Hasty Briefsbeta

Bilingual

Chinese Hospitals Are Selling Patient Data to Fuel the AI Boom
5 hours ago
- Chinese hospitals are monetizing de-identified patient data to support the AI industry, with transactions like a Shandong hospital selling liver disease records for 30,000 yuan.
- Government initiatives, such as a 2024 action plan, promote data commercialization in healthcare, leading to sales in Beijing, Fujian, and mandates in Wenzhou.
- Datasets cover areas like cancer, geriatrics, and prenatal care, used by AI firms and researchers for diagnostics and drug development, with strict privacy protections.
One town's scheme to get rid of its geese
5 hours ago
- Foster City, California spent nearly $400,000 on a tech-driven campaign to manage a population of about 300 Canada geese, deemed a public health nuisance due to excessive droppings.
- Wildlife Innovations implemented non-lethal hazing techniques using GPS trackers, surveillance cameras, lasers, drones, a border collie, and a 'Goosinator' boat to make geese uncomfortable and encourage their relocation.
- The initiative reflects broader trends in human-wildlife conflict resolution as urban development intersects with animal behavior changes, with similar issues involving species like grizzlies, coyotes, and elephants globally.
Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly
2 hours ago
- Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly allows direct access to files without extracting them.
- A metadata index file lists size and offsets of files within the tar, enabling zero-copy access.
- Emscripten's WORKERFS backend slices the tar blob on demand, serving reads without copying data.
- The tar-vfs-index npm package generates JSON metadata compatible with file_packager format.
- Tar archives have a flat layout with contiguous file data, making them suitable as a VFS backend store.
- For gzipped tar files, browser native decompression is used before mounting.
- Metadata can be served separately or appended to the tar archive for self-contained files.
- This approach reduces memory usage and speeds up loading, beneficial in constrained environments like WebR.
nowhere: an entire website encoded in a URL
2 hours ago
- Nowhere utilizes URL fragments (#) to store entire websites, ensuring data never reaches servers and is accessible only from the browser.
- It uses Nostr relays for encrypted, anonymous communication, with ephemeral keys preventing traceability.
- Nowhere challenges platform control by rejecting terms of service that allow arbitrary content removal.
- Servers only provide generic page builder files; user actions (like orders or posts) use disposable keys, leaving no accounts or identities.
- URLs can be encrypted, requiring a password for access, protecting content even if the link is shared.
- Nowhere's architecture empowers the link holder, making content unremovable, uncensorable, and functional offline.
- Technical design (like no servers and encrypted fragments) guarantees resistance to shutdowns, unlike policy-based commitments.
- Links act as permanent copies that cannot be recalled, ensuring durability beyond internet access.
How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences
2 hours ago
- Interpret others' actions negatively if unclear, assuming malicious, ignorant, or amoral intent.
- Trust intuition and feelings fully, avoiding challenges to assumptions; pivot conversations when challenged.
- Maintain original positions by asking suggestive questions and digging in against dissent.
- Use social networks to craft supportive narratives against detractors, ignoring credentials of disagreeing parties.
- Deny grace for mistakes, especially from strangers, and retreat into oneself when conversations fail.
Meta says it will cut 8k jobs as AI spending grows
16 hours ago
- Meta plans to cut 10% of its workforce, roughly 8,000 jobs, next month.
- The company is increasing AI spending to $135bn this year, equal to its total from the previous three years.
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted AI's role in boosting productivity, enabling single workers to complete tasks that once required teams.
- Meta is tracking employee computer interactions to train AI models, a move some call 'dystopian' amid layoffs.
- Other tech firms like Amazon, Oracle, Block, and Snap have also cut jobs this year, often citing AI investment as a factor.
