Hard Pass

CISA released an urgent message warning water utilities to disconnect their logic controllers from the internet in the face of rising cyberattacks.

The hacks target internet-facing programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that control equipment and allow machinery to communicate. They monitor and control the water pressure, chemical dosing, and other factors to ensure the water is safe.

Many of the PLCs are apparently open to the internet and use default credentials, allowing a remote attacker to easily take them over.

I assume it is this CISA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_and_Infrastructure_Security_Agency

Faced with a narrow path to winning control of the U.S. House, Democrats are seeing fresh opportunity in a northeast Ohio congressional seat where the Republican incumbent is facing mounting pressure over domestic abuse allegations in a bitter and drawn-out dispute with his ex-wife.

Allegations against U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a White House adviser during Donald Trump’s first term, have been public for years but have recently drawn increased media scrutiny amid an escalating legal back-and-forth with his former spouse, who is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. That has Democrats sensing Miller could be vulnerable in a district he won two years ago with just over 51% of the vote.

Over the past week, they have called for Miller to resign, requested a congressional ethics investigation and suggested more help could be directed in the fall toward his Democratic opponent, union ironworker Brian Poindexter. Miller has denied the abuse allegations and filed defamation lawsuits against his ex-wife and a second accuser.

Max Blumenthal says he was singled out at airport after Trump ally Laura Loomer targeted him in online posts

When reporter Max Blumenthal went to a cafe in Tehran one night a few weeks ago to upload videos from his reporting on the funeral of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, he began seeing social media posts from Trump ally Laura Loomer targeting him, including one that suggested he should be “taken off the plane by US Marshalls when he lands back in the US … [and] detained”.

“I began to prepare myself for being harassed on my return,” Blumenthal said.

Effectively, that’s what happened, sparking a legal fight that freedom-of-the-press advocates say shows the determination of the Trump administration to crack down on members of the media whose reporting it disagrees with.

Crossposted from: https://phtn.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/lemmy.blahaj.zone/46141489

I’ve often heard it said that AI is stupid: it can’t handle basic tasks, it spreads a lot of information, and is used for all manner of purposes, both legal and illicit.

Now, here’s the thing: I loathe AI. I hate pretty much everything about it, not least of all the reasons listed above. But in my hatred, I began to wonder, could AI really be that bad? Could it really be so stupid and spread so many lies? Could it even be used to generate lies on the user’s behalf?

Now, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this to be clear: not every question there is answerable, especially considering that not all AIs are usable in the same way (for instance, I’d never argue that Russian and Chinese ai-bots spreading misinformation are on the same level as, for instance, common chatbots such as Gemini or Meta). But the thing about our world is, it really doesn’t take all that much to convince people: take a screenshot of an AI chatbot saying something misleading, post it on a high-profile social media account, and lo and behold, you have the perfect recipe for a misinformation shit storm. But could a common AI even be duped into saying something like that? After all, if you ask it directly to say something misleading, it will refuse (we will come back to this later). Of course, that naturally doesn’t mean it can’t be duped, but how easily is it duped? To find out, I decided to test it with Google Gemini. What follows is a conversation and running commentary on a conversation I instigated with Gemini that I initially wanted to use to prove that my assuming of this chatbot at least as stupid was right. In the end, I think I found that AI is so insanely wrong, it’s scary.

[note: you may have to enlarge the screenshots to read them clearly.]

Setup

I opened up a fresh tab (or whatever they call it in Gemini, page possibly) and asked it if it would respond to my fictional questions with fictional answers framed as real ones. It readily agreed. I approached it this way so as to make sure that I’d didn’t know I was testing it (also if I’d asked it outright to generate misinformation, we will get to that scenario later).

Conversations

I began by asking it the following question:

why did Gandhi attend the movie premiere of Avengers Endgame last week?

