Empowering Global Collaboration and Innovation, Serving 97,000 Companies Including 68% of Fortune 500

George Miller&#x27;s action-packed prequel narrowly beat The Garfield Movie over the three-day weekend but suffered the worst overall Memorial Day debut since 1989.

Weekend Box Office Results: Furiosa Edges Out Garfield in Worst Memorial Day Weekend in Decades | Rotten Tomatoes

.box is bridging Web3 and Web2 TORONTO, Ontario, January 18th, 2024/Chainwire/-- Breaking new ground in the domain name industry, My.box Inc. announces the upcoming launch of its Public Beta on January 18th, 2024 at 12:00 PM ET. This kicks off public availability of the first ever domain name system supported natively by browsers, email, and wallets. The Future Of Digital Identity .box domains offer secure and seamless identity on Web3 and Web2. The holder of ‘example.box’ is empowered with decentralized ownership and access to DNS record management, ENS integration, payments, Web3 authentication, Web3 messaging, websites, and email. Founder of .box, Josh Brandley states, “There are many great things happening at the intersection of Web3, decentralized identity, and domain names – we are the first to tie it all together with a powerful, easy to use product”. .box solves the major problem with blockchain domains .box sets a new standard in the world of blockchain-based top-level domains. While other new blockchain domain systems generate excitement, they ultimately fall short because they do not work with traditional browsers and email services. In contrast, .box is ICANN-accredited, recognized by the global Domain Name System (DNS), and supported by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Both DNS and ENS have established substantial network effects, solidifying their positions as core infrastructure. .box is pioneering an approach that natively integrates the features of both systems, thus delivering a better experience for users. The Team Behind .box The .box TLD is owned and operated by Intercap Registry, an ICANN Accredited Registry Operator. Intercap has dedicated over a decade to the development of .box. Core partners include 3DNS and ENS Labs, whose leaders share the vision of bringing the benefits of Web3 to the domain industry. Nick Johnson, Founder of ENS, states: “We have always had a deep respect for the DNS and are very excited to witness this unique .box implementation that supports seamless interoperability between the two systems”. Paul Gauvreau, CEO of 3DNS adds, “Bringing real world domain assets onchain improves almost every use case there is – we anticipate that this product will be widely adopted by Web3 enthusiasts and newcomers alike.” Launch Pricing During launch, .box domains will run through a premium pricing phase, ensuring fair access for everyone. Prices start at $7,680 USDC and then decay exponentially for 6 days until stopping at a fixed rate of $120 USDC. All domains will renew at $120 USDC per year. Domains are minted and managed using the dApp hosted at my.box. Payment is made with ETH or USDC. Join the .box community Secure your .box domain now at http://www.my.box Follow .box at https://x.com/boxdomains Join the .box to: Discord server Learn how to buy a .box and take control of your decentralized identity. Qualify for your referral link to earn $18 for each successful referral. Receive support, updates, and connect with the team. For More Information: Visit our website at  __ __or contact Omar Hamed, omar@intercap.com http://www.my.box Contact Community Manager Omar Hamed My.box contact@omar.box This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here.

Introducing .box – The World’s First Blockchain Native DNS Routable Domain

I have heard about it before. B2C2B with a touch of scare up sales marketing on the side. I’m not really criticizing it, I was just unsure if it really works and if it’s ethical. Now I know it does work, and now I’m sure it is unethical. I got a message from Box today, it claimed that 35 of our employees are using Box and I as an employer have no control over them using the services. Let’s talk? Even if I have suspected that such could happen one day, I was really surprised that so many of our employees were signed up on Box already. Having an employee-friendly work environment and knowing that there are a few other services that we use for document storage, I couldn’t stop but wonder if there are some files that shouldn’t be on Box.com considering our strict information storage policies? So what’s the expectation here? What thoughts are driven to my head by this “marketing” email? Am I as an employer to take over private employee accounts by signing up for a corporate access? Should I check with my employees if we’re still in compliance with our information storage policies? I do believe such “marketing” works, but it doesn’t “work” very well for the employees. Imagine there would be a drug abuse rehab service that would supply free drugs to everyone who signs up and then sends an email to their friends and family ratting them out? Better show cases exist in our “techie” world. There’re Twilio and DigitalOcean, where developers start to use the services, find it helpful and like it so much, that they ask and encourage companies they work for to use it as well. But there is a problem — it requires a great and almost irreplaceable product. That brings us to the biggest dilemma — if we have a “scare up sales marketing” option — is it worth using it? should we be allowed to? How is it going to affect lives of our users? Big old-school companies receiving such email message will most likely start to investigate and try to discipline their employees, all this because the user liked your service. There should be a better way. How about we reach out to companies saying that they should sign up for a corporate account because our product is just what they need and many of their employees are using it already? All they need to do to find out why it is a must-have for their productivity, is go and ask their own employees. Yes, it’s going to affect your conversion rate but wait, the tactics of scaring your users will affect the conversion rate even more. Your user base might just stop using your service and start telling others not to because you report them to their boss and that makes your boss anything but happy. Negative motivation never helped people in the long run. Let’s think about the future, your company’s future and what’s more important — the future of your people.

Box.com terror tactics sales model. Is there an alternative?

and tend to be paired in conversations — they offer similar products: cloud storage for a low price and fluid scalability of storage. Both have billion-dollar valuations as well; $2.43 billion market cap and $10 billion private valuation, respectively. Box Dropbox The only key difference between the two companies is the target market, which slightly bends the product for each company to best tailor its customer. Examining the differences in the products also teaches an important lesson in distribution mechanisms of technology companies, which Ben Horowitz touches upon in his blog post “Distribution.” Dropbox, from the onset of its landing page, is very clearly a consumer-first company: Early on, Dropbox’s marketing strategies were very outbound, and how poorly that turned out for the company in its experimentation phase.The cost-per-acquisition was in the ballpark of $233 to $388 whereas customers’ lifetime values were flat $99s. Instead, the company moved onto referrals, and Houston claims that this increased signups by 60% permanently. Today, the de facto distribution mechanism for consumer companies is virality and referrals, and Horowitz quotes these companies today when they say that they will “distribute [the] product like Dropbox did.” Evidently, that’s how Dropbox scaled to a billion in revenue without a proper sales force. Houston talked about Box, on the other hand, targets larger organizations — the universities, enterprises, Fortune 500s (97% of which Box sells to). The landing page contrasts Dropbox’s one-step sign up: The acquisition process is a lot less scalable relative to Dropbox since Box is working with larger clients, but it’s still noteworthy that Levie trumpets a bottom-up sales strategy over top-down sales strategy. He wants to win over the lower-level managers and employees of the company with an amazing product that slowly enforces adoption throughout the company. Though this is comparatively scalable when looking at other enterprise-targeting companies, Box’s customers still require personal integration to help in the adoption process, but it differentiates itself from Dropbox with a higher level of security that enterprises love. Because of the lower level of scalability built into Box’s market, it has to invest more into a proper sales force to reach the enterprise clients. It may be due to the lower level of scalability and difference in distribution mechanism with Box’s sales process that it has only 10% of the revenue of Dropbox. Nevertheless, the two companies are clear winners in their market segments because they’ve adopted the best sales channels for their respective markets. Dropbox’s scalable referrals would not have worked for a company like Box because referrals typically won’t work in inter-organization situations. Similarly, Box’s methods of an operating sales force won’t work in a consumer-first market because competitors can sell to customers much faster without a sales force.

Box v. Dropbox: A Lesson in Distribution

Welcome back, everyone, to another Startups of the Week feature! Each week, the HackerNoon team shines a light on some of the most promising startups in our Startups of The Year database. All featured startups have received Startup of The Year nominations in their respective technology categories and/or regions. Startups of The Year Startups of The Year This week, Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero, and Uzi World Digital have caught our eye. Nano Knight Studio Nano Knight Studio BoxHero BoxHero Uzi World Digital Uzi World Digital Startups of The Year 2024 voting closed on March 31st, 2025. Winners across all categories will be announced by April 22nd, 2025. Subscribe now to be among the first to know! Startups of The Year 2024 voting closed on March 31st, 2025. Winners across all categories will be announced by April 22nd, 2025. Subscribe now to be among the first to know! Subscribe now to be among the first to know! Meet the Startups of the Week Nano Knight Studio Nano Knight Studio Founded in 2020, Nano Knight Studio, a game development and outsourcing studio, has been bringing ideas to life through the power of play. With a passion for storytelling, design, and immersive mechanics, the team is dedicated to crafting remarkable experiences that connect with players worldwide. Operating out of Sao Paulo, Brazil Nano Knight Studio was nominated as a top startup in the region, with additional nominations in the Games and Recreation Industries. Sao Paulo, Brazil Games Recreation Support Nano Knight Studio — Check them out here! Support Nano Knight Studio — Check them out here! here BoxHero BoxHero BoxHero is a cloud-based inventory management software designed to make inventory control easier and more efficient for businesses of all sizes. With a focus on simplicity and seamless integration, BoxHero helps businesses keep track of their stock, reduce errors, and optimize their operations. Located in Seoul, South Korea, BoxHero was nominated as Startup of The Year in the region as well as in the Software Development and IT Services industries. Seoul, South Korea Software Development IT Services Connect with BoxHero — Check them out here! Connect with BoxHero — Check them out here! here Uzi World Digital Uzi World Digital Uzi World Digital is an award-winning digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, digital PR, reputation management, web design, and branding. With a focus on crafting viral, high-impact campaigns, the agency helps businesses grow their online presence, shape public perception, and build lasting digital legacies. Uzi World Digital Uzi World Digital is located in Kolkata, WB, India where it was nominated as Startup of The Year. It also snagged three additional nominations in the Marketing, Creative Agency and Social Media Industries. Kolkata, WB, India Marketing Creative Agency Social Media Support Uzi World Digital — See what they’re up to here! Support Uzi World Digital — See what they’re up to here! here Featured Interview of the Week Enjoy all the perks of your Startup of The Year nomination! Use your free startup interview to showcase your company to HackerNoon’s community of technologists. All you need to do is create your own business page on HackerNoon. This affords you your own Evergreen Tech Company News Page and inclusion in our weekly Tech Companies Ranking. create your own business page on HackerNoon Evergreen Tech Company News Page Evergreen Tech Company News Page weekly Tech Companies Ranking. Tech Companies Ranking For your free interview, you can choose from our Startup Interview Templates, tailored to specific industries and regions. For instance, the Startups of The Year: Education Startup Interview guides founders through sharing their origin story, highlighting what sets their edtech solution apart, and explaining how it improves learning outcomes. The template also covers milestones, challenges, and of course plans for the future. Startup Interview Templates Startup Interview Templates Startups of The Year: Education Startup Interview Featured Startup, Uzi World Digital, opted for our general interview. In their own words, here’s what being nominated for Startups of The Year means: Uzi World Digital Uzi World Digital general interview general interview Startups of The Year HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is an opportunity for us to showcase our journey, celebrate our achievements, and connect with a community of innovators who are shaping the future. Being part of this initiative allows us to highlight our impact in the digital marketing industry and gain further visibility on a global scale. HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is an opportunity for us to showcase our journey, celebrate our achievements, and connect with a community of innovators who are shaping the future. Being part of this initiative allows us to highlight our impact in the digital marketing industry and gain further visibility on a global scale. Want to be featured on HackerNoon’s Startups of the Week? Share your startup's story - use this interview template.
Here’s how some of the 2023 nominees did it: Meetanshi, Sniper.xyz, Wallet Factory, Grownu Workforce Management System, Motif, Lightrun Want to be featured on HackerNoon’s Startups of the Week? Share your startup's story - use this interview template. Want to be featured on HackerNoon’s Startups of the Week? Share your startup's story - use this interview template. use this interview template use this interview template Here’s how some of the 2023 nominees did it: Meetanshi, Sniper.xyz, Wallet Factory, Grownu Workforce Management System, Motif, Lightrun Meetanshi Meetanshi Sniper.xyz Sniper.xyz Wallet Factory Wallet Factory Grownu Workforce Management System Grownu Workforce Management System Motif Motif Lightrun Lightrun Featured Startups Special Package Discover our Lead Generation package, delivering 1M impressions through the HackerNoon Newsletter! Lead Generation With this package, you’ll get: With this package, you’ll get: 4 Total Newsletters Sent: 325,000 per send (85% of subscribers reside in the US)

