Tuesday, 20 October
17:00 EDT
Google Support Pages Start Defaulting to AI Chatbots [Slashdot]
Google is beginning to replace traditional support articles with "Ask Google Help," a Gemini-powered interface that summarizes documentation and lets users troubleshoot through a chatbot. 9to5Google reports: "Ask Google Help" will display a condensed version of the support article with direct troubleshooting steps, with the user then able to type in queries to have Gemini help figure out the next step forward. A "View Sources" button at the bottom of the AI response allows users to still access the original article, but direct links to any of these articles now defaults to the AI experience. An example can be seen below on the "Secure a hacked or compromised Google account" page that Google's own support account directed users to within the past few days. It can also be seen on the "Fix common issues with 2-Step Verification" page and, as far as we can tell, any support pages on the Google Account Help forum. Google, as of right now, appears to only be testing this on select support topics. The Google Pixel Help section, for instance, still defaults to articles, whereas the Google Chrome topic has also moved to the new experience. Beyond support pages alone, this new design also impacts the central hub, with links to topics no longer showing by default in exchange for an AI chatbot that helps you find the relevant page.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
16:00 EDT
DHS Lied About Why It Wanted To Search Activist's GrapheneOS Phone [Slashdot]
New court records reportedly show that DHS targeted Stop Cop City activist Samuel Tunick at an Atlanta airport because he was under investigation for suspected "terrorist activities." However, the CBP officers told him instead that they wanted to search his phone for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Tunick, who is not accused of terrorism or any other crime beyond allegedly wiping his GrapheneOS phone during the encounter, faces up to five years in prison. 404 Media reports: Instead of saying he was being targeted for suspected terrorism -- although this search happened just at the start of the second Trump administration, it has dramatically broadened what organizations or people may be considered such -- they said they needed his phone to look for "kiddie p*rn." "Good afternoon," an email sent from a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) official, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to CBP and other officials reads. "The following subject is scheduled to arrive in ATL [Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport] today via DL 1778 @ 1930 Hours. TUNICK is under investigation by HSI/JTTF for suspected terrorist activities." The email includes a photo of Tunick, and asks the officials to direct him to secondary inspection, retain all of his electronics, and collect their passcodes. As 404 Media first revealed in December, Tunick was charged because he allegedly "did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government's lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control." Matthew Dodge, one of Tunick's lawyers, previously told 404 Media he only found one other case using the same obscure law, a drug trafficking case. "This is extraordinarily rare," Dodge said. Tunick was part of the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, which broadly protested the building of a large police training center, and which authorities investigated for arson, vandalism, and doxing. Tunick is not suspected of any crime beyond the alleged wiping of the phone, and has previously put his current prosecution in the context of the wide spanning cases against other Stop Cop City protesters. The newly filed court record, in which Tunick's lawyers argue that evidence should be thrown out, include new photos and descriptions of the airport encounter. The CBP officials asked Tunick if they were going to find "kiddie p*rn" on his phone, which Tunick immediately denied. "As the evidentiary hearing made clear, these unfounded accusations were nothing more than pretext for a fishing expedition into the depths of Mr. Tunick's devices," the lawyers wrote. They added, "Officer Findley acknowledged that officers had no reason whatsoever to believe Mr. Tunick possessed child p*rnography," referring to one of the officials.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
15:00 EDT
Polestar tries to quantify what it’s like to drive a performance car [Ars Technica - All content]
The human desire to go fast is old, dating back at least as far as the first time some adventurous Yamnaya saw a horse on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and thought, “I bet if I jumped on that thing’s back, it would be faster than walking.”
A thousand years later, someone else invented the wheel—and the chariot—and humanity was ready to roll. Now, about five millennia since that first horseback ride, equestrianism is mostly a leisure activity, and we drive cars, propelled by motors with more power than an entire herd of beasts could muster.
Acceleration, top speed, and lap times are the usual ways we quantify that performance, and performance electric vehicles are currently in an arms race to see which one can hit 60 mph in the least amount of time. But measuring a car’s performance is easy—all you need is a stopwatch and a track. How about measuring the effect of car performance on the driver? That’s a question Polestar is trying to answer with researchers at the University of Oxford.
