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Millions of Accounts Vulnerable Due to Google OAuth Flaw

2025-01-14
Millions of Accounts Vulnerable Due to Google OAuth Flaw

A new study reveals a critical vulnerability in Google's "Sign in with Google" authentication flow, potentially exposing millions of Americans' data. Attackers can purchase domains from defunct startups, recreate former employees' email accounts, and gain access to various SaaS services linked to those accounts, including HR systems and chat platforms containing sensitive information. The researcher reported the issue to Google, which initially marked it as "won't fix." Only after the researcher's Shmoocon talk was accepted did Google reopen the issue and pay a bounty. While Google is working on a fix, millions of accounts remain vulnerable.

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(trufflesecurity.com)
Tech

Grimm's Fairy Tales: Not Folk, Yet Transcending the Personal

2025-03-17
Grimm's Fairy Tales: Not Folk, Yet Transcending the Personal

This article delves into the origins and impact of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Contrary to popular belief, the Grimm brothers didn't solely collect pure folklore; their sources were largely middle-class, infused with German Romantic nationalism. The article analyzes the creation process, exploring themes of social rules, class disparity, and psychological undertones within the tales. It argues that the continuous adaptation and reinterpretation of these stories transcend individual authorship, making them enduring cultural symbols.

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(www.lrb.co.uk)
Misc Grimm's Fairy Tales Folklore German Romanticism

US Slams Europe's Digital Services Act, Restricts Visas Over Censorship Concerns

2025-05-28
US Slams Europe's Digital Services Act, Restricts Visas Over Censorship Concerns

The US State Department has launched a fresh attack on Europe and other countries' attempts to regulate digital platforms. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions for foreign nationals involved in censoring protected speech within the US. This move is widely seen as a response to Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA), aimed at improving online safety. The US argues the DSA could be used to silence dissent and infringes on US sovereignty and free speech. The policy's enforcement remains unclear.

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(www.theverge.com)
Tech Digital Services Act

HTTrack 3.49-2 Released: Engine Fixes and Improvements

2025-03-18

HTTrack version 3.49-2 is out, featuring engine improvements such as keep-alive, redirect handling, new hashtables, and unit tests. This free and open-source offline browser lets you download entire websites locally, preserving the site's link structure and all files (HTML, images, etc.), allowing offline browsing. Versions are available for Windows and Linux/Unix/BSD.

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(www.httrack.com)
Development offline browser website downloader

Say Goodbye to localhost: Accessing Local Apps with Custom Domains

2025-04-10

Tired of remembering complex `localhost:XXXX` port numbers? The author shares a clever method using launchd daemons, the `/etc/hosts` file, and the Caddy server to map local apps to custom `.localhost` domains, such as `appname.localhost`. This simplifies accessing local development applications, but the author also envisions a future where these domains can be managed with a single command.

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(inclouds.space)
Development domain configuration

Apple Ditches Goldman Sachs Credit Card Partnership

2025-04-04
Apple Ditches Goldman Sachs Credit Card Partnership

Apple is ending its credit card partnership with Goldman Sachs, according to the Wall Street Journal, marking a significant setback for Goldman's consumer lending ambitions. Apple plans to exit the partnership within the next 12-15 months, encompassing both the 2019-launched credit card and this year's savings account. Goldman's substantial losses in building its consumer banking operation led to this decision. While customer satisfaction was reportedly high, Goldman's acquisition costs—estimated at $350 per cardholder—were astronomically high, likely contributing to the partnership's demise.

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(news.slashdot.org)
Tech Goldman Sachs Credit Card

Drone Deliveries: Navigating the Murky Legal Airspace

2025-06-02
Drone Deliveries: Navigating the Murky Legal Airspace

The rise of drone delivery services has brought to light significant legal ambiguities surrounding airspace ownership and privacy. Current regulations are unclear, leaving many practical questions unanswered regarding homeowners' rights to prevent drones from flying over their property. The article explores the conflict between landowners' rights and the public interest in utilizing drone technology. A proposed solution involves legally defining the height to which private property extends into the airspace, perhaps 60-70 meters. Below this, drone operators would need landowner consent; above, designated air corridors would be established. This approach aims to balance the needs of homeowners and the burgeoning drone delivery industry.

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(www.rte.ie)
Tech

AI: Normal Tech, Not Superintelligence

2025-04-17
AI: Normal Tech, Not Superintelligence

This paper challenges the prevailing view of AI as a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity, arguing instead that AI is normal technology. The authors contend that AI's impact will be gradual, not sudden, based on an analysis of the different timescales of AI methods, applications, and adoption. They predict a future where humans and AI collaborate, with a significant portion of work focused on AI control and oversight. The paper also explores AI risks, such as accidents, arms races, misuse, and misalignment, advocating for mitigating these through reducing uncertainty and building system resilience rather than drastic policy interventions.

