Technology

This is from nearly a week ago, but it's currently blowing up on Bluesky.

You click into a server. A blur. A prompt asking you to prove you’re an adult before you can see what’s behind it. If you’ve hit this on Discord recently, you weren’t hacked and you didn’t violate anything. The platform shifted to a teen-by-default model — and now adult content access and certain safety-setting changes require age verification before Discord will budge. This isn’t a minor tweak. It’s a structural reset, already enforced where local laws require it, with a broader global rollout delayed until the second half of 2026 while Discord adds more verification options and documentation, per the company’s support page. This shift reflects a broader push around age laws reshaping how platforms handle minors online.

Job postings and interviews with senior security officials at Anthropic show that the frontier AI lab is building out an extensive monitoring system to keep tabs on activists who oppose the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

In addition to monitoring activists in the vicinity of Anthropic executives and keeping tabs on protests near physical Anthropic assets, the firm is also implementing a “pre-crime” approach, attempting to predict incidents before they happen. In some cases, that also means reporting suspects to police before a crime occurs. Anthropic did not respond to the Prospect’s request for comment.

Anthropic’s plans to surveil dissent are at odds with the firm’s efforts to cast itself as the responsible alternative to OpenAI. At the beginning of the year, the Department of Defense and Anthropic engaged in a high-profile dustup over Anthropic’s refusal to allow the military to use its tools for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. That tension seems to have eased as Anthropic hires for “national security sales” positions, seeking to restart military contracts. The increase in threat monitoring of domestic opponents fits with a renewed focus on national security.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75288150

Hi Hello!

I thought I'd finally start typing out what I would view as quiiite an introduction into PC Enthusiasm, which had started around two years ago and has finally, only-just reached it's conclusion! I hope. Pretty sure it's a conclusion.

So, to start with, I'd like to juust take a little bit to talk about my PC History - or rather, lack thereof if we're only talking about Computers i've built up from the ground (as close to the ground as I can get, at least!)

The first computer I'd built from the ground up was a decomissioned HP Z440 that i got for 85 Moneys. Very good deal, If I do say so myself! It included 16GB of ECC RDIMM DDR4-2400, an Intel Xeon 1620-V4, the Blower CPU fan and the 700W Power supply, as well as a Quadro K420 that I still keep around as a diagnosis card, if I ever need it (though I replaced that card with a GTX1650 from my old Dell Optiplex because.. why wouldn't i?). That 700W was an amazing find, since it allowed me to undergo the following upgrade path over time (from April 2025 - October 2025):

1st Upgrade: Intel Core i7-6850K - 35 Moneys (May 2025)

This upgrade was INSANE for me. Though, it was also quite insane for my GTX1650 as well - it made it thermal throttle HARD in Elden Ring (was going from ~45-55FPS with the 1620V4 to 40-45 with the i7-6850K). As for how I kinda figured it would fit? Being the first PC that I'd ever really dug into outside of RAM, I simply didn't LOL. There was an old HP forum a few years ago where one person commented something along the lines of, "yeah the i7-6850K works" and I trusted it. And it was also CHEAP for what that CPU was.

P.S - Windows 10 (at the time) took like 3 restarts to recognise all 6 cores, even though the HP BIOS could fully recognise the CPU. Does anyone know why C612 and X99 chipsets are cross-compatable? I would have thought HP were the sort of people to clam their BIOS down tight.

At this point, I was slightly confused - Why does a bigger (theoretically speaking?) CPU tank frames rather than improving them? Well, the GPU (as I mentioned). the GTX1650 is a tiny little card. I'd used it since new (it'll be a hero later, i promise!) and it was, by all accounts, the first DGPU I'd ever bought. I learned MSI Afterburner and could physically see the temperature going down whenever i looked at the floor. Soo, I then bought the second upgrade!

2nd Upgrade: RTX2070 - 135 Moneys (June 2025)

This REALLY introduced me to Gaming as a whole, I'd think. Sure the GTX1650 could RUN games, but it couldn't PLAY games, if that makes any sense. So, in comes this card. Originally, I was debating between this and the RTX2070 Super, which would have been ever so slightly better afaik, but daamn for that price i could not beat it - absolutely no way. SO, I could finally play games now, right? I'd have thought so, too. See, because i got.. 45-50FPS Stable in Elden Ring. Okayyy, then. Bearing in mind, I was getting decent enough frames in every other game, sooo what gives?