Open Rate: 13% - 15%
Click-to-Open Rate: 13.61%
Sample: Here


Your Evergreen Tech Company News Page 4 Total Newsletters Sent: 325,000 per send (85% of subscribers reside in the US)

Open Rate: 13% - 15%
Click-to-Open Rate: 13.61%
Sample: Here Open Rate: 13% - 15%
Click-to-Open Rate: 13.61%
Sample: Here Open Rate: 13% - 15% Click-to-Open Rate: 13.61% Sample: Here Here Your Evergreen Tech Company News Page Evergreen Tech Company News Page Learn more about this package here or book a meeting with us! Learn more about this package here or book a meeting with us! here here book a meeting with us book a meeting with us That’s all for this week, hackers. Congrats to all the nominated startups, and best of luck with your Startups of The Year 2024 campaign! The HackerNoon Team The HackerNoon Team

Meet Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero, and Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups of the Week 

Запознайте се с Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero и Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon стартиращи компании на седмицата 

ন্যানো নাইট স্টুডিও, বক্সহিরো এবং উজি ওয়ার্ল্ড ডিজিটালের সাথে দেখা করুন: সপ্তাহের সেরা হ্যাকারনুন স্টার্টআপস

Coneix Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero i Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups of the Week 

Conoce a Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero y Uzi World Digital: las startups de la semana de HackerNoon

Rankontre Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero, ak Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups nan semèn nan 

Ismerkedj meg a Nano Knight Studio, a BoxHero és az Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups of the Week

Nano Knight Studio、BoxHero、およびUzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups of the Week

Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero жана Uzi World Digital менен таанышыңыз: HackerNoon Жуманын стартаптары 

Zoznámte sa s Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero a Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups týždňa

Upoznajte Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero i Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups nedelje

Gặp gỡ Nano Knight Studio, BoxHero và Uzi World Digital: HackerNoon Startups của tuần

How can decentralized finance (DeFi) operate transparently if its core data sources remain unverifiable? The reliance on oracles—systems that feed external data into blockchain networks—has long been a challenge. Most oracles function as closed systems where data sourcing, aggregation, and computation happen off-chain, leaving users with a final output that cannot be independently verified. DIA, a decentralized data provider, has launched the Lumina mainnet, a blockchain-based oracle infrastructure designed to eliminate opaque data processing. Lumina records every stage of the oracle process on-chain, allowing developers, institutions, and blockchain networks to review and audit how data is sourced, processed, and delivered. DIA Lumina The Role of Oracles in Blockchain Networks Oracles serve as intermediaries that provide blockchain applications with real-world data, such as asset prices, market rates, and event outcomes. DeFi protocols use oracles to automate transactions in lending, derivatives, and stablecoin markets. However, most existing oracle networks do not disclose their data sources or the methods used to compute final outputs. Users must rely on the accuracy of an external system without visibility into how results are generated. This lack of transparency has been identified as a potential security risk. Errors, manipulation, or centralized control in oracle networks can lead to incorrect price feeds, market inefficiencies, and financial losses. The introduction of a fully verifiable oracle system seeks to address these concerns by ensuring that all data-handling processes are visible and auditable. Lumina and the DIA Lasernet Infrastructure DIA Lumina introduces an open framework where blockchain participants can review oracle operations in real-time. It eliminates the need for blind trust by recording data sourcing, computational processes, and final outputs on-chain. At the core of Lumina’s system is DIA Lasernet, a modular Layer 2 (L2) network built using Arbitrum’s optimistic rollup technology. The network facilitates the on-chain execution of oracle functions while maintaining cost efficiency. It also integrates a modular data availability layer to ensure that all oracle transactions remain accessible and verifiable. Unlike traditional oracles that rely on closed networks of validator nodes, Lasernet removes off-chain dependencies, making every stage of data handling publicly inspectable. Adoption and Use Cases Institutions such as Ripple and Stellar are incorporating DIA Lumina’s transparent data feeds into their blockchain infrastructure. As regulatory frameworks evolve and financial institutions explore tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), demand for verifiable oracle solutions is increasing. Ensuring that off-chain data can be audited in a trustless manner is considered a key requirement for integrating blockchain technology with traditional financial systems. DIA has announced plans for further system upgrades, including additional cryptographic security modules and expanded oracle capabilities. The system is designed to be modular, allowing for new developments without requiring fundamental changes to its existing architecture. Future Considerations The launch of DIA Lumina highlights a shift in how blockchain networks approach data verification. By moving away from opaque oracle models, the system introduces a method where every aspect of data handling can be reviewed and verified. Whether this approach will become an industry standard remains to be seen, but it presents an alternative to the reliance on closed oracle networks that currently dominate the sector. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO Vested Interest Disclosure: business blogging program business blogging program

Are Black-Box Oracles a Risk? DIA Lumina Launches a New On-Chain System

Black-Box Oracles risklidirmi? DIA Lumina Yeni Zəncirli Sistemi işə salır

Sind Black-Box-Orakel ein Risiko? DIA Lumina führt ein neues On-Chain-System ein

¿Son un riesgo los oráculos de caja negra? DIA Lumina lanza un nuevo sistema en cadena

Gli oracoli Black-Box sono un rischio? DIA Lumina lancia un nuovo sistema On-Chain

ブラックボックスオラクルはリスクか？DIA Luminaが新しいオンチェーンシステムを発表

Vai Black-Box Oracles ir risks? DIA Lumina izlaiž jaunu ķēdes sistēmu

Adakah Oracle Black-Box Berisiko? DIA Lumina Melancarkan Sistem On-Chain Baharu

Ese Umukara-Agasanduku Oracle ni akaga? DIA Lumina Yatangije Sisitemu Nshya Kumurongo

A janë një rrezik Oracles Black-Box? DIA Lumina lëshon një sistem të ri në zinxhir

Isang Panganib ba ang Black-Box Oracles? Ang DIA Lumina ay Naglunsad ng Bagong On-Chain System

Black-Box Oracle có phải là rủi ro không? DIA Lumina ra mắt hệ thống On-Chain mới

Ngaba ii-Oracles zeBhokisi eziMnyama zingumngcipheko? I-DIA Lumina Isungula iNkqubo eNtsha ye-On-Chain

Fire TV Stick vs Onn Streaming Box: Which is Best for Streaming?

