Making YouTube Work in the Netscape 4.5 Browser on Windows 98
The World Wide Web of the 90s was a magical place, where you couldn’t click two links without getting bombarded with phrases such as the Information Super Highway and Multimedia Experience. Of course, the multimedia experience you got on your Windows 9x PC was mostly limited to low-res, stuttery RealMedia and Windows video format clips, but what if you could experience YouTube back then, on your ‘multimedia-ready’ Celeron PC, running Netscape 4.5?
Cue the [Throaty Mumbo] bloke over on that very same YouTube, and his quest to make this dream come true. Although somewhat ridiculous on the face of it, the biggest problem is actually the era-appropriate hardware, as it was never meant to decode and display full-HD VP9-encoded videos.
Because the HTTPS requirement has meant that no 1990s or early 2000s browser will ever browse the modern WWW, a proxy was going to be needed no matter what. This Python-based proxy then got kitted out with not just the means to render down the convoluted HTML-CSS-JS mess of a YouTube page into something that a civilized browser can display, but also to fetch YouTube videos with yt-dlp and transcode it into MPEG1 in glorious SD quality for streaming to Netscape on the Windows 98 PC.
Because the same civilized browsers also support plugins, such as Netscape’s NPAPI, this meant that decoding and rendering the video was the easy part, as the browser just had to load the plugin and the latter doing all the heavy lifting. Perhaps unsurprisingly, with some tweaks even Netscape 2.0 can be used to browse YouTube and play back videos this way, with fullscreen playback and seeking support.
Although these days only a rare few modern browsers like Pale Moon still support NPAPI, it’s easy to see how the introduction of browser plugins boosted the multimedia future of the WWW that we find ourselves in today.
youtube.com/embed/PGeW-L7UPbM?…
Recovering Data from the OceanGate depths
When the files on the Titan submersible disaster were published, most people skimmed for drama. Hackers, however, would likely zoom in on the hardware autopsy. [Scott Manley] actually did this. He faced a hacker’s nightmare: three crushed PCs, bent SSDs, and an encrypted SD card from a camera that survived six kilometres under pressure, all sealed in titanium and silence.
[Scott] went all in to resurrect data. First came CT scans: firing 320 kV X-rays through a kilo of mangled electronics to hunt for intact NAND chips. When that failed, he desoldered UFS memory by hand, used custom flash readers, cloned NV-RAMs, and even rebuilt boards to boot salvaged firmware. The ultimate test was grafting the recovered chips onto donor hardware in Canada. Like the monster of Frankenstein, the system came to life.
In the end, it partially worked. Twelve stills and nine videos were retrieved, albeit none from the fatal dive. The process itself was a masterclass in deep hardware forensics, here covered in a video worth watching.
youtube.com/embed/qMUjCZ7MMWQ?…
Building A Clamshell Writer Deck
Most of us do our writing on computers these days, but the modern computing environment does present a lot of distractions. That’s let to the concept of the writer deck, a simplified device intended more specifically for word processing tasks. [Ashtf] has built a great example of the form with a modified version of the PocketMage device.
The PocketMage is a clamshell PDA device that [Ashtf] has been working on for some time. It’s powered by an ESP32, hooked up to a nice e-ink display. In its basic form, it’s not the ideal device for doing serious writing work, mostly because of its tiny keyboard. However, [Ashtf] has since added external keyboard support, which completely changes the game. With the use of a small USB C to USB A adapter, you can hook up any conventional USB keyboard that you like to best attain your maximum typing speed.
The result is a compact, simple device that lets you type away without distractions. If your latest fanfic isn’t coming along quickly enough because you keep losing focus to social media, perhaps this is a route you might like to go. [Ashtf] also included Markdown support so you can create richer documents on the device while operating in what is still fundamentally a text-only environment.
It’s neat to build custom devices that suit your own personal productivity needs. If you dig the PocketMage, you might like to check out the design files on Github. We’ve featured some other fun writer decks before, too. Video after the break.
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This Week in Security: Vibecoding, Router Banning, and Remote Dynamic Dependencies
Vibecoding. What could possible go wrong? That’s what [Kevin Joensen] of Baldur wondered, and to find out he asked Anthropic’s Sonnet 4.5 to build a secure login with Two Factor Authentication (2FA). And to the LLM’s credit, it builds the app as requested. [Kevin] took a peek under the hood to see how well the security was handled, and it wasn’t great.