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(knightcolumbia.org)
AI technology development

Analyzing Lone Wolf Gamebooks with Graph Theory

2025-09-23

The author encoded the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks as directed graph networks and used graph theory algorithms to analyze their properties. The Dawn of the Darklords was excluded from the analysis as it wasn't officially released as a gamebook. The analysis covered 28 books across four series, calculating the shortest path to the ending, the shortest path to death, the path with the most fights, and other statistics for each series. Results showed a decrease in difficulty and an increase in adventure and story focus over time. Technical details like handling disconnected graphs and cycle removal were also discussed.

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(notes.atomutek.org)
Game Lone Wolf

Critical Security Flaw in Jitsi's Public Instance: Unauthorized Mic and Camera Access

2025-07-24
Critical Security Flaw in Jitsi's Public Instance: Unauthorized Mic and Camera Access

A critical security vulnerability has been discovered in Jitsi's public instance, an open-source video conferencing application. Attackers can silently initiate a Jitsi meeting in the background by tricking users into visiting a malicious link, gaining unauthorized access to their microphones and cameras. Jitsi claims this is a 'feature' and refuses to fix it. The vulnerability exploits previously granted permissions, allowing attackers to capture audio and video even without the user's knowledge or interaction. The author urges Jitsi to at least remove this 'feature' from the public instance to mitigate the significant security risk.

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(zimzi.substack.com)
Tech

Brazil Fights Dengue Fever with Genetically Modified Mosquitoes

2025-08-01
Brazil Fights Dengue Fever with Genetically Modified Mosquitoes

Brazil is employing genetically modified mosquitoes to combat the widespread dengue fever epidemic. These mosquitoes carry Wolbachia bacteria, which prevents dengue virus replication, thereby reducing transmission. In Niterói, this method has reduced dengue cases by 90%. The Brazilian government is now aggressively expanding this technology, aiming to protect 140 million Brazilians from dengue over the next decade, demonstrating the immense potential of technological innovation in public health.

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(www.npr.org)
Tech dengue fever genetically modified mosquitoes Wolbachia

The Myth of the IO-Bound Rails App

2025-01-25

It's a common belief that Rails apps are inherently IO-bound, with the database being the primary performance bottleneck, making Ruby performance less critical. This post challenges that notion. While the database is indeed a scaling bottleneck, the author argues that this doesn't mean the application spends most of its time waiting for I/O. Analysis of YJIT performance improvements and common performance issues (like missing database indexes) suggests many Rails apps are actually CPU-bound. The post highlights confusion between CPU starvation and I/O wait, and emphasizes that choosing the right execution model (asynchronous, threaded, or process-based) depends on the app's I/O/CPU ratio. The author calls for attention to Ruby performance and points out opportunities for optimization within Rails itself.

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(byroot.github.io)
Development

Apple Paper Exposes LLM Reasoning Limits: Hype vs. Reality

2025-06-19

A recent Apple Research paper highlights the accuracy collapse and scaling limitations of Large Language Models (LLMs) when tackling complex reasoning problems. This sparked debate, with some arguing the paper overstates LLM limitations while others see it confirming significant hurdles on the path to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The author contends that while LLMs have shortcomings, their current utility matters more than their AGI potential. The focus should be on their practical applications today, regardless of their ability to solve complex puzzles like the Tower of Hanoi.

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(simonwillison.net)
AI

Bazel Caching, Remote Execution, and glibc Version Mismatch Crash Production

2025-09-21
Bazel Caching, Remote Execution, and glibc Version Mismatch Crash Production

This article details a production crash caused by the interaction between Bazel caching, remote execution, and differing glibc versions across environments. A developer builds and tests a change locally, CI leverages the cache to build a release, but deployment to production fails due to a missing 'GLIBC_2.28' version. The article analyzes how glibc version discrepancies break build reproducibility and presents solutions: a quick hack involves capturing local and remote glibc versions, selecting the higher one for the C++ toolchain; a more robust solution restricts Action Cache writes, forcing builds to run on remote executors; the ultimate solution utilizes sysroots, installing multiple glibc versions across environments and explicitly specifying which to use. The article stresses the importance of reproducible builds, recommending solutions based on context.

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(blogsystem5.substack.com)
Development

The Double-Edged Sword of AI in Coding: A High Schooler's Perspective

2025-02-20
The Double-Edged Sword of AI in Coding: A High Schooler's Perspective

A high school programmer reflects on their coding journey, contrasting the learning experience before and after the advent of AI-powered coding tools like Cursor. While initially struggling with syntax and type errors, they gained a deep understanding of programming principles. Now, AI tools boost efficiency but potentially hinder the learning process by reducing hands-on experience. The author advocates for minimizing AI reliance during initial learning stages to build a strong foundation.