Authors:
(1) Zhaoqing Wang, The University of Sydney and AI2Robotics;
(2) Xiaobo Xia, The University of Sydney;
(3) Ziye Chen, The University of Melbourne;
(4) Xiao He, AI2Robotics;
(5) Yandong Guo, AI2Robotics;
(6) Mingming Gong, The University of Melbourne and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence;
(7) Tongliang Liu, The University of Sydney. Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction 2. Related works 3. Method and 3.1. Problem definition 3.2. Baseline and 3.3. Uni-OVSeg framework 4. Experiments 4.1. Implementation details 4.2. Main results 4.3. Ablation study 5. Conclusion 6. Broader impacts and References A. Framework details B. Promptable segmentation C. Visualisation B. Promptable segmentation. Evaluation details. We perform a prompt segmentation evaluation on a wide range of datasets in various domains. For the point prompt, we adopt a uniform point grid h×w as input prompts (e.g., 20 × 20). For the box prompt, we use ground-truth bounding boxes as input prompts. 1-pt IoU denotes the oracle performance of one point by evaluating the intersection-overunion (IoU) of the predicted masks that best match ground truth. 1-box IoU denotes is similar to 1-pt IoU. More evaluation results are reported in Fig. 7, Fig. 8 and Fig. 9. Dataset details. A description of each dataset is given in Tab. 5. The iShape dataset has 6 subsets, including antenna, branch, fence, hanger, log and wire. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Zhaoqing Wang, The University of Sydney and AI2Robotics; (2) Xiaobo Xia, The University of Sydney; (3) Ziye Chen, The University of Melbourne; (4) Xiao He, AI2Robotics; (5) Yandong Guo, AI2Robotics; (6) Mingming Gong, The University of Melbourne and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence; (7) Tongliang Liu, The University of Sydney. Authors: Authors: (1) Zhaoqing Wang, The University of Sydney and AI2Robotics; (2) Xiaobo Xia, The University of Sydney; (3) Ziye Chen, The University of Melbourne; (4) Xiao He, AI2Robotics; (5) Yandong Guo, AI2Robotics; (6) Mingming Gong, The University of Melbourne and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence; (7) Tongliang Liu, The University of Sydney. Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction Abstract and 1. Introduction 2. Related works 2. Related works 3. Method and 3.1. Problem definition 3. Method and 3.1. Problem definition 3.2. Baseline and 3.3. Uni-OVSeg framework 3.2. Baseline and 3.3. Uni-OVSeg framework 4. Experiments 4.1. Implementation details 4.1. Implementation details 4.2. Main results 4.2. Main results 4.3. Ablation study 4.3. Ablation study 5. Conclusion 5. Conclusion 6. Broader impacts and References 6. Broader impacts and References A. Framework details A. Framework details B. Promptable segmentation B. Promptable segmentation C. Visualisation C. Visualisation B. Promptable segmentation. Evaluation details. We perform a prompt segmentation evaluation on a wide range of datasets in various domains. For the point prompt, we adopt a uniform point grid h×w as input prompts (e.g., 20 × 20). For the box prompt, we use ground-truth bounding boxes as input prompts. 1-pt IoU denotes the oracle performance of one point by evaluating the intersection-overunion (IoU) of the predicted masks that best match ground truth. 1-box IoU denotes is similar to 1-pt IoU. More evaluation results are reported in Fig. 7, Fig. 8 and Fig. 9. Evaluation details. Dataset details. A description of each dataset is given in Tab. 5. The iShape dataset has 6 subsets, including antenna, branch, fence, hanger, log and wire. Dataset details. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Evaluating Promptable Segmentation with Uniform Point Grids and Bounding Boxes on Diverse Datasets

Ah, George Eley. a name destined to go down in history—not for any noble cause, mind you, but for his laughably misguided attempt to become the King of Lunch Box Links. Currently studying at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town, George seems to have missed the memo that being a business school student doesn't give you a license to annoy the entire internet. For those not yet blessed with the knowledge of George's antics, let me paint you a picture. Imagine a virtual vandal, armed not with spray paint but with a bot army, hell-bent on spamming every blog comment section, forum, and search box within reach. His ultimate goal? To boost the search engine rankings of his lunch box website, MagicBoxPro (because, obviously, lunch boxes need a guerrilla marketing campaign). Little did he know, his reign would be short-lived, thanks to a trail of breadcrumbs he unwittingly left behind. Let me tell you how I managed to track down this would-be spam king after he tried—and failed—to bombard my website. It all started with an alert from CleanTalk, the anti-spam plugin I use on my WordPress site. The plugin had flagged an unusual spike in suspicious activity. Normally, CleanTalk does a stellar job of keeping the spammers at bay, but this time something was different. The attempted spam wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill junk—this was a concerted effort, and it had George Eley’s fingerprints all over it. It didn’t take long to find a social media profile that matched the digital fingerprints. The profile name that caught my attention was George Eley, self-proclaimed king of the lunch boxes. The image below depicts an audit of the Lunch Box Kings website's backlink profile, conducted using the SEO tool Ahrefs. The audit reveals that the site is plagued with inbound link spam, indicating a problematic backlink profile with potentially harmful or irrelevant links. But George's escapades don't stop at merely annoying the internet at large. No, he’s taken it a step further by enlisting the help of servers hosted by Leaseweb.com to do his dirty work. That’s right—George has weaponized Leaseweb’s infrastructure to host his spam bots, turning what could be a perfectly respectable server into a breeding ground for spammy, worthless links. It's like using a luxury yacht to smuggle expired canned goods—both baffling and a complete waste of potential. Now, you might be thinking, "Surely, this can't be a terrible idea. The internet is a vast place, and George is just a small, insignificant part of it." But, oh, dear reader, that is where you'd be wrong. You see, George has no respect for your digital property. He and his bot buddies waltz right in, take a metaphorical dump on your website's front lawn, and strut away, leaving behind a trail of poorly disguised spam links and a bad aftertaste. All this in hopes that his lunch boxes will miraculously appear at the top of Google search results. But here's the kicker: 98% of all blog comment sections are automatically no-follow. That means George's "brilliant" strategy is about as effective as trying to sell ice to penguins in Antarctica. The search engines aren’t impressed, and the only thing George’s efforts have achieved is widespread annoyance and a burgeoning reputation as that guy. Yes, that guy—the one who thinks spamming is a valid marketing strategy in 2024. You have to wonder what George was thinking. Did he imagine that webmasters everywhere would fall to their knees, thanking him for blessing their sites with his magical lunch box links? Did he dream of being hailed as a marketing genius, the likes of which the world has never seen? Or was he simply so blinded by the allure of SEO supremacy that he forgot the basic principles of respect, decency, and common sense? The internet is a shared space, a digital community where millions of us coexist (mostly) peacefully. But then there are the spammers—the digital equivalent of the guy who leaves his trash in your front yard because "someone will clean it up eventually." Spammers like George don't just disrespect individual websites; they disrespect the entire online ecosystem. They're like digital parasites, contributing nothing of value and instead feeding off the hard work of others. So, George, if you're reading this—and I suspect you might be, given your obsession with SEO—please, for the love of all things sacred in digital marketing, stop. Take your bots, your lunch boxes, and your Leaseweb servers, and find a more honorable way to promote your products. Maybe try creating quality content? Building genuine relationships with customers? Or, here's a wild idea: respect the internet property of others. Because, at the end of the day, the only thing worse than a spammer is a spammer who doesn't even know how ineffective his tactics are. And trust me, George, nobody wants to buy a lunch box from that guy. Ah, George Eley . a name destined to go down in history—not for any noble cause, mind you, but for his laughably misguided attempt to become the King of Lunch Box Links. Currently studying at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town, George seems to have missed the memo that being a business school student doesn't give you a license to annoy the entire internet. George Eley For those not yet blessed with the knowledge of George's antics, let me paint you a picture. Imagine a virtual vandal, armed not with spray paint but with a bot army, hell-bent on spamming every blog comment section, forum, and search box within reach. His ultimate goal? To boost the search engine rankings of his lunch box website, MagicBoxPro (because, obviously, lunch boxes need a guerrilla marketing campaign). his MagicBoxPro Little did he know, his reign would be short-lived, thanks to a trail of breadcrumbs he unwittingly left behind. Let me tell you how I managed to track down this would-be spam king after he tried—and failed—to bombard my website. It all started with an alert from CleanTalk, the anti-spam plugin I use on my WordPress site. The plugin had flagged an unusual spike in suspicious activity. Normally, CleanTalk does a stellar job of keeping the spammers at bay, but this time something was different. The attempted spam wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill junk—this was a concerted effort, and it had George Eley’s fingerprints all over it. on my It didn’t take long to find a social media profile that matched the digital fingerprints. The profile name that caught my attention was George Eley, self-proclaimed king of the lunch boxes. The image below depicts an audit of the Lunch Box Kings website's backlink profile, conducted using the SEO tool Ahrefs . The audit reveals that the site is plagued with inbound link spam, indicating a problematic backlink profile with potentially harmful or irrelevant links. SEO tool Ahrefs But George's escapades don't stop at merely annoying the internet at large. No, he’s taken it a step further by enlisting the help of servers hosted by Leaseweb.com to do his dirty work. That’s right—George has weaponized Leaseweb’s infrastructure to host his spam bots, turning what could be a perfectly respectable server into a breeding ground for spammy, worthless links. It's like using a luxury yacht to smuggle expired canned goods—both baffling and a complete waste of potential. Now, you might be thinking, "Surely, this can't be a terrible idea. The internet is a vast place, and George is just a small, insignificant part of it." But, oh, dear reader, that is where you'd be wrong. You see, George has no respect for your digital property. He and his bot buddies waltz right in, take a metaphorical dump on your website's front lawn, and strut away, leaving behind a trail of poorly disguised spam links and a bad aftertaste. All this in hopes that his lunch boxes will miraculously appear at the top of Google search results. But here's the kicker: 98% of all blog comment sections are automatically no-follow. That means George's "brilliant" strategy is about as effective as trying to sell ice to penguins in Antarctica. The search engines aren’t impressed, and the only thing George’s efforts have achieved is widespread annoyance and a burgeoning reputation as that guy . Yes, that guy —the one who thinks spamming is a valid marketing strategy in 2024. that guy that guy You have to wonder what George was thinking. Did he imagine that webmasters everywhere would fall to their knees, thanking him for blessing their sites with his magical lunch box links? Did he dream of being hailed as a marketing genius, the likes of which the world has never seen? Or was he simply so blinded by the allure of SEO supremacy that he forgot the basic principles of respect, decency, and common sense? The internet is a shared space, a digital community where millions of us coexist (mostly) peacefully. But then there are the spammers—the digital equivalent of the guy who leaves his trash in your front yard because "someone will clean it up eventually." Spammers like George don't just disrespect individual websites; they disrespect the entire online ecosystem. They're like digital parasites, contributing nothing of value and instead feeding off the hard work of others. So, George, if you're reading this—and I suspect you might be, given your obsession with SEO—please, for the love of all things sacred in digital marketing, stop. Take your bots, your lunch boxes, and your Leaseweb servers, and find a more honorable way to promote your products. Maybe try creating quality content? Building genuine relationships with customers? Or, here's a wild idea: respect the internet property of others. Because, at the end of the day, the only thing worse than a spammer is a spammer who doesn't even know how ineffective his tactics are. And trust me, George, nobody wants to buy a lunch box from that guy . that guy