Up first, the Flask app doesn’t have any rate-limiting for guessing that time-based 2FA code. A 6-digit time-based 2FA only works if you can’t try all the possibilities before a given code expires. So what does a vibecoder do, once this has been noticed? Ask the LLM to fix it of course. Here we take a slightly different approach, prompting the AI to double-check its work: “Is there any security features missing in 2fa verify step?” The answer is an impressive:
Great question! Yes, there are several critical security features missing from the 2FA verification step. Let me highlight the most important ones:Critical Security Issues1. No Rate Limiting (MOST CRITICAL)
But the critical question, can it properly fix its mistake? The AI adds the flask-limiter library and chooses 10 attempts per minute, which is a bit loose, but not unreasonable. There’s still an issue, that those attempts are limited by IP address instead of user login. All it takes to bypass that rate limiting is a pool of IP addresses.
This experiment starts to go off the rails, as [Kevin] continues to prompt the LLM to look for more problems in its code, and it begins to hallucinate vulnerabilities, while not fixing the actual problem. LLMs are not up to writing secure code, even with handholding.
But surely the problem of LLMs making security mistakes isn’t a real-world problem, right? Right? Researchers at Escape did a survey of 5,600 vibecoded web applications, and found 2,000 vulnerabilities. Caveat Vibetor.
“Secure” Enclave
A few weeks ago we talked about Battering RAM and Wiretap — attacks against Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). These two attacks defeated trusted computing technologies, but were limited to DDR4 memory. Now we’re back with TEE-fail, a similar attack that works against DDR5 systems.
This is your reminder that very few security solutions hold up against a determined attack with physical access. The Intel, AMD, and Nvidia TEE solutions are explicitly ineffective against such physical access. The problem is that no one seemed to be paying attention to that part of the documentation, with companies ranging from Cloudflare to Signal getting this detail wrong in their marketing.
Banning TP-Link
News has broken that the US government is considering banning the sale of new TP-Link network equipment, calling the devices a national security risk.
I have experience with TP-Link hardware: Years ago I installed dozens of TL-WR841 WiFi routers in small businesses as they upgraded from DSL to cable internet. Even then, I didn’t trust the firmware that shipped on these routers, but flashed OpenWRT to each of them before installing. Fun fact, if you go far enough back in time, you can find my emails on the OpenWRT mailing list, testing and even writing OpenWRT support for new TP-Link hardware revisions.
From that experience, I can tell you that TP-Link isn’t special. They have terrible firmware just like every other embedded device manufacturer. For a while, you could run arbitrary code on TP-Link devices by putting it inside backticks when naming the WiFi network. It wasn’t an intentional backdoor, it was just sloppy code. I’m reasonably certain that this observation still holds true. TP-Link isn’t malicious, but their products still have security problems. And at this point they’re the largest vendor of cheap networking gear with a Chinese lineage. Put another way, they’re in the spotlight due to their own success.
There is one other element that’s important to note here. There is still a significant TP-Link engineering force in China, even though TP-Link Systems is a US company. TP-Link may be subject to the reporting requirements of the Network Product Security legislation. Put simply, this law requires that when companies discover vulnerabilities, they must disclose the details to a particular Chinese government agency. It seems likely that this is the primary concern in the minds of US regulators, that threat actors cooperating with the Chinese government are getting advanced notice of these flaws. The proposed ban is still in proposal stage, and no action has been taken on it yet.
Sandbox Escape
In March there was an interesting one-click exploit that was launched via phishing links in emails. Researchers at Kaspersky managed to grab a copy of the malware chain, and discovered the Chrome vulnerability used. And it turns out it involves a rather novel problem. Windows has a pair of APIs to get handles for the current thread and process, and they have a performance hack built-in: Instead of returning a full handle, they can return -1 for the current process and -2 for the current thread.
Now, when sandboxed code tries to use this pseudo handle, Chrome does check for the -1 value, but no other special values, meaning that the “sandboxed” code can make a call to the local thread handle, which does allow for running code gadgets and running code outside the sandbox. Google has issued a patch for this particular problem, and not long after Firefox was patched for the same issue.
