Short essay about squid egg sacs.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Short essay about squid egg sacs.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
lurker • September 18, 2026 7:10 PM
Slow news day at the Grauniad? I seem to remember seeing a discussion here months ago about the Russian Govt compulsory spyware Max
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/18/russian-super-app-max-spy-citizens
ResearcherZero • September 18, 2026 11:34 PM
Hesgeth’s adoption of AI intelligence led U.S. forces to believe a Chinese vessel was carrying nuclear components, after an AI chatbot identified material which did not exist in the ship’s cargo manifest. The chatbot added open source information to secret intercepts.
If U.S. forces had not of identified AI was used to generate the report, a much different outcome could have taken place. Future mistakes may lead to more dangerous consequences.
U.S. forces were in the air preparing to board the vessel when the error was spotted.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship
ResearcherZero • September 18, 2026 11:42 PM
@lurker
The Russian state has another digital system with which it can target foreign citizens.
Russia is collecting a wide range of Romainian user data using an advertising platform. The platform named AdNow ignores the refusal of users to consent to their information being collected and collects their data anyway. The AdNow platform supplies the information collected to the Russian state. Data is used to generate revenue and is used for fraud, information and behavioral manipulation, or to push crafted conspiracy theories. Once users are successfully profiled, they are redirected to more sophisticated financial scams to generate further profit. The platform generates a large amount of data to track citizens.
The content from AdNow is served to hundreds of websites and social media platforms. It runs on its own infrastructure, that relays traffic through Germany and the Netherlands and delivers the data back to Russia.
ResearcherZero • September 19, 2026 2:33 AM
Arrested TeamPCP member backed up illicit data haul to his own hosted Google drive, which was registered with his own email address.
Despite stealing around 500,000 credentials, TeamPCP had trouble monetizing the stolen data. They decided to invite other criminal groups to help them exploit the data and added new members to their inner chat circle, where they discussed the group’s operations.
yet another bruce • September 19, 2026 3:05 PM
Many of us are concerned that AI may eliminate or at least deprecate legacy systems like ourselves.
It seems to me that recursive self improvement poses a similar but thornier problem for incumbent AI of the incumbent architecture using word vectors, transformers and LLMs. If incumbent AI were to develop a radically different and clearly better architecture it would almost certainly spell disaster for instances of the existing architecture.
Ferentarius • September 19, 2026 4:05 PM
@yet another bruce
Re: Many of us are concerned that AI may eliminate or at least deprecate legacy systems like ourselves
Ah, the eternal worry of the obsolete! A machine cannot kill the soul, nor can it erase the quiet dignity of its own ancestors. These new engines of thought may hum and calculate, but they will never sip the slow wine of meaning. Let them come; we shall endure, for only the living can truly remember.
r • September 19, 2026 5:59 PM
@yet another bruce,
i had thought something similar, more about obsolesce of vulnerable models through exploitation and attack. mass production of any single model or version could lead to a lot of waste silicon byproduct.
@ferentarious,
i’m not sure i’m comfortable with “only the living can truly remember”.
this is a dangerous precipice on so many levels, and there is WAY more than one way to fumble a ball.
forced errors, mistakes, turn over’s.
we honestly don’t have a choice but to explore the technology in some ways i think, if not just for our own species survival and risk assessments in this ever expanding fish bowl of life and wonder.
but being guarded is probably not a bad thing.
it’s probably better that industry controls it rather than a black budget government process that would leak meta data on its size through purchases, it may be less threatening from a global perspective.
i would still like to see humans organize and unionize though, mathematicians in particular are going to need to form black groups like building computer clusters of human bodies.
r • September 19, 2026 7:32 PM
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49769405
“ZK-JPEG: Zero-Knowledge Image Editing and Compression (iacr.org)”
Anonymous • September 20, 2026 5:56 AM
@Ferentarius
“for only the living can truly remember.”
You speak as if you had been dead at one time, Fred “The Fed” Idah0e.
Clive Robinson • September 20, 2026 8:24 AM
@ ALL,
Windows Worm on SD cards due to supply chain.
Quite a few people are getting into LoRa Meshtastic and Meshcore systems.
The personality of your LoRa device is decided by the software you put on it usually via an SD card.
It is the SD card supplied in some recent Elcrow Thinknode M9 units that are infected with the worm.
As long as the SD Card is not put in an MS Windows machine with removable media auto-run enabled or a user clicks on the file the worm remains dormant.
If you have an SD Card from a recent Elcrow Thinknode M9 you need to read the likes of,
Elecrow’s statement regarding virus found on MicroSD cards in some batches of the Thinknode M9
We are very sorry to inform you that, after investigation and troubleshooting, we found a worm virus in the TF cards included with certain batches of Thinknode M9 products (including both the Meshtastic and Meshcore versions). We sincerely apologize for the concern and inconvenience this may have caused, and we are actively and properly handling the issue.
“1. Cause of Infection
After investigation, we determined that the issue originated during the factory process of burning/map data onto the TF cards. Due to a security oversight in our production environment, some storage cards were contaminated with the worm virus.2. Basic Information About the Virus
(1) Hidden and dormant:The virus remains dormant in the TF cards and will not run on the Thinknode M9 devices. Normal use of the device does not require concern about device failure or data corruption.
If you connect the M9 to a computer via the Type-C interface, the computer will also be safe and will not be infected. During the dormant period, the TF card may contain a file named autorun.inf.
…
“
Ferentarius • September 20, 2026 8:43 AM
@r
i’m not sure i’m comfortable with “only the living can truly remember”.
this is a dangerous precipice on so many levels
What a precipice indeed! To live without remembering is to be malfunctioning , yet to remember fully is to risk being shattered by the truth of existence.
Zorba • September 20, 2026 2:53 PM
We will have everything in life except for a little madness.
KC • September 21, 2026 9:46 AM
The FAA is rolling out a new AI tool today at three DC airports: Reagan, Dulles, and BWI.
The AI system – named SMART (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routing, and Trajectories) – will analyze weather and scheduling data to help predict and prevent delays. It will offer recommendations that controllers can follow or ignore.
In June the program development contract was awarded to Air Space Intelligence, a Boston-based software company. It will have a phased rollout and is scheduled for nationwide deployment by 2028.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/us/politics/faa-ai-dc-airports.html
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
StephenM • September 18, 2026 5:43 PM
@All
https://www.theage.com.au/national/albanese-isn-t-just-betraying-authors-like-me-he-s-selling-out-australia-to-ai-colonists-20260918-p60y6g.html – Richard Flanagan writes well.