at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — A judge has granted an Alberta government appeal and lifted an injunction on a law preventing youth from accessing gender-affirming care.

Two advocacy groups, Egale and Skipping Stone, launched earlier this year a challenge over the law, which prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to those under 16.

A judge later granted the injunction, saying the law raised serious Charter issues that needed to be hashed out, and the province filed the appeal.

Earlier this month, Premier Danielle Smith's government invoked the notwithstanding clause to shield the law and two others affecting transgender people from court challenge.

Heather Jenkins, press secretary for Justice Minister Mickey Amery, says the United Conservative Party government is pleased the injunction has been removed.

The government has said the gender health-care law is necessary to protect youth from making potentially life-altering medical decisions they may later regret.

The advocacy groups said they plan to apply for another injunction based on criminal law, since doctors who don't comply could face fines or imprisonment.

"This is a cruel and dangerous move by a government that will harm vulnerable young people," the groups said in a statement Thursday.

The groups added the law is "not a total ban" on gender-affirming care, as some youth will still be eligible to receive puberty blockers and hormones.

The groups said they plan to continue their challenge against Alberta's law requiring parental consent for children under 16 to change their names or pronouns at school.

They said they're also committed to challenging a law banning transgender Albertans 12 and older from participating in amateur female sports.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 18, 2025.

Privacy matters: AI security cameras are collecting unnecessary data

By Dr. Tim Sandle

SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

December 16, 2025


Human rights advocates contend the ability to easily share Ring doorbell and security camera video with police has exacerbated racial profiling - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP JUSTIN SULLIVAN

Smart AI security cameras can become a spying tool for hackers. Many devices are also collecting unnecessary amounts of data, which affects privacy and which provides an inroad for hackers.

The new study, from Surfshark, reveals that modern AI security cameras do more than just watch. By standardizing facial recognition, these devices have turned home security into a source of rich biometric data that includes not just camera owners but their neighbors as well.

Additionally, the apps required to operate these cameras are collecting personal information that may not be related to security functionality.

“The central risk isn’t only the capture. When people can’t meaningfully opt in or out and are not informed about where their biometric data is stored, what additional data points are being collected, and with whom it’s shared, you’ve created a privacy hazard. Scanning faces or car plates of neighbours – especially without explicit consent – should be treated as a major privacy concern if not a breach of privacy regulations,” Miguel Fornes, cybersecurity expert at Surfshark, has told Digital Journal.

Is facial recognition necessary?

Beyond video capture and alerts, many popular devices now include smart facial recognition and vehicle detection, raising the stakes for biometric and metadata exposure for camera owners and their neighbours.

Despite claims of enhanced safety, most camera companion apps gather additional user data unrelated to core camera functionality.

Fornes outlines the problem: “Imagine that suddenly the most personal and intimate part of your life – your home – is available to unknown individuals, with no known security controls to protect the recordings. The central risk isn’t only the capture. When people can’t meaningfully opt in or out and are not informed about where their biometric data is stored, what additional data points are being collected, and with whom it’s shared, you’ve created a privacy hazard. Scanning faces or car plates of neighbours – especially without explicit consent – should be treated as a major privacy concern if not a breach of privacy regulations.”

Drawing on an example, Fornes cites Amazon Ring. The device has recently been criticized by privacy watchdogs over its “Familiar Faces” feature, which claims to identify people captured on camera. This particular case raised concerns about consent and the handling of biometric data.

Too many AI features?

As these AI features become more prevalent, particularly facial recognition, manufacturers must navigate increasingly complex global privacy regulations. Facial recognition features are strictly regulated in the EU and UK, with high privacy standards enforced by the GDPR. By contrast, frameworks in the US, Canada, and Australia are less comprehensive and vary by jurisdiction.

According to Fornes, even when the law allows it, people often overlook the fact that in order to enable these smart features, AI cameras need to constantly ship data back to the manufacturer’s servers: “It’s not just recordings or snapshots. Camera’s companion apps may be siphoning additional data points – including location, device IDs, contact information, usage patterns, and even biometrics – creating a parallel surveillance stream that can amplify the damage of any breach.”

Fornes adds: “Once a smart camera has a known vulnerability, bad actors can silently take control – turning it into a live feed that spies on you and even your neighbors. For such attackers, highly sophisticated skills are not even necessary; there are numerous readily available platforms that literally list compromised webcams, allowing anyone to break in”.
Information gathered by AI camera makers

Among the eight leading brands analyzed in Surfshark’s study, six offer AI-powered facial recognition, 7 provide smart vehicle detection, and all of them feature person detection and intelligent alerts. Despite claims of enhanced safety, most popular models require companion apps for setup, notifications, and cloud storage – apps that often collect additional information unrelated to core camera functionality.