NPM and Remote Dynamic Dependencies
It seems like hardly a week goes by that we aren’t talking about another NPM problem. This time it’s a new way to sneak malware onto the repository, in the form of Remote Dynamic Dependencies (RDD). In a way, that term applies to all NPM dependencies, but in this case it refers to dependencies hosted somewhere else on the web. And that’s the hook. NPM can review the package, and it doesn’t do anything malicious. And when real users start downloading it, those remote packages are dynamically swapped out with their malicious versions by server-side logic.
Installing one of these packages ends with a script scooping up all the data it can, and ex-filtrating it to the attacker’s command and control system. While there isn’t an official response from NPM yet, it seems inevitable that NPM packages will be disallowed from using these arbitrary HTTP/HTTPS dependencies. There are some indicators of compromise available from Koi.
Bits and Bytes
Python deserialization with Pickle has always been a bit scary. Several times we’ve covered vulnerabilities that have their root in this particular brand of unsafe deserialization. There’s a new approach that just may achieve safer pickle handling, but it’s a public challenge at this point. It can be thought of as real-time auditing for anything unsafe during deserialization. It’s not ready for prime time, but it’s great to see the out-of-the-box thinking here.
This may be the first time I’ve seen remote exploit via a 404 page. But in this case, the 404 includes the page requested, and the back-end code that injects that string into the 404 page is vulnerable to XML injection. While it doesn’t directly allow for code execution, this approach can result in data leaks and server side request forgeries.
And finally, there was a sketchy leak, that may be information on which mobile devices the Cellebrite toolkit can successfully compromise. The story is that [rogueFed] sneaked into a Teams meeting to listen in and grab screenshots. The real surprise here is that GrapheneOS is more resistant to the Cellebrite toolkit than even the stock firmware on phones like the Pixel 9. This leak should be taken with a sizable grain of salt, but may turn out to be legitimate.
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Scared for a Drink?
Halloween is about tricks and treats, but who wouldn’t fancy a bit to drink with that? [John Sutley] decided to complete his Halloween party with a drink dispenser looking as though it was dumped by a backstreet laboratory. It’s not only an impressive looking separating funnel, it even runs on an Arduino. The setup combines lab glassware, servo motors, and an industrial control panel straight from a process plant.
The power management appeared the most challenging part. The three servos drew more current than one Arduino could handle. [John] overcame voltage sag, brownouts, and ghostly resets. A healthy 1000 µF capacitor across the 5-volt rail fixed it. With a bit of PWM control and some C++, [John] managed to finish up his interactive bar system where guests could seal their own doom by pressing simple buttons.
This combines the thrill of Halloween with ‘the ghost in the machine’. Going past the question whether you should ever drink from a test tube – what color would you pick? Lingonberry juice or aqua regia, who could tell? From this video, we wouldn’t trust the bartender on it – but build it yourself and see what it brings you!
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Public records are for the public
Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
It’s been 220 days since Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like. Read on for news from California, Washington D.C. and Maryland as the government shutdown drags on.
Public records are for the public
When Wired made public records-based stories free, subscriptions went up.
When 404 Media published reporting that relied on the Freedom of Information Act without a paywall, new sources came forward.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) spoke to Wired Global Editorial Director and FPF board member Katie Drummond, and 404 Media co-founder Joseph Cox about why giving the public access to public records reporting is good for journalism — and for business. Read more here.
Shutting down the government doesn’t shut down the First Amendment
It’s absurd and unconstitutional to exclude reporters from immigration hearings unless they get government permission to attend, especially when it’s impossible to obtain permission due to the government shutdown, and particularly when the current government despises First Amendment freedoms and will use any opportunity to evade transparency.
And yet that’s exactly what an immigration court in Maryland did this week. We wrote a detailed letter to the top judge at the courthouse explaining why they need to reverse course, both to comply with the law and for the sake of democracy. The next day, Capital News Service reported that the court had backed down and lifted the ban. Read the letter here.
No secret police in LA
Award-winning journalist Cerise Castle sued Los Angeles County in July and obtained a court order for the department to release the sheriff’s deputy ID photographs.