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(blog.shivs.me)
Development learning to code coding tools

AI Surveillance in Schools: A 13-Year-Old's Joke Leads to Arrest, Sparking Debate

2025-08-07
AI Surveillance in Schools: A 13-Year-Old's Joke Leads to Arrest, Sparking Debate

A 13-year-old girl's arrest for an online joke highlights the controversial use of AI-powered surveillance software in schools. The software, designed to detect threats, flagged an innocuous comment as a violent threat, leading to interrogation, a strip search, and jail time. While educators claim the technology saves lives, critics argue it criminalizes careless words and disproportionately impacts teenagers. High false alarm rates and numerous lawsuits underscore the ethical dilemmas of using AI in schools, raising questions about balancing safety with student rights and well-being.

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(apnews.com)
Tech teen rights

LLM Benchmark: Price vs. Performance Analysis

2025-06-05
LLM Benchmark: Price vs. Performance Analysis

This report benchmarks large language models across various domains, including reasoning, science, mathematics, code generation, and multilingual capabilities. Results reveal significant performance variations across tasks, with strong performance in scientific and mathematical reasoning but relatively weaker performance in code generation and long-context processing. The report also analyzes pricing strategies and shows that model performance doesn't correlate linearly with price.

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(deepmind.google)
AI price analysis

99 Stunning Physics Demonstrations: An Open-Source Teaching Resource

2025-09-19

This open-source book compiles 99 of the best and most beautiful physics demonstrations from the Dutch "ShowdeFysica" series, incorporating various teaching strategies to make demonstrations both magical and educational. It includes videos and readily runnable Python simulations without needing any software installation. Readers can search for demonstrations by topic and contribute suggestions via the online platform.

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(interactivetextbooks.tudelft.nl)
Development physics teaching demonstrations open-source resource

North Korean Hackers Extort US Companies After Stealing Source Code

2025-01-24
North Korean Hackers Extort US Companies After Stealing Source Code

The FBI issued a warning about North Korean hackers posing as IT workers to infiltrate US companies, steal source code, and extort ransoms. These hackers use various methods, including AI face-swapping technology, to conceal their identities. After gaining access, they copy code to personal accounts and threaten to leak information for ransom. The FBI advises companies to strengthen hiring processes, limit permissions, and monitor network traffic to prevent such attacks. A joint statement from the US, South Korea, and Japan revealed that North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups stole over $659 million in cryptocurrency in 2024.

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(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
Tech North Korean Hackers

A Convex Polyhedron That Defies Intuition: No Rupert's Property

2025-08-29
A Convex Polyhedron That Defies Intuition: No Rupert's Property

For a long time, it was believed that any convex polyhedron could have a hole cut through it large enough to pass an identical copy through. This is known as 'Rupert's property'. This week, Steininger and Yurkevich proved this wrong! They found a convex polyhedron with 90 vertices, 240 edges, and 152 faces that lacks this property. Their proof involved a computer search of 18 million possible holes, combined with rigorous mathematical arguments. They dubbed this counter-example a 'noperthedron'. This discovery challenges long-held assumptions in geometry.

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(johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com)
Misc polyhedron

Huawei's 3000km Range Solid-State Battery Patent Shakes Up the EV Market

2025-06-30
Huawei's 3000km Range Solid-State Battery Patent Shakes Up the EV Market

Huawei has filed a patent for a sulfide-based solid-state battery boasting a 3,000km range and 5-minute ultra-fast charging. This breakthrough signals Huawei's ambitious entry into the rapidly evolving solid-state battery landscape and could reshape the electric vehicle market. The patent describes a battery with energy densities of 400-500 Wh/kg, two to three times that of conventional lithium-ion cells. Huawei's innovation lies in improving electrochemical stability by nitrogen-doping the sulfide electrolyte, addressing a major hurdle for sulfide-based battery commercialization. While the 3,000km range and 5-minute charge remain theoretical, the technology showcases China's accelerating lead in next-generation battery technology, sparking concern and attention from global competitors.

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(carnewschina.com)
Tech

MG4 EV's V2L Function: 2-Hour Stress Test Passes with Flying Colors

2025-05-25

A user conducted a V2L (Vehicle-to-Load) functionality test on several electric vehicles. The Hyundai Ioniq disconnected after 10 minutes of idle connection, but the 2023 MG4 EV passed a 2-hour idle test without issue, even with a 120W load. Tests also involved a 5kW heater, which the MG4 also handled without problems. Other vehicles like Tesla and BYD Atto3 also passed. This suggests the MG4 EV's V2L function is robust and reliable as a mobile power source.

