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Python's Official Docs Contain Textbook XSS Vulnerability

2025-02-23

Python's Official Docs Contain Textbook XSS Vulnerability

Security researcher Georgi Guninski discovered a critical cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in a code example within the Python 3.12 official documentation's CGI module. The vulnerability stems from directly outputting user-supplied form data without any sanitization. This poses a significant risk to Python web development and potentially impacts AI-generated code like that from ChatGPT and Deepseek. While the CGI module is removed in Python 3.13, a substantial amount of legacy code remains vulnerable.

(seclists.org)

Development

Stop Asking 'Can I?', Start Saying 'I Will': A Bias for Action

2025-02-23

Instead of constantly seeking approval, take initiative and inform your boss of your plans with a deadline. This article uses the author's experience in small companies (<200 employees) to illustrate a 'proactive' strategy: for tasks within your scope, act first, give your boss veto power, and set a clear deadline. This increases efficiency and avoids delays caused by waiting for approvals. This method ensures progress while keeping the boss informed and allowing for feedback.

(www.mooreds.com)

Development proactiveness

Penn Cuts Grad Admissions Amidst Federal Research Funding Cuts

2025-02-23

Penn Cuts Grad Admissions Amidst Federal Research Funding Cuts

The University of Pennsylvania has slashed graduate admissions across its School of Arts and Sciences due to federal research funding cuts, prompting outrage from faculty. Departments were instructed to drastically reduce admissions, even rescinding offers to students already accepted. Professors criticized the lack of transparency and warned of severe impacts on research and education. The cuts are linked to a proposed $240 million reduction from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but speculation also includes possible connections to graduate student unionization efforts or decreased support for humanities. The situation highlights the precarious financial situation facing higher education institutions.

(www.thedp.com)

Tech graduate admissions university funding

LLVM Static Analyzer Integrates Z3 Solver: Eliminating False Positives

2025-02-23

LLVM's static analyzer now supports the Z3 constraint solver, significantly improving its ability to filter out false positives. The article demonstrates two methods of using Z3: as an external solver and for refuting false positives. The first method, while completely eliminating false positives, is significantly slower (approximately 15x). The second method, using Z3 for refutation, is faster and more efficient in reducing false positives. Experiments show that enabling Z3 allows the LLVM static analyzer to accurately identify and avoid false positives caused by bitwise operations, resulting in more reliable analysis.

(www.cambus.net)

Development static analysis

13 Plays to Build Great Government Digital Services

2025-02-23

This article outlines 13 key steps for building excellent government digital services. It covers user needs research, end-to-end experience design, simple and intuitive interfaces, agile iterative development, budget and contract management, team leadership and member selection, technology stack selection, flexible hosting environments, automated testing and deployment, security and privacy management, data-driven decision-making, and open principles. Each step provides a detailed checklist and key questions to help government agencies build user-centered, efficient, reliable, and secure digital services, ultimately improving the public service experience.

(playbook.usds.gov)

Development digital services

Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview: Conquer the Modern Tech Job Hunt

2025-02-23

Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview: Conquer the Modern Tech Job Hunt

The sequel to the iconic 'Cracking the Coding Interview' is here! 'Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview' tackles the evolved landscape of tech interviews, offering more than 150 new problems with detailed walkthroughs, leveraging data from 100,000+ mock interviews. It goes beyond coding, guiding readers through the entire job search process, from resume optimization and negotiation strategies to understanding company interview rubrics and navigating the psychological challenges of the process. Learn to work smarter, not harder, and land your dream tech job.

(interviewing.io)

Development Interview Prep

Humanity's Broken Superpower: Cultural Evolution's Breakdown

2025-02-23

Humanity's Broken Superpower: Cultural Evolution's Breakdown

This article explores a largely unknown crisis: humanity's cultural evolution mechanism may have broken down. The author uses the analogy of a car, with cultural evolution as its engine. Historically, diverse cultures and strong selective pressures ensured stable progress. However, globalization and technological advancement have led to cultural homogenization and weakened selection pressures. Cultural evolution now lags far behind environmental change, potentially leading to civilizational decline. The article suggests restoring cultural diversity and selection pressures, or fundamentally changing the cultural evolution mechanism, as potential solutions, but both face immense challenges.

