Comment Lathe of Heaven. (Score 1) 67
You want to make the genie that makes whatever you want.
Comment Necessity is the mother of invention. (Score 1) 34
It's not that markets make us moral. Morality evolved to regulate "markets" in a mutually beneficial way.
Comment TL;DR: (Score 1) 143
TL:DR.
Comment Confido. (Score 1) 21
Confido knows. Confido cares.
Submission + - De-identified public data can be linked to social media profiles (acm.org)
rezoG writes: Abstract
Can online trackers and network adversaries de-anonymize web browsing data readily available to them? We show---theoretically, via simulation, and through experiments on real user data---that de-identified web browsing histories can be linked to social media profiles using only publicly available data. Our approach is based on a simple observation: each person has a distinctive social network, and thus the set of links appearing in one's feed is unique. Assuming users visit links in their feed with higher probability than a random user, browsing histories contain tell-tale marks of identity. We formalize this intuition by specifying a model of web browsing behavior and then deriving the maximum likelihood estimate of a user's social profile. We evaluate this strategy on simulated browsing histories, and show that given a history with 30 links originating from Twitter, we can deduce the corresponding Twitter profile more than 50% of the time.To gauge the real-world effectiveness of this approach, we recruited nearly 400 people to donate their web browsing histories, and we were able to correctly identify more than 70% of them. We further show that several online trackers are embedded on sufficiently many websites to carry out this attack with high accuracy. Our theoretical contribution applies to any type of transactional data and is robust to noisy observations, generalizing a wide range of previous de-anonymization attacks. Finally, since our attack attempts to find the correct Twitter profile out of over 300 million candidates, it is---to our knowledge---the largest-scale demonstrated de-anonymization to date.
Can online trackers and network adversaries de-anonymize web browsing data readily available to them? We show---theoretically, via simulation, and through experiments on real user data---that de-identified web browsing histories can be linked to social media profiles using only publicly available data. Our approach is based on a simple observation: each person has a distinctive social network, and thus the set of links appearing in one's feed is unique. Assuming users visit links in their feed with higher probability than a random user, browsing histories contain tell-tale marks of identity. We formalize this intuition by specifying a model of web browsing behavior and then deriving the maximum likelihood estimate of a user's social profile. We evaluate this strategy on simulated browsing histories, and show that given a history with 30 links originating from Twitter, we can deduce the corresponding Twitter profile more than 50% of the time.To gauge the real-world effectiveness of this approach, we recruited nearly 400 people to donate their web browsing histories, and we were able to correctly identify more than 70% of them. We further show that several online trackers are embedded on sufficiently many websites to carry out this attack with high accuracy. Our theoretical contribution applies to any type of transactional data and is robust to noisy observations, generalizing a wide range of previous de-anonymization attacks. Finally, since our attack attempts to find the correct Twitter profile out of over 300 million candidates, it is---to our knowledge---the largest-scale demonstrated de-anonymization to date.
Comment Re:Vague wishes for something salty dept. (Score 1) 37
first
Comment That's a contradiction in terms. (Score 1) 10
All it takes is one malicious contributor.
Comment Fffood waste. (Score 1) 101
Comment Re:So ban it. (Score 1) 27
It's a menace to society; risk-taking behavior, gambling debt, and the association of desperate individual in seedy venues. May be no less than drugs, and less taboo too. Prohibit large profiteering venues, and discourage the practice.
So ban it. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on 2025-10-01 17:28 (#65696532) It's a menace to society; risk-taking behavior, gambling debt, and the association of desperate individual in seedy venues. May be no less than drugs, and less taboo too. Prohibit large profiteering venues, and discourage the practice.
Submission + - The quantum internet just went live on Verizon's network (sciencedaily.com) 1
alternative_right writes: Penn engineers have taken quantum networking from the lab to Verizon’s live fiber network, using a silicon “Q-chip” that speaks the same Internet Protocol as the modern web. The system pairs classical and quantum signals like a train engine with sealed cargo, ensuring routing without destroying quantum states. By maintaining fidelity above 97% even under real-world noise, the approach shows that a scalable quantum internet is possible using today’s infrastructure.
Submission + - The Silent Erosion: Global Generational Cognitive Decline in the Age of AI ... (hal.science)
rezoG writes: Research at the R. C. Patel Institute of Technology, Administration, Shirpur, India, indicates that broad adoption and incorporation of A.I. into the social sphere is not without some costs.