FDA gives the green light to the first gene therapy for deafness
2 hours ago
- The FDA has approved the first gene therapy aimed at restoring hearing for people born with certain genetic deafness, marking a historic milestone in treating hearing loss.
- The therapy is specifically for individuals with a rare defect in the OTOF gene, which prevents the production of the otoferlin protein needed for sound transmission from the ears to the brain.
- Treatment involves infusing a gene-carrying virus into the ear to deliver a healthy version of the OTOF gene, with many patients in trials showing significant hearing improvement within weeks.
- In clinical results, 80% of patients achieved at least some significant hearing restoration, and 42% attained normal hearing, including the ability to hear whispers.
- The approval is based on a study of 20 patients, with hearing gains lasting at least two years so far, described as 'incredible' and 'remarkable' by experts.
- While currently limited to a rare form of deafness affecting about 50 U.S. children annually, researchers hope similar gene therapies might eventually address more common types of hearing loss.
- The mother of a child who underwent the experimental treatment shared emotional stories of her son responding to sound for the first time, such as startling at loud laughter.
- Despite the optimism, some in the deaf community express concerns that such therapies could stigmatize deafness by framing it as a problem needing medical correction.
US accuses China of "industrial-scale" AI theft. China says it's "slander"
2 hours ago
- The US is preparing actions against alleged Chinese industrial-scale theft of AI intellectual property.
- AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic accuse Chinese firms of using distillation attacks and fraudulent accounts to copy their models.
- A White House memo warns of China using proxy accounts and jailbreaking to extract proprietary information from US AI systems.
- The US government is considering measures to hold foreign actors accountable and may update laws to treat model extraction as espionage.
- Congress has been advised to direct agencies to impose severe penalties to deter such activities.
The Surveillance Accountability Act
8 hours ago
- The federal government currently purchases private data without warrants, judicial oversight, or accountability, accessing location, financial records, and personal beliefs.
- The Surveillance Accountability Act aims to close this loophole by requiring warrants for accessing metadata, location, or financial data, similar to searching a home.
- It prohibits government agencies from buying data from brokers to bypass warrants, bans warrantless facial recognition and AI biometric surveillance in public, and grants individuals the right to sue for violations.
- The act promotes reclaiming privacy, holding government surveillance accountable, and ensuring liberty and oversight prevail over unchecked power through public support.
Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career
4 hours ago
- AI may reduce learning of specific tasks, potentially impacting long-term skill development for software engineers.
- Even if AI impairs cognitive ability over time, engineers might still need to adopt it for short-term productivity gains, similar to how physical labor involves unavoidable trade-offs.
- Software engineering might transition from a lifelong career to a shorter-term profession, analogous to professional athletes, due to technological shifts.
- Refusing to use AI in software development could lead to being outcompeted in the job market, as efficiency often trumps long-term skill retention.
- The possibility of AI diminishing career longevity underscores the need for planning and adaptation in the evolving tech landscape.
S. Korea police arrest man over AI image of runaway wolf that misled authorities
3 hours ago
- A man was arrested for sharing an AI-generated image of a runaway wolf, misleading authorities during a search in Daejeon, South Korea.
- The fake photo caused authorities to relocate their search operation and issue emergency warnings, disrupting government work.
- Neukgu, the wolf, escaped from a zoo and was captured after nine days, sparking national attention and a local craze for the animal.
- The suspect claimed he created and shared the image 'for fun' and faces up to five years in prison or a fine for deception.