The disclosed advertising-related data practices varied widely among the analysed apps. Arlo stands out by collecting and sharing device IDs specifically for third-party advertising and by gathering more data types for developer advertising than any competitor, with five data types collected. Vivint and Google Nest each collect four data types for developer advertising, SimpliSafe collects three, and Amazon Ring and ADT each collect one.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Considerable amounts of dark web material originate from business insiders

By Dr. Tim Sandle

SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

December 16, 2025


A trove of documents from I-Soon, a private contractor that competed for Chinese government contracts, shows that its hackers compromised more than a dozen governments, according to cybersecurity firms SentinelLabs and Malwarebytes - Copyright AFP/File Daniel LEAL

Bad actors claim to be collaborating with insiders from companies that are household names, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, to unban accounts or leak confidential information about specific users, including their names, IP addresses, physical locations, emails, and phone numbers, for as little as $500.

This is according to findings from NordStellar, a threat exposure management platform, which reveal that cybercriminals are selling insider data-backed services on the dark web.

One source of this information is from malicious employees, also known as insider threats. Such individuals can cause significant harm to businesses by leaking or selling sensitive data, altering systems, or collaborating with cybercriminals to launch large-scale cyberattacks.

Loss of sensitive user information

The research has found 35 dark web posts claiming to sell services based on insider data so far this year. Some of the services for sale on the dark web claim to have direct connections to insiders from such well-known companies as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.

“The majority of the posts offer various look-up services, exposing sensitive user information, such as IP addresses, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, and even physical addresses,” says Vakaris Noreika, a cybersecurity expert at NordStellar to Digital Journal. “Aside from violating the user’s privacy, this information can be used to launch highly targeted phishing scams or to commit fraud — or even identity theft.”

The posts reveal that look-up services can start at $500, offering the user’s phone number and linked email address. Advanced packages, which contain even more sensitive user information, such as IP addresses, physical addresses, date of birth, and other confidential details, can be purchased for $1,000 or more.

“Other popular services include account recovery and unbanning. The former can be especially damaging to the brand because users are often banned for violating the company’s policies or engaging in fraudulent activity,” adds Noreika. “As a result, individuals who have been using the company’s services for scams can continue to do so, acquiring more victims and damaging the brand’s reputation in the process.”

Sounding the alert about malicious activity

Noreika explains that insider threats are complex, and to safeguard against malicious employees, companies must have a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy in place. He emphasizes high observability and behavioural analysis as the two main pillars for resilience.

“The first key step is to ensure high observability into user actions — once security teams achieve visibility, they can look for anomalies in employee behaviour, triggering the first alarms about potential malicious activity,” Noreika clarifies. “Security teams should assess whether there’s any potentially dangerous patterns in activity, for example, if a user is accessing sensitive information without justification or if there are any signs of them exfiltrating that information to external sources, like their own personal devices, accounts, or third parties.”

He underscores the importance of proper network segmentation and the principle of least privilege in general to prevent users from accessing sensitive information that isn’t necessary for their work. According to Noreika, to prevent employees from sharing and downloading unauthorized files, data loss prevention tools are also required.

Monitoring the dark web for posts mentioning the company, especially those claiming to sell services fuelled by insider data, should be prioritised. To effectively mitigate the damage inflicted by malicious insiders, Noreika advises companies to prepare an incident response plan in advance. The plan should outline the detection and investigation process, as well as the steps for containing the threat, eradicating the user’s access to company data and recovering systems if attackers compromise them in the process.

AI resurrections of dead celebrities amuse and rankle

By AFP
December 21, 2025


AI creations have triggered a debate about who controls a person's identity and legacy after death - Copyright AFP Chris DELMAS

Anuj Chopra in Washington, with Anna Malpas and Rachel Blundy in London

In a parallel reality, Queen Elizabeth II gushes over cheese puffs, a gun-toting Saddam Hussein struts into a wrestling ring, and Pope John Paul II attempts skateboarding.

Hyper-realistic AI videos of dead celebrities — created with apps such as OpenAI’s easy-to-use Sora — have rapidly spread online, prompting debate over the control of deceased people’s likenesses.

OpenAI’s app, launched in September and widely dubbed as a deepfake machine, has unleashed a flood of videos of historical figures including Winston Churchill as well as celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

In one TikTok clip reviewed by AFP, Queen Elizabeth II, clad in pearls and a crown, arrives at a wrestling match on a scooter, climbs a fence, and leaps onto a male wrestler.