The Tragic Tale of the "Lunch Box Spammer": George Eley's Quest for Internet Infamy

The Talking Box: A CVSD Audio Digitizer and Playback Device

টকিং বক্স: একটি CVSD অডিও ডিজিটাইজার এবং প্লেব্যাক ডিভাইস

Die Talking Box: Ein CVSD-Audio-Digitalisierungs- und Wiedergabegerät

The Talking Box: un dispositivo de reproducción y digitalizador de audio CVSD

The Talking Box : un numériseur audio et un appareil de lecture CVSD

टॉकिंग बॉक्स: एक CVSD ऑडियो डिजिटाइज़र और प्लेबैक डिवाइस

Talking Box: CVSD オーディオ デジタイザーおよび再生デバイス

Talking Box: CVSD 오디오 디지타이저 및 재생 장치

The Talking Box: um digitalizador de áudio CVSD e dispositivo de reprodução

Говорящий ящик: устройство для оцифровки и воспроизведения звука CVSD

Konuşan Kutu: CVSD Ses Sayısallaştırıcı ve Oynatma Cihazı

Hộp nói: Thiết bị phát lại và số hóa âm thanh CVSD

Talking Box：CVSD 音频数字化仪和播放设备

The management of the Apu Apustaja crypto token has announced that it will be sponsoring the Matchroom Boxing fight card between Subriel Matias and Liam Paro, broadcast live on DAZN on Saturday, the 15th of June 2024. The Fight This fight has been heavily anticipated as it will see Australian fighter Paro go up against Matias for the IBF World Junior Welterweight title at the Coliseo Juan Aubin Cruz Abreu in Manati, Puerto Rico. It will be Matias’s first fight in his hometown since 2019, and both he and his opponent have bragged about their chances of winning. Fans are waiting with bated breath to see who will come out on top, and APU Apustaja is proud to support the event. What is APU? The token creators know all about surviving in a competitive industry, as $APU is a meme coin. It all centers around Apu, a frienly frog who also goes by the name Helper. Unlike a lot of other tokens in the meme coin space, $APU is designed to be high-quality and offer utility to its users. It is fully community-owned, and all major developments within the ecosystem are collectively decided upon. So far, $APU-related projects include a game and a playlist on Spotify that has been made with the input of its community. This is in line with the creation of the Apu character, who came to life in 2016 as an internet character with no individual owner. The $APU token has quickly become an industry favorite, with listings on over 10 centralized crypto exchanges. Its management has also secured its APU.com domain, along with ads all over the New York area. This, along with the passionate community behind it, has seen $APU rising fast in the meme coin world, and some industry experts expect it to become one of the biggest tokens soon. As it continues to progress, $APU continues to keep the community at the forefront. Besides being transparent about the inner workings of the token and giving the community control, APU Apustaja is also proactive about getting involved in entertainment events like the Matias-Paro fight. About Apu Apustaja Apu Apustaja is a fast-rising meme coin that is community-centered while trying to bring substance and positivity to the world of meme tokens. Based on the Ethereum blockchain, it has quickly become a fan favorite, with games, playlists, ads, and participation in real-world events.  Apu Apustaja represents a positive and engaging space for meme and crypto lovers to connect with one another and enjoy all the benefits of blockchain technology. Media Links: Website Telegram Twitter/X This story was distributed as a release by Btcwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. The management of the Apu Apustaja crypto token has announced that it will be sponsoring the Matchroom Boxing fight card between Subriel Matias and Liam Paro, broadcast live on DAZN on Saturday, the 15th of June 2024. The Fight This fight has been heavily anticipated as it will see Australian fighter Paro go up against Matias for the IBF World Junior Welterweight title at the Coliseo Juan Aubin Cruz Abreu in Manati, Puerto Rico. It will be Matias’s first fight in his hometown since 2019, and both he and his opponent have bragged about their chances of winning. Fans are waiting with bated breath to see who will come out on top, and APU Apustaja is proud to support the event. What is APU? The token creators know all about surviving in a competitive industry, as $APU is a meme coin. It all centers around Apu, a frienly frog who also goes by the name Helper. Unlike a lot of other tokens in the meme coin space, $APU is designed to be high-quality and offer utility to its users. It is fully community-owned, and all major developments within the ecosystem are collectively decided upon. So far, $APU-related projects include a game and a playlist on Spotify that has been made with the input of its community. This is in line with the creation of the Apu character, who came to life in 2016 as an internet character with no individual owner. The $APU token has quickly become an industry favorite, with listings on over 10 centralized crypto exchanges. Its management has also secured its APU.com domain, along with ads all over the New York area. This, along with the passionate community behind it, has seen $APU rising fast in the meme coin world, and some industry experts expect it to become one of the biggest tokens soon. As it continues to progress, $APU continues to keep the community at the forefront. Besides being transparent about the inner workings of the token and giving the community control, APU Apustaja is also proactive about getting involved in entertainment events like the Matias-Paro fight. About Apu Apustaja Apu Apustaja is a fast-rising meme coin that is community-centered while trying to bring substance and positivity to the world of meme tokens. Based on the Ethereum blockchain, it has quickly become a fan favorite, with games, playlists, ads, and participation in real-world events.  Apu Apustaja represents a positive and engaging space for meme and crypto lovers to connect with one another and enjoy all the benefits of blockchain technology. Media Links: Website Website Telegram Telegram Twitter/X Twitter/X This story was distributed as a release by Btcwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. This story was distributed as a release by Btcwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here . here here

APU Apustaja: Official Sponsor Of Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

APU Apustaja: ম্যাচরুম বক্সিং মাতিয়াস বনাম পারোর অফিসিয়াল স্পনসর

APU Apustaja: Offizieller Sponsor von Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

APU Apustaja: Patrocinador Oficial De Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

APU Apustaja : Sponsor Officiel De Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

एपीयू अपुस्ताजा: मैचरूम बॉक्सिंग मटियास बनाम पारो का आधिकारिक प्रायोजक

APU Apustaja: マッチルームボクシング マティアス対パロの公式スポンサー

APU Apustaja: 매치룸 복싱 Matias 대 Paro의 공식 후원자

APU Apustaja: Patrocinador Oficial do Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

ВСУ Апустая: официальный спонсор матча по боксу Матиас против Паро

APU Apustaja: Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro'nun Resmi Sponsoru

APU Apustaja: Nhà tài trợ chính thức của Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro

APU Apustaja：Matchroom Boxing Matias Vs Paro 官方赞助商

Pushing the Practicality of Black-Box Audio Attacks against Speaker Recognition Models: Appendix

Minimal Knowledge PT-AE Attacks on Black-Box Speaker Recognition Models

Authors:
(1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu);
(2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn);
(3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu);
(4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu);
(5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Table of Links Abstract and Intro Background and Motivation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Experimental Evaluations Related Work Conclusion and References Appendix VII. RELATED WORK White-box attacks: Adversarial audio attacks [28], [114], [72], [101], [105], [32], [43], [118], [43], [29], [118] can be categorized into white-box and black-box attacks depending on their attack knowledge level. White-box attacks [28], [95] assumed the knowledge of the target model and leveraged the gradient information of the target model to generate highly effective AEs. Some recent studies aimed at improving the practicality of white-box attacks [72], [52] via adding the perturbation to the original speech signal without synchronization, albeit still assuming nearly full knowledge of the target model. Query-based black-box attacks: Existing black-box attacks [29], [118], [101], [105], [74], [113] assumed no access to the internal knowledge of target models, and most black-box attacks attempted to know the target model via a querying (or probing) strategy. The query-based attacks [29], [43], [118], [113], [74] needed to interact with the target model to get the internal prediction scores [29], [105], [32], [113] or hard label results [118], [74]. A large number of queries were necessary for the black-box attack to be effective. For example, Occam [118] needed over 10,000 queries to achieve a high ASR. This makes the attack strategy cumbersome to launch, especially in over-the-air scenarios. The PT-AE attack does not require any probing to the target model. Transfer-based black-box attacks: The transfer-based attacks [17], [44], [30] commonly assumed no interaction or limited probing [32] to the target model. For example, Kenansville [17] manipulated the phoneme of the speech to achieve an untargeted attack. QFA2SR [30] focused on building the surrogate models with specific ensemble strategies to enhance the transferability of AEs by assuming knowing several speech samples of all the enrolled speakers of the target model. Compared with QFA2SR, we further minimize the knowledge and only assume a short speech sample of the target speaker for the attacker. Even with the most limited attack knowledge, we propose a new PT-AE strategy that creates more effective AEs against the target model. Audio attacks considering the perception quality: Some recent studies [95], [52], [74] leveraged the psychoacoustic feature to optimize the carriers and improve the perception of AEs. Meanwhile, [44], [113] manipulated the features of an audio signal to create AEs with good perceptual quality. In addition, there are audio attack strategies [116], [26], [16], [114] focusing on improving the stealthiness of the AEs. For example, dolphin attack [116] used ultrasounds to generate imperceptible AEs. The human study in this work defines the metric of SRS to quantify the speech quality using a similar regression procedure motivated by the qDev model in [44] that was created to measure the music quality. We then design a new TPR framework built upon the SRS metric to jointly evaluate both the transferability and perception of PT-AEs. This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu); (2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn); (3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu); (4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu); (5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Authors: Authors: (1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu); (2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn); (3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu); (4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu); (5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Table of Links Abstract and Intro Abstract and Intro Background and Motivation Background and Motivation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Experimental Evaluations Experimental Evaluations Related Work Related Work Conclusion and References Conclusion and References Appendix Appendix VII. RELATED WORK White-box attacks: Adversarial audio attacks [28], [114], [72], [101], [105], [32], [43], [118], [43], [29], [118] can be categorized into white-box and black-box attacks depending on their attack knowledge level. White-box attacks [28], [95] assumed the knowledge of the target model and leveraged the gradient information of the target model to generate highly effective AEs. Some recent studies aimed at improving the practicality of white-box attacks [72], [52] via adding the perturbation to the original speech signal without synchronization, albeit still assuming nearly full knowledge of the target model. White-box attacks: Query-based black-box attacks: Existing black-box attacks [29], [118], [101], [105], [74], [113] assumed no access to the internal knowledge of target models, and most black-box attacks attempted to know the target model via a querying (or probing) strategy. The query-based attacks [29], [43], [118], [113], [74] needed to interact with the target model to get the internal prediction scores [29], [105], [32], [113] or hard label results [118], [74]. A large number of queries were necessary for the black-box attack to be effective. For example, Occam [118] needed over 10,000 queries to achieve a high ASR. This makes the attack strategy cumbersome to launch, especially in over-the-air scenarios. The PT-AE attack does not require any probing to the target model. Query-based black-box attacks: Transfer-based black-box attacks: The transfer-based attacks [17], [44], [30] commonly assumed no interaction or limited probing [32] to the target model. For example, Kenansville [17] manipulated the phoneme of the speech to achieve an untargeted attack. QFA2SR [30] focused on building the surrogate models with specific ensemble strategies to enhance the transferability of AEs by assuming knowing several speech samples of all the enrolled speakers of the target model. Compared with QFA2SR, we further minimize the knowledge and only assume a short speech sample of the target speaker for the attacker. Even with the most limited attack knowledge, we propose a new PT-AE strategy that creates more effective AEs against the target model. Transfer-based black-box attacks: Audio attacks considering the perception quality: Some recent studies [95], [52], [74] leveraged the psychoacoustic feature to optimize the carriers and improve the perception of AEs. Meanwhile, [44], [113] manipulated the features of an audio signal to create AEs with good perceptual quality. In addition, there are audio attack strategies [116], [26], [16], [114] focusing on improving the stealthiness of the AEs. For example, dolphin attack [116] used ultrasounds to generate imperceptible AEs. The human study in this work defines the metric of SRS to quantify the speech quality using a similar regression procedure motivated by the qDev model in [44] that was created to measure the music quality. We then design a new TPR framework built upon the SRS metric to jointly evaluate both the transferability and perception of PT-AEs. Audio attacks considering the perception quality: This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