- Neukgu is part of a conservation program for the extinct Korean wolf, and his recovery has led to commercial and mascot considerations in the city.
Eric Trump Brags About $24M Pentagon Deal His Company Landed
5 hours ago
- Eric Trump appeared on Fox Business to celebrate a $24 million defense contract won by his company Foundation Industries, which builds military robotics.
- Foundation Industries has secured research contracts totaling $24 million from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, along with an SBIR Phase 3 award.
- Critics highlight a conflict of interest, as the contract involves the son of a sitting president, with little opposition from the Republican Party.
- The Trump family has a history of using political influence for financial gain, including selling sneakers, Bibles, and promoting cryptocurrency platforms.
- During Trump's presidency, his campaign offered a 'National Security Briefing Membership' and a memecoin event for donors to meet him at Mar-a-Lago.
- Eric and his wife Lara are set to accompany Trump on an official state trip to China, though it is claimed to be in a personal capacity.
Python Type Checker Comparison: Speed and Memory Usage – Pyrefly
16 hours ago
- New type checkers Pyrefly and Ty, written in Rust, are significantly faster and use less memory than established tools Pyright and Mypy, with up to 10-50x speed improvements on large packages.
- Performance evaluation is based on checking 53 popular open-source Python packages, focusing on execution time and peak memory usage, with Pyrefly and Ty completing checks in seconds compared to minutes for Pyright and Mypy on large projects.
- Key factors affecting performance include implementation language (Rust vs. Python/TypeScript), architectural design, inference features, and codebase characteristics such as size, dependency graphs, unions, and type coverage.
- Pyrefly prioritizes speed and memory efficiency while enabling advanced inference features by default, and it can check massive codebases like Instagram's 20 million lines in about 30 seconds.
- Developers are encouraged to test these tools on their own projects to assess performance, and should consider factors beyond speed, such as typing specification conformance and IDE support, when choosing a type checker.
SilentGlass actively blocks malicious HDMI and Display Port connections
5 hours ago
- SilentGlass is a world-first plug-and-play device that blocks unexpected or malicious HDMI and Display Port connections to secure vulnerable display links.
- Developed by the NCSC and licensed to Goldilock Labs for global manufacture and sale, it addresses monitors as attractive targets for cyber attacks, often used for espionage, disruption, or financial gain.
- Already deployed on Government estates and approved for high-threat environments, SilentGlass offers an affordable, easy-to-deploy solution to protect IT infrastructure by treating physical connectivity as a security boundary.
- The commercialisation through Goldilock Labs and Sony UK Technology Centre demonstrates how government IP can be leveraged for national prosperity, with expectations of rapid global adoption by governments and risk-conscious organisations.
Fluux Messenger 0.15.2 – A Modern Cross Platform XMPP Client (TypeScript)
17 hours ago
- RTL language support added for Arabic and Hebrew, with UI improvements for blockquotes.
- Faster reconnection with skip of redundant MAM queries and fixes for sleep/wake handling bugs.
- Loop prevention in reconnect attempts with a corrected counter and better error handling.
- MUC room state preserved across reconnects, ensuring messages and history are restored.
- SASL2 and FAST token improvements, including correct attribute setting and token rotation.
- Performance enhancements with per-conversation subscriptions for typing indicators and drafts.
- Other fixes include reliable notifications, image lightbox improvements, and upload error displays.
The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?
14 hours ago
- The video discusses 'microlooting' or petty theft from corporations like Whole Foods as a form of political protest against inequality.
- Two guests, Hasan Piker and Jia Tolentino, debate the morality and effectiveness of such actions, noting that while they may not constitute effective direct action, they reflect anger towards systemic exploitation.