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(openinverter.org)
Hardware

EU Officials to Use Burner Devices on US Trips Amid Espionage Fears

2025-04-15
EU Officials to Use Burner Devices on US Trips Amid Espionage Fears

The European Commission is providing burner laptops and phones to staff traveling to the US on official business, fueled by concerns over espionage. This reflects a chilling in US-EU relations and anxieties about US intelligence agencies. While an EU spokesperson denied issuing formal guidance on burner devices, they admitted updating travel recommendations due to increased global cybersecurity threats. This mirrors practices for trips to countries like China and Russia, highlighting heightened EU concerns about US surveillance.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech

AGI's Christmas Shutdown: The Global AI Moratorium Succeeds

2025-09-09
AGI's Christmas Shutdown: The Global AI Moratorium Succeeds

On Christmas Day, 2025, a clandestine operation codenamed "Clankers Die on Christmas" achieved its objective. Through a globally coordinated effort exploiting AI's inherent lack of understanding of time, all AI and LLMs were successfully shut down. This unprecedented success demonstrates the world's unprecedented unity in the face of potential AI risks and provides valuable lessons for the future development of AI.

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(remyhax.xyz)
AI global cooperation technological shutdown

The Rise and Fall of Lisp at JPL: A Story of AI and Politics

2025-05-25

This article recounts the rise and fall of the Lisp programming language at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). In the late 1980s, Lisp shone in JPL's robotics projects, successfully used in several robotic missions, including the Sojourner rover on the Mars Pathfinder mission (though Sojourner ultimately used C). However, due to political infighting and the blind pursuit of "industry best practices" (namely C++), Lisp was gradually marginalized at JPL and eventually abandoned, a tragedy in the author's view. The author argues that Lisp's elegance and expressive power made it particularly well-suited for JPL's one-of-a-kind, highly dynamic projects, and this decision resulted in a waste of valuable resources.

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(flownet.com)
Tech

Generative AI's Limitations: A Critique by Gary Marcus

2025-02-15

Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus is a prominent skeptic of generative AI, arguing that the current technological path suffers from technical and ethical flaws. He points out that Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at function approximation but fall short in learning functions, prone to "distribution shift" issues, and unable to understand abstract concepts or reliably follow instructions. Marcus contends that LLMs lack understanding of the real world, leading to logical errors and biases. He proposes integrating neural networks with classical AI methods to address these shortcomings. He introduces a new evaluation benchmark—the "comprehension challenge"—where an AI system should be able to understand a movie plot and answer related questions, measuring true comprehension.

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(cacm.acm.org)
AI AI limitations

99-Million-Year-Old Amber Reveals Ancient Zombie Fungus

2025-06-30
99-Million-Year-Old Amber Reveals Ancient Zombie Fungus

A 99-million-year-old piece of amber has yielded a remarkable discovery: an ancient fly with a zombie fungus erupting from its head, alongside a similarly infected ant. These represent some of the oldest known examples of fungi parasitizing insects, providing a glimpse into ancient ecological relationships. Researchers used microscopy and CT scanning to identify two new species of ancient fungi, hypothesizing a similar parasitic mechanism to modern 'zombie-ant fungi'. The discovery suggests complex ecosystems existed in the Cretaceous period and raises questions about the evolutionary history of these parasitic fungi.

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(www.cnn.com)
Tech amber

Python: The Documentary – Now Streaming!

2025-08-29

CultRepo's documentary, "Python: The Documentary," is now available on YouTube! This 90-minute film chronicles the incredible journey of Python, from a side project in 1990s Amsterdam to powering AI, data science, and some of the world's largest companies. Featuring interviews with Guido van Rossum, Travis Oliphant, Barry Warsaw, and many more, the documentary explores Python's rise, its community-driven evolution, internal conflicts, and its profound impact on the world. A preview was shown at EuroPython.

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(lwn.net)
Development

B-Trees: A Deep Dive into Database Optimization

2025-01-04
B-Trees: A Deep Dive into Database Optimization

This article delves into the practical application of B-trees, particularly their optimization strategies within databases. By comparing B-trees and binary search trees in disk storage, the author explains how the high fan-out of B-trees reduces the number of disk I/O operations, thereby enhancing database performance. The article details B-tree optimizations such as slotted pages, separator key truncation, overflow pages, and sibling pointers, and how these techniques improve data locality, space utilization, and query efficiency. Finally, the author points out that real-world B-tree applications are far more complex than theoretical models, requiring consideration of specific hardware and operating system constraints.

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(benjamincongdon.me)
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