(www.overcomingbias.com)

Misc cultural evolution civilizational crisis human future

Confronting a Resistant Engineer: A Leadership Lesson

2025-02-23

Confronting a Resistant Engineer: A Leadership Lesson

This article details a situation where a project manager, Sonia, discovers a bug, but the engineer, Jerry, dismisses it as user error. The author, a leader, initially tries gentle communication, but Jerry's arrogant attitude necessitates a direct confrontation. The problem is resolved, highlighting the importance of direct communication and the need for leaders to address conflict, upholding team decisions and processes. The author emphasizes the need for trust and honest work within a team.

(respectfulleadership.substack.com)

Startup Communication

In Defense of Text Labels: Why Icons Aren't Enough

2025-02-22

In Defense of Text Labels: Why Icons Aren't Enough

This article argues for the importance of text labels alongside icons in user interface design. The author contends that relying solely on icons increases cognitive load, as many icons lack immediate clarity and require extra interpretation, especially in complex interfaces with numerous icons. Text labels efficiently clarify meaning, reducing ambiguity and improving usability. The article also highlights inconsistencies in iconography across different applications, adding to user confusion. Therefore, the author advocates for a combined approach, using both icons and text labels for optimal user experience.

(www.chrbutler.com)

Design Icons Text Labels

curl.se Traffic Analysis: 2TB/day, Where's All the Traffic Coming From?

2025-02-22

curl.se Traffic Analysis: 2TB/day, Where's All the Traffic Coming From?

The curl.se website handles 62.95 TB of traffic per month, averaging over 2 TB per day and peaking at 3.41 TB. While detailed logs are unavailable, data shows that of 12.43 billion requests, only 1.12 million were curl package downloads (less than 10% of total traffic). The vast majority of traffic (99.77%) is handled by the Fastly CDN cache. However, widespread use of HTTP/1.1 and TLS 1.2 suggests a significant amount of non-browser traffic, possibly from bots or other tools. Analysis indicates that 207.31 million downloads of 100KB-1MB files (likely CA certificates) could account for a large portion of the remaining traffic. Traffic is evenly distributed globally, unlike previous concentrations in China.

(daniel.haxx.se)

Tech network traffic

Tetris in PostScript: A Real-time Game in Under 600 Lines

2025-02-22

Tetris in PostScript: A Real-time Game in Under 600 Lines

A developer has implemented a real-time Tetris game using PostScript, remarkably achieving it with only 600 lines of code (around 10KB) and 69 distinct operators. The game features arrow and spacebar controls, increasing game speed, 7 tetrominoes, high scores, and a Nintendo-style scoring system. It runs in GhostView on macOS and draws some implementation inspiration from MeatFighter.

(github.com)

Game Real-time game

OpenBSD's Security Journey: From IPSec to Immutable Memory

2025-02-22

This article details the evolution of software and security concepts developed and maintained by the OpenBSD project, spanning from 1993 to 2024. OpenBSD has consistently been at the forefront of security, and this overview highlights its numerous security features, including IPSec, IPv6, privilege separation, privilege revocation, stack protector, W^X, ASLR, PIE, random-data memory, SROP mitigation, library order randomization, and the cutting-edge immutable memory. These features combine to create OpenBSD's robust security architecture, providing users with a strong security foundation.