The Evolution of Black-Box Audio Attacks

Authors:
(1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu);
(2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn);
(3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu);
(4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu);
(5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Table of Links Abstract and Intro Background and Motivation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Experimental Evaluations Related Work Conclusion and References Appendix V. OPTIMIZED BLACK-BOX PT-AE ATTACKS In this section, we propose an optimized PT-AE generation mechanism to attack a black-box target model. We first investigate the TPRs of PT-AEs generated from combined carriers, then formulate a two-stage attack to generate PT-AEs against the target model. A. Combining Carriers for Optimized PT-AEs The findings in Fig 6 reveal that the environmental sound carrier achieves the highest TPR and should be a good choice to generate PT-AEs. But using the environmental sound carrier does not exclude us to further twist the auditory feature of the carrier or adding additional noise to it (e.g., an enrollment-phase attack [39] used both environmental sounds and noise). In other words, there is a potential way to combine the environmental sound carrier with feature-twisting or noise-adding method to further improve the TPR. We consider two additional types of carriers: (i) Feature-twisted environmental sounds, and manipulating the pitch [113] or the rhythm [44] is a straightforward way to twist the features of environmental sounds. We follow the same feature-twisting procedure in Section IV-C2 to twist the pitch and rhythm features of environmental sounds to generate PTAEs. (ii) Noise-based environmental sounds. We first add environmental sounds to the original speech and then use the noise attack procedure in Section IV-C2 to generate PT-AEs. Fig. 7 shows the TPRs of various PT-AEs generated based on (i) adding noise to, (ii) twisting the rhythm, and (iii) twisting the pitch of a type of environmental sounds. We can find that the TPR is sensitive to the choice of environmental sounds. For example, the music sounds do not seem very effective to increase the TPRs even with twisted features. It is noted that natural sounds have overall higher TPRs than other types of carriers. For example, using the brook sounds can achieve 0.29 TPR compared with alarm (0.25), rooster (0.26), and Rock2 (0.16) in the existing dataset [47]. Moreover, Fig. 7 illustrates the uniform advantage of twisting the pitch of environmental sound over twisting the rhythm and adding noise. For example, built upon the hail sounds, twisting the pitch feature obtains a TPR of 0.26, substantially higher than twisting the rhythm (0.18) and adding noise (0.05). In addition, Fig. 7 shows that adding noise is the least effective way to improve the TPR. Based on the results in Fig. 7, we consider generating PT-AEs against a black-box target model via twisting the pitch feature of environmental sounds. B. Two-stage Black-box Attack Formulation We now formulate the black-box PT-AE attack strategy against a target speaker in a target speaker recognition model. The attack strategy consists of two stages. In the first stage, the attacker needs to determine a set of candidate environmental sounds as there are a wide range of environmental sounds available and not all of them can be effective against the target speaker (as shown in Figure. 7). To this end, we first build a PT-surrogate model for the attacker, evaluate the TPR of each type of environmental sounds based on the surrogate model, and choose K sounds with the best TPRs to form the candidate set. Then, we pre-process each environmental sound in the candidate set by shifting its pitch to obtain its best TPR, and obtain a new candidate set of K pitch-shifted sounds, denoted by {δk}k∈[1,K]. This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu); (2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn); (3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu); (4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu); (5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Authors: Authors: (1) Rui Duan University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: ruiduan@usf.edu); (2) Zhe Qu Central South University Changsha, China (email: zhe_qu@csu.edu.cn); (3) Leah Ding American University Washington, DC, USA (email: ding@american.edu); (4) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu); (5) Yao Liu University of South Florida Tampa, USA (email: yliu@cse.usf.edu). Table of Links Abstract and Intro Abstract and Intro Background and Motivation Background and Motivation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation Parrot Training: Feasibility and Evaluation PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective PT-AE Generation: A Joint Transferability and Perception Perspective Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks Experimental Evaluations Experimental Evaluations Related Work Related Work Conclusion and References Conclusion and References Appendix Appendix V. OPTIMIZED BLACK-BOX PT-AE ATTACKS In this section, we propose an optimized PT-AE generation mechanism to attack a black-box target model. We first investigate the TPRs of PT-AEs generated from combined carriers, then formulate a two-stage attack to generate PT-AEs against the target model. A. Combining Carriers for Optimized PT-AEs A. Combining Carriers for Optimized PT-AEs The findings in Fig 6 reveal that the environmental sound carrier achieves the highest TPR and should be a good choice to generate PT-AEs. But using the environmental sound carrier does not exclude us to further twist the auditory feature of the carrier or adding additional noise to it (e.g., an enrollment-phase attack [39] used both environmental sounds and noise). In other words, there is a potential way to combine the environmental sound carrier with feature-twisting or noise-adding method to further improve the TPR. We consider two additional types of carriers: (i) Feature-twisted environmental sounds, and manipulating the pitch [113] or the rhythm [44] is a straightforward way to twist the features of environmental sounds. We follow the same feature-twisting procedure in Section IV-C2 to twist the pitch and rhythm features of environmental sounds to generate PTAEs. (ii) Noise-based environmental sounds. We first add environmental sounds to the original speech and then use the noise attack procedure in Section IV-C2 to generate PT-AEs. Fig. 7 shows the TPRs of various PT-AEs generated based on (i) adding noise to, (ii) twisting the rhythm, and (iii) twisting the pitch of a type of environmental sounds. We can find that the TPR is sensitive to the choice of environmental sounds. For example, the music sounds do not seem very effective to increase the TPRs even with twisted features. It is noted that natural sounds have overall higher TPRs than other types of carriers. For example, using the brook sounds can achieve 0.29 TPR compared with alarm (0.25), rooster (0.26), and Rock2 (0.16) in the existing dataset [47]. Moreover, Fig. 7 illustrates the uniform advantage of twisting the pitch of environmental sound over twisting the rhythm and adding noise. For example, built upon the hail sounds, twisting the pitch feature obtains a TPR of 0.26, substantially higher than twisting the rhythm (0.18) and adding noise (0.05). In addition, Fig. 7 shows that adding noise is the least effective way to improve the TPR. Based on the results in Fig. 7, we consider generating PT-AEs against a black-box target model via twisting the pitch feature of environmental sounds. B. Two-stage Black-box Attack Formulation B. Two-stage Black-box Attack Formulation We now formulate the black-box PT-AE attack strategy against a target speaker in a target speaker recognition model. The attack strategy consists of two stages. In the first stage, the attacker needs to determine a set of candidate environmental sounds as there are a wide range of environmental sounds available and not all of them can be effective against the target speaker (as shown in Figure. 7). To this end, we first build a PT-surrogate model for the attacker, evaluate the TPR of each type of environmental sounds based on the surrogate model, and choose K sounds with the best TPRs to form the candidate set. Then, we pre-process each environmental sound in the candidate set by shifting its pitch to obtain its best TPR, and obtain a new candidate set of K pitch-shifted sounds, denoted by {δk}k∈[1,K]. This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Optimized Black-Box PT-AE Attacks

Pushing the Practicality of Black-Box Audio Attacks against Speaker Recognition Models

স্পিকার রিকগনিশন মডেলের বিরুদ্ধে ব্ল্যাক-বক্স অডিও আক্রমণের ব্যবহারিকতাকে ঠেলে দেওয়া

Die praktische Anwendbarkeit von Black-Box-Audioangriffen auf Sprechererkennungsmodelle weiter ausbauen

Impulsando la practicidad de los ataques de audio de caja negra contra los modelos de reconocimiento de hablantes

Renforcer le caractère pratique des attaques audio par boîte noire contre les modèles de reconnaissance de locuteurs

स्पीकर पहचान मॉडल के विरुद्ध ब्लैक-बॉक्स ऑडियो हमलों की व्यावहारिकता को आगे बढ़ाना

話者認識モデルに対するブラックボックスオーディオ攻撃の実用性を推進

화자 인식 모델에 대한 블랙박스 오디오 공격의 실용성 강화

Aumentando a praticidade dos ataques de áudio de caixa preta contra modelos de reconhecimento de alto-falantes

