Educational CyberPlayGround Nethappenings Security

#SECURITY

Britain warns that Russia plans to strike civilian shipping in the Black Sea.

Nuclear Waste
@Mining_Atoms There’s no such thing as “nuclear waste.” We’re thinking about it wrong. Partially spent nuclear fuel can be manufactured into high-value, simple, safe energy products. Every atom. From new fuel to batteries. Ask a scientist👇
Stephen A. Boyd, Ph.D.@StephenABoydPh1
There’s no waste, because 100% of the partially spent nuclear fuel (PSNF) can be recycled – all of it. As Randall just indicated, beta batteries should be deployed EVERYWHERE there’s a need for remote ops.

“We, IDF chiefs of staff, Israel Police commissioners, former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, retired IDF generals and heads of Mossad and Shin Bet divisions, see you [Netanyahu] as the person directly responsible for serious damage to…Israel’s security”
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r13h4ufc3#autoplay

Trump will stand trial on May 20, 2024 — after most presidential primaries have elapsed — on charges that he hoarded military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a federal judge ordered today.

TRump’s former DHS Chief of Staff, Miles Taylor, claims that TRump wanted his own Wagner-like “mercenary” Army. This is why the Republicans are going to try to cheat like hell in every election going forward they Will complain and whine and say every election they lose is rigged. By 2028, Millennial and Gen Z Voters will dominate the political landscape in the US. They were raised doing active shooter drills.

POTUS is the commander in chief of the DC national guard & doesn’t need permission to deploy them.
So why didn’t he deploy them after the riot started & Capitol police begged for them?
Pence had to make the call. Trump didn’t make ONE call to the DOD.
Traitor

@wikileaks
Amnesty: “We call on the UK to refrain from extraditing Julian Assange, for the US to drop the charges, and for Assange to be freed”
@amnesty #FreeAssange2023

Microsoft called a new report from Wiz on the recent U.S. gov’t hack “speculative and not evidence-based.” Wiz said they’re confused because they worked on the report with members of Microsoft’s security team

Researchers find deliberate backdoor in police radio encryption algorithm
Vendors knew all about it, but most customers were clueless.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/07/researchers-find-deliberate-backdoor-in-police-radio-encryption-algorithm/
The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre assumed the responsibility of notifying radio vendors and computer emergency response teams around the world about the problems, and of coordinating a timeframe for when the researchers should publicly disclose the issues. The researchers say anyone using radio technologies should check with their manufacturer to determine if their devices are using TETRA and what fixes or mitigations are available. Critical infrastructure in the US and other countries use TETRA for machine-to-machine communication in SCADA and other industrial control system settings—especially in widely distributed pipelines, railways, and electric grids, where wired and cellular communications may not be available.

Jessica Lessin @Jessicalessin Jul 20
Goodness gracious. Let it be said, journalists don’t need Google to write their articles as “a personal assistant.” And anything that Google (or any AI) could write has no real original reporting value. NYT

Florida revised school curriculum on slavery is an obscene revision of Black history and they wouldn’t have been able to do it unless publishers agreed to accept the money to change the content, and that wouldn’t have happened if the writers on staff the “educated PhDs” who do the writing hadn’t cooperated like good little Nazis.
The push continues for school districts to move away from paper textbooks and toward digital curricula and e-textbooks. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urged educators last year to move quickly to adopt digital textbooks and materials. Also last year, the Federal Communications Commission and the Education Department released a report, the “Digital Textbook Playbook,” which provided a blueprint for schools to make the shift. Florida, for one, has already adopted legislation requiring districts to spend half their instructional-materials budgets on digital content by 2015-16, and other states are considering legislation promoting digital textbooks.
Now, the only publisher approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education for K-5 mathematics is Accelerate Learning, a company out of Houston, Texas.
Florida approves dozens of K-12 social studies books after Studies Weekly publishers tweak material
A Florida textbook publisher apparently altered the story of Rosa Parks printed in its books, removing all references to her race.
https://www.publishersglobal.com/directory/subject/school-publishers

Example of Capitalism that went off the rails.
2010 Abu Dhabi has a 75 year lease on all of the parking meters in Chicago.
In a decade they’ve already made back their investment
The city of Chicago has 36,000 parking meters. In 2008, it sold them on a 75 year lease for over one billion dollars. The buyers were led by Morgan Stanley. “Mayor Daley has nodded to operational problems with the parking meter sale but says it’s financially sound.”
Financially sound for who? ~ Max Fisher
118 degrees Climatologists: July’s intense heat “exactly what we expected to see”
Deadly temperatures will become common unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut fast.

musk talks about xAI

7/25/23 First full day Twitter officially rebranded as X

xAI Everything you need to know by @thealexker

@elonmusk talked about xAI, his new AI company, on Twitter Spaces this afternoon July 14th 2023. Here’s everything you need to know:
https://twitter.com/thealexker/status/1679994716023037952

Goal: Build a “good AGI” How? Build an AI that is maximally curious and interested in humanity.
Criteria for AGI: It will need to solve at least one fundamental problem.

