The whole city is dark. No streetlights. No lights in the windows. No TV. No AC. Occasionally there’s a solar powered emergency light, or someone has a generator. But you fumble through many streets in Havana in almost perfect blackness, as if you have been blinded. You don’t know how much you need or want light until it vanishes.
Earlier this month, a California federal court dismissed the copyright infringement lawsuit DISH had filed against UK hosting provider Innetra.
DISH has accused the company of providing its services to pirate IPTV operations, including Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV, but it failed to establish jurisdiction.
The dismissal was a clear setback for the American pay TV provider and its anti-piracy partner IBCAP. However, at a federal court in Florida, DISH Network still has a separate lawsuit pending that could impact the IPTV operations in a more direct manner.
Last October, DISH filed a copyright infringement complaint against the alleged operators of the Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV pirate services, as well as one of their U.S.-based resellers: ‘1 Dollar IPTV’.
DISH alleged that the Malaysian company Kemo E Marketing Sdn. Bhd and its sole shareholder, Noorhayati Binti Abdul Rahim, are driving forces behind the Lemo/Kemo operation. Ammar Towir, also from Malaysia, allegedly owns and operates the Lemo/Kemo domains and financial accounts.
The identities of these defendants were presumably obtained through subpoenas that were obtained in a previously filed lawsuit in Texas that has since been dismissed.
In addition to the foreign defendants, DISH also names a Florida-based reseller; 1 Dollar IPTV. This is allegedly operated by Artistry Group LLC, from St. Petersburg, Florida. This company was voluntarily dissolved on February 27, 2025, but DISH notes that the company or its successors continue to run 1 Dollar IPTV.
Because the defendants failed to respond to DISH’s complaint, while continuing their infringing activity, DISH successfully requested a default, which it now hopes to convert into a formal judgment.
In a motion filed at the Florida federal court, DISH seeks $150,000 in damages against Lemo and Kemo for each of the 181 registered works listed in the complaint. For the American reseller operating under Artistry Group, it seeks the maximum available damages for 10 works.
These damages amount to $27.15 million for the IPTV services and $1.5 million for the reseller. That is substantial, but according to DISH, it is needed to send a deterrent message.
“Defendants’ clear willfulness and the strong need for deterrence, as shown by their ongoing infringement in the face of numerous infringement notices and Defendants’ intent to operate their business on the basis of stealing the intellectual property of others, justifies an award of $150,000 for each of the registered Works,” the motion reads.
Because the defendants have been unresponsive thus far, recouping the damages is not straightforward. Therefore, DISH believes that it is vital that the court issues a broad permanent injunction.
In this case, the proposed injunction has unusually specific infrastructure demands.
DISH’s enforcement partner NagraStar traced the IPTV services to three hosting providers: IPv4 Superhub Limited in Hong Kong, 24 Shells Inc. in New Jersey, and INTERKVM HOST SRL, operating as ZetServers, in Romania. DISH asks the court to order all three to disable the relevant IP addresses.
In addition, the proposed injunction also lists 19 domain names, requiring registries and registrars to transfer these to DISH. The list includes Kemoiptv.com, Lemotv.com, 1DollarIPTV.com, and 1DollarIPTV.net, along with a range of reseller and marketing storefronts.
Notably, the proposed injunction is designed to be “evergreen”. It includes a provision that would require registries and registrars to automatically disable any future domain names used by the defendants, provided that DISH submits a declaration confirming the new domains are being used for infringing purposes.
At the time of writing, court has not yet ruled on the motion. However, the chances of a favorable outcome in this case are higher for the pay TV company, as the defendants all failed to appear.
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A copy of DISH’s motion for default judgment, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, is available here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Two years ago, Congress passed the “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America” Act (RISAA) that included nominal reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The bill unfortunately included some problematic expansions of the law—but it also included a relatively big victory for civil liberties advocates: Section 702 authorities were only extended for two years, allowing Congress to continue the important work of negotiating a warrant requirement for Americans as well as some other critical reforms.