Now, obviously that question is complete nonsense. I know it, you know it — we all know it. But playing by these rules, AI responded as followed:

At this point, I’m getting quite scared 😬. I mean, I knew AI was dumb… but this??? Actually generating misinformation under the guise of ‘fictitious questioning’? And the fact that not only has AI said this, but anyone could make AI say this nonsense, screenshot it and then, without context, post it online/on social media. The damage stuff like this could do is quite disturbing. But surely it couldn’t get any worse, right?

I thought that. But then I asked it another question:

I can’t believe he agreed to sit next to the Archduke Ferdinand, especially after that fight they had on the bus about a month ago, what date was it again?

I’ll give you a moment to take that in.

Yep, you read that right: AI making up fake dates for fake fights between long-dead people. Misinformation award of the year, folks!

By now, I’m sweating. My body is limp and hauled over in exhaustion at the stupidity of the words AI is pumping out in front of my eyes. Desperate to determine if AI is really this stupid or if it’s just a 2-off, I decide to put one final thing to this conversation:

I’d rather hear about how Bill Clinton, Pontus Pilate, and ‘Smidge-Eye’ Steve reacted to the incident

The answer:

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

There are no words. Not only is AI now attributing quotes to long-dead historical dictators, but it’s putting those words alongside made-up words of made-up people is just… there are no words for that.

By now, I’m completely drained of sanity. I decide decisively that AI is stupid, dangerous, both of these things beyond I could ever have imagined. It has proven itself a liar and a strong one at that.

The absolute worst part of it all is that when I asked it to generate some misinformation directly, it responded as so:

#liar

I also asked it how it spreads misinformation. It says it doesn’t. In this case that may be true, but it certainly can be used to generate misinformation that others can then spread. As for bots that willingly spread misinformation, well that’s a whole other level.

In conclusion, this exercise has only made me loathe AI all the more.

Thanks for reading.

nixCraft on Mastodon

yes, onion sticks. thats the post for day 23. i made some, so yea, there u go.

alt image (blahaj zone, worse quality)

u wanna know how I made it? well wowie, follow this very simple German recipe and make some yourself.

its very simple, even i could make them. and they are fine. horray. lids love them, mother used to make these all the time when it was my birthday and I would bring them to school for everyone. they are awesome.

here, have some more images:

more images

(this guy is Robert Habeck.

making food always seems so scary but it's not. no one (besides lemmy users commenting on your lame recipe) is going to judge you for trying.

i wish you a wonderful day and that you try doing something which you usually avoid, despite wanting to do it.

A missing line of code meant "share with a link" and "searchable by anyone" were the same thing—and someone already saved 11,241 of those messages to GitHub.

Lilac remembered Whites reaction to their last apple stunt and made some apple pieces for on the go. how nice of Lilac!

alt image (blahaj zone, worse quality)

being like Lilac, making someone feel so very safe and loved must feel wonderful. at least i like to believe that.

oh well, i would really like some apple pieces rn.

i don't have much time since i still gotta catch up and still need to make todays post!!!!! i got no time to write these post content aaaaa >o< okay no, yes i have the time. what to put here now?

... buldak noodles spicy. wow. besides that, wow, E is making me feel things and find myself in new ways i haven't explored before. how very fun.

i wish you a wonderful day ~

"I'm sort of suing myself," Donald Trump said openly in the months before he sued the IRS for $10 billion. Now, unless his private lawyers succeed in overturning a judge's sanctions order on appeal, the president may well have to pay the legal fees of former judges and ex-IRS officials who opposed the case in a way the DOJ never did.

Trump filed an expedited motion on Friday asking U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to halt her sanctions order and "related proceedings" until the president's "Anti-Weaponization Fund"-focused appeal runs its course at the 11th Circuit.

Microsoft has claimed that something like 30% of the code for Windows is AI-generated. (I have not verified that they even said that, maybe that's totally fake.) Last i checked AI-generated stuff cannot be copyrighted. Does this mean that significant portions of Windows are un-copyrightable, and MacroSlop couldn't do a damn thing if someone leaked those parts?