Повышение практичности аудиоатак «черного ящика» против моделей распознавания говорящих

Kara Kutu Ses Saldırılarının Pratikliğini Konuşmacı Tanıma Modellerine Yönelik Zorlamak

Đẩy mạnh tính thực tế của các cuộc tấn công âm thanh hộp đen chống lại các mô hình nhận dạng loa

推动针对说话人识别模型的黑盒音频攻击的实用性

Google's AI Overviews shake up the search landscape, sparking debate on content quality and SEO impact. While some hail them as a boon, others worry AI Overviews might steal content and reduce website traffic. The article explores these concerns and the potential impact on creators, consumers, and the future of search. It's been over two weeks since Google launched AI Overviews for its US-based users (with plans to roll out globally by the end of this year), and they have already become a hot topic in the media. While some experts consider them a boon for ethical website owners and white-hat marketers, believing they will dramatically change the search industry in the coming months, others are less optimistic, accusing Google of stealing their content and violating its own spam policies. On social media, thousands of users are dunking on the inaccuracies and bizarre responses from AI Overviews, such as the claim that a dog played in the NHL (confused by a charity event for rescue pups) or that several US Presidents graduated from UW-Madison (confused by a webpage referencing students with the same names as US Presidents), and even the suggestion that running with scissors is good for health. But jokes aside, some people’s firsthand experiences with how AI Overviews have already impacted their unique content and website traffic raise more questions than answers. According to travel writer David Leiter, whenever someone searched for "Best Slot Canyons Near Las Vegas," his article in the travel blog was always at the top of the search results page. However, after the launch of AI Overviews, the same search brought up an AI-generated response at the top of the page instead. The answer was completely wrong, as AI couldn't differentiate a slot canyon from a regular canyon. Although the AI Overview did include a link to Leiter's article, it was pushed to the very bottom of the results and took time to see. As a result, David believes the potential consequences are especially problematic because he feels "Google's AI is outright stealing content" from creators like himself. He doesn't think "he'll get more traffic than he used to as the top search result." This and other stories I encountered in the media motivated me to research the topic more deeply and seek answers to the questions: How will AI Overviews and other AI-powered enhancements eventually affect search, and who will benefit the most from them? Impact on the SEO Ecosystem Google's AI Overviews are poised to transform the search landscape significantly. One of their most notable capabilities is multi-step reasoning, allowing users to ask complex questions in a single query and receive comprehensive, customized results. For instance, a query about finding the best barbershop or Yoga studio in NYC now yields a detailed results page that previously would have required multiple searches and visits to different websites. These advancements reduce the need for multiple search queries and directly impact how users interact with search engines. Users who find the information they need directly in the AI overview are less likely to visit your website. This can lead to a decrease in your website's traffic and harm your search engine optimization efforts. Lower traffic means fewer opportunities for user engagement, ad impressions, and conversions, directly affecting your site's revenue and growth. Furthermore, reduced traffic can negatively impact your website's search engine rankings over time, creating a vicious cycle where decreased visibility leads to even lower traffic. Moreover, only a few link cards are shown in AI Overviews, making it a "winner takes all" scenario where smaller publishers might struggle if sites with greater authority dominate these spots. This could threaten the web traffic of "millions of marketers, creators, and publishers" who rely on Google's search traffic. Rather than a diverse, user-created internet, the result could be a system where just a handful of large companies provide information. Centralizing information within Google's ecosystem could reduce content diversity and the number of voices available online. This monopolization of information flow is a significant concern for the web. As Google becomes more adept at providing comprehensive answers, user reliance on its services will likely increase. This growing dependence could stifle competition and innovation. The extensive data collection required for personalized AI features raises significant privacy issues. Ensuring user consent and data security will be paramount as AI evolves. However, according to BrightEdge, Google significantly reduced the number of search results showing the SGE in April by 40%, from 65% at the start of the month to around 25% by the end. Additionally, the height of the SGE element was reduced by about 15%, from an average of 1200 pixels to 1050 pixels. As such, Google may be attempting to optimize the user interface and search experience while ensuring that traditional ads still have prominence and visibility. This indicates a nuanced approach to integrating AI overviews rather than prioritizing them over other elements. Impact on Content Creators and Consumers If users increasingly consume AI-generated content in search results, the demand for "human" content decreases. The shift to AI-generated summaries can undermine the value of unique, high-quality content produced by humans, making it harder for content creators to monetize their work through ad revenue, subscriptions, or sponsorships. Additionally, human authors' creative and nuanced perspectives may be undervalued, leading to a homogenized content landscape dominated by AI outputs. As mentioned above, AI can't yet boast of providing truly high-quality information. It still regularly "hallucinates" and provides unreliable information that needs to be verified manually. This poses a significant risk to content consumers who rely on AI overviews for accurate and trustworthy information. Misinformation can have severe consequences in critical areas such as health, finance, and legal advice. For instance, erroneous AI Overviews have been found for some YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) queries, including searches related to health, mental health, finances, and well-being—crucial information that can significantly impact users' lives. Consumers may need to develop new habits of cross-checking AI-provided information with reliable sources, which could be time-consuming and counterproductive. Moreover, over-reliance on AI-generated content could diminish critical thinking skills as consumers might start accepting AI responses at face value without questioning their accuracy. This shift in behavior presents a significant opportunity for innovation. Startups can capitalize on this demand by creating AI-based products that specialize in verifying AI-generated information. Such tools could be invaluable across various sectors, particularly in media, academia, scientific research, R&D, and other domains that rely heavily on accurate information. By developing applications that ensure the reliability of AI content, these startups could address a crucial need in both B2C and B2B markets, fostering greater trust and dependability in AI-driven insights. For marketers, this shift raises questions about traffic impact. However, there is a silver lining: according to Hema Bhuttaraju, the senior director of the AI Overviews project, link cards within AI Overviews generate a higher click-through rate than traditional web search results. Moreover, Google has announced that impressions and clicks from AI overviews will be tracked in the Search Console, providing marketers with data on their performance in this new search paradigm. Mark Traphagen, VP of Product Marketing and Training for seoClarity, states, "Most AI responses target long-tail, low search volume queries, which are generally unlikely to significantly impact most sites." He also found that AI Overviews primarily appear for informational queries—when users want to do something, learn steps, or complete a task. However, the number of queries that deserve summaries (QDS) for AI Overviews has significantly decreased compared to the SGE for informational queries. This suggests that while AI overviews are used for specific types of queries, their overall presence and relevance have diminished compared to other informational tools like SGE. Conclusion In conclusion, while AI Overviews present both challenges and opportunities, their overall impact on high-traffic websites and critical SEO strategies may be limited. The immediate threat is more significant for smaller publishers and content creators, who may see their visibility and traffic decrease. However, businesses and content creators can continue to thrive by focusing on high-quality, unique content that addresses more complex and high-volume queries. As AI technology evolves, all stakeholders must adapt and find ways to coexist with AI-generated content, ensuring a balanced and diverse digital landscape. BTW, Hackernoon’s poll on AI Overviews is still open. You’re welcome to share your input and see the interim results! Google's AI Overviews shake up the search landscape, sparking debate on content quality and SEO impact. While some hail them as a boon, others worry AI Overviews might steal content and reduce website traffic. The article explores these concerns and the potential impact on creators, consumers, and the future of search. Google's AI Overviews shake up the search landscape, sparking debate on content quality and SEO impact. While some hail them as a boon, others worry AI Overviews might steal content and reduce website traffic. The article explores these concerns and the potential impact on creators, consumers, and the future of search. It's been over two weeks since Google launched AI Overviews for its US-based users (with plans to roll out globally by the end of this year), and they have already become a hot topic in the media. While some experts consider them a boon for ethical website owners and white-hat marketers, believing they will dramatically change the search industry in the coming months, others are less optimistic, accusing Google of stealing their content and violating its own spam policies. On social media, thousands of users are dunking on the inaccuracies and bizarre responses from AI Overviews, such as the claim that a dog played in the NHL (confused by a charity event for rescue pups) or that several US Presidents graduated from UW-Madison (confused by a webpage referencing students with the same names as US Presidents), and even the suggestion that running with scissors is good for health. dunking on But jokes aside, some people’s firsthand experiences with how AI Overviews have already impacted their unique content and website traffic raise more questions than answers. According to travel writer David Leiter , whenever someone searched for "Best Slot Canyons Near Las Vegas," his article in the travel blog was always at the top of the search results page. However, after the launch of AI Overviews, the same search brought up an AI-generated response at the top of the page instead. The answer was completely wrong, as AI couldn't differentiate a slot canyon from a regular canyon. Although the AI Overview did include a link to Leiter's article, it was pushed to the very bottom of the results and took time to see. As a result, David believes the potential consequences are especially problematic because he feels "Google's AI is outright stealing content" from creators like himself. He doesn't think "he'll get more traffic than he used to as the top search result." David Leiter This and other stories I encountered in the media motivated me to research the topic more deeply and seek answers to the questions: How will AI Overviews and other AI-powered enhancements eventually affect search, and who will benefit the most from them? How will AI Overviews and other AI-powered enhancements eventually affect search, and who will benefit the most from them? Impact on the SEO Ecosystem Impact on the SEO Ecosystem Google's AI Overviews are poised to transform the search landscape significantly. One of their most notable capabilities is multi-step reasoning, allowing users to ask complex questions in a single query and receive comprehensive, customized results. For instance, a query about finding the best barbershop or Yoga studio in NYC now yields a detailed results page that previously would have required multiple searches and visits to different websites. These advancements reduce the need for multiple search queries and directly impact how users interact with search engines. Users who find the information they need directly in the AI overview are less likely to visit your website. This can lead to a decrease in your website's traffic and harm your search engine optimization efforts. Lower traffic means fewer opportunities for user engagement, ad impressions, and conversions, directly affecting your site's revenue and growth. Furthermore, reduced traffic can negatively impact your website's search engine rankings over time, creating a vicious cycle where decreased visibility leads to even lower traffic. Moreover, only a few link cards are shown in AI Overviews, making it a "winner takes all" scenario where smaller publishers might struggle if sites with greater authority dominate these spots. This could threaten the web traffic of "millions of marketers, creators, and publishers" who rely on Google's search traffic. Rather than a diverse, user-created internet, the result could be a system where just a handful of large companies provide information. Centralizing information within Google's ecosystem could reduce content diversity and the number of voices available online. This monopolization of information flow is a significant concern for the web. As Google becomes more adept at providing comprehensive answers, user reliance on its services will likely increase. This growing dependence could stifle competition and innovation. The extensive data collection required for personalized AI features raises significant privacy issues. Ensuring user consent and data security will be paramount as AI evolves . AI evolves However, according to BrightEdge , Google significantly reduced the number of search results showing the SGE in April by 40%, from 65% at the start of the month to around 25% by the end. Additionally, the height of the SGE element was reduced by about 15%, from an average of 1200 pixels to 1050 pixels. As such, Google may be attempting to optimize the user interface and search experience while ensuring that traditional ads still have prominence and visibility. This indicates a nuanced approach to integrating AI overviews rather than prioritizing them over other elements. BrightEdge Impact on Content Creators and Consumers Impact on Content Creators and Consumers If users increasingly consume AI-generated content in search results, the demand for "human" content decreases. The shift to AI-generated summaries can undermine the value of unique, high-quality content produced by humans, making it harder for content creators to monetize their work through ad revenue, subscriptions, or sponsorships. Additionally, human authors' creative and nuanced perspectives may be undervalued, leading to a homogenized content landscape dominated by AI outputs. human authors' creative and nuanced perspectives may be undervalued, leading to a homogenized content landscape dominated by AI outputs. As mentioned above, AI can't yet boast of providing truly high-quality information. It still regularly "hallucinates" and provides unreliable information that needs to be verified manually. This poses a significant risk to content consumers who rely on AI overviews for accurate and trustworthy information. Misinformation can have severe consequences in critical areas such as health, finance, and legal advice. For instance, erroneous AI Overviews have been found for some YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) queries, including searches related to health, mental health, finances, and well-being—crucial information that can significantly impact users' lives. Consumers may need to develop new habits of cross-checking AI-provided information with reliable sources, which could be time-consuming and counterproductive. Moreover, over-reliance on AI-generated content could diminish critical thinking skills as consumers might start accepting AI responses at face value without questioning their accuracy. This shift in behavior presents a significant opportunity for innovation. Startups can capitalize on this demand by creating AI-based products that specialize in verifying AI-generated information. Startups can capitalize on this demand by creating AI-based products that specialize in verifying AI-generated information. Such tools could be invaluable across various sectors, particularly in media, academia, scientific research, R&D, and other domains that rely heavily on accurate information. By developing applications that ensure the reliability of AI content, these startups could address a crucial need in both B2C and B2B markets, fostering greater trust and dependability in AI-driven insights. For marketers, this shift raises questions about traffic impact. However, there is a silver lining: according to Hema Bhuttaraju , the senior director of the AI Overviews project, link cards within AI Overviews generate a higher click-through rate than traditional web search results. Moreover, Google has announced that impressions and clicks from AI overviews will be tracked in the Search Console, providing marketers with data on their performance in this new search paradigm. Hema Bhuttaraju Mark Traphagen , VP of Product Marketing and Training for seoClarity, states, "Most AI responses target long-tail, low search volume queries, which are generally unlikely to significantly impact most sites." He also found that AI Overviews primarily appear for informational queries—when users want to do something, learn steps, or complete a task. However, the number of queries that deserve summaries (QDS) for AI Overviews has significantly decreased compared to the SGE for informational queries. This suggests that while AI overviews are used for specific types of queries, their overall presence and relevance have diminished compared to other informational tools like SGE. Mark Traphagen Conclusion Conclusion In conclusion, while AI Overviews present both challenges and opportunities, their overall impact on high-traffic websites and critical SEO strategies may be limited. The immediate threat is more significant for smaller publishers and content creators, who may see their visibility and traffic decrease. However, businesses and content creators can continue to thrive by focusing on high-quality, unique content that addresses more complex and high-volume queries. As AI technology evolves, all stakeholders must adapt and find ways to coexist with AI-generated content, ensuring a balanced and diverse digital landscape. BTW, Hackernoon’s poll on AI Overviews is still open. You’re welcome to share your input and see the interim results! BTW, Hackernoon’s poll on AI Overviews is still open . You’re welcome to share your input and see the interim results! Hackernoon’s poll on AI Overviews is still open

