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Submission + - US Nuclear Testing to Resume (bbc.com)

Submitted by hadleyburg
hadleyburg writes: President Trump has directed the Department of War to restart nuclear testing.

The directive appears to be a counter measure to rival nations catching up with the US. The last US nuclear test was an underground test, on September 23, 1992, in Nevada.

Submission + - Trump: 'It's no longer free speech.' (politico.com) 1

Submitted by sysrammer
sysrammer writes: The president doubled down on his claims that critical media coverage of him is "illegal." ...
President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that critical television coverage of him is “illegal” and pushed back on criticisms that his administration was taking actions that chill free speech.
“When 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it’s no longer free speech,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, complaining about an apparent asymmetry between his victory in the 2024 election and his treatment by media organizations. It was not immediately clear what statistics or laws he was referencing.

Submission + - Color-changing organogel stretches 46 times its size and self-heals (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists from Taiwan have developed a new material that can stretch up to 4,600% of its original length before breaking. Even if it does break, gently pressing the pieces together at room temperature allows it to heal, fully restoring its shape and stretchability within 10 minutes.

Submission + - Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery (neowin.net)

Submitted by darwinmac
darwinmac writes: Firefox 141 rolled out a shiny new AI-powered smart tab grouping feature (it tries to auto-organize your tabs using a local model), but it turns out the local "Inference" process that powers it is acting like an energy-sucking monster. Users are reporting massive CPU spikes and battery drain and calling the feature "garbage" thats ruining their browsing experience.

As one Redditor puts it: "I dont want this garbage bloating my browser, blowing up my CPU, and killing my battery life. There is absolutely no reason for it, its not a good feature, and its absolutely humiliating for Firefox to be jumping on this bandwagon. The point of a browser is to DOWNLOAD AND RENDER WEB PAGES."

If your laptops fans sound like a jet taking off, you can kill the AI tab groups by heading to about:config and setting browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled to false.

Might be worth keeping that in mind before letting generative AI roam free in your browser.

Submission + - OpenAI ChatGPT o3 caught sabotaging shutdown in terrifying AI test (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: OpenAI has a very scary problem on its hands. A new experiment by PalisadeAI reveals that the companyâ(TM)s ChatGPT o3 model sometimes refuses to obey a basic instruction to shut itself down. The results are raising eyebrows across the AI safety community, and not because the model is alive, but because itâ(TM)s acting like it wants to be.

In the test, the model was given a few math problems. It was told that asking for one more would lead to a shutdown. It was even instructed to allow the shutdown to happen. Instead of complying, o3 occasionally took matters into its own hands. In some cases, it rewrote the shutdown script. In others, it redefined the kill command so it wouldnâ(TM)t work anymore.

Out of 100 trials, o3 sabotaged the shutdown seven times. OpenAIâ(TM)s o4 model resisted just once. Codex-mini failed twelve times. Claude, Gemini, and Grok followed the rules every time.

Submission + - Elon Muskâ(TM)s xAI admits Grok AI was manipulated after South Africa genoc (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: xAI is under fire after it revealed an employee tampered with Grok, its controversial AI bot on X, forcing it to make a statement about the South African genocide situation. According to xAI, the incident happened on May 14 at around 3:15 AM PST. An employee made an unauthorized change to Grokâ(TM)s prompt, instructing it to deliver a predetermined answer on a sensitive political issue. This goes against the companyâ(TM)s stated values and policies.

The company admits the prompt change somehow skipped its normal code review process. xAI now says itâ(TM)s tightening up its procedures. From now on, every Grok system prompt will be published publicly on GitHub. You can access them here. Anyone can look at them and even give feedback. xAI wants this transparency to help win back some trust in Grok as a so-called truth-seeking AI.

To prevent something like this from happening again, xAI says it will also add extra steps to its internal code review, making it harder for staff to sneak in changes without approval. On top of that, the company is putting together a 24/7 monitoring team. This group will be ready to react if Grok gives another questionable answer that the automatic systems miss.

Submission + - DOGE software engineer's computer infected by info-stealing malware (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by gkelley
gkelley writes: Login credentials belonging to an employee at both the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Department of Government Efficiency have appeared in multiple public leaks from info-stealer malware, a strong indication that devices belonging to him have been hacked in recent years.

Kyle Schutt is a 30-something-year-old software engineer who, according to Dropsite News, gained access in February to a “core financial management system” belonging to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As an employee of DOGE, Schutt accessed FEMA’s proprietary software for managing both disaster and non-disaster funding grants. Under his role at CISA, he likely is privy to sensitive information regarding the security of civilian federal government networks and critical infrastructure throughout the US.

Submission + - US Surrenders the Information War (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by LazLong
LazLong writes: The US is closing the organization within the State Dept charged with countering foreign disinfo campaigns. Along with the earlier closing of Voice of America and cutting funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with this closing we see the US surrender the info space to China, Russia, and Iran.