- The conversation explores broader themes like systemic vs. individual theft, with wage theft by corporations highlighted as more consequential than individual shoplifting.
- Effective political action is suggested to involve organized efforts like unionization, rather than isolated acts of theft, though these actions may signal underlying discontent.
- The discussion touches on societal trust in government, the broken social contract, and the need for structural changes to address inequality and restore confidence in governance.
Sign of the Future: GPT-5.5
14 hours ago
- GPT-5.5 represents a significant step in AI improvement, demonstrating continued rapid progress in models, apps, and harnesses.
- It excels in coding tasks, such as generating a 3D simulation of a harbor town's evolution, outperforming previous models in speed and accuracy.
- The AI landscape includes models (e.g., GPT-5.5), apps (e.g., ChatGPT, Codex), and harnesses (tools for tasks like image generation and data analysis).
- GPT-5.5 can produce near PhD-quality academic papers and creative content, like a tabletop RPG, with minimal prompts, but still struggles with long-form fiction and generating interesting hypotheses.
- The 'jagged frontier' of AI ability persists, with uneven performance across tasks, though overall capabilities are advancing and accelerating.
- The Otter Test measures AI image generation capabilities but may not assess reasoning or understanding gaps, as highlighted by alternative tests like the Carwash Test.
- Ethical and educational implications arise from AI's ability to replicate complex academic work, questioning the value of traditional credentials.
- AI advancements raise concerns about measuring meaningful capabilities versus superficial fluency, emphasizing the need for tests that evaluate reasoning and real-world application.
Spark: Bitcoin's Payment Layer for Stablecoins and Instant BTC
16 hours ago
- Spark is a Bitcoin Layer 2 that enables instant, low-cost transfers of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-native assets (including stablecoins) while maintaining full connection to Bitcoin's infrastructure, avoiding bridges or wrappers.
- It integrates seamlessly with the Lightning Network without requiring nodes or channels, simplifying processes like offline receive and liquidity management.
- With tools like the Wallet SDK and Issuer SDK, developers can create and manage tokens directly on Bitcoin, supporting features like stablecoins via the BTKN token standard.
- Transfers within Spark are fee-free; users only incur Bitcoin network fees for deposits and withdrawals.
- Spark is open-source and aims to expand Bitcoin's use from a monetary network into an application platform, attracting broader user adoption, including non-crypto-native users.
How Hard Is It to Open a File?
10 hours ago
- Opening a file can be simple with standard library functions but becomes extremely hard when security boundaries are involved.
- Privileged processes operating on behalf of less privileged ones must handle paths carefully to avoid attacks like symlink exploits and TOCTOU races.
- File descriptors provide stable references to inodes, making them safer than path strings for secure file operations.
- Libraries like libglnx offer fd-based APIs (e.g., glnx_chaseat) for secure path traversal, avoiding absolute paths.
- Common path-based APIs in POSIX, GLib/Gio, and Rust can introduce vulnerabilities, complicating security in composed code.
- Flatpak faced security issues (e.g., CVE-2026-34078) due to path-based arguments, requiring audits and migration to fd-based approaches.
- The article suggests better cross-platform APIs should return opaque handles instead of paths, leveraging FUSE for universal filesystem access.
In a first, a ransomware family is confirmed to be quantum-safe
6 hours ago
- Kyber ransomware uses ML-KEM encryption, a post-quantum cryptography standard, to enhance its perceived security.
- ML-KEM is an asymmetric key exchange method resistant to quantum attacks, replacing traditional systems like RSA and Elliptic Curve.
- The ransomware employs ML-KEM1024 to protect the AES-256 key used for encrypting victims' data.
- Security firm Rapid7 reverse-engineered Kyber, confirming it as the first known ransomware using post-quantum cryptography.
- Kyber has been active since at least September 2024, leveraging ML-KEM's marketing appeal to hype its encryption strength.