The researchers explored the extent of cognitive decline related to A.I.-reliance across multiple nations. It is concluded (tentatively) that widespread A.I. entwinement within socio-technical spheres does result in cognitive atrophy, degeneration. The effects were found to be more pronounced in nations with higher A.I. adoption, lesser in nations with a more responsible approach to pedagogy, inclusion of A.I. in the lifestyles.
The researchers explored the extent of cognitive decline related to A.I.-reliance across multiple nations. It is concluded (tentatively) that widespread A.I. entwinement within socio-technical spheres does result in cognitive atrophy, degeneration. The effects were found to be more pronounced in nations with higher A.I. adoption, lesser in nations with a more responsible approach to pedagogy, inclusion of A.I. in the lifestyles.
This study formalizes the concept of national cognitive resilience as the capacity of a country to preserve and regenerate metacognitive friction, epistemic novelty density, and human interpretive effort despite increasing AI integration. In the AI era, the boundaries between thinking and automation, learning and consumption, and originality and replication are quietly dissolving. The silent consequence is GCA, the recursive weakening of human epistemic agency through sustained reliance on AI-mediated knowledge production. This erosion is not accidental; it arises from design logics that privilege frictionless efficiency and predictive optimization over ambiguity, novelty, and reflection.
The results show clearly that AI readiness does not equate to cognitive resilience. Nations with advanced AI infrastructure, such as China and the United States, may record low CDI scores when novelty is eroded and automation reliance is high. Conversely, countries like Singapore, and Finland outside this dataset, sustain high CDI scores by embedding cognitive scaffolding into their educational and governance systems, even with similar AI maturity levels. Historical precedents such as the Gutenberg press, industrial schooling, and the screen revolution demonstrate that cognitive systems can recover from compression and conformity, but only through deliberate pedagogical reform and institutional innovation.
The broader implication is that cognition must be treated as a civilizational asset, equal in strategic importance to ecological sustainability or democratic stability. Just as environmental degradation prompted coordinated global climate action, cognitive degradation demands epistemic governance that is transdisciplinary, generational, and anticipatory. Embedding GCAL–CDI metrics into AI policy, designing reflective human–AI interfaces, and prioritizing epistemic plurality over algorithmic conformity are essential to achieving this. Artificial intelligence need not be inherently corrosive.
Submission + - Every adult in Britain will require a Government-issued digital ID card (dailymail.co.uk)
schwit1 writes: Every working adult in Britain will require a Government-issued digital ID card under a 'dystopian' plan set to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer.
The idea of a mandatory identification system has long been advocated by Labour as a way to tackle illegal migration.
But the proposal is fiercely opposed by civil rights campaigners, who warn it will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a 'papers please' society.
Meanwhile, polls show a majority of the public do not trust ministers to keep their personal data safe from cyber-criminals.
Detailed proposals for what has been dubbed a 'Brit Card' could be announced by the Prime Minister as early as tomorrow.
Under the scheme, anyone starting a new job or renting a property would be required to show their digital ID on an app so it can be automatically checked against a central database.
The idea of a mandatory identification system has long been advocated by Labour as a way to tackle illegal migration.
But the proposal is fiercely opposed by civil rights campaigners, who warn it will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a 'papers please' society.
Meanwhile, polls show a majority of the public do not trust ministers to keep their personal data safe from cyber-criminals.
Detailed proposals for what has been dubbed a 'Brit Card' could be announced by the Prime Minister as early as tomorrow.
Under the scheme, anyone starting a new job or renting a property would be required to show their digital ID on an app so it can be automatically checked against a central database.
Submission + - Remote controlled car rental service (theguardian.com) 3
votsalo writes: A German company, Vay, offers a rental car service where the cars are driven by a remote driver to the customer, who then takes over driving the car. At the end of the rental, a remote driver takes over again to take the car away. The trained remote drivers sit in a driving station, with a steering wheel, foot pedals, screens, headphones, and even tactile feedback for things like bumps on the road.
Vay says the rental rate cost would be "about half of what a current car-sharing service costs". If he is talking about car-rental services that deliver cars to customers by on-site drivers, like this defunct San Francisco car rental company, then the claim about half the cost seems right.
