Comment Watch The Pirate Bay: The Movie (Score 1) 13
The Pirate Bay: The Movie coming soon to a torrent site near you.
Submission + - Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing (science.org) 1
schwit1 writes: By restoring some functions to intact brains from deceased donors, the startup Bexorg hopes to create a better drug development test bed for neurodegenerative diseases
Comment "The reason why" lost in final work product (Score 2) 84
Look at most instruction manuals. Look at most architectural blueprints. Look at a schematic. Look at a recipe book. Look at most other "work products" that amount to human-readable instruction manuals.
Now look for the "why". "Why are we doing this in the first place." "Why did we do it this way vs. the various alternatives." Etc.
Sometimes you will see the "why" but most of the time you won't.
At least code has the advantage of having a mechanism to put the documentation near the relevant portion of the final work product.
Submission + - Wi-Fi Routers Can Scan Your Body to Identify Exactly Who You Are (futurism.com) 1
JoeyRox writes: New research out of Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that the types of Wi-Fi routers we all have in our homes come with a major privacy vulnerability that can be used to identify any human body that comes within their range.
The study, flagged by Gizmodo, used machine learning systems to identify individuals with an accuracy rate of 99.5 percent. To do so, the researchers exploited a vulnerability in a process known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which was introduced to allow routers to focus Wi-Fi signals on connected devices, as opposed to the older approach, which is to blanket an entire area in coverage.
While BFI is great for network connectivity, it has a major downsides for privacy. For starters, devices connected to a router using beamforming need to send constant feedback in order to be found. As routers send out and receive network feedback, the signal is inevitably impacted by real world factors like pets, walls, and people.
Making matters worse is the fact that this data is basically wide open for anyone to grab — not only is that feedback data unencrypted, it can also be accessed without ever connecting directly to the router.
The study, flagged by Gizmodo, used machine learning systems to identify individuals with an accuracy rate of 99.5 percent. To do so, the researchers exploited a vulnerability in a process known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which was introduced to allow routers to focus Wi-Fi signals on connected devices, as opposed to the older approach, which is to blanket an entire area in coverage.
While BFI is great for network connectivity, it has a major downsides for privacy. For starters, devices connected to a router using beamforming need to send constant feedback in order to be found. As routers send out and receive network feedback, the signal is inevitably impacted by real world factors like pets, walls, and people.
Making matters worse is the fact that this data is basically wide open for anyone to grab — not only is that feedback data unencrypted, it can also be accessed without ever connecting directly to the router.
Submission + - I found a second vote.gov -- and it's registered to the White House
As_I_Please writes: The Drey Dossier reports that the National Design Studio, an office created by executive order and which reports only to the White House, has been building copies of federal agency websites like vote.gov, passports.gov, login.gov and others.
What [the National Design Studio] is doing is taking the parts of the federal government that touch you directly, your prescription, your voter registration, your passport, your federal login, out of the agencies that legally own them and rebuilding them on White House infrastructure. Vote.gov belongs to the Election Assistance Commission, and the studio built a copy. Passports belong to the State Department, and the studio is building a replacement this week. Login.gov belonged to GSA, and the studio’s guy runs it now.
Trump has said publicly that this infrastructure is for other presidents, and he is right about that. It is the one thing in this story I take him at his word on. The infrastructure outlasts him. Whoever wins in 2028 inherits the websites, the vendors, the data, and the hardware, sealed and waiting.
NDS Infrastructure Map — my live working github map of every National Design Studio subdomain I have found, filterable by status, registrant, and parent domain. If you want to retrace this investigation or watch new subdomains appear in real time, start here.
Submission + - POLLS: Pope Leo XIV's Encyclical Letter on AI
theodp writes: My knowledge of Pope Leo XIV's AI encyclical letter comes from:
* A full reading of the 42,000-word letter
* News report summaries
* Social media (TikTok, Instagram, X)
* Search engine AI summaries
* "What you talkin' bout, Willis?"
* A full reading of the 42,000-word letter
* News report summaries
* Social media (TikTok, Instagram, X)
* Search engine AI summaries
* "What you talkin' bout, Willis?"
Comment Shark-skin in water (Score 1) 1
Sounds like the "for air" version of shark skin.
Comment Linux vs. BSD ex-macOS/Android/ioT/Chromebook? (Score 1) 66
Take all the iOT devices and Android devices and Chromebooks out of the picture, and Linux ends up actually being less popular than *BSD (because of macOS).
And if you take out macOS as well, then what?
Comment Likely on TOR or similar hidden-internet already (Score 3, Insightful) 54
If it's not, it soon will be.
Comment Low energy density (Score 1) 2
The energy density is 48.3âWh/kg.
Lithium-ion is better than 100 Wh/kg.
Imagine doubling the weight of your battery pack - or more. Probably not a problem for fixed-location batteries, but it's an issue if they are part of a moving vehicle.
Comment Win the battle, lose the war (Score 3, Insightful) 66
Companies that haven't done so already will stop making new products that are impacted by viral licenses.
Comment Waiting for a "human pretending to be AI" to win (Score 2) 61
I'm waiting for a well-known human author to "learn the style" of AI well enough to craft a "good enough to win an award" AI-unassisted story that all the major AI-detectors flag as "very high probability this is written by an AI."
Of course it probably won't happen with any well-known author. Learning someone - or someTHING - else's style could be hard to un-learn. You don't want your future books being tainted by the "this smells like AI" stink.
Comment Life sentence for jaywalking (Score 1) 29
Well, that would be a form of Justice.
Comment Give me an isolated clone (Score 1) 69
Offer me a local or rented-tenant isolated clone of ChatGPT that is under my control, then we'll talk.
Oh, and my agents, be they human or computer, should only get "read" access, which means my financial institutions will need to provide a credentials that only have read access.
Bottom line:
* I don't trust AI not to try to make changes to my account, but I do trust my financial institutions to not allow a "read-only" login to make changes.
* I don't trust ChatGPT or the other big-name AI companies with my data any more than I have to. Maybe someday, when there are laws in place that have been tested in court, but until then, not so much.
Comment My next car will be Chinese :) (Score 3, Insightful) 122
That way I can guarantee that it won't be "connected."
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