In a separate Facebook clip, the late queen is shown praising “delightfully orange” cheese puffs in a supermarket aisle, while another depicts her playing football.

But not all videos — powered by OpenAI’s Sora 2 model — have prompted laughs.

In October, OpenAI blocked users from creating videos of Martin Luther King Jr. after the estate of the civil rights icon complained about disrespectful depictions.

Some users created videos depicting King making monkey noises during his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech, illustrating how users can portray public figures at will, making them say or do things they never did.

– ‘Maddening’ –

“We’re getting into the ‘uncanny valley,'” said Constance de Saint Laurent, a professor at Ireland’s Maynooth University, referring to the phenomenon in which interactions with artificial objects are so human-like it triggers unease.

“If suddenly you started receiving videos of a deceased family member, this is traumatizing,” she told AFP. “These (videos) have real consequences.”

In recent weeks, the children of late actor Robin Williams, comedian George Carlin, and activist Malcolm X have condemned the use of Sora to create synthetic videos of their fathers.

Zelda Williams, the daughter of Robin Williams, recently pleaded on Instagram to “stop sending me AI videos of dad,” calling the content “maddening.”

An OpenAI spokesman told AFP that while there were “strong free speech interests in depicting historical figures,” public figures and their families should have ultimate control over their likeness.

For “recently deceased” figures, he added, authorized representatives or estate owners can now request that their likeness not be used in Sora.

– ‘Control likeness’ –

“Despite what OpenAI says about wanting people to control their likeness, they have released a tool that decidedly does the opposite,” Hany Farid, co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP.

“While they (mostly) stopped the creation of MLK Jr. videos, they are not stopping users from co-opting the identity of many other celebrities.”

“Even with OpenAI putting some safeguards to protect MLK Jr. there will be another AI model that does not, and so this problem will surely only get worse,” said Farid.

That reality was underscored in the aftermath of Hollywood director Rob Reiner’s alleged murder this month, as AFP fact-checkers uncovered AI-generated clips using his likeness spreading online.

As advanced AI tools proliferate, the vulnerability is no longer confined to public figures: deceased non-celebrities may also have their names, likenesses, and words repurposed for synthetic manipulation.

Researchers warn that the unchecked spread of synthetic content — widely called AI slop — could ultimately drive users away from social media.

“The issue with misinformation in general is not so much that people believe it. A lot of people don’t,” said Saint Laurent.

“The issue is that they see real news and they don’t trust it anymore. And this (Sora) is going to massively increase that.”

burs-ac/des

As US battles China on AI, some companies choose Chinese


By AFP
December 21, 2025


The January launch of Chinese company DeepSeek's high-performance, low-cost and open source 'R1' large language model (LLM) defied the perception that the best AI tech had to be from US juggernauts like OpenAI, Anthropic or Google - Copyright AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

Thomas Urbain with Luna Lin in Beijing

Even as the United States is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence, Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market.

Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the United States.

These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI or Google’s Gemini – whose inner workings are fiercely protected.

In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba to DeepSeek, allow programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their needs.

Globally, use of Chinese-developed open models has surged from just 1.2 percent in late 2024 to nearly 30 percent in August, according to a report published this month by the developers’ platform OpenRouter and US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

China’s open-source models “are cheap — in some cases free — and they work well,” Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China told AFP.

One American entrepreneur, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their business saves $400,000 annually by using Alibaba’s Qwen AI models instead of the proprietary models.

“If you need cutting-edge capabilities, you go back to OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, but most applications don’t need that,” said the entrepreneur.

US chip titan Nvidia, AI firm Perplexity and California’s Stanford University are also using Qwen models in some of their work.

– DeepSeek shock –

The January launch of DeepSeek’s high-performance, low-cost and open source “R1” large language model (LLM) defied the perception that the best AI tech had to be from US juggernauts like OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.

It was also a reckoning for the United States — locked in a battle for dominance in AI tech with China — on how far its archrival had come.

AI models from China’s MiniMax and Z.ai are also popular overseas, and the country has entered the race to build AI agents — programs that use chatbots to complete online tasks like buying tickets or adding events to a calendar.

Agent friendly — and open-source — models, like the latest version of the Kimi K2 model from the startup Moonshot AI, released in November, are widely considered the next frontier in the generative AI revolution.

The US government is aware of open-source’s potential.

In July, the Trump administration released an “AI Action Plan” that said America needed “leading open models founded on American values”.

These could become global standards, it said.

But so far US companies are taking the opposite track.

Meta, which had led the country’s open-source efforts with its Llama models, is now concentrating on closed-source AI instead.