OpenBSD 8.0 Released [Slashdot]
OpenBSD 8.0 has been released with major virtualization and hardware upgrades, including support for up to 64 vCPUs per VM, Intel Arc graphics, ARM64 hibernation, and expanded RISC-V support. Linuxiac points out that it marks the "61st release of the security-focused Unix-like operating system." From the report: Several fixes improve compatibility with 32-bit Linux guests, while changes to virtual machine ownership management and interrupt emulation make the virtualization infrastructure more capable. Graphics support has also been upgraded, with DRM drivers updated to those from Linux kernel 6.18.53. Notably, OpenBSD 8.0 adds support for Intel Arc A-Series (Alchemist) graphics cards through the inteldrm driver. Another important change increases the amd64 kernel's virtual address space from 4 GB to 512 GB, allowing the system to map over 4 GB of video memory. The release also addresses GPU timeout issues affecting some Intel Alder Lake systems. [...] For security, OpenBSD 8.0 adds checks and fixes across the kernel and system utilities, including improvements to pledge and unveil, tighter validation of executable files, and protections against memory corruption and information disclosure. A full list of changes can be found here. Further reading: Wine Ported to OpenBSD
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
14:00 EDT
Meta Muse Exposes Users' Personal, Business Secrets When They Share Conversations [Slashdot]
Security researchers say Meta's Muse AI assistant exposed thousands of users' shared conversations because conversation titles were placed in subdomains that could be discovered through public DNS records. Meta has since suspended the sharing feature while it considers making changes. Ars Technica reports: Like many online services, Muse has allowed users to share searches, conversations, images, and similar content with other people. Such share features usually involve clicking an option to create a unique URL that anyone can use to load a page hosting the content. To keep potentially sensitive information from being accessible to unintended people, the URLs typically contain a long sequence of text that can't be easily guessed. Muse, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month was "built from the ground up for privacy and security," seems to take the same precautions. But a central design decision for constructing URLs has made the links easy to discover. As a result, researchers from security firm Claroc said they were able to enumerate 6,800 links Muse users created for sharing conversations with others. After opening a few hundred of them, the researchers found information that was clearly not intended to be publicly available... [...]. "If you had asked us beforehand, we would have guessed that gathering these would take real effort," the researchers wrote. "It took one query." [...] The easiest way to discover the URLs is to perform a passive DNS search through one of many available commercial services. Passive DNS records store the historical resolution of domain names to IP addresses, as well as nameserver, and mail-server records over time. Passive DNS systems typically collect DNS responses from sensors positioned at recursive DNS resolvers or other infrastructure. A passive DNS record is generally created when a monitoring system observes a DNS response. In the case here, once the intended party clicks on the share link, the DNS information is recorded in a searchable database. Claroc researchers were able to discover the Muse share links because all of them use the domain name cf.metaaiusercontent.com. Discovery is further made easy by the decision to add the conversation name to the URL, along with a long string of text. Simplified examples of such links are home-sale-budget-9f21c8a3.cf.metaaiusercontent.com, q3-revenue-review-7b1e42f0.cf.metaaiusercontent.com, and loan-application-draft-a4c9e2.cf.metaaiusercontent.com. It's this last design decision, putting the conversation title in the subdomain rather than in the URL path, that makes public discovery possible.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
13:00 EDT
Vanessa Kerry is the new WHO envoy for health resilience. What's on her to-do list? [NPR Topics: News]
A respected figure in the world of global health, Dr. Kerry takes on a new responsibility. She says it's challenging but not "daunting."
(Image credit: Joel Saget)
A new poll shows what voters are thinking 2 weeks out from Election Day [NPR Topics: News]
Midterm election day is just over two weeks away. What are some numbers on the mind of voters?
Belushi / Timeline: A Visual History of Our World [Cool Tools]
BELUSHI – THE LIFE AND DEATH OF AN AMERICAN ICON
Belushi: On a Mission from God
by Alberto Schiavone (author) and Matteo Manera (illustrator)
One Peace Books
2016, 112 pages, 7 x 1 x 10 inches (softcover)
In 1982 John Belushi died from an overdose in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont when he was 33 years old. At his memorial service, his friend and collaborator, Dan Akroyd, said Belushi was “a brilliant performer, writer, tactician, business strategist…a good man – and a bad boy.” Released today, this graphic novel biography, written and illustrated by two Italian truefans of Belushi, presents us with the story of a man whose level of self-destructive behavior moved in lockstep with his rapid rise to international superstardom. Author Schiavone doesn’t bother explaining why Belushi abused drugs when he had everything else going for him – because the why is not especially interesting. “Real greatness gives license for real indulgence,” explained Ackroyd at the memorial service, “whether it’s as a reward, as therapy or as sanctuary.” This is true for many great entertainers, and Schiavone wisely chose not to devote space exploring this aspect of Belushi’s life, choosing instead to focus on what made the comedian unique – his brand of humor that was fresh and absurd, yet comforting and deeply resonant at the same time. Manera’s fine-lined pen and ink illustrations capture the essence of Belushi and his manic short life. – Mark Frauenfelder
TIMELINE: A VISUAL HISTORY OF OUR WORLD
Timeline: A Visual History of Our World
by Peter Goes
Gecko Press
2016, 80 pages, 10.6 x 14.6 x 0.6 inches
I love the tidbits of history, the unique visual style, the subtle humor, and the breadth of coverage in Timeline: A Visual History of Our World. On each 10×29-inch page spread are whimsical curved text blocks filled with simply written – yet intriguing – historical facts. And each spread addresses one era of time. The book, which targets children 7 to 12-years old, starts with The Beginning of Life and includes a miniature image-based timeline of stromatolites, trilobites, ammonites and more. The author offers spreads dedicated to the major geological periods, as well as more brief and recent timespans. Our current decade is the last timeline covered, concluding with “As time goes by…” along with a person spreading black paint across the page.