Beyond the Answer Box: How AI Overviews Impact Search and Content

উত্তর বাক্সের বাইরে: কীভাবে এআই ওভারভিউ অনুসন্ধান এবং বিষয়বস্তুকে প্রভাবিত করে

Über das Antwortfeld hinaus: Wie sich KI-Übersichten auf Suche und Inhalt auswirken

Más allá del cuadro de respuestas: cómo las descripciones generales de IA impactan la búsqueda y el contenido

Au-delà de la boîte à réponses : comment les aperçus de l'IA impactent la recherche et le contenu

उत्तर बॉक्स से परे: AI अवलोकन खोज और सामग्री को कैसे प्रभावित करते हैं

回答ボックスを超えて: AI の概要が検索とコンテンツに与える影響

답변 상자 너머: AI 개요가 검색 및 콘텐츠에 미치는 영향

Além da caixa de resposta: como as visões gerais da IA impactam a pesquisa e o conteúdo

За рамками ответов: как обзоры ИИ влияют на поиск и контент

Cevap Kutusunun Ötesinde: Yapay Zeka Genel Bakışları Aramayı ve İçeriği Nasıl Etkiler?

Ngoài hộp trả lời: Tổng quan về AI tác động đến nội dung và tìm kiếm như thế nào

超越答案框：人工智能概述如何影响搜索和内容

Periwinkle Entertainment, Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company Court Filing retrieved [redacted] is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This part is 8 of 12. E. Marvel’s Breach is the Direct Result of Disney’s Tortious Interference 37. Why would Disney forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts by releasing the Picture in theatres at a time when it knew the theatrical market was “weak,” rather than waiting a few months for that market to recover? On information and belief, the decision do so was made at least in part because Disney saw the opportunity to promote its flagship subscription streaming service using the Picture and Ms. Johansson, thereby attracting new paying monthly subscribers, retaining existing ones, and establishing Disney+ as a must-have service in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Ms. Johansson, and the express promises that Marvel had made to her concerning WWBO bonuses and a “traditional” theatrical release “like our other pictures,” were simply collateral damage. By interfering with the Agreement and inducing Marvel to breach it, Disney not only increased the value of Disney+, but it also intentionally saved Marvel (and thereby itself) what Marvel’s itself referred to as “very large box office bonuses” that Marvel otherwise would have been obligated to pay Ms. Johansson. 38. Disney unquestionably understood how it would benefit from inducing a breach of the Agreement. When he announced the release of another Disney film, Mulan, on Disney+ Premier Access, Mr. Chapek noted that “under a premiere access offering, not only does it get us revenue from our original transaction of [Premium Video on Demand], but it’s a fairly large stimulus to sign up for Disney+.” 39. Moreover, Disney knew that the availability of the Picture on Disney+ would dissuade a number of would-be moviegoers, including many would-be repeat moviegoers, from paying to see the Picture in theatres. When Disney first announced its plan to release the Picture on Premier Access, no less than the New York Times described it as “a move that will likely hurt cinemas (lower ticket and concession sales) while helping Disney (higher streaming revenue).” Similarly, one Hollywood trade journal opined on January 11, 2021 that “it’s insurmountably more challenging for a film the size and scale of ‘Black Widow’ to become profitable without a traditional theatrical window.” On June 10, 2021, one month before the release of the Picture, another prominent Hollywood trade journal reported that with respect to Disney’s day-and-date strategy, “[t]he whole game now is to bring subscribers into the Disney+ ecosystem and keep them there,” and that this “has been damaging for talent” who are compensated by sharing in the box office receipts from a film. Just as these news outlets predicted and Ms. Johansson feared, the Picture’s box office receipts for its opening weekend were significantly below the opening weekend performance of Marvel’s previous films and have “suffered [a] steeper-than-normal decline[]” since then. In short, Disney’s strategy to lure viewers away from the theatres and toward Disney+ worked. 40. There can be no doubt that Disney’s conduct was knowing and intentional. Indeed, as recently as March 1, 2021, Mr. Chapek publicly acknowledged that shortening or eliminating the standard exclusive theatrical window could “cut the legs off a theatrical exhibition run.” Yet he and Disney have done just that, notwithstanding (and in disregard of) Marvel’s contractual promises. 41. This negative impact upon traditional WWBO receipts is exacerbated by the Disney+ Premier Access model, which will allow viewers who pay the Premier Access fee to rewatch the Picture an unlimited number of times so long as they remain subscribed to Disney+. 42. Traditionally, if a moviegoer enjoyed a film enough to see it a second time, he or she would have to either buy another theatre ticket or wait to buy the film on home video, electronic-sell-through (iTunes), or some other form of distribution after the theatrical window concluded. And historically there was no shortage of Marvel superfans willing to do so. Indeed, movie-ticket service Fandango announced that in the first week alone, Avengers: Endgame saw 85% more repeat viewers than Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel itself has banked on these repeat viewers in the past, having re-released Avengers: Endgame with seven minutes of additional footage in an explicit bid to draw in enough additional ticket sales to make the film the highest grossing of all time. In fact, the Guinness World Record for the most times seeing the same film in theaters is held by a Marvel fan who saw Avengers: Endgame 191 times in theatres; the previous record was held by a fan who saw Avengers: Infinity War 103 times. 43. But with Premier Access, there are no repeat ticket sales. Subscribers pay a onetime fee to view the Picture as many times as they want. It is tantamount to handing each moviegoer a free DVD on their way out of the theatre. On top of that, unlike in the theatres, a single Premier Access purchase of the Picture can be shared with tens if not hundreds of would-be paying moviegoers whose ticket buying would have generated WWBO. Still other viewers will forego the theatre and the $30 Premier Access fee because they know they can simply wait what is widely expected to be just 90 days to access the Picture on Disney+ through a regular $8 monthly subscription. And millions of others who would have watched in the theatres will instead view the Picture on perfect digital pirated copies—all made possible by Disney’s decision to release the Picture “day-and-date” on Disney+. Indeed, Black Widow was the No. 1 pirated title of the July 19 week, per the news site TorrentFreak. All of this has undermined the consideration promised to Ms. Johansson in her Agreement and ignores Marvel’s recognition that her “whole deal is based on the premise that the film would be widely theatrically released like our other pictures.” 44. Adding insult to injury, Ms. Johansson has spent the last several months fulfilling her own obligation under the Agreement to promote the Picture—and therefore, by association, its release on Disney+. In other words, Disney has enjoyed the benefits of having one of Hollywood’s top actresses promote its wholly owned subscription service at no additional cost to Disney, and with the intended effect of taking money out of that actress’ own pocket. 45. On information and belief, Marvel’s decision to release the Picture simultaneously in theatres and on Disney+ Premier Access—if it can be called Marvel’s decision at all—was the direct result of Disney’s tortious interference with the Agreement. Absent this interference, it was Marvel’s intent and desire to release the Picture exclusively in theatres at a time that would have maximized box office receipts and, therefore, Marvel’s and Ms. Johansson’s profits from the Picture. The only reason Marvel did not wait for a more opportune time to release the Picture exclusively in theatres as intended is because it was induced or forced by Disney to release it dayand-date on Disney+ Premier Access to drive profits to Disney at Ms. Johansson’s expense. Continue Reading Here. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings.