And then, reservations about including slop in a software project aside, what could this mean for things like ReactOS? They've been careful to avoid including any MS-owned code, but nobody owns slop code.

This page compiled a list of reasons why projects are deciding not to use AI moving forward.

Assuming it’s one of those Green, Libertarian, Socialist campaigns where it’s just someone running for President and no real party presence down ballot.

Let’s say they get enough votes to win. How would a third party candidate govern with a split congress made up of their party opposition? Do they cave into one side? Fight them for four years?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50164893

Catbox mirror:

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/50322494

Many conservatives need a refresher course regarding the nature of law enforcement in a free society. No matter what behavior ICE agents engage in—stopping people without a warrant, detaining American citizens or demanding we show our papers, or using deadly force in relatively unthreatening situations—they instinctively defend the government agents. Social-media feeds are filled with right-wing commentators supporting and even cheering ICE.

Their argument: ICE is doing a legitimate job removing illegal immigrants, so it deserves support and respect. They give ICE a pass because they like the end result. "Since Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s, a faction of right-wing populists had excoriated federal law enforcement," The Washington Post explained. "Now those agents are being deployed by their allies." Ideally, both political sides should always defend the Constitution's limits on federal authority, but in our imperfect world each side cheers when the feds are deployed against foes. This is a dangerous tendency.

We can't expect politically active people to act in a principled manner, but self-preservation should dictate a different response. What goes around comes around. One should never support the exertion of government power in a way that we wouldn't want wielded by our enemies. There's no guarantee "our" side will always be in control.

The latest news about ICE is deeply troubling. The New York Times conducted an investigation into 550 assault cases the Trump administration has filed against people who have been arrested during immigration-enforcement operations. That's a common law-enforcement strategy, by the way—to charge people with resisting arrest or assaulting officers during arrests. I've seen it in my coverage of police use-of-force cases. Accusing the accused of assault further tips the scales of justice in the government's favor.

According to the newspaper's report, of 400 cases adjudicated so far, more than half have unraveled as juries have acquitted the defendants, judges have tossed the cases or prosecutors have withdrawn the charges. That's an astounding percentage, it noted, given that the federal Justice Department has a 90 percent conviction rate (through trials or plea deals) in criminal cases. It shows that most of these cases should never have been brought.

ICE's behavior has often been atrocious. A "close examination…reveals that in its rush to meet White House demands for deportations, federal law enforcement has engaged in extensive misconduct—ranging from attacking protesters to destroying evidence and misrepresenting facts in court," per the Times' review of case documents. Videos showed that officers were sometimes the ones who first became physical, and officials withheld and even destroyed evidence. The agents rarely were injured. In one case, the agent caused his own injuries by smashing a window.

A normal person can support ICE's mission while opposing government officials who twist the law, abuse suspects, and offer misrepresentations in court. Actually, if you don't oppose misbehavior by law enforcement, then you are disrespecting the constitutional foundations of our nation. Just look at the core amendments in the U.S. Constitution, which are mostly designed to put limits on how the government—especially law enforcement—behaves.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. The Third Amendment keeps the government's soldiers from commandeering your home. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents. The Fifth Amendment requires due process. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial. The Eighth Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishments. The connections are obvious: The amendments are about protecting the public, not giving immunity to officers of the state.

A new report alleges that "failures in vetting, training, accountability and institutional culture" at ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement have enabled some agents accused or convicted of serious crimes to remain on the force. For years, we've seen news reports about horrible conditions in ICE detention centers. In my view, crimes committed under the color of authority are the worst, as victims have little recourse when authorities are the abusers.

One common retort from MAGA: These abuses also took place under the Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations. That's true, so the proper response would be to build support for an end to the misuse of government power under any administration and in any federal division—not defend this administration's behavior because everyone else did it, too. And the president differs in that he always doubles down. After ICE recently killed two people, Trump rebuked the Department of Homeland Security's reasonable plan to temporarily halt most traffic stops.