However, this summer, OpenAI — under pressure to revive the spirit of its origin as a nonprofit — released two “open-weight” models (slightly less malleable than “open-source”).

– ‘Build trust’ –

Among major Western companies, only France’s Mistral is sticking with open-source, but it ranks far behind DeepSeek and Qwen in usage rankings.

Western open-source offerings are “just not as interesting,” said the US entrepreneur who uses Alibaba’s Qwen.

The Chinese government has encouraged open-source AI technology, despite questions over its profitability.

Mark Barton, chief technology officer at OMNIUX, said he was considering using Qwen but some of his clients could be uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with Chinese-made AI, even for specific tasks.

Given the current US administration’s stance on Chinese tech companies, risks remain, he told AFP.

“We wouldn’t want to go all-in with one specific model provider, especially one that’s maybe not aligned with Western ideas,” said Barton.

“If Alibaba were to get sanctioned or usage was effectively blacklisted, we don’t want to get caught in that trap.”

But Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, said there were no “salient issues” surrounding data security.

“Companies can choose to use the models and build on them…without any connection to China,” he explained.

A recent Stanford study published posited that “the very nature of open-model releases enables better scrutiny” of the tech.

Gao Fei, chief technology officer at Chinese AI wellness platform BOK Health, agrees.

“The transparency and sharing nature of open source are themselves the best ways to build trust,” he said.

Agentic AI set to become big in 2026


ByDr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL
December 21, 2025


City of London at night. — Image by © Tim Sandle

As leadership teams wrap up annual planning and look ahead to 2026, this provides a rare moment in the corporate calendar for those occupying the heady heights of the C-Suite to step back and reassess which trends will actually matter as the next year unfolds.

Dimitri Masin, Co-Founder and CEO of Gradient Labs — an AI-native fintech working with leading financial institutions across Europe and recently launched in the U.S. — believes the next phase of customer experience will look fundamentally different. Based on what his team is seeing in live, regulated deployments, Masin has told Digital Journal about three customer experience shifts that will define CX in 2026.

Dmitri Masin previously served as Sales Finance Analyst at Google and VP Data Science, Financial Crime and Fraud at Monzo (UK’s Venmo Bank), joining as one of the early employees and scaling a 120+ person team. With a background in financial engineering and AI, he specialises in risk-compliant automation for regulated industries. With two partners, he established Gradient Labs, the conversational AI platform purpose-built for financial services.

This year, the startup secured a $13 million investment in just one week, and the platform can now reach over 32 million end-users.

1. Voice AI becomes trusted and safe

According to Masin: “Voice will shift from being the most unpredictable customer-support channel to the most trusted one. Financial institutions will begin adopting voice AI that can reason through complex procedures, follow multi-step compliance workflows, and guarantee audit-ready accuracy in real time.”

This means, as AI transitions: “Voice is becoming a core part of the AI-powered operating system for financial firms – resolving issues end-to-end, not just answering calls. The global voice banking market is projected to grow to nearly $18 billion by 2032, so this is the future the industry is heading.”

2. Outbound predictive communication

Masin also sees predictive analytics increasing in scope: “The next evolution of customer service is outbound predictive communication – moving from reactive responses to proactive engagement. AI agents will anticipate customer needs before they surface, reaching out with solutions, not apologies. Imagine a system that alerts a customer before a payment fails, or offers guidance before a compliance issue even occurs.”

As to the significance? “This shift from reactive to predictive service will redefine what trust and satisfaction mean in financial experiences.”

3. The shift to 360° autonomous customer experience

Attracting and keeping customers remains essential to any business seeking to grow, and here autonomous AI becomes a necessary tool: “We’re moving beyond hyper-personalisation toward truly agentic AI – systems that don’t just tailor experiences, but act on behalf of customers to resolve their needs autonomously. Gartner predicts that by 2029, agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention, leading to a 30% reduction in operational costs, but the market demonstrates it can happen sooner.”

As to what this means in practice, Masin explains: “AI systems will not just personalise customer experiences but autonomously act on behalf of users across inbound requests, proactive outreach, and back office operations – everything executing payments, resolving disputes, and managing compliance checks in real time. Intelligent agents manage entire customer journeys and compliance workflows end-to-end. The shift from “hyper-personalised” to “hands-on, proactive AI” will redefine what trust and efficiency mean in customer operations.”

Bernie Sanders Says A New 'Breed Of Uber Capitalists' Has Emerged. They Truly Believe They Are 'Superior Human Beings'

Adrian Volenik
Sat, December 20, 2025 

 Benzinga

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says there’s a different kind of wealthy Americans emerging, and they no longer see themselves as part of the same system as everyone else.