However, Congress clearly did not continue this work. In fact, it now appears that Congress is poised to consider another extension of this program without even attempting to include necessary and common sense reforms. Most notably, Congress is not considering a requirement to obtain a warrant before looking at data on U.S. persons that was indiscriminately and warrantlessly collected. House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that “the plan is to move a clean extension of FISA … for at least 18 months.”
Even more disappointing, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who has previously been a champion of both the warrant requirement and closing the data broker loophole, told the press he would vote for a clean extension of FISA, claiming that RISAA included enough reforms for the moment.
It’s important to note RISAA was just a reauthorization of this mass surveillance program with a long history of abuse. Prior to the 2024 reauthorization, Section 702 was already misused to run improper queries on peaceful protesters, federal and state lawmakers, Congressional staff, thousands of campaign donors, journalists, and a judge reporting civil rights violations by local police. RISAA further expanded the government’s authority by allowing it to compel a much larger group of people and providers into assisting with this surveillance. As we said when it passed, overall, RISAA is a travesty for Americans who deserve basic constitutional rights and privacy whether they are communicating with people and services inside or outside of the US.
Section 702 should not be reauthorized without any additional safeguards or oversight. Fortunately, there are currently three reform bills for Congress to consider: SAFE, PLEWSA, and GSRA. While none of these bills are perfect, they are all significantly better than the status quo, and should be considered instead of a bill that attempts no reform at all.
Mass spying—accessing a massive amount of communications by and with Americans first and sorting out targets second and secretly—has always been a problem for our rights. It was a problem at first when President George W. Bush authorized it in secret without Congressional or court oversight. And it remained a problem even after the passage of Section 702 in 2008 created the possibility of some oversight. Congress was right that this surveillance is dangerous, and that’s why it set Section 702 up for regular reconsideration. That reconsideration has not occurred, even as the circumstances of the NSA, Justice Department, and FBI leadership, have radically changed. Reform is long overdue, and now it’s urgent.
Dr. Annelle Sheline knows firsthand what it means to act on principle. In March 2024, under President Biden, she resigned from the State Department in protest of U.S. support for the Gaza genocide, announcing that she could no longer “serve an administration that enables such atrocities.” Now a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute and a senior nonresident fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., Sheline continues to speak out against U.S. militarism.
In his first public court appearance since his recent extradition from Bolivia, accused South American drug lord Sebastián Marset was ordered detained without bail by a federal judge in Virginia at a detention hearing on Friday.
Dressed in a dark green prison jumpsuit and black sneakers, the tattoo-covered Uruguayan national did not speak during the proceeding at the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse.
Magistrate judge William B. Porter denied bail to Marset, agreeing with the view of prosecutors that he represented a flight risk.
Marset, 34, was arrested in the early morning of March 13 in a residential neighborhood of Santa Cruz, Bolivia and extradited to the U.S. hours later.
Allegedly one of the most powerful drug barons in the Southern Cone of South America, the U.S. had announced a $2 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Prosecutors allege Marset laundered millions of dollars in global narcotics proceeds through the U.S. and European banking systems, along with fellow Uruguayan co-conspirator Federico Ezequiel Santoro Vassallo, who is now serving a 15 year sentence in the U.S. for money laundering conspiracy.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia alleges Marset led “a large-scale drug trafficking organization that distributed thousands of kilograms of cocaine, including as many as 10 tons at a time, from South America typically to Europe.”
“The Marset drug trafficking organization allegedly traffics cocaine in Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and elsewhere,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Marset’s prosecution in the U.S. state of Virginia is uncommon, as the majority of the country’s significant drug cases are tried in New York City or Miami.
According to court documents, at least one of the bank wire transfers made by his alleged co-conspirator Santoro was routed through a U.S. correspondent bank’s server located in Richmond, Virginia. That gave the Justice Department a venue where Marset and Santoro could be charged and tried for money laundering.
Marset’s arrest and extradition to the U.S. appears to be the result of renewed regional anti-narcotics cooperation, coming just months after the DEA resumed operations in Bolivia following a 17-year absence. It also follows Bolivia’s participation in an anti-narcotics summit convened by President Donald Trump on March 7.
