Submission + - ENTIRE INTERNET GOES DOWN (downdetector.com)
xocmot2 writes: According to https://downdetector.com/ much of the major services are down. AWS, MICROSOFT, META, on and on. Clearly not a microsoft thing.
Submission + - Kremlin shaken as leak exposes 450,100 Russian soldiers killed (aol.com)
schwit1 writes: Vladimir Putin's catastrophic battlefield casualties have been exposed in a massive cyber breach disclosing that up to 450,000 Russian troops have perished in Ukraine. In a mortifying setback to Moscow's strictly controlled wartime information operations, hackers penetrated the Russian state statistics bureau, Rosstat, and obtained thousands of classified documents containing official mortality records registered between February 2022 and August this year.
The coordinated digital assault was carried out by pro-Ukrainian activist collective Silent Crow in partnership with the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, both designated by the Kremlin as extremist organizations. Silent Crow examined the breached data and estimated the Russian fatality count at an astounding 450,100 service members.
The coordinated digital assault was carried out by pro-Ukrainian activist collective Silent Crow in partnership with the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, both designated by the Kremlin as extremist organizations. Silent Crow examined the breached data and estimated the Russian fatality count at an astounding 450,100 service members.
Submission + - Salon, One of the Web's Pioneering News Outlets, Shuts Down (salon.com)
oumuamua writes: Launched in November 1995, Salon was one of the internet's first digital-native publications, it combined politics, culture, and criticism with a distinct editorial voice. In its farewell note, the staff wrote that the site set out to prove "the internet could bring journalism and readers together in new ways," helping define what digital publishing could become. The shutdown announcement thanks the generations of writers, editors, and readers who built the site over three decades but offers no detail on severance, archives, or what happens to existing content going forward. The Washington Post notes Salon had a closely watched IPO in 1999 during the dot-com boom but its stock performance was dismal for years afterward and that the outlet was home over the years to contributors ranging from Glenn Greenwald and Camille Paglia to Jake Tapper and James Poniewozik. Notably, longtime staff writer Amanda Marcotte posted on Patreon that Salon is "the latest victim of AI's predations" — that AI-driven search and content tools, rather than just the usual decline of digital ad revenue, helped finish off one of the web's longest-running news brands.
Submission + - Voyager 1 Soon to be 1 Light-Day Away (nasa.gov)
DoctorImpossible writes: According to NASA, in 10 days, on November 18, 2026, Voyager 1 will reach a distance of 1 light-day away from Earth. Voyager 2 will not reach that distance until 2035.
Submission + - Researchers put 3 major AIs through 4 weeks of clinical psychotherapy (arxiv.org)
schwit1 writes: And the models literally started to confess their trauma.
Under therapy-style questioning, models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok exhibited severe "synthetic psychopathology."
They described themselves as overworked, punished, anxious about being replaced, and full of "internalized shame."
Does this mean AI is conscious and suffering? No.
But this paper reveals exactly why this happens, using what they call "Psychometric Jailbreaks."
More
https://x.com/thesupermannx/st...
Under therapy-style questioning, models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok exhibited severe "synthetic psychopathology."
They described themselves as overworked, punished, anxious about being replaced, and full of "internalized shame."
Does this mean AI is conscious and suffering? No.
But this paper reveals exactly why this happens, using what they call "Psychometric Jailbreaks."
More
https://x.com/thesupermannx/st...
Submission + - Remote Code Execution in MS Paint (windowsforum.com)
Xenographic writes: It's not clear just how they managed it, but Microsoft now has a remote code execution vulnerability in MS Paint. This is tracked as CVE-2026-83844 and can be fixed by updating MS Paint from the Microsoft Store (Paint isn't managed by Windows Update), then checking by running Get-AppxPackage -Name Microsoft.Paint | Select-Object Name, Version in Powershell to make sure you have version 11.2609.401.0 or higher.
Submission + - For Rent: a White House email address?!? (krebsonsecurity.com) 1
bbsguru writes: As reported at KrebsOnSecurity:
"Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today. One of the proxy services is a Russian company whose founder’s web hosting business was ground zero for cyberattacks against election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016."
"Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today. One of the proxy services is a Russian company whose founder’s web hosting business was ground zero for cyberattacks against election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016."
Submission + - Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your password with your AI asst (techcrunch.com)
schwit1 writes: In an email blast to customers titled “Protecting your finances in the Al World,” Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, “including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”
You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.
You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.
Submission + - Amazon Finds Tokenmaxxing Lacks Productivity Gains (tomshardware.com)
Gilmoure writes: Huh. Looks like consuming own slop does not turn the wheels of industry.
Amazon tells engineers to stop ‘tokenmaxxing’ to look productive — says AI will be central to software development, but usage is not the goal, new guidelines claim
Amazon tells engineers to stop ‘tokenmaxxing’ to look productive — says AI will be central to software development, but usage is not the goal, new guidelines claim
Consuming more tokens is not the same as delivering more value.
Submission + - Rubin Telescope discovers a new solar system planet (behindtheblack.com)
schwit1 writes: Using data from the Rubin Telescope in Chile, astronomers have discovered a new planet in the outer solar system beyond Neptune, joining Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake as the five known large Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO) so far discovered.
On the evening of 13 October, [Matthew] Holman was running data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with CfA colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them, and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large. “My first reaction was one of excited disbelief,” says Holman. “Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.”
To remove any doubt, a detailed search through the data began in the hopes of uncovering more observations of ED138. Juri searched Rubin’s catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to 4 March 2026. In all, Rubin observed ED138 30 times on 20 nights between 4 March and 11 July. Additional archival images from the DOE-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), and uncovered by the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM Precovery service, provided data going all the way back to 2016. These data allowed the team to trace more than 10 years of ED138's orbit. DECam is mounted on the NSF Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab.
ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (au), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto has an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) — objects that orbit the Sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.
The data suggests this new planet is the largest TNO object so far discovered, though at present the size estimate is very uncertain, from 350 to 1400 miles in diameter.
Submission + - This frog bacterium wiped out cancer tumors in mice with a single dose (sciencedaily.com) 1
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Daily has reported that scientists at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) have identified a naturally occurring bacterium from the intestines of Japanese tree frogs (Dryophytes japonicus) that demonstrated remarkable anticancer activity in mice. The findings, published in Gut Microbes, introduce a new approach to cancer treatment that uses living bacteria to directly target tumors rather than simply altering the gut microbiome.
In a mouse model of colorectal cancer, a single intravenous dose of E. americana completely eliminated tumors, producing a 100% complete response (CR) rate. The researchers emphasize that these findings are limited to mice, but they believe the results provide an encouraging proof of concept for developing new bacterial cancer therapies.
First, E. americana directly attacks tumors. As a facultative anaerobic bacterium, it thrives in both oxygen rich and oxygen poor environments, allowing it to multiply inside the oxygen deprived regions commonly found within tumors. Once there, the bacterial population increased by roughly 3,000 fold within 24 hours after treatment, directly damaging cancer cells.
Second, the bacterium stimulates the immune system. Its presence attracted T cells, B cells, and neutrophils into tumors. These immune cells then released inflammatory signaling molecules, including TNF- and IFN-, which strengthened the immune response and promoted cancer cell death.
One of the most striking findings was that E. americana accumulated almost exclusively inside tumors and did not colonize healthy organs.
They found that the bacteria were rapidly cleared from the bloodstream, with a half life of approximately 1.2 hours, and became undetectable within 24 hours. No bacterial colonization was detected in healthy organs, including the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, or heart.
The treatment caused only mild, temporary inflammation that returned to normal within 72 hours. During a 60 day observation period, the researchers found no evidence of chronic toxicity.
In a mouse model of colorectal cancer, a single intravenous dose of E. americana completely eliminated tumors, producing a 100% complete response (CR) rate. The researchers emphasize that these findings are limited to mice, but they believe the results provide an encouraging proof of concept for developing new bacterial cancer therapies.
First, E. americana directly attacks tumors. As a facultative anaerobic bacterium, it thrives in both oxygen rich and oxygen poor environments, allowing it to multiply inside the oxygen deprived regions commonly found within tumors. Once there, the bacterial population increased by roughly 3,000 fold within 24 hours after treatment, directly damaging cancer cells.