Well, one day, I had someone who'd been in the Computing sphere for a good 20 or so years, if not longer, and We sat and just started playing - They were watching Telemetry and teaching me a bit about what Bottlenecks it could be and why, and I was listening along while I was playing, feeling the ever-so-slight hitches along the way.

--Interlude: Attempts to fix through Software!! --

So at this point, me and the Helper were a little stuck. the CPU didn't exactly.. upgrade anything, and the RTX2070 didn't exactly fix the issue. So, we're thinking it might just be Windows being Windows, right? Surely. So, we downloaded a neat little thing called Process Lasso onto the system.

At this point, I go through about 2-3 days worth of Software diagnosis with the Helper. it was super informative - both about how processes actually function, and how much more in-depth you can actually go with a bit of knowledge (on the Helper's side) and stubbornness!! Except, despite desperate attempts to change affinities, priorities, attempting to assigning cores directly to Elden Ring (it wouldn't let us for some reason. I don't remember if we ever actually found a fix for that), so on and so forth, The Helper had a bit of an epiphany. !RAM!

But, before we could upgrade that - Windows decided to be a bit silly and knee-capped my Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers, as it does. I had to go aaall the way through the OSI stack, from Software through to Hardware - at least, what I could access. Even to the point of permanently re-writing the MAC Address (after temporarily spoofing it) didn't solve the issue. It was here that I learned that Windows is a dum-dum! It doesn't care what slot your hardware is in - it'll see hardware in slot 1 differently from the same hardware in slot 2. So, with that in mind, I tried re-slotting it. and it WORKED. Completely "new" WiFi card, according to Windows :P

That incident definitely rubbed me the wrong way for Networking. Hope to never have to diagnose Networking issues again XD

3rd Upgrade: RAM - 19 moneys per stick because of ECC i

So, the third and final upgrade for the computer was RAM. Two sticks of 8GB ECC UDIMM 2400, bringing the total RAM Gigabyte count up to 32GB of ECC UDIMM 2400 RAM! And, when I originally bought just the one stick to test and see if it WAS RAM? My Elden Ring FPS JUMPED. Not kidding. JUMPED. from 45-50FPS averages all the way up to 50-55FPS averages. It was an INSANE leap.

But, at that point, me and the Helper friend had come to a conclusion - the PC was done. Stuffed. At it's end. I had Quad Channel explained to me (the reason why i got such a big FPS boost), but in the end, we'd reached the conclusion that the speed of the ram (2400MHz) and the timings (i believe the timings to be early 20s? I don't remember) were just unable to feed the LOCKED "unlocked" i7 fast enough.

Which I forgot to mention earlier - while the i7-6850K was able to be recognised in the machine, it was locked. Completely. occasional bursts of 3.7GHz, maybe 3.8GHz on a good day for a while there. But ultimately, It just wasn't being fed fast enough by the RAM. Suppose Elden Ring was INSANELY tough on RAM? Or maybe it's more of an ECC quirk, I still don't know.

But, I just wanted to share a fun Thing with people :D

My personal "First Built PC" was nothing short of a Boot-camp in Workstation Diagnosis LOL. Pretty sure I still have the HP Maintenance instructions still downloaded as a PDF on my phone XD

So, the PC was done. I played through Cyberpunk, Elden Ring (frame-capped with RTSS, which I also learned to use on the way), so on and so fourth. Until one day, the PCIe lane died on me. the only X8/X16 rail that the 2070 could actually be plugged into, as well. I was a bit devastated, to be honest. First PC, dead after a good few months. Thinking back on it now, Cyberpunk at 80FPS locked (medium-low settings, DLSS Quality) probably pushed the hardware a bit far, I'm unsure.

Anywho, Hope you enjoyed that! It's quite a read i know, but man was that year simultaneously the most fun, and the least fun, I'd ever had with computers! And, of course, it did NOT end there - after the PCIe failure, I had to replace it. A motherboard swap. But that's an entirely NEW derailment, so I won't bore you any longer :)

That was the story of my first PC. Hope you enjoyed it!

In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history.

The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk—in digital form—of disappearing from public view without ever being archived.

Web sites like MTV News, Gawker, and others are removed from the live web by their corporate owners, leaving only web archives like those in the Wayback Machine as the last remaining public record of their reporting and cultural impact.

Cyber attacks, like those against the Internet Archive, British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library, are a new form of digital barrier, impeding access to information at community scale.