(www.openbsd.org)

Tech

Gig Workers Earned Less in 2024 Despite Increased Hours, Report Finds

2025-02-22

Gig Workers Earned Less in 2024 Despite Increased Hours, Report Finds

A new report reveals that gig workers for platforms like Uber, Instacart, and others saw a decrease in average earnings in 2024, even as their hours worked increased in some cases. Uber drivers experienced a 3.4% drop in weekly earnings to $513, while working 0.8% more hours. Lyft drivers saw a steeper 13.9% pay decline, despite a 5.4% reduction in hours. Instacart shoppers also faced an 8% pay cut. While DoorDash and Amazon Flex saw earnings increases, these were accompanied by significant increases in working hours. Only Favor showed a notable increase in pay alongside a decrease in hours worked. The report highlights the significant reliance on tips for delivery workers, contrasting with ride-sharing drivers. Despite this, consumer surveys indicate continued use of these services.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech earnings working hours

2024 Rust Survey Results: Thriving Community, but Compilation Speed Remains a Hurdle

2025-02-22

2024 Rust Survey Results: Thriving Community, but Compilation Speed Remains a Hurdle

The 2024 Rust survey results are in! While participation was slightly lower than last year, the community remains vibrant, and Rust usage continues to grow, especially in professional settings. The survey reveals high satisfaction with Rust's performance and safety, but compilation speed remains a key challenge, followed by debugging support and disk space usage. Encouragingly, many developers are optimistic about Rust's future and look forward to the stabilization of more features, such as async closures.

(blog.rust-lang.org)

Development community survey

Utah Bill Demands Transparency for AI-Generated Police Reports

2025-02-22

Utah Bill Demands Transparency for AI-Generated Police Reports

A Utah Senate bill (S.B. 180) would mandate disclosure when police reports are generated by AI. The bill requires police departments to establish AI usage policies, including disclaimers on AI-generated content and officer certification of accuracy. This follows the rapid spread of Axon's Draft One, which uses bodycam audio to create reports. Critics warn of AI's potential to misinterpret language, provide plausible deniability for officers, and compromise justice. King County, Washington prosecutors have already instructed officers to avoid using the technology. While a step towards regulation, stronger oversight is needed to address the concerns surrounding AI in law enforcement.

(www.eff.org)

Tech AI in law enforcement police reports

NIH Grant Freeze Throws Biomedical Research into Limbo

2025-02-22

NIH Grant Freeze Throws Biomedical Research into Limbo

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has halted consideration of new grant applications, freezing roughly $1.5 billion in funding for about 16,000 research projects. This freeze, stemming from the Trump administration's blocking of new notices in the Federal Register, has sparked widespread concern within the scientific community. While the administration claims the pause is for review, suspicions linger that it's an attempt to circumvent a court order blocking a previous, broader funding freeze. The situation, coupled with previous staff cuts and funding caps, casts a shadow of uncertainty over the future of biomedical research in the US, raising fears of disruption and potential restructuring of the NIH.

(www.npr.org)

Tech biomedical research

Exult 1.10.1 Released: Fixing Ultima VII Compatibility Issues

2025-02-22

The Exult project recently released version 1.10.1, fixing crashes in the Windows version caused by older CPU incompatibility, and the inability to install mods on the Android version. The project aims to bring the classic RPG Ultima VII to modern operating systems, constantly improving the gaming experience. The latest release also features new icons and improved combat mechanics.

(exult.sourceforge.io)

Game Game Port

1787 Constitution Signing: A Dawn or Dusk?

2025-02-22

1787 Constitution Signing: A Dawn or Dusk?

September 17, 1787 marked the end of the US Constitutional Convention. Despite three delegates refusing to sign, Franklin's heartfelt speech and Washington's support secured the Constitution's passage. A proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives passed unanimously. However, the signing wasn't the final victory; the real challenge lay ahead in convincing the American people to embrace this new government, leaving its future uncertain.

(www.nps.gov)

Misc US History Constitutional Convention US Constitution

Windows 11 2024 Update: A Bug-Filled Mess?

2025-02-22

Windows 11 2024 Update: A Bug-Filled Mess?