The illustrations are fabulous. Goes uses a minimalist color palette that differs for each of his timelines. The Dinosaurs are on a wheat-toned page with black silhouettes accented by red and gold. The Ming Dynasty appears on a dusty rose background with dark pink and white accents, again using black as the major illustrative color. Goes’ technique of black with two accent colors artfully draws the eye to visual vignettes on the page, while the curving text leads you to the next image. Wonderful. Engaging. Amusing.
This book makes for great conversational fodder. Did you know that, according to the page spread on 18th Century in Europe, “Mont Blanc was called Mon Maudit, or ‘cursed mountain,’ until the Enlightenment, when people stopped believing in curses”? The 1960s spread covers the social protest movements of the decade, referring to incidents from around the globe. One of the most interesting spreads to me was Explorers from All Periods, mostly because I love learning about specific people. China had an ambassador, Zhang Qian, in the 2nd Century BC – who knew that there were ambassadors that long ago? I am not a history buff, yet I continually enjoy perusing Timeline: A Visual History of Our World. – Lora Poser-Brown
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
Who pays when a jury finds that a survivor is lying? [Philip Greenspun’s Weblog]
“M.I.T. Scientist Wins $6 Million in Sexual Harassment Defamation Suit” (New York Times):
The biologist, David Sabatini, was among the most prominent scientists in his field, and ran a research lab at the Whitehead Institute, in Cambridge, for 24 years. His lab studied cellular biology to better understand neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes, and aging.
He was forced out of his lab in 2021 after an internal Whitehead investigation concluded he had a past sexual relationship with a younger and less experienced colleague, Kristin Knouse, over whom he had a career-influencing role. The investigation also found that his lab had maintained a sexualized atmosphere. Dr. Knouse said that the relationship was coerced.
But Dr. Sabatini denied his lab had an improper atmosphere. He maintained that his relationship with Dr. Knouse had been consensual and that Dr. Knouse had schemed to get him fired and disgraced after he became interested in another woman.
Nearly five years to the day after he filed his defamation lawsuit, a Suffolk County jury agreed with him, finding that Dr. Sabatini had proved in court that Dr. Knouse had defamed him and interfered with his ability to work.
The Whitehead Institute, in a statement after the verdict, said that earlier legal claims against the institution had already been dismissed, adding, “Therefore, Whitehead was not a party to this case, and the decision and judgment only apply to Drs. Sabatini and Knouse, the parties in the case.”
It’s a remarkable day when a Maskachusetts jury doesn’t #BelieveWomen. But who will pay for the $6 million judgment against the survivor? MIT/Whitehead somehow skated free of this lawsuit despite having run a kangaroo court and tossed Sabatini based on statements that a jury found were obvious lies (truth is an absolute defense against defamation so the jury couldn’t have found that the survivor defamed Prof. Sabatini without finding that the survivor lied). Maybe the survivor, Prof. Knouse, has homeowner’s insurance and that means, as with the lies that Amber Heard and the ACLU told about Johnny Depp, we will pay? We might already have paid if MIT funded Knouse’s defense, in which case our tax dollars were used. If homeowner’s insurance paid for the defense then we’ve already paid via higher premiums. On the third hand, this Courthouse News article says that Sabatini was 50 and Knouse was 29 at the time of the sexual relationship. Absent family money, it would be rare for someone in her early 30s to be a homeowner or even a condo owner in Cambridge.
Grok says that MIT/Whitehead skated free because they fired Sabatini for violating a “consensual relationships policy” (maybe he was supposed to file some paperwork and didn’t?). It references this LegalClarity site, which covers some of the twists and turns in the case.
Here’s Kristin Knouse:
Related:
- Amber Heard, as perceived by the Musk family and friends
- Who paid for the consequences of the ACLU-authored, Amber Heard-signed op-ed? You did.
- Don’t let the ACLU write your op-eds and other lessons from the Amber Heard libel trial
The post Who pays when a jury finds that a survivor is lying? appeared first on Philip Greenspun’s Weblog.