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Bilingual

Chinese Hospitals Are Selling Patient Data to Fuel the AI Boom
5 hours ago
- Chinese hospitals are monetizing de-identified patient data to support the AI industry, with transactions like a Shandong hospital selling liver disease records for 30,000 yuan.
- Government initiatives, such as a 2024 action plan, promote data commercialization in healthcare, leading to sales in Beijing, Fujian, and mandates in Wenzhou.
- Datasets cover areas like cancer, geriatrics, and prenatal care, used by AI firms and researchers for diagnostics and drug development, with strict privacy protections.
One town's scheme to get rid of its geese
5 hours ago
- Foster City, California spent nearly $400,000 on a tech-driven campaign to manage a population of about 300 Canada geese, deemed a public health nuisance due to excessive droppings.
- Wildlife Innovations implemented non-lethal hazing techniques using GPS trackers, surveillance cameras, lasers, drones, a border collie, and a 'Goosinator' boat to make geese uncomfortable and encourage their relocation.
- The initiative reflects broader trends in human-wildlife conflict resolution as urban development intersects with animal behavior changes, with similar issues involving species like grizzlies, coyotes, and elephants globally.
Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly
2 hours ago
- Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly allows direct access to files without extracting them.
- A metadata index file lists size and offsets of files within the tar, enabling zero-copy access.
- Emscripten's WORKERFS backend slices the tar blob on demand, serving reads without copying data.
- The tar-vfs-index npm package generates JSON metadata compatible with file_packager format.
- Tar archives have a flat layout with contiguous file data, making them suitable as a VFS backend store.
- For gzipped tar files, browser native decompression is used before mounting.
- Metadata can be served separately or appended to the tar archive for self-contained files.
- This approach reduces memory usage and speeds up loading, beneficial in constrained environments like WebR.
nowhere: an entire website encoded in a URL
2 hours ago
- Nowhere utilizes URL fragments (#) to store entire websites, ensuring data never reaches servers and is accessible only from the browser.
- It uses Nostr relays for encrypted, anonymous communication, with ephemeral keys preventing traceability.
- Nowhere challenges platform control by rejecting terms of service that allow arbitrary content removal.
- Servers only provide generic page builder files; user actions (like orders or posts) use disposable keys, leaving no accounts or identities.
- URLs can be encrypted, requiring a password for access, protecting content even if the link is shared.
- Nowhere's architecture empowers the link holder, making content unremovable, uncensorable, and functional offline.
- Technical design (like no servers and encrypted fragments) guarantees resistance to shutdowns, unlike policy-based commitments.
- Links act as permanent copies that cannot be recalled, ensuring durability beyond internet access.
How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences
2 hours ago
- Interpret others' actions negatively if unclear, assuming malicious, ignorant, or amoral intent.
- Trust intuition and feelings fully, avoiding challenges to assumptions; pivot conversations when challenged.
- Maintain original positions by asking suggestive questions and digging in against dissent.
- Use social networks to craft supportive narratives against detractors, ignoring credentials of disagreeing parties.
- Deny grace for mistakes, especially from strangers, and retreat into oneself when conversations fail.
Meta says it will cut 8k jobs as AI spending grows
16 hours ago
- Meta plans to cut 10% of its workforce, roughly 8,000 jobs, next month.
- The company is increasing AI spending to $135bn this year, equal to its total from the previous three years.
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted AI's role in boosting productivity, enabling single workers to complete tasks that once required teams.
- Meta is tracking employee computer interactions to train AI models, a move some call 'dystopian' amid layoffs.
- Other tech firms like Amazon, Oracle, Block, and Snap have also cut jobs this year, often citing AI investment as a factor.
FDA gives the green light to the first gene therapy for deafness
2 hours ago
- The FDA has approved the first gene therapy aimed at restoring hearing for people born with certain genetic deafness, marking a historic milestone in treating hearing loss.
- The therapy is specifically for individuals with a rare defect in the OTOF gene, which prevents the production of the otoferlin protein needed for sound transmission from the ears to the brain.
- Treatment involves infusing a gene-carrying virus into the ear to deliver a healthy version of the OTOF gene, with many patients in trials showing significant hearing improvement within weeks.
- In clinical results, 80% of patients achieved at least some significant hearing restoration, and 42% attained normal hearing, including the ability to hear whispers.
- The approval is based on a study of 20 patients, with hearing gains lasting at least two years so far, described as 'incredible' and 'remarkable' by experts.
- While currently limited to a rare form of deafness affecting about 50 U.S. children annually, researchers hope similar gene therapies might eventually address more common types of hearing loss.
- The mother of a child who underwent the experimental treatment shared emotional stories of her son responding to sound for the first time, such as startling at loud laughter.
- Despite the optimism, some in the deaf community express concerns that such therapies could stigmatize deafness by framing it as a problem needing medical correction.
