Post Category → Scribble

The Futile “Silent Album” Protest

I was extremely surprised and disappointed to learn that over 1,000 prominent musicians—including Kate Bush and Damon Albarn — launched a “silent protest” on Spotify, objecting to the use of copyrighted music to train AI.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/25/kate-bush-damon-albarn-1000-artists-silent-ai-protest-album-copyright

These individuals seem to believe that legal restrictions can magically halt technological progress — a notion so naïve it verges on outright foolishness. I had expected more from some of these signatories. History shows that no laws or prohibitions have ever stopped the advance of technology. As the saying goes, “History teaches us that man learns nothing from history” (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel) — and these protestors underscore that point perfectly. They appear not to have learned from the past, or they think “this time it will work.”

I speak from experience, having grown up behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union and witnessing firsthand how restrictions failed to suppress pirated software, knowledge and freedom. No ban will stop AI development: if training is outlawed in one country, it will simply happen in another — or go underground. Progress cannot and will not be stopped, in any field. It’s almost comical to see a group of “greats” genuinely believe they can halt it.

I’ve written a short piece that touches on this issue:

www.audiowatermarking.com/blog/defending-the-authenticity-of-sound-in-the-age-of-ai-how-advanced-audio-watermarking-technologies-are-re-emerging/

and while it doesn’t address this protest directly, its key points certainly apply.

Fighting the unstoppable wave of progress is futile. Instead of clinging to wishful thinking, the wiser path is to embrace and harness AI. “If you can’t … >>> Click to read the full post...

Signing your executable using a Code Signing certificate

If you, like me, ever need to sign your executable tool or document using a code signing certificate, this guide may be helpful. In this post, I will tell you how to sign your executable using Certum’s SimplySign.

When searching for code signing certificate providers, one of the options is Certum. They offer some of the most affordable certificates (although still expensive). I needed to sign my freeware tool, AFT SonicDecloner, to distribute it to users and prevent it from triggering Windows notifications like “unverified program” or being flagged by antivirus software.

Certum provides a way to sign applications without any hardware tokens or readers. Instead, they offer a desktop tool called SimplySign, which you can install on Windows. It acts like a hardware reader, making your certificate available in Windows.

Here is the procedure:

1. Purchase a Code Signing Certificate

First, you need to register with Certum and purchase one of their Cloud Code Signing certificates—either regular or EV (Extended Validation). EV implies extended verification and is the most expensive option. The EV certificate cost me €379 for one year (as of the end of 2024).

2. Complete Identity Verification

Once purchased, you will need to go through an identity verification process, during which you will be requested to present various documents proving your identity. You will also need to pass a live presence test—an automated procedure using a webcam. The entire process takes about one week.

3. Activate Your Certificate

After your certificate is … >>> Click to read the full post...

Permanently disabling Windows Defender “real-time protection” in Windows 11

If you, like me, do not want your Windows 11 computer’s CPU resources spent on antivirus processes and wish to disable Windows Defender completely, you may have found various methods to disable its components via Group Policy (gpedit.msc) and the Windows Registry (regedit.exe). However, starting from version 23H2, Windows will “self-heal” and restore any such settings upon restart. This can be frustrating, and I disagree with Microsoft deciding what my computer does on my behalf.

Here is how to permanently disable the real-time antivirus protection in Windows 11:

Create a folder on your disk:
For example, C:\Scripts.

Create a new PowerShell script file:
Open Notepad or any text editor.
Save the file as turn-off-rt-protection.ps1 in the C:\Scripts folder.

Add the following line to the script:
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $true

Configure the script to run at startup using Task Scheduler:
Open Task Scheduler (you can search for it in the Start menu).
Click on “Create Task” in the right-hand Actions pane.

General Tab:
Name: Enter a name for the task (e.g., “Disable Real-Time Protection”).
Security options: Check “Run with highest privileges”.

Triggers Tab:
Click “New…” to create a new trigger.
Begin the task: Select “At log on”.
Settings: Choose “Any user” or specify a user.
Check “Delay task for:” and set it to 1 minute.
Click “OK”.

Actions Tab:
Click “New…” to create a new action.
Action: Select “Start a program”.
Program/script: Enter powershell.exe.
Add arguments: Enter -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Scripts\turn-off-rt-protection.ps1"… >>> Click to read the full post...

The creative panic as AI takes over

Artists and writers are in a panic — they have discovered that their works are being used to train generative AI. A surge of loud discussions arises in the media when it turns out that generative AI, such as ChatGPT and others, have been using materials from artists, photographers, writers, and journalists without their permission. Now, with generative AI competing with them and taking their bread, everyone is suddenly up in arms.

Allow me to offer my perspective on this. The uproar about somehow restricting the use of materials for AI training seems laughable and evokes nothing but a sardonic smirk from me. Just as no one could stop the spread of pirated software through Fidonet, BBS, and IRC chats 30 years ago, and later through internet forums, eDonkey, a now through Torrents, and the Darknet, no one will be able to control what materials AI developers use to train their models. It is foolish to think that someone will develop “bulletproof” algorithms to modify graphical and other materials to confuse AI during model training. AI developers will devise countermeasures to bypass these, without a doubt.

It’s equally naive to think that some legislation will genuinely hinder the use of certain materials in training sets. This will not happen. Instead, developers will take additional technical and algorithmic measures to keep using available materials indirectly, and also ensure that querying their AI models does not explicitly reveal traces of the materials used for training. This is a logical and inevitable engineering … >>> Click to read the full post...

My interview with MMN Magazine

I’m thrilled to share that MMN Magazine recently interviewed me about www.AudioTag.info, its underlying acoustic fingerprinting technology, my other audio technologies including watermarking solutions available at www.AudioWatermarking.com and some more.

A big thank you to my friends at MMN Magazine and to Peter Bokor personally for this wonderful opportunity. You can check out the full interview here: https://mmn-mag.hu/2024/06/03/audiotag-challanging-shazams-fingerprinting

… >>> Click to read the full post...

AWT tools have been published at AudioWatermarking.Info

Audio Watermarking Tools (AWT) of www.audiowatermarking.info are shareware utilities for embedding (and extracting) short data payload within audio streams (wave files). The tools are distributed as a package of Win32 console utilities running on Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP/NT/2000/Server; x86 and x64 versions of the binaries are available. The package does not require any installation and is ready to use right after unpacking. The package consists of encoder (watermark embedding tool) and decoder (watermark extraction tool).


AWT package is free to try. Evaluation (demo) version of AWT with limited functionality is available and can be downloaded absolutely free. Despite its limited functionality, the demo package offers enough flexibility to perform a variety of performance tests so that you can decide whether AWT suits your needs before buying a fully functional version.… >>> Click to read the full post...