US Bans DeepSeek From Government Use [Slashdot]
The Trump administration has banned DeepSeek AI from most US civilian federal agencies, ordering the removal of the Chinese company's models and technology developed using them. The Department of Homeland Security did not specify the security threats behind the decision. The BBC reports: The order (PDF) is broad, as it requires agencies to ditch "all DeepSeek and DeepSeek-affiliate products, and third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations." Complying will be tricky as it is not clear which third-party products and services have been developed using DeepSeek's wares. Nor is it clear whether "developed using" means providing ongoing access to DeepSeek models via API or simply refers to any app vibe-coded with the help of DeepSeek. It also leaves open the question of AI gateways. Services such as OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway make DeepSeek's models available through APIs. And those using gateway services may find themselves using DeepSeek models without meaning to do so. OpenRouter, for example, "routes requests to the best available providers for your model." It selects what the service deems to be the best fit provider of AI services. Vercel AI Gateway does the same by default. So federal civilian agencies could be using DeepSeek models inadvertently, if they haven't taken steps to constrain their AI providers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stupidity [Science-Based Medicine]
His brain may hurt, but he ain't stupid.
The post Stupidity first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.12:00 EDT
Nscale, Anthropic In Talks For New $45 Billion AI Cloud Deal [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nscale is in talks to sell AI computing power to Claude maker Anthropic in a new deal that could be worth about $45 billion, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. The data center developer is seeking another major deal with the AI lab for a second facility at its Monarch data center campus in West Virginia, the person said. In August, Anthropic struck a deal to spend $45 billion to rent AI cloud computing power from Nscale's West Virginia data center campus. A second Monarch building would deliver 460 megawatts of computing power using Nvidia's advanced Vera Rubin AI chips, according to the source. [...] According to the Nscale prospectus, Microsoft and Anthropic are expected to be the company's major customers in the future. Further reading: Microsoft Abandons UK AI Supercomputer As Grid Struggles to Keep Up
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
11:00 EDT
09:00 EDT
Meta Muse exposes users' personal and business secrets when they share conversations [Ars Technica - All content]
Muse, the new general-purpose AI agent from Meta, can expose sensitive information when users share conversations through web links, researchers reported Monday. In response to questions from Ars about the behavior, Meta said it's suspending the sharing feature while the company reviews it and considers making changes.
Like many online services, Muse has allowed users to share searches, conversations, images, and similar content with other people. Such share features usually involve clicking an option to create a unique URL that anyone can use to load a page hosting the content. To keep potentially sensitive information from being accessible to unintended people, the URLs typically contain a long sequence of text that can’t be easily guessed.
A single query is all that's required
Muse, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month was “built from the ground up for privacy and security,” seems to take the same precautions. But a central design decision for constructing URLs has made the links easy to discover. As a result, researchers from security firm Claroc said they were able to enumerate 6,800 links Muse users created for sharing conversations with others. After opening a few hundred of them, the researchers found information that was clearly not intended to be publicly available, including:
08:00 EDT
Visiting Slate’s first showroom as its $25,000 electric truck nears production [Ars Technica - All content]
As I sat in the cab of the pickup truck and manually rolled down the windows, I closed my eyes and, for the briefest moment, flashed back to opening the windows on a cold, winter day in my dad’s 1975 Ford Ranger to let more cigarette smoke escape. I opened my eyes and looked through the windshield at a wall in the Slate Customer Experience Center studded with bright color chips.
Last week, in a former Tesla store staffed by some former Tesla employees, Slate opened its first showroom. Located in the Fulton Market District just northwest of the Chicago Loop, the Slate Experience Center is a place for would-be buyers to poke around a prototype, check out customization options, buy some Slate merch, and even preorder a new Slate Truck with a $300 deposit.
Designed for the American obsession with pickup trucks, the Slate Truck is a bare-bones electric pickup truck retailing for $24,950. It sports plastic panels, a minimalist interior design sensibility, actual window winders, and a projected range of 205 miles. Ars went for a ride in a Slate Truck over the summer, but we haven't had a chance to shop for one. So I stopped by the Slate Experience Center so I could, er, experience the Slate.
DOJ charges 28 with voting crimes. And, TikTok ignored staff's child safety concerns [NPR Topics: News]
The Justice Department has charged 28 people in California with voting crimes as Election Day nears. And, TikTok staff raised child safety concerns with executives, who failed to act, court records show.
(Image credit: Imen Ben Youssef / Hans Lucas)
What if an AI bubble bursts — and that accelerates AI job losses? [NPR Topics: News]
Research on past recessions suggests downturns can accelerate automation. That raises the specter of a double whammy for workers.