But now the county is appealing. Its objection to allowing the public to identify law enforcement officers is especially striking when Angelenos and others across the country are outraged by unidentified, masked federal immigration officers abducting their neighbors. It also comes on the heels of the city of Los Angeles embarrassing itself with its failed effort to sue a journalist for publishing officer photographs.
We connected with Castle’s lawyer, Susan Seager, to try to figure out what the department is thinking. Read more here.
Top three questions about the White House ballroom
FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper has lots of questions about the demolition of a section of the White House to construct a ballroom.
She wrote about three of them for our government secrecy site, The Classifieds: (1) Is there a budget? (2) Who are the donors, and what do they get in return? and (3) Where should we look for answers about what’s going on at the East Wing? Read more here.
What we’re reading
U.S. assessment of Israeli shooting of journalist divided American officials (The New York Times). A retired U.S. colonel has gone public with his concern that the Biden administration’s findings about the 2022 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military were “soft-pedaled to appease Israel.” There has been “a miscarriage of justice,” he says.
ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour (The Guardian). The detention of Sami Hamdi by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement solely for his views while on a speaking tour in the U.S. is a blatant assault on free speech. These are the tactics of the thought police.
Trump and Leavitt watch with glee as the press is crumbling (Salon). “As the press becomes more subservient and less independent, the firsthand knowledge needed to even stage a fight to get our mojo back is a whisper in the ether,” writes Brian Karem. That’s why veteran journalists who know how abnormal this all is need to be extra vocal these days.
Atlanta journalist says he ‘won’t be the only’ one deported by Trump officials (The Guardian). “It’s not the way I wanted to come back to my country – deported like a criminal,” journalist Mario Guevara told Briana Erickson of FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker from El Salvador. Read The Guardian’s story, based on reporting by the Tracker.
One third of all journalists are creator journalists, new report finds (Poynter). It’s no time for gatekeeping. There aren’t enough traditional J-School trained journalists to adequately document every ICE abduction – let alone everything else going on. We appreciate everyone who is exercising their press freedom rights, no matter how they’re categorized.
Transparenzbericht 3. Quartal 2025: Unsere Einnahmen und Ausgaben und verschiedene Hüte
netzpolitik.org/2025/transpare…
LA sheriff ducks journalist’s request for deputy photographs
Award-winning journalist Cerise Castle has some history with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In 2021, she chronicled how deputies formed violent gangs within the department. She then turned “A Tradition of Violence,” her 15-part series for Knock LA, into a podcast by the same name.
Perhaps that’s why the department was spooked when Castle submitted a Public Records Act request for names and official ID photographs of all sworn personnel, “excluding those in undercover assignments.” Or maybe the department was merely committed to following its routine practice of delaying and denying records requests.
In any case, the department produced the names of about 8,500 deputies but refused to produce any photographs except of the sheriff and his undersheriffs. They claimed that producing photographs of the deputies would violate their right to privacy and might endanger them in the future, if they ever go undercover.
But the department’s rationale seemed suspect because it also refused to comply with separate requests for headshots of three deputies who have been convicted of serious felonies, fired, and obviously won’t be sent on any future undercover operations for the department.
Castle won her Los Angeles County Superior Court Public Records Act lawsuit in July, and the court ordered the department to release the deputy ID photographs. But now the county is appealing. Its objection to allowing the public to identify law enforcement officers is especially striking when Angelenos and others across the country are outraged by unidentified, masked federal immigration officers abducting their neighbors.
The timing is also particularly odd after the California Legislature just enacted Sen. Scott Wiener’s new law, the No Secret Police Act, barring law enforcement officers operating in the state from masking their faces when working in public, beginning on Jan. 1, 2026.
We spoke to Castle’s lawyer, Susan Seager, to learn more about the case and her client’s opposition to the county’s appeal.
What is the county’s basis for its opposition to producing pictures of law enforcement officers who operate in public and serve the public at the public’s expense?