Vay's founder used Las Vegas as a testing ground for the service, and expects to launch in Germany soon. Las Vegas had the necessary legal framework already in place.
Vay says the rental rate cost would be "about half of what a current car-sharing service costs". If he is talking about car-rental services that deliver cars to customers by on-site drivers, like this defunct San Francisco car rental company, then the claim about half the cost seems right.
Vay's founder used Las Vegas as a testing ground for the service, and expects to launch in Germany soon. Las Vegas had the necessary legal framework already in place.
Submission + - Final Fantasy composer shares concern about 'stagnation' in game music (pcgamer.com)
alternative_right writes: "I won’t go as far as to call it stagnation, but I believe directors and producers hold too much power in their hands even when it comes to the music," said Uematsu, according to Automaton's translation. "Even now, game composers aren’t in a position to speak their opinion freely, and no matter how much musical knowledge or technical skills they possess, they’re still in a position where it’s difficult to speak their mind.
"There are almost no game producers who are well versed in worldwide entertainment and are familiar with a wide variety of musical genres, so anything goes for them as long as you make it sound like a John Williams movie soundtrack."
"There are almost no game producers who are well versed in worldwide entertainment and are familiar with a wide variety of musical genres, so anything goes for them as long as you make it sound like a John Williams movie soundtrack."
Submission + - Cupertino Must Stop Calling Apple Watches 'Carbon Neutral,' German Court Rules (theregister.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: A German court has told Apple to stop advertising its Watches as being carbon-neutral, ruling that this was misleading and could not fly under the country's competition law. Apple has been marketing its newest smartwatches as being carbon-neutral for nearly two years now, with an array of rationales. It claims that clean energy for manufacturing, along with greener materials and shipping, lop around three-quarters off the carbon emissions for each model of the Apple Watch. The remaining emissions are offset by the purchase of carbon credits, according to Apple.
Deutsche Umwelthilfe (well, DUH – that's the acronym), a prominent environmental group, begged to differ on that last point. It applied for an injunction in May and Tuesday's ruling (in German), which will only be published in full later this week, led it to claim victory. The ruling means Apple can't advertise the Watch as a "CO2-neutral product" in Germany. [...] The ruling revolved around the Paraguayan forestry program that Apple claimed was offsetting some of the Watch's production emissions. The project involves commercial eucalyptus plantations on leased land, where the leases for three-quarters of the land will run out in 2029 with no guarantee of renewal.
According to the court, consumers' expectations of carbon compensation schemes are shaped by the prominent 2015 Paris Agreement, which commits countries to achieving carbon neutrality by the second half of this century. It said consumers would therefore "assume" that the carbon-neutrality claims around the Apple Watch would mean neutrality was assured through 2050. That leaves a 21-year gap of uncertainty in this case. The Verified Carbon Standard program, in which Apple is participating, has a "pooled buffer account" scheme to hedge against this sort of uncertainty. However, the German court was not impressed, saying it would only allow Apple to monitor the situation after the leases run out, which is a far cry from definitely being able to keep offsetting those emissions if the plantation gets cleared.
Deutsche Umwelthilfe (well, DUH – that's the acronym), a prominent environmental group, begged to differ on that last point. It applied for an injunction in May and Tuesday's ruling (in German), which will only be published in full later this week, led it to claim victory. The ruling means Apple can't advertise the Watch as a "CO2-neutral product" in Germany. [...] The ruling revolved around the Paraguayan forestry program that Apple claimed was offsetting some of the Watch's production emissions. The project involves commercial eucalyptus plantations on leased land, where the leases for three-quarters of the land will run out in 2029 with no guarantee of renewal.
According to the court, consumers' expectations of carbon compensation schemes are shaped by the prominent 2015 Paris Agreement, which commits countries to achieving carbon neutrality by the second half of this century. It said consumers would therefore "assume" that the carbon-neutrality claims around the Apple Watch would mean neutrality was assured through 2050. That leaves a 21-year gap of uncertainty in this case. The Verified Carbon Standard program, in which Apple is participating, has a "pooled buffer account" scheme to hedge against this sort of uncertainty. However, the German court was not impressed, saying it would only allow Apple to monitor the situation after the leases run out, which is a far cry from definitely being able to keep offsetting those emissions if the plantation gets cleared.