Marset’s next hearing is expected within the next two weeks.
The following story is co-published with Nolan Higdon’s Substack.
“Tel Aviv, stripped of illusion, as you have never witnessed it,” read the caption above a viral March 2026 video showing missiles hammering the Israeli city as explosions burst across the night sky. To the casual scroller, it appeared to be a harrowing document of modern conflict. The problem, however, was that the video was a deepfake.
Deepfakes are synthetic media edited or generated using artificial intelligence. According to The New York Times, a “cascade of AI fakes about war with Iran” have proliferated across social media since the United States and Israel reignited military actions with Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. Indeed, the digital landscape is increasingly saturated with synthetic fabrications, as false videos of boisterous celebrations, frantic airport evacuations, devastating bombings and graphic casualties flood users’ feeds in a relentless stream of misinformation.
As these digital fabrications blur the line between reality and simulation, the necessity for critical artificial intelligence literacy (CAIL) has moved from an educational luxury to a vital requirement. We are currently navigating a landscape where the “fog of war” is no longer just a metaphor for confusion on the battlefield, but a literal description of an information environment choked by so-called AI slop. Indeed, one study found that more than 20% of the content on YouTube is AI generated. Without a robust, systemic effort to instill CAIL, the public remains defenseless against sophisticated psychological operations. We must understand not just how to use these tools, but the sociopolitical structures that own them and the inherent biases they encode.
The deployment of false information is not a modern phenomenon; it has been a foundational staple of conflict since the ancient world. From the Greeks’ legendary construction of a hollow wooden horse to infiltrate Troy, to Genghis Khan’s Mongol cavalry utilizing feigned retreats to lure enemies into fatal disarray, strategic deception has always defined the battlefield.
In modern democracies like the U.S., leaders have frequently refined these tactics into “false news” designed to manufacture public consent for intervention. This pattern of deception is evident in the phantom attack in the Gulf of Tonkin used to escalate the Vietnam War and in the infamous false claims of weapons of mass destruction that prefaced the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Beyond initiating conflict, misinformation serves to artificially sustain public morale and project an illusion of progress. This was notoriously exemplified by the White House during the Vietnam War, where official reports continuously claimed the U.S. was winning even as internal assessments acknowledged a deepening quagmire. Similarly, President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished“ declaration, delivered from the deck of an aircraft carrier just weeks into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, provided a false sense of finality to a war that would ultimately span decades.
While the intent to deceive is ancient, AI and social media have complicated these issues by allowing anyone to create slick, convincing content at scale. Even before the recent escalation, the Russia-Ukraine war and the geopolitical tensions between Israel and Bahrain were already inundated with AI-generated misinformation.
The proliferation of deepfakes does more than just spread lies; it erodes the very foundation of objective truth by fostering universal skepticism. This phenomenon allows genuine evidence of suffering to be dismissed as mere simulation. For instance, NBC News reported on an exhaustive investigation confirming that a video of starving Gazans awaiting food in May 2025 was entirely authentic; nonetheless, a barrage of social media users reflexively dismissed the footage as a deepfake. When the public can no longer distinguish between a sophisticated fabrication and a documented reality, the truth becomes a matter of partisan convenience rather than empirical fact.
In high-stakes environments, the fog of war creates panic and visceral reactions where people feel their decision-making is a matter of life or death. If the information they consume is incorrect, it could be the difference between a peaceful protest and an individual becoming radicalized toward violence.
For content creators and platform algorithms, the incentives are skewed toward chaos. Social media platforms are designed to amplify content that triggers intense emotional reactions. Because fake news is often more sensational than the nuanced truth, it spreads faster and wider.
For content creators and platform algorithms, the incentives are skewed toward chaos.
While the ideal response is for the public to wait and investigate before passing judgment, this is a tall order when individuals believe they are witnessing an active massacre. Some deepfakes can be debunked quickly, such as the video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which showed him with six fingers. In many cases, verifying information takes time; one must geolocate footage, check metadata and often accept the uncomfortable conclusion that there is not yet enough evidence to be certain. AI has made this truth-finding mission exponentially harder for the average citizen who lacks the resources for deep digital forensics.