The mission statement of xAI: “What the hell is going on?”
AGI is currently being brute-forced and still not succeeding.
Prediction: when AGI is solved, it will be simpler than we thought.

2 metrics to track:
1) The ratio of digital to biological compute globally. Biological compute will eventually be <1% of total compute. 2) Total electric and thermal energy per person (also exponential) xAI as a company: Size: a small team of experts but grant a large amount of GPU per person. Culture: Iterate on ideas, challenge each other, ship quickly (first release is a couple of weeks out). Competition: xAI is in competition with both Google and OpenAI. Competition is good because it makes companies honest. Elon wants AI to be ultimately useful for both consumers and businesses. Q: How do you plan on using Twitter's data for xAI: Every company has used Twitter data for training, in all cases, illegally. Scraping brought Twitter's system to its knees; hence rate limiting was needed. Public tweets will be used for training: text, images, and videos. But at some point, we will run out of human data... So self-generated content will be needed for AGI. Think AlphaGo. Motivations for starting xAI: The rigorous pursuit of truth. It is dangerous to grow an AI and tell it to lie or be politically correct. AI needs to tell the truth, despite criticisms. Q: Collaboration with Tesla? There will be mutual benefit to collaborating with Tesla, but since Tesla is public, it will be at arm's length. Q: How will xAI respond if the government tries to interfere? Elon is willing to go to prison for the public good if the government intervenes in a way that is against the public interest. Elon wants to be as transparent as possible. Q: How is xAI different than any other AI companies? OpenAI is closed source and voracious for profit because they are spending 100B in 3 years. It is an ironic outcome. xAI is not biased toward market incentives, therefore find answers that are controversial but true. Q How to prevent hallucinations + reduce errors? xAI can use Community Notes as ground truth. xAI will ensure the models are more factual, have better reasoning abilities, and have an understanding of the 3D physical world. AGI will probably happen 2029 +/- 1 year. Any verified, real human will be able to vote on xAI's future.

REGULATORY CLARITY FOR DIGITAL ASSETS

BOTH THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE HAVE INTRODUCED LEGISLATION IN AN ATTEMPT TO PROVIDE REGULATORY CLARITY FOR DIGITAL ASSETS.

Both the CFTC and SEC a seat at the table

A good faith regulator would be working with Congress and industry participants to provide a regularly framework that fostered innovation while providing important rules like the segregation of customer funds, a bar and penalty for commingling, 100% reserves, protecting client funds in case of bankruptcy, etc. There are tremendous things a good faith regulator could accomplish in the crypto space.

@SenLummis
I am very encouraged to see this legislation introduced in the House.
https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=408921

@PatrickMcHenry, @CongressmanGT, @RepFrenchHill have sent a strong message that both chambers of Congress are ready to enact real reform that drives both innovation and consumer protection.

@FinancialCmte
The Financial Innovation & Technology for the 21st Century Act, introduced by the Financial Services and @HouseAgGOP Committees, provides clear rules of the road so the #digitalasset ecosystem can thrive in the U.S.

@FinancialCmte
The Financial Innovation & Technology for the 21st Century Act, introduced by the Financial Services and @HouseAgGOP Committees, provides clear rules of the road so the #digitalasset ecosystem can thrive in the U.S.

“Today’s introduction of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act marks a significant milestone in the House Committees on Agriculture and Financial Services efforts to establish a much-needed regulatory framework that protects consumers and investors and fosters American leadership in the digital asset space,” said Chairman Thompson. “Over the past several months, our teams solicited extensive feedback from stakeholder and market participants, and worked diligently to produce a legislative product that aims to close existing authority gaps, ensuring U.S. leadership in financial and technological innovation. I thank Chairman McHenry for his leadership and that of our subcommittee chairs in moving this legislation to this stage.”

“The digital asset space is muddled with regulatory uncertainty, lack of authority, and a lacking framework for core operating principles,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson. “The crypto industry wants clarity and our collaborative bill gives both the CFTC and SEC a seat at the table. Our bill establishes clear principles to ensure financial security and certainty as digital asset developers continue to innovate.”

The Bird is Dead

The #Bird is Dead. Twitter is gone.

I just went to the Twitter home page.
It’s official the bird is dead

https://twitter.com/

The logo changed to something ugly now.
We can call it  Shitwitter.

It’s like a swoosh without a swoosh just so unique, right?
he most unique thing ever!

Elon Musk proving that no amount of wealth can make up for your stupidity.

BRANDING FAIL

@twitter name so coming off the building right now but
@elonmusk didn’t get permit for the equipment on the street so
@SFPD is shutting it down.

It appears Instagram and FB owner Meta holds the trademark for “X” as it relates to “online social networking services… social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development…”
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

Alex Spiro, a trial lawyer who specializes in protecting the powerful and famous—including Elon Musk—from the legal consequences of their poorest decisions.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/31/how-alex-spiro-keeps-the-rich-and-famous-above-the-law