Technology

Over the last few days hackers and trolls have targeted a slew of ICE spotting apps and their users in an apparent attempt to intimidate and stop them from reporting sightings of ICE. These hackers sent threatening text messages to users of StopICE, claiming their personal data has been sent to the authorities; attempted to wipe uploads on Eyes Up, which aims to document ICE abuses; and even sent push notifications to DEICER app users claiming their data has also been sent to various government agencies.

There is little evidence that hackers have actually provided data to the government. But it shows that apps like these, many of which Apple and Google have already kicked from their respective app stores, in some cases after direct government pressure, can be targeted by hackers or those looking to harass their users.

“Yes there is a targeted spike in attacks targeting similar [sites],” Sherman Austin, the developer of StopICE, told 404 Media in an email.

Archive: http://archive.today/iOfNf

The FBI has been unable to access a Washington Post reporter’s seized iPhone because it was in Lockdown Mode, a sometimes overlooked feature that makes iPhones broadly more secure, according to recently filed court records.

The court record shows what devices and data the FBI was able to ultimately access, and which devices it could not, after raiding the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson, in January as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. It also provides rare insight into the apparent effectiveness of Lockdown Mode, or at least how effective it might be before the FBI may try other techniques to access the device.

“Because the iPhone was in Lockdown mode, CART could not extract that device,” the court record reads, referring to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team, a unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the government, and is opposing the return of Natanson’s devices.

Archive: http://archive.today/gfTg9

The latest selloff was triggered by a new legal tool from Anthropic’s Claude large language model (LLM).

The tool – a plug-in for Claude’s agent for tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis – underscored the push by LLMs into the so-called “application layer,” where these firms ‌are increasingly muscling into lucrative enterprise businesses for revenue they need to fund massive investments. If ‌successful, investors worry, it could wreak havoc across a range of industries, from finance to law and coding.

The Estonian state is to analyze how viable it would be to reduce dependence on U.S. tech giants such as Microsoft, Google or Amazon for its software.

The article title is click bait here is the full article:

Wondering what your career looks like in our increasingly uncertain, AI-powered future? According to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, it’s going to involve less of the comfortable office work to which most people aspire, a more old fashioned grunt work with your hands.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum yesterday, Karp insisted that the future of work is vocational — not just for those already in manufacturing and the skilled trades, but for the majority of humanity.

In the age of AI, Karp told attendees at a forum, a strong formal education in any of the humanities will soon spell certain doom.

“You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy; hopefully you have some other skill,” he warned, adding that AI “will destroy humanities jobs.”

Karp, who himself holds humanities degrees from the elite liberal arts institutions of Haverford College and Stanford Law, will presumably be alright. With a net worth of $15.5 billion — well within the top 0.1 percent of global wealth owners — the Palantir CEO has enough money and power to live like a feudal lord (and that’s before AI even takes over.)

The rest of us, he indicates, will be stuck on the assembly line, building whatever the tech companies require.

“If you’re a vocational technician, or like, we’re building batteries for a battery company… now you’re very valuable, if not irreplaceable,” Karp insisted. “I mean, y’know, not to divert to my usual political screeds, but there will be more than enough jobs for the citizens of your nation, especially those with vocational training.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with vocational work or manufacturing. The global economy runs on these jobs. But in a theoretical world so fundamentally transformed by AI that intellectual labor essentially ceases to exist, it’s telling that tech billionaires like Karp see the rest of humanity as their worker bees.

It seems that the AI revolution never seems to threaten those who stand to profit the most from it — just the 99.9 percent of us building their batteries.

A researcher recently found that young adults who receive emotional support on social media are significantly more likely to report reduced anxiety symptoms, with a few specific personality traits reporting the most improved well-being.

Among the study's findings was that people with high openness to experience, high extraversion, high agreeableness and low conscientiousness reported an increase in perceived social media emotional support. Positive interactions and perceptions may explain why young adults with these specific traits feel more supported and less anxious overall.

This report looks into the proliferation of surveillance cameras across the West Bank and how, amid a legal vacuum, they are posing a threat to people’s privacy. We show how the lack of regulatory legislation has led to social conflict, psychological pressure, economic losses, and fears that this technology could be used by the security services or for digital blackmail. Although the authorities have acknowledged that a draft law has been around since 2021, it remains shrouded in secrecy, while rights groups fear this law itself could come at the expense of people’s liberties.

Credit where credit is due.

Microsoft has started rolling out built-in Sysmon functionality to some Windows 11 systems enrolled in the Windows Insider program.

Sysmon may be somewhat unknown to those who aren't in cyber security circles but it can also be a useful diagnostic tool as well.

This looks pretty sweet

It’s not just you: ChatGPT is down for many users right now. Here’s the latest on OpenAI’s confirmed outage.

In the filings, Anthropic states, as reported by the Washington Post: “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world. We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

“Things are shrinking, so we’re shrinking around it,” Elias says. “Electronics are becoming embedded, consolidated, optimized, and batteries are the only part of that equation that’s being left behind.”