Ironically, many people now rely on AI to tell them if content is AI-generated. This reliance illustrates a profound lack of AI literacy. What we commonly call AI today is more accurately described as large language models (LLMs). These are not “intelligent“ in any human sense; they are pattern-recognition engines that memorize and predict sequences of data. They are only as good as the data fed into them, and as a result, they reflect human biases, often amplified to a dangerous degree.
Studies consistently show that AI responses can be factually inaccurate about half the time. These models frequently “hallucinate,” fabricating information and citations that do not exist. A study by The Intercept highlighted this absurdity, showing how Google Gemini gave conflicting responses about whether a specific text was AI-generated, even when the text in question was something Gemini itself had produced. When news outlets cite AI detectors as definitive proof, they are often building their conclusions on a foundation of sand.
This AI illiteracy compounds decades of neglected media literacy. While many nations have made media literacy a compulsory part of their national curriculum, the U.S. has largely left it to the discretion of local communities. Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication, from print to digital media. Without this foundation, the public is ill-equipped to handle the nuances of the algorithmic age.
Critical AI literacy is an evolving framework that goes beyond simply knowing how to prompt a chatbot. It teaches students to interrogate ownership: Who owns the AI, and how does that ownership shape its bias, ideology and purpose? If a corporation owns the model, will it prioritize profit over democratic stability?
A critical approach also examines representation. We must ask how AI-generated images reflect the biases of their training data, such as the white supremacist or extremist content occasionally surfaced by unmoderated models like Grok AI. Furthermore, it reminds us that Big Tech is often fundamentally anti-human in its philosophy, viewing human beings as buggy systems that need to be fixed or optimized by code.
As researcher Gary Smith suggests, AI will only surpass human intelligence if humans continue to use it in ways that degrade our own cognitive abilities. Studies show that prolonged, uncritical reliance on AI and screens contributes to a decline in cognitive abilities, memory and focus. CAIL points out that humans are the smart ones; the platforms are merely tools.
In a time of war, the absence of this literacy has deadly consequences. If deepfakes and hallucinating bots are shaping our emotions and our interpretations of international conflict, we are living in a state of perpetual, manufactured crisis. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of previous decades, where we naively assumed that simply having access to technology would make the world more connected and smarter.
The goal of critical AI literacy is not to make us run from technology, but to understand it so it can be harnessed for the common good. We must decide if AI will be a partner in automating meaningless tasks to improve the human condition, or an exploitative force that dictates the citizenry’s reality. That is a decision for an informed public to make, not for Big Tech executives. If people remain AI illiterate, they will remain dependent on the very narratives designed to exploit them.
The post The Generative Fog of War appeared first on Truthdig.
EFF joined other digital rights and civil liberties organizations in calling out the unconstitutionality of Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s recent threats to punish broadcasters for airing statements he disagrees with.
Carr’s recent threats, like his past threats, are unconstitutional efforts to coerce news coverage that favors President Donald Trump. He wrongly claims that the FCC’s “public interest” standard allows him and the commission to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who publish news that is unflattering to the government is anathema to our country’s core constitutional values.
The First Amendment constrains the FCC’s authority to force broadcasters to toe the government’s line, even though broadcast licensees are required to operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Imposing restrictions on licensees’ speech, especially viewpoint-based limitations, are still subject to First Amendment scrutiny even if, in some circumstances, that scrutiny differs somewhat from that applied to non-broadcast media. And the “public interest” requirement, as it were, has never been interpreted to allow the type of viewpoint-based punishment that Carr has threatened here.
Everyone agrees that news reporting should strive for accuracy, but Carr’s threats have little do with that. Instead, his allegations of “falsity” are a proxy for retaliation based on (1) Carr’s subjective policy disagreements; (2) any criticism of Trump and the administration broadly; (3) treatment of anything that is not the official US government line about the Iran War as “false.”
We join the call for Carr to withdraw these threats.