Microsoft's 2024 Windows 11 update continues to be plagued with issues. The February Patch Tuesday update (KB5051987), intended to fix bugs, has instead introduced new problems, including File Explorer malfunctions, installation glitches, and more. While the update addressed some issues with digital audio converters, USB audio drivers, USB cameras, and passkeys, and patched security vulnerabilities, many users report File Explorer failing to respond when opening folders, accessing it via shortcuts or Windows Search, or displaying subfolders. Installation problems include the update stopping at 96% or getting stuck at 0%. Other glitches include mouse stuttering, undetectable cameras, and .NET app installation failures within Windows Sandbox. While not all users experience these issues, the problems highlight the instability of the Windows 11 2024 version, demanding swift action from Microsoft to ensure system stability and reliability.

(www.zdnet.com)

Tech Bugs System Update

Reliable Data Replication from PostgreSQL to ClickHouse using PeerDB

2025-02-22

Reliable Data Replication from PostgreSQL to ClickHouse using PeerDB

This article demonstrates how to reliably replicate data from PostgreSQL to ClickHouse using PeerDB, a change data capture (CDC) solution specializing in PostgreSQL. It compares self-hosted open-source PeerDB with a fully managed version integrated into ClickHouse Cloud (via ClickPipes). Core concepts like creating peers, mirrors, and data transformations are explained, along with a step-by-step deployment and configuration guide. Whether using the open-source or managed route, PeerDB offers a highly performant and reliable data replication solution for PostgreSQL and ClickHouse users.

(benjaminwootton.com)

Development data replication

SimpleWall: A Lightweight Alternative to Windows Firewall

2025-02-22

SimpleWall: A Lightweight Alternative to Windows Firewall

SimpleWall is a lightweight (<1MB) Windows firewall alternative compatible with Windows 7 SP1 and later. Based on the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP), it lets users create custom network rules, block Windows telemetry, and supports features like WSL. It boasts a simple interface, supports permanent and temporary rules, and requires manual filter disabling upon uninstallation. SimpleWall works independently of Windows Firewall and is free and open-source.

(github.com)

Development windows

The 1561 Nuremberg Celestial Event: UFOs or Atmospheric Phenomena?

2025-02-22

The 1561 Nuremberg Celestial Event: UFOs or Atmospheric Phenomena?

On April 14, 1561, a mass sighting of unusual celestial phenomena occurred over Nuremberg. A woodcut broadsheet depicts hundreds of spheres, cylinders, and other objects engaging in what appeared to be an aerial battle. While some interpret this as evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft, skeptics attribute the event to atmospheric phenomena like sun dogs. Carl Jung offered a perspective suggesting a natural event overlaid with religious and military interpretations, leaving the true nature of the 1561 Nuremberg event a subject of ongoing debate.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Misc Celestial Event Historical Mystery

Saving Endangered Languages with a Cassette Tape Restorer

2025-02-22

Saving Endangered Languages with a Cassette Tape Restorer

The PARADISEC project uses a newly developed LM-3032 tape restorer to repair thousands of hours of precious audio recordings, encompassing 1360+ languages, many of which are endangered. This machine utilizes a special lubricant to fix unplayable tapes degraded by age, rescuing songs, stories, and memories. The project allows future generations to hear the voices of their ancestors and preserve cultural heritage. E'ava Geita from Papua New Guinea expressed his overwhelming joy upon hearing digitized recordings of his native Koita language.

(theconversation.com)

Tech language preservation audio restoration

ArcaOS 5.1.1 Released: A Privacy-Focused OS/2 Upgrade

2025-02-22

ArcaOS 5.1.1 Released: A Privacy-Focused OS/2 Upgrade

Arca Noae has released ArcaOS 5.1.1, supporting UEFI and GPT disk layouts for installation on a wide range of modern hardware. This release is free for existing ArcaOS 5.1 subscribers and offers multiple language options. Upgrades are available at a discount for existing users. ArcaOS prioritizes user privacy, avoiding tracking online activity and supporting low-spec hardware, making it ideal for users valuing freedom and privacy.