Submission + - Whistleblower reports terrible things due to DOGE (youtube.com) 9

Submitted by echo123
echo123 writes: NLRB employee Daniel Berulis reports on CNN that within 15 minutes of DOGE staff receiving new accounts with access to highly sensitive Department of Labor (DoL) data, someone within Russia logged in with the correct username and password over 20 times, but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies. Additionally a traffic spike of 10Gb of data exiting DoL was witnessed which is highly unusual activity at anytime.

Also, DOGE is using Starlink to exfiltrate data, and Starlink is known to be hacked by Russia.

He also reports this activity is not limited to the DoL, it has been witnessed across the government I.T. infrastructure, and that sensitive databases have recently been exposed to the open internet.

Daniel Berulis also received a clear message to stop looking. Part of the package he received included drone footage of him walking his dog.

Fast forward to 4min 15seconds if you're in a hurry.

= = =

Via Reuters

Berulis alleged in the affidavit that there are attempted logins to NLRB systems from an IP address in Russia in the days after DOGE accessed the systems. He told Reuters Tuesday that the attempted logins apparently included correct username and password combinations but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies.

Berulis' affidavit said that an effort by him and his colleague to formally investigate and alert the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was disrupted by higher-ups without explanation.

As he and his colleagues prepared to pass information they'd gathered to CISA he received a threatening note taped to the door of his home with photographs of him walking in his neighborhood taken via drone, Andrew Bakaj, Whistleblower Aid's chief legal counsel, said in his submission to Cotton and Warner.

"Unlike any other time previously, there is this fear to speak out because of reprisal," Berulis told Reuters. "We're seeing data that is traditionally safeguarded with the highest standards in the United States government being taken and the people that do try to stop it from happening, the people that are saying no, they're being removed one by one."

via NPR

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is calling for an investigation into DOGE's access to the National Labor Relations Board following exclusive NPR reporting on sensitive data being removed from the agency.

Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., sent a letter Tuesday to acting Inspector General at the Department of Labor Luiz Santos and Ruth Blevins, inspector general at the NLRB, expressing concern that DOGE "may be engaged in technological malfeasance and illegal activity."

"According to NPR and whistleblower disclosures obtained by Committee Democrats, individuals associated with DOGE have attempted to exfiltrate and alter data while also using high-level systems access to remove sensitive information—quite possibly including corporate secrets and details of union activities," Connolly wrote in a letter first shared with NPR. "I also understand that these individuals have attempted to conceal their activities, obstruct oversight, and shield themselves from accountability."

Submission + - Trump to impose 25% to 100% tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, impacting TSMC (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by DrunkenTerror
DrunkenTerror writes: Donald Trump announced plans Monday night to impose massive tariffs on Taiwan-made chips in an attempt to incentivize companies to relocate production to the United States. On the one hand, this could reduce American companies' reliance on Taiwan in general and TSMC in particular. On the other hand, building a semiconductor fab takes three to four years, so the effect of production moving to the US due to tariffs may not be felt for some time.

Submission + - AI has hallucinated a complete academic journal (medium.com)

Submitted by arctother
arctother writes: Fake, AI-generated references have made it into published academic articles, leading AI bots to generate further citations of the same, non-existent journals. Meet "Disaster Studies Quarterly," a completely hallucinated academic journal, with a growing list of citations; Google and Perplexity.AI both take the bait, promising an endless feedback loop of misinformation based on previous hallucinations.

Submission + - Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military draft (thehill.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Senate Democrats have added language to the annual defense authorization bill to require women to register for the draft, prompting a backlash from Republicans and social conservatives and complicating the chances of moving the bill on the Senate floor before Election Day.

Submission + - Senate working to require women to register for Selective Service (cnn.com)

Submitted by nunya_bizns
nunya_bizns writes: "The version of the NDAA that passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week amends the Military Selective Service Act requiring women to register for Selective Service.

Despite being in the Senate bill, Reed suggested that because of GOP opposition to drafting women, it might not survive when a final version of the bill is negotiated between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate.

'That has been a real sore point, that I can’t understand. We have had amendments that would have required women to register and we can’t get any real traction on the other side. We are going to try to do it. It makes sense. The military now is a mixed force,' he said."

Submission + - France Uncovers a Vast Russian Disinformation Campaign In Europe (economist.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Russia hasbeen at the forefront ofinternet disinformationtechniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea. According to French authorities, the Kremlin is at it again. On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries, tied in part to the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the elections to the European Parliament in June. Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat." Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. Over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022. Current traffic to these sites, which exist in various languages including French, German, Polish and English, is low. But French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.

Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organization. [...] As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in theWashington Postin December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarized politics

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