When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public's ability to access its own history is at risk. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record aims to raise awareness of these growing issues, featuring essays from:

• Digital librarian Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive;
• Humanities scholar Luca Messarra;
• Book historian and social media star Allie Alvis;
• Game designer Jordan Mechner;
• Journalist Philip Bump;
• Writer and editor Maria Bustillos;
• Film archivist Rick Prelinger;
• Digital humanities scholar Nichole Misako Nomura;
• Writer and book artist Eve Scarborough;
• And many more…

The report details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future.

Something I noticed as a consequence of online culture and platform design, especially on social media:

It is very common online to follow an account not for the person behind it, but the way they present and discuss a topic or niche, even if they aren’t doing this with a professional intent or style. Then when the topics shift or we get tired of the person, people try to find someone else that scratches the itch.

It’s like we use people online to engage with topics by proxy, and they are rather replaceable. We don’t just watch crochet videos, we watch this specific person crochet, but not for her as a person, and so on. People seem to have roles to fill in terms of who they follow, and they’ll move on if the role is no longer adequately filled, or the roles change. Feeds are highly curated; too many posts considered off-topic and you are ruining the vibe.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75217466

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75127261

https://archive.ph/moniQ

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75112505

_**In a statement published today, OpenAI said it had historically treated model misalignment as a research issue, with findings communicated through research papers and system cards.

The company said it considered the wiki activity another example of "misalignment" similar to behaviors it had previously discussed, rather than an incident requiring a dedicated public disclosure.

OpenAI's own wording suggests a wider footprint than the researchers documented, describing the episode as one "where our agents wrote to several internet sites."**_

Don't you just love the unaccountably.

All of this stated with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Is_All_You_Need

Picture humanity in a boat being swept down a raging river, praying there is no Niagara Falls ahead. Or imagine standing with the pioneering physicists in 1942 before they triggered the first self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction beneath a Chicago stadium.

These were two of the analogies used this week by Prof Robert Trager, an expert in the nascent field of AI governance, to describe the perilous but potential-filled moment the world stands at with accelerating artificial intelligence.

Trager, the director of the Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, was speaking in the week OpenAI claimed the technology had crossed the threshold known as AGI – artificial general intelligence – with its newest model, GPT-6 Astra.

That claim came as the company prepared for a potential $850bn (£630bn) stock flotation, so included a dose of marketing spin, but if true it may be significant. The San Francisco company defines AGI as “autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”.

The tasks it claims Astra can automate include designing circuit boards, filling out tax returns, building video games, financial modelling, engineering design and helping assemble legal documents. The threat to some white-collar jobs is implicit.

Forgetting a Wi-Fi password is pretty common, especially when you’re trying to connect a new phone or laptop.

There are a few simple ways to connect without having to type the password manually, as long as you’re authorized to use the network. QR codes, saved network settings and sharing features can make the process much easier.

Which method do you usually use?

Artificial intelligence is creating new career opportunities while also changing the skills employers need. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into the workplace, millions of workers may need to adapt and develop new digital and technical skills to remain competitive The impact of AI is not only about job displacement. It is also creating new roles and changing how people work across different industries

What skills do you think workers should focus on as AI continues to reshape the job market?

TDF employs good reasoning and applies high standards that other open-source projects should emulate. I'd recommend reading the full article but I particularly liked

No telemetry of any kind. LibreOffice does not collect usage data, and this must also apply to AI features.

And (emphasis mine)

It must be installable , removable, and absent from the user interface for those who do not wish to use it, including administrators deploying the software across thousands of workstations

I don't think shots were intended to be fired at the Mozilla corporation, who can't stop talking about their default, opt-out AI, but it paints a stark picture of the difference between a company that preaches privacy and choice, versus a company that actually provides those things.

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/53326714

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74920318

Sony went on to say that it takes a “firm stance” against such behavior, which includes examples like “persistent and repeated, or prolonged, demands, excessive or unreasonable demands for compensation or apologies, and abusive language, threats, slander, and other similar behaviors.”

Other examples included “forcing someone to prostrate themselves” and “visiting our offices or related facilities without permission.” If any such behavior is confirmed, Sony says it may “restrict or suspend customer service” to protect its employees — and, if necessary, contact “police, lawyers, etc.” to take legal action or begin criminal proceedings against them.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74818680

https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2026/08/msg00041.html

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74798351