(www.arcanoae.com)

Development

Amazon Quietly Changes Kindle eBook Purchase Terms: You're Buying a License, Not Ownership

2025-02-22

Amazon Quietly Changes Kindle eBook Purchase Terms: You're Buying a License, Not Ownership

Amazon's US website recently updated its Kindle eBook purchase page, explicitly stating that purchasing an eBook grants only a license to use the content, not ownership. This change is likely due to a new California law requiring companies to conspicuously disclose that customers are buying a license for digital media. In contrast, Amazon UK and Canada, along with other eBook platforms like Kobo, Apple, and Google, handle this differently; some mention it only in their terms, others don't mention it at all. This highlights the ongoing discussion surrounding digital content ownership, reminding consumers that they acquire the right to read, not own, the content itself.

(blog.the-ebook-reader.com)

Tech Digital Rights

Intel's Genesis: From Traitorous Eight to Microprocessor Revolution

2025-02-22

Intel's Genesis: From Traitorous Eight to Microprocessor Revolution

This article chronicles Intel's incredible journey, starting in 1968 with Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce's departure from Fairchild Semiconductor and culminating in the creation of the world's first commercially available microprocessor. It details Intel's founding, early challenges and triumphs, the contributions of key figures, and the development of landmark products like the 4004 and 8080 microprocessors. The narrative is rich with technological breakthroughs, market competition, and pivotal business decisions, showcasing Intel's transformation from a small startup to a technology giant that reshaped the world.

(www.abortretry.fail)

Tech Semiconductor

OSI Board Election Controversy: A Time Zone Snafu

2025-02-22

A controversy has arisen in the Open Source Initiative (OSI) board of directors election. Luke's candidacy was rejected due to a missed deadline, allegedly past 11:59 PM PT on February 17th. However, the OSI website didn't specify UTC as the time zone for the deadline, and OSI's contact address is in California, leading to questions of fairness. Luke argues OSI should consider different time zones and allow his candidacy. The incident highlights the importance of clear time zone specifications and deadlines for global open-source organizations.

(blog.luke.wf)

Development Election Timezone

Russia-backed Hackers Crack Encrypted Messaging Apps

2025-02-22

Russia-backed Hackers Crack Encrypted Messaging Apps

Google's Threat Intelligence Group revealed that Russia-backed hacking groups have developed techniques to compromise encrypted messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram, putting journalists, politicians, and activists at risk. Attacks involve exploiting Signal's 'linked devices' feature with malicious QR codes, accessing battlefield phones, and deploying phishing websites. These attacks are difficult to detect, potentially remaining unnoticed for extended periods. Signal has implemented security improvements, but users are urged to remain vigilant and avoid suspicious links.

(www.computerweekly.com)

Tech encrypted messaging

LLM Agents: Breakthroughs in General Computer Control

2025-02-22

LLM Agents: Breakthroughs in General Computer Control

Recent years have witnessed significant advancements in LLM-powered agents for computer control. From simple web navigation to complex GUI interaction, a plethora of novel reinforcement learning approaches and frameworks have emerged. Researchers explore model-based planning, autonomous skill discovery, and multi-agent collaboration to enhance agent autonomy and efficiency. Some projects focus on specific platforms (e.g., Android, iOS), while others aim to build general-purpose computer control agents. These breakthroughs pave the way for more powerful and intelligent AI systems, foreshadowing a future where agents play a much larger role in daily life.

(github.com)

AI Agents

Antitrust Wave Sweeping Corporate America: Big Companies Are Panicking?

2025-02-22

Antitrust Wave Sweeping Corporate America: Big Companies Are Panicking?

Antitrust enforcement in the US is quietly reshaping the business landscape. From Equifax's monopolistic data pricing to Pepsi's discriminatory pricing against smaller convenience stores, to Corteva and Syngenta's exclusive dealing arrangements, and American Express's anti-competitive fees, a wave of antitrust lawsuits is making headway in the courts, with judges increasingly receptive to plaintiffs' claims. This signals a significant shift, with long-neglected antitrust laws being reinterpreted and enforced, posing major challenges to large corporations and foreshadowing profound changes in the rules of commerce.

(www.thebignewsletter.com)

Startup business

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