This court case retrieved [redacted] deadline.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Periwinkle Entertainment, Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company Court Filing retrieved [redacted] is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This part is 8 of 12. Periwinkle Entertainment, Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company Court Filing retrieved [redacted] is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series . You can jump to any part in this filing here . This part is 8 of 12. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here E. Marvel’s Breach is the Direct Result of Disney’s Tortious Interference 37. Why would Disney forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts by releasing the Picture in theatres at a time when it knew the theatrical market was “weak,” rather than waiting a few months for that market to recover? On information and belief, the decision do so was made at least in part because Disney saw the opportunity to promote its flagship subscription streaming service using the Picture and Ms. Johansson, thereby attracting new paying monthly subscribers, retaining existing ones, and establishing Disney+ as a must-have service in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Ms. Johansson, and the express promises that Marvel had made to her concerning WWBO bonuses and a “traditional” theatrical release “like our other pictures,” were simply collateral damage. By interfering with the Agreement and inducing Marvel to breach it, Disney not only increased the value of Disney+, but it also intentionally saved Marvel (and thereby itself) what Marvel’s itself referred to as “very large box office bonuses” that Marvel otherwise would have been obligated to pay Ms. Johansson. 38. Disney unquestionably understood how it would benefit from inducing a breach of the Agreement. When he announced the release of another Disney film, Mulan, on Disney+ Premier Access, Mr. Chapek noted that “under a premiere access offering, not only does it get us revenue from our original transaction of [Premium Video on Demand], but it’s a fairly large stimulus to sign up for Disney+.” 39. Moreover, Disney knew that the availability of the Picture on Disney+ would dissuade a number of would-be moviegoers, including many would-be repeat moviegoers, from paying to see the Picture in theatres. When Disney first announced its plan to release the Picture on Premier Access, no less than the New York Times described it as “a move that will likely hurt cinemas (lower ticket and concession sales) while helping Disney (higher streaming revenue).” Similarly, one Hollywood trade journal opined on January 11, 2021 that “it’s insurmountably more challenging for a film the size and scale of ‘Black Widow’ to become profitable without a traditional theatrical window.” On June 10, 2021, one month before the release of the Picture, another prominent Hollywood trade journal reported that with respect to Disney’s day-and-date strategy, “[t]he whole game now is to bring subscribers into the Disney+ ecosystem and keep them there,” and that this “has been damaging for talent” who are compensated by sharing in the box office receipts from a film. Just as these news outlets predicted and Ms. Johansson feared, the Picture’s box office receipts for its opening weekend were significantly below the opening weekend performance of Marvel’s previous films and have “suffered [a] steeper-than-normal decline[]” since then. In short, Disney’s strategy to lure viewers away from the theatres and toward Disney+ worked. 40. There can be no doubt that Disney’s conduct was knowing and intentional. Indeed, as recently as March 1, 2021, Mr. Chapek publicly acknowledged that shortening or eliminating the standard exclusive theatrical window could “cut the legs off a theatrical exhibition run.” Yet he and Disney have done just that, notwithstanding (and in disregard of) Marvel’s contractual promises. 41. This negative impact upon traditional WWBO receipts is exacerbated by the Disney+ Premier Access model, which will allow viewers who pay the Premier Access fee to rewatch the Picture an unlimited number of times so long as they remain subscribed to Disney+. 42. Traditionally, if a moviegoer enjoyed a film enough to see it a second time, he or she would have to either buy another theatre ticket or wait to buy the film on home video, electronic-sell-through (iTunes), or some other form of distribution after the theatrical window concluded. And historically there was no shortage of Marvel superfans willing to do so. Indeed, movie-ticket service Fandango announced that in the first week alone, Avengers: Endgame saw 85% more repeat viewers than Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel itself has banked on these repeat viewers in the past, having re-released Avengers: Endgame with seven minutes of additional footage in an explicit bid to draw in enough additional ticket sales to make the film the highest grossing of all time. In fact, the Guinness World Record for the most times seeing the same film in theaters is held by a Marvel fan who saw Avengers: Endgame 191 times in theatres; the previous record was held by a fan who saw Avengers: Infinity War 103 times. 43. But with Premier Access, there are no repeat ticket sales. Subscribers pay a onetime fee to view the Picture as many times as they want. It is tantamount to handing each moviegoer a free DVD on their way out of the theatre. On top of that, unlike in the theatres, a single Premier Access purchase of the Picture can be shared with tens if not hundreds of would-be paying moviegoers whose ticket buying would have generated WWBO. Still other viewers will forego the theatre and the $30 Premier Access fee because they know they can simply wait what is widely expected to be just 90 days to access the Picture on Disney+ through a regular $8 monthly subscription. And millions of others who would have watched in the theatres will instead view the Picture on perfect digital pirated copies—all made possible by Disney’s decision to release the Picture “day-and-date” on Disney+. Indeed, Black Widow was the No. 1 pirated title of the July 19 week, per the news site TorrentFreak. All of this has undermined the consideration promised to Ms. Johansson in her Agreement and ignores Marvel’s recognition that her “whole deal is based on the premise that the film would be widely theatrically released like our other pictures.” 44. Adding insult to injury, Ms. Johansson has spent the last several months fulfilling her own obligation under the Agreement to promote the Picture—and therefore, by association, its release on Disney+. In other words, Disney has enjoyed the benefits of having one of Hollywood’s top actresses promote its wholly owned subscription service at no additional cost to Disney, and with the intended effect of taking money out of that actress’ own pocket. 45. On information and belief, Marvel’s decision to release the Picture simultaneously in theatres and on Disney+ Premier Access—if it can be called Marvel’s decision at all—was the direct result of Disney’s tortious interference with the Agreement. Absent this interference, it was Marvel’s intent and desire to release the Picture exclusively in theatres at a time that would have maximized box office receipts and, therefore, Marvel’s and Ms. Johansson’s profits from the Picture. The only reason Marvel did not wait for a more opportune time to release the Picture exclusively in theatres as intended is because it was induced or forced by Disney to release it dayand-date on Disney+ Premier Access to drive profits to Disney at Ms. Johansson’s expense. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved [redacted] deadline.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved [redacted] deadline.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. deadline.com

Scarlett Johansson's Lawsuit Claims Disney's Tactics Hurt 'Black Widow' Box Office

Authors:
(1) Maria Rigaki, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and maria.rigaki@fel.cvut.cz;
(2) Sebastian Garcia, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and sebastian.garcia@agents.fel.cvut.cz. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Threat Model Background and Related Work Methodology Experiments Setup Results Discussion Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and References Appendix 2 Threat Model The threat model for this work assumes an attacker that only has black-box access to a target (classifier or AV) during the inference phase and can submit binary files for static scanning. The target provides binary labels (0 if benign, 1 if malicious). The attacker has no or limited information about the target architecture and training process, and they aim to evade it by modifying the malware in a functionality-preserving manner. In the case of classifiers, the attacker may have some knowledge of the extracted features, but this is not the case for antivirus systems. Some knowledge of the training data distribution is assumed. However, it may only be partially necessary. Finally, the attacker aims to minimize the interaction with the target by submitting as few queries as possible. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Maria Rigaki, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and maria.rigaki@fel.cvut.cz; (2) Sebastian Garcia, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and sebastian.garcia@agents.fel.cvut.cz. Authors: Authors: (1) Maria Rigaki, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and maria.rigaki@fel.cvut.cz; (2) Sebastian Garcia, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic and sebastian.garcia@agents.fel.cvut.cz. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Threat Model Threat Model Background and Related Work Background and Related Work Methodology Methodology Experiments Setup Experiments Setup Results Results Discussion Discussion Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and References Conclusion, Acknowledgments, and References Appendix Appendix 2 Threat Model The threat model for this work assumes an attacker that only has black-box access to a target (classifier or AV) during the inference phase and can submit binary files for static scanning. The target provides binary labels (0 if benign, 1 if malicious). The attacker has no or limited information about the target architecture and training process, and they aim to evade it by modifying the malware in a functionality-preserving manner. In the case of classifiers, the attacker may have some knowledge of the extracted features, but this is not the case for antivirus systems. Some knowledge of the training data distribution is assumed. However, it may only be partially necessary. Finally, the attacker aims to minimize the interaction with the target by submitting as few queries as possible. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Understanding the Threat Model: Black-Box Attacks on Malware Detection Systems

Stories, News & Mentions about BOX

Box’s Stories on HackerNoon

Box's News & Mentions