US accuses China of "industrial-scale" AI theft. China says it's "slander"
2 hours ago
- The US is preparing actions against alleged Chinese industrial-scale theft of AI intellectual property.
- AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic accuse Chinese firms of using distillation attacks and fraudulent accounts to copy their models.
- A White House memo warns of China using proxy accounts and jailbreaking to extract proprietary information from US AI systems.
- The US government is considering measures to hold foreign actors accountable and may update laws to treat model extraction as espionage.
- Congress has been advised to direct agencies to impose severe penalties to deter such activities.
The Surveillance Accountability Act
8 hours ago
- The federal government currently purchases private data without warrants, judicial oversight, or accountability, accessing location, financial records, and personal beliefs.
- The Surveillance Accountability Act aims to close this loophole by requiring warrants for accessing metadata, location, or financial data, similar to searching a home.
- It prohibits government agencies from buying data from brokers to bypass warrants, bans warrantless facial recognition and AI biometric surveillance in public, and grants individuals the right to sue for violations.
- The act promotes reclaiming privacy, holding government surveillance accountable, and ensuring liberty and oversight prevail over unchecked power through public support.
Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career
4 hours ago
- AI may reduce learning of specific tasks, potentially impacting long-term skill development for software engineers.
- Even if AI impairs cognitive ability over time, engineers might still need to adopt it for short-term productivity gains, similar to how physical labor involves unavoidable trade-offs.
- Software engineering might transition from a lifelong career to a shorter-term profession, analogous to professional athletes, due to technological shifts.
- Refusing to use AI in software development could lead to being outcompeted in the job market, as efficiency often trumps long-term skill retention.
- The possibility of AI diminishing career longevity underscores the need for planning and adaptation in the evolving tech landscape.
S. Korea police arrest man over AI image of runaway wolf that misled authorities
3 hours ago
- A man was arrested for sharing an AI-generated image of a runaway wolf, misleading authorities during a search in Daejeon, South Korea.
- The fake photo caused authorities to relocate their search operation and issue emergency warnings, disrupting government work.
- Neukgu, the wolf, escaped from a zoo and was captured after nine days, sparking national attention and a local craze for the animal.
- The suspect claimed he created and shared the image 'for fun' and faces up to five years in prison or a fine for deception.
- Neukgu is part of a conservation program for the extinct Korean wolf, and his recovery has led to commercial and mascot considerations in the city.
Eric Trump Brags About $24M Pentagon Deal His Company Landed
5 hours ago
- Eric Trump appeared on Fox Business to celebrate a $24 million defense contract won by his company Foundation Industries, which builds military robotics.
- Foundation Industries has secured research contracts totaling $24 million from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, along with an SBIR Phase 3 award.
- Critics highlight a conflict of interest, as the contract involves the son of a sitting president, with little opposition from the Republican Party.
- The Trump family has a history of using political influence for financial gain, including selling sneakers, Bibles, and promoting cryptocurrency platforms.
- During Trump's presidency, his campaign offered a 'National Security Briefing Membership' and a memecoin event for donors to meet him at Mar-a-Lago.
- Eric and his wife Lara are set to accompany Trump on an official state trip to China, though it is claimed to be in a personal capacity.
Python Type Checker Comparison: Speed and Memory Usage – Pyrefly
16 hours ago
- New type checkers Pyrefly and Ty, written in Rust, are significantly faster and use less memory than established tools Pyright and Mypy, with up to 10-50x speed improvements on large packages.
- Performance evaluation is based on checking 53 popular open-source Python packages, focusing on execution time and peak memory usage, with Pyrefly and Ty completing checks in seconds compared to minutes for Pyright and Mypy on large projects.
- Key factors affecting performance include implementation language (Rust vs. Python/TypeScript), architectural design, inference features, and codebase characteristics such as size, dependency graphs, unions, and type coverage.
- Pyrefly prioritizes speed and memory efficiency while enabling advanced inference features by default, and it can check massive codebases like Instagram's 20 million lines in about 30 seconds.
- Developers are encouraged to test these tools on their own projects to assess performance, and should consider factors beyond speed, such as typing specification conformance and IDE support, when choosing a type checker.
SilentGlass actively blocks malicious HDMI and Display Port connections
5 hours ago
- SilentGlass is a world-first plug-and-play device that blocks unexpected or malicious HDMI and Display Port connections to secure vulnerable display links.
- Developed by the NCSC and licensed to Goldilock Labs for global manufacture and sale, it addresses monitors as attractive targets for cyber attacks, often used for espionage, disruption, or financial gain.
- Already deployed on Government estates and approved for high-threat environments, SilentGlass offers an affordable, easy-to-deploy solution to protect IT infrastructure by treating physical connectivity as a security boundary.
