AI
Staff complain that xAI is flailing because of constant upheaval
One area of focus has been the quality of the data used to train the models, a key reason its coding product lagged behind Anthropic’s Claude Code or OpenAI’s Codex. Only 2 of the 11 cofounders remain who helped Musk set up xAI in San Francisco in March 2023. Researchers continue to quit because of burnout from Musk’s “extremely hardcore” work demands or after receiving better offers from rivals.
Hacked data shines light on homeland security’s AI surveillance ambitions
The projects at the Office of Industry Partnership (OIP) include automated surveillance in airports; adapters allowing agents to use phones for biometric scanning; and an AI platform that ingests all 911 call data nationally and builds “geospatial heat maps” to “predict incident trends”, which appears to be a form of predictive policing.
BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI
The AI quizzes were underwhelming, and the site was soon caught publishing entire AI-generated articles that were sloppy and repetitive. After the initial spike in enthusiasm, the company’s stock took a massive beating; as of this week, its shares are hovering around 70 cents.
Now, three years after its AI pivot, the writing is on the wall. The said “there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Company Testing Humanoid Robot Soldiers on Frontlines of Ukraine
Back in February, Foundation sent two Phantom Mk-I units for frontline reconnaissance duty.
"We think there’s a moral imperative to put these robots into war instead of soldiers."
Free Claude Code from Chipotle
Politics
Washington Millionaires Tax Passes House After 24-Hour Debate
Washington is one step closer to instituting its first personal income tax after the state house approved a levy on incomes over $1 million.
The bill (S.B. 6346) would institute a 9.9% tax rate on individuals or couples making more than $1 million in a year. Members of the house approved the measure 51-46 Tuesday after more than 24 hours of debate. The state senate passed it 27-22 last month.
The bill will need to be approved again by the senate after the house amended it.
Measles vaccinations rose 291% among New Mexico adults during outbreak
Despite anti-vaccine rhetoric, New Mexico residents embraced lifesaving shots.
In Texas, it was the largest outbreak recorded since 1992 (762 cases). And in New Mexico, it was the first measles outbreak the state had even seen since 1996 (99 cases).
Many DHS employees miss first full paychecks as shutdown continues
According to the agency’s shutdown contingency plan, most DHS employees are considered “excepted,” meaning they continue working as usual but will not receive pay until after the shutdown ends. That includes employees at the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Coast Guard and Secret Service.
The Heritage Foundation’s New Policy Guidebook Wants to Push Women Out of Public Life
The conservative blueprint ties declining birthrates to women’s independence, and proposes policies to steer them back toward early marriage and motherhood.
The paper slams the War on Poverty that was launched by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. That effort led to the development of food stamps (now called SNAP), as well as Medicare, Medicaid and other essential safety-net programs. Heritage calls Johnson’s anti-poverty initiative a “war on wedlock,” and charges that it allowed “government welfare to displace men from their role as providers.”
In addition to slashing public benefits, the authors of the report advocate ending no-fault divorce and limiting college enrollment. According to Heritage, ending easy access to PLUS loans and reducing financial aid awards will derail “over credentialing” and “pointless debt” and encourage women to procreate early and often.
BQTlock ransomware is free for anyone who targets Israeli organizations
Office.eu officially launches in The Hague as Europe's fully sovereign office platform
Former BND high-ranking official falls for Signal spear-phishing demanding his PIN
The trained diplomat, who was responsible for intelligence cooperation at NATO until 2019, entered the data.
Infosec
CrackArmor: Critical AppArmor Flaws Enable Local Privilege Escalation to Root
Qualys TRU has discovered confused deputy vulnerabilities in AppArmor (named “CrackArmor”) that allow unprivileged users to bypass kernel protections, escalate to root, and break container isolation. The flaw has existed since 2017, and affected over 12.6 million systems globally. Immediate kernel patching is recommended to neutralize these vulnerabilities.
Supply-chain attack using invisible code hits GitHub and other repositories
The invisible code is rendered with Private Use Areas (sometimes called Private Use Access), which are ranges in the Unicode specification for special characters reserved for private use in defining emojis, flags, and other symbols. The code points represent every letter of the US alphabet when fed to computers, but their output is completely invisible to humans. People reviewing code or using static analysis tools see only whitespace or blank lines.
Fake enterprise VPN sites used to steal company credentials
A threat actor tracked as Storm-2561 is distributing fake enterprise VPN clients from Ivanti, Cisco, and Fortinet to steal VPN credentials from unsuspecting users.
The attackers manipulate search results (SEO poisoning) for common queries like “Pulse VPN download” or “Pulse Secure client” to redirect victims to spoofed VPN vendor sites that closely mimic VPN solutions from legitimate software vendors.
Dutch Odido routers forwarded customers' personal data to American AI company for years
Odido routers forwarded the names and MAC addresses of all devices on a home network, along with the names of those devices, like “Jan’s iPhone,” or “Apple TV in the living room.” The routers also shared the names and MAC addresses of surrounding Wi-Fi networks and hotspots.
sCTF Scoreboard: CCSF is #1!
Hundreds of GitHub Python Repos Compromised to Add Crypto-wallet Stealing Code
End-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after May 8, 2026.
|