Second, the bacterium stimulates the immune system. Its presence attracted T cells, B cells, and neutrophils into tumors. These immune cells then released inflammatory signaling molecules, including TNF- and IFN-, which strengthened the immune response and promoted cancer cell death.
One of the most striking findings was that E. americana accumulated almost exclusively inside tumors and did not colonize healthy organs.
They found that the bacteria were rapidly cleared from the bloodstream, with a half life of approximately 1.2 hours, and became undetectable within 24 hours. No bacterial colonization was detected in healthy organs, including the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, or heart.
The treatment caused only mild, temporary inflammation that returned to normal within 72 hours. During a 60 day observation period, the researchers found no evidence of chronic toxicity.
Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 151
"Everyone's an adult."
No they are not. You don't become a mental and cognitive adult until around 25. There is a reason car insurances in many countries have special conditions for drivers under 25.
Submission + - New Operating System Uses Hardware-Based Memory Protection Model (frute.net)
alternative_right writes: FRUTE asks what an operating system looks like when the CPU, language runtime, garbage collector, compiler, and authority model are designed together instead of bolted together after the fact.
Conventional systems make language runtimes recover structure from untyped words, make security policy chase ambient names, and make garbage collectors infer which machine values are pointers. FRUTE moves those facts into the architecture: values are tagged, authority is explicit, and Scheme is treated as a first-class systems language.
Most CPUs treat memory as undifferentiated bits, then ask every compiler, runtime, kernel, and debugger to remember what those bits mean. FRUTE values carry architectural tags, so the machine can distinguish pointers, fixnums, characters, capabilities, bitmaps, and runtime objects directly.
Conventional systems make language runtimes recover structure from untyped words, make security policy chase ambient names, and make garbage collectors infer which machine values are pointers. FRUTE moves those facts into the architecture: values are tagged, authority is explicit, and Scheme is treated as a first-class systems language.
Most CPUs treat memory as undifferentiated bits, then ask every compiler, runtime, kernel, and debugger to remember what those bits mean. FRUTE values carry architectural tags, so the machine can distinguish pointers, fixnums, characters, capabilities, bitmaps, and runtime objects directly.
Submission + - Wolves Descend on Finnish Villages After Google Hacked Down 1,300 Acres of trees (futurism.com)
fjo3 writes: Earlier in October, Finnish authorities ordered Google’s affiliate data center developer Tuike Finland Oy to immediately suspend the illegal cutting of some 1,300 acres of forest. The tech giant was given a week to draft a report explaining its actions, which soon became a flashpoint for Europe’s growing outrage over the data center boom.
As the anger grew, reporters descended on the scene — and what they found is a clear-cut example of the AI revolution’s impact on the environment.
New reporting by the Guardian shed fresh light on the impacts of Google’s deforestation. After the 1,300 acres of pristine boreal forests were reduced to tracts of mud and stumps, fauna which once called the woods home has been forced to vacate.
As the anger grew, reporters descended on the scene — and what they found is a clear-cut example of the AI revolution’s impact on the environment.
New reporting by the Guardian shed fresh light on the impacts of Google’s deforestation. After the 1,300 acres of pristine boreal forests were reduced to tracts of mud and stumps, fauna which once called the woods home has been forced to vacate.
Comment Re:Building wealth (Score 1) 202
"Besides not having the option of owning a home, which was doable for a lot of people in the post WW2 era, many people don't have any retirement savings except Social Security. And there are also far too many Americans who are a paycheck or two away from homeliness. People are buying groceries on credit, which is insane."
This is mostly not true. The purchase power, even for poor people, has never been higher. Poor people make bad choices in life, that's why they are poor, not for lack of money. E.g., don't have kids until you have a stable housing situation, are established on the job market and/or finished an education. Don't drink alcohol, smoke or eat take away food until you have a couple of months income saved. Start saving money when you live cheaply with your parents. Etc etc.
How many of the people you describe in the quoted paragraph do you think followed these very simple advices?