- The commercialisation through Goldilock Labs and Sony UK Technology Centre demonstrates how government IP can be leveraged for national prosperity, with expectations of rapid global adoption by governments and risk-conscious organisations.
Fluux Messenger 0.15.2 – A Modern Cross Platform XMPP Client (TypeScript)
17 hours ago
- RTL language support added for Arabic and Hebrew, with UI improvements for blockquotes.
- Faster reconnection with skip of redundant MAM queries and fixes for sleep/wake handling bugs.
- Loop prevention in reconnect attempts with a corrected counter and better error handling.
- MUC room state preserved across reconnects, ensuring messages and history are restored.
- SASL2 and FAST token improvements, including correct attribute setting and token rotation.
- Performance enhancements with per-conversation subscriptions for typing indicators and drafts.
- Other fixes include reliable notifications, image lightbox improvements, and upload error displays.
The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?
14 hours ago
- The video discusses 'microlooting' or petty theft from corporations like Whole Foods as a form of political protest against inequality.
- Two guests, Hasan Piker and Jia Tolentino, debate the morality and effectiveness of such actions, noting that while they may not constitute effective direct action, they reflect anger towards systemic exploitation.
- The conversation explores broader themes like systemic vs. individual theft, with wage theft by corporations highlighted as more consequential than individual shoplifting.
- Effective political action is suggested to involve organized efforts like unionization, rather than isolated acts of theft, though these actions may signal underlying discontent.
- The discussion touches on societal trust in government, the broken social contract, and the need for structural changes to address inequality and restore confidence in governance.
Sign of the Future: GPT-5.5
14 hours ago
- GPT-5.5 represents a significant step in AI improvement, demonstrating continued rapid progress in models, apps, and harnesses.
- It excels in coding tasks, such as generating a 3D simulation of a harbor town's evolution, outperforming previous models in speed and accuracy.
- The AI landscape includes models (e.g., GPT-5.5), apps (e.g., ChatGPT, Codex), and harnesses (tools for tasks like image generation and data analysis).
- GPT-5.5 can produce near PhD-quality academic papers and creative content, like a tabletop RPG, with minimal prompts, but still struggles with long-form fiction and generating interesting hypotheses.
- The 'jagged frontier' of AI ability persists, with uneven performance across tasks, though overall capabilities are advancing and accelerating.
- The Otter Test measures AI image generation capabilities but may not assess reasoning or understanding gaps, as highlighted by alternative tests like the Carwash Test.
- Ethical and educational implications arise from AI's ability to replicate complex academic work, questioning the value of traditional credentials.
- AI advancements raise concerns about measuring meaningful capabilities versus superficial fluency, emphasizing the need for tests that evaluate reasoning and real-world application.
Spark: Bitcoin's Payment Layer for Stablecoins and Instant BTC
16 hours ago
- Spark is a Bitcoin Layer 2 that enables instant, low-cost transfers of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-native assets (including stablecoins) while maintaining full connection to Bitcoin's infrastructure, avoiding bridges or wrappers.
- It integrates seamlessly with the Lightning Network without requiring nodes or channels, simplifying processes like offline receive and liquidity management.
- With tools like the Wallet SDK and Issuer SDK, developers can create and manage tokens directly on Bitcoin, supporting features like stablecoins via the BTKN token standard.
- Transfers within Spark are fee-free; users only incur Bitcoin network fees for deposits and withdrawals.
- Spark is open-source and aims to expand Bitcoin's use from a monetary network into an application platform, attracting broader user adoption, including non-crypto-native users.
How Hard Is It to Open a File?
10 hours ago
- Opening a file can be simple with standard library functions but becomes extremely hard when security boundaries are involved.
- Privileged processes operating on behalf of less privileged ones must handle paths carefully to avoid attacks like symlink exploits and TOCTOU races.
- File descriptors provide stable references to inodes, making them safer than path strings for secure file operations.
- Libraries like libglnx offer fd-based APIs (e.g., glnx_chaseat) for secure path traversal, avoiding absolute paths.
- Common path-based APIs in POSIX, GLib/Gio, and Rust can introduce vulnerabilities, complicating security in composed code.
- Flatpak faced security issues (e.g., CVE-2026-34078) due to path-based arguments, requiring audits and migration to fd-based approaches.
- The article suggests better cross-platform APIs should return opaque handles instead of paths, leveraging FUSE for universal filesystem access.
In a first, a ransomware family is confirmed to be quantum-safe
6 hours ago
- Kyber ransomware uses ML-KEM encryption, a post-quantum cryptography standard, to enhance its perceived security.
- ML-KEM is an asymmetric key exchange method resistant to quantum attacks, replacing traditional systems like RSA and Elliptic Curve.
- The ransomware employs ML-KEM1024 to protect the AES-256 key used for encrypting victims' data.
- Security firm Rapid7 reverse-engineered Kyber, confirming it as the first known ransomware using post-quantum cryptography.
- Kyber has been active since at least September 2024, leveraging ML-KEM's marketing appeal to hype its encryption strength.