Billionaires, Poverty And Misplaced Priorities

“There is a new breed of uber capitalists out there who really believe, and they write about this as well, that they are superior human beings,” Sanders said on the “Flagrant” podcast earlier this year. He said many billionaires today view their wealth as proof they deserve more power, not just economically, but politically and socially.

He compared this modern mindset to outdated elitist worldviews from centuries ago. “Back in the 19th century… I am the king, God made my family king… Sorry you're starving to death but that's the way life goes,” he said. “God told me my family rules.”

Podcast host Andrew Schulz pointed to the hypocrisy of some of the ultra-wealthy pledging to give away their money only at the end of their lives. “As they get closer to death, they’re like, ‘Our goal is to give away all our money,’ which seems to tell me that they think that there is an issue with them having all that money,” he said. Sanders agreed: “I think they want it all. I really do,” saying that it’s because they’re very competitive.

“We are the richest country in the history of the world,” Sanders said. And yet, “60% of people live paycheck to paycheck.” He argued that the U.S. has more than enough money to address its biggest problems–if it chose to

Sanders also talked about the U.S. spending “twice as much per person on healthcare as most European countries,” yet still sees tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year due to unaffordable care. “We pay child care workers McDonald's wages,” he added, while claiming to love kids.

Military Spending

More recently, Sanders has turned his attention to military spending, calling out the U.S. government for prioritizing defense over basic human needs.

President Donald Trump signed the $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday after it passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan support. Sanders was one of the 20 lawmakers to vote against it.

“We are spending $1 trillion every year on the military. That's more than the next NINE nations combined,” Sanders wrote on X on Thursday. “Meanwhile, millions lack health care & we have the highest childhood and senior poverty rate of almost any major country. Congress needs to get its priorities straight.”

He posted a video along with the statement, criticizing lawmakers for focusing on parts of the defense bill rather than its overall price tag. “We don't look at the bill in its totality,” he said. “When you add everything up, we are spending over $1 trillion a year on the military.”

© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
View comments(208)



Bernie Sanders Questions Elon Musk's Universal High Income, Free Housing Claims Amid AI, Robotics Push: 'How Will This Utopia Come…'

Badar Shaikh
Sun, December 21, 2025

BENZINGA



Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has slammed Tesla Inc

. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk amid an AI and Robotics push.

How Will This Utopia Come About, Bernie Sanders Asks

In a post on the social media platform X on Thursday, Sanders shared a video directed at Musk. "Just a couple of questions for you," Sanders captioned the video. In the video, the Senator asked Musk questions about his artificial intelligence and robotics efforts, which will bring about a "utopia" in the world.

"You have told us poverty will be wiped out, work will be optional," Sanders said, adding that Musk also claimed that there will be "universal high income" for everyone. "How will this utopia come about?" Sanders asked if there were no "entry-level jobs" available in the market.

"When are they going to get the free housing?" Sanders asked, adding that if robots took over manufacturing jobs, when would the people working in factories receive free healthcare?

"I look forward to hearing about how you and your other oligarch friends are going to provide working people with the magnificent life that you promise," Sanders said. He also criticized President Donald Trump for doubling insurance premiums for millions of people and the SNAP benefit woes.

Hello, @elonmusk!

Just a couple of questions for you: https://t.co/bVvoOTzuum pic.twitter.com/R3h0GvdSQq

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 19, 2025

See Also: Deloitte's #1 Fastest-Growing Software Company Lets Users Earn Money Just by Scrolling — Accredited Investors Can Still Get In at $0.50/Share.
Elon Musk Vs Bernie Sanders

The pair recently got into a heated exchange on social media after Sanders criticized the construction of AI datacenters, asking for a moratorium on the data centers. The comments prompted Musk to call Sanders a coward who lacked "any sense of adventure."


Sanders had also voiced his opposition to the construction of new data centers in the past, warning that the tech industry’s AI push posed a threat to jobs, democracy, as well as public resources.

Sanders has received backing from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who said that, despite representing Silicon Valley, he was backing Sanders as he shared that the AI technology should be helpful to workers and not “tech barons.”
Tesla's $1.58 Trillion Valuation, Falling Sales

Meanwhile, Tesla's total valuation recently reached $1.58 trillion, which further helped the EV giant bolster its position as the most valuable automaker in the world, putting it well ahead of other auto industry rivals, including Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:TM).

However, Tesla's sales continue to be lackluster, with the latest figures suggesting a steep 23% decline in November U.S. sales amid President Donald Trump‘s introduction of several anti-EV policy changes in the U.S., like relaxing CAFE standards, among other reasons.

Photo courtesy: Joshua Sukoff on Shuttertsock.com