Hasty Briefsbeta

Chinese Hospitals Are Selling Patient Data to Fuel the AI Boom

One town's scheme to get rid of its geese

Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly

nowhere: an entire website encoded in a URL

How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

Meta says it will cut 8k jobs as AI spending grows

FDA gives the green light to the first gene therapy for deafness

US accuses China of "industrial-scale" AI theft. China says it's "slander"

The Surveillance Accountability Act

Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

S. Korea police arrest man over AI image of runaway wolf that misled authorities

Eric Trump Brags About $24M Pentagon Deal His Company Landed

Python Type Checker Comparison: Speed and Memory Usage – Pyrefly

SilentGlass actively blocks malicious HDMI and Display Port connections

Fluux Messenger 0.15.2 – A Modern Cross Platform XMPP Client (TypeScript)

The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?

Sign of the Future: GPT-5.5

Spark: Bitcoin's Payment Layer for Stablecoins and Instant BTC

How Hard Is It to Open a File?

In a first, a ransomware family is confirmed to be quantum-safe

Chinese Hospitals Are Selling Patient Data to Fuel the AI Boom

One town's scheme to get rid of its geese

Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly

nowhere: an entire website encoded in a URL

How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

Meta says it will cut 8k jobs as AI spending grows

FDA gives the green light to the first gene therapy for deafness

US accuses China of "industrial-scale" AI theft. China says it's "slander"

The Surveillance Accountability Act

Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

S. Korea police arrest man over AI image of runaway wolf that misled authorities

Eric Trump Brags About $24M Pentagon Deal His Company Landed

Python Type Checker Comparison: Speed and Memory Usage – Pyrefly

SilentGlass actively blocks malicious HDMI and Display Port connections

Fluux Messenger 0.15.2 – A Modern Cross Platform XMPP Client (TypeScript)

The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?

Sign of the Future: GPT-5.5

Spark: Bitcoin's Payment Layer for Stablecoins and Instant BTC

How Hard Is It to Open a File?

In a first, a ransomware family is confirmed to be quantum-safe