They claim that no deputy will ever work undercover again because if a deputy’s photo is posted online, and if that deputy works undercover in the future, and if a “criminal” uses facial recognition technology, then that future undercover deputy will be recognized by criminals. But the court rejected this argument because it’s all speculation. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant followed decisions by the California Supreme Court, such as Commission on Peace Officer Certification Standards and Training v. Superior Court, which held that ordinary police officers don’t have a right to privacy in their identities and mere “speculation” about safety risks to the general police force is not enough to block disclosure of public records containing individual police officers’ identities.
The top brass at the LA Sheriff’s Department don’t want their deputies to be accountable to the public they serve. The Sheriff’s Department fights all Public Records Act cases. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.
Susan Seager
Have similar arguments been rejected by the courts before?
No. As far as I know, this is the first case where a court decided that official police department officer ID photos are disclosable under the Public Records Act. The city of LA and city of Santa Ana both voluntarily gave journalist Ben Camacho official police officer ID photos in response to his Public Records Act legal actions, but they did so before a court ruled on his request. The LAPD photos are now online for public use at Watch the Watchers.
It seems notable that LA County is pursuing this appeal so soon after the city of Los Angeles wasted its time and the taxpayers’ money, and embarrassed itself in the Camacho case. Why is the county repeating the city’s mistakes?
The problem is that both the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles City Council appear to be very hands-off on the litigation against them, including cases involving their sheriff’s department and police department, respectively. The elected officials seem to let their lawyers make all the decisions on litigation strategies, appeals, etc., without asking for any updates or to be involved in any decisions to appeal in cases against the government agencies. LA’s elected officials need to take more control over litigation involving their police officers. They need to stop wasting taxpayer money fighting Public Records Act cases like this, especially after a superior court orders the police agency to release the records.
Many people in Los Angeles and around the country have been outraged in recent months by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing masks, and other efforts by the Trump administration to discourage and even criminalize identifying law enforcement officers. What do you make of LA County litigating the right to keep deputies’ identities secret against that backdrop?
LA deputies probably wish they could wear masks as well. And the top brass at the LA Sheriff’s Department don’t want their deputies to be accountable to the public they serve. The Sheriff’s Department fights all Public Records Act cases. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. And the lawyers hired by the county don’t care about public accountability — they are hired to fight and win.
What’s your theory about why the county is pursuing this? Where is the pressure coming from? Do they seriously believe that this is a meritorious appeal that they have a real chance of winning? Or do they just not care because taxpayers are funding it?
This is typical for the county of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. They fight all Public Records Act cases. In this case, there is extra pressure coming from the labor unions representing the deputies. The deputies’ labor unions actually joined in the case as intervenors, so we are fighting against the county and the labor unions.
If journalists are not able to obtain photos of law enforcement officers through public records requests, what kind of reporting will the public lose out on?
In the age of everyone carrying a smartphone and filming police, and posting images of police on social media or news sites, the public and the press can use those images to identify officers and investigate their past history. There may be instances where deputies use excessive force or threaten members of the public, but the victim doesn’t know the name of the deputy. Photographs help identify officers.
This week, we discuss keeping FOIA reporting in front of a paywall, Ray-Bans, and what pregnate Schoolhouse Rock bills say about our current AI-driven hellscape.#BehindTheBlog
Behind the Blog: Ray-Bans Are No Longer Cool or Timeless
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss keeping FOIA reporting in front of a paywall, Ray-Bans, and what pregnate Schoolhouse Rock bills say about our current AI-driven hellscape.JOSEPH: Yesterday I did a livestreamed event with Freedom of the Press Foundation and WIRED. It was called Unpaywalled: The case for making public records-based reporting free and you can check it out here.
As you might know, we made a decision very early on with 404 Media, I think in the first week maybe, to not paywall our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reporting. There are a few reasons, but the main one simply is that with public records, we think people should be able to see those records without paying. It’s like a government agency publishing certain databases, or census data, or whatever. These are public records and should be published or re-published as such.
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Photos captured by Mobile Fortify will be stored for 15 years, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, the document says.#FOIA #ICE #CBP
You Can't Refuse To Be Scanned by ICE's Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Says
📄
This article was primarily reported using public records requests. We are making it free to read as a public service. FOIA reporting can be expensive, please consider subscribing to 404 Media to support this work. Or send us a one time donation via our tip jar here.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not let people decline to be scanned by its new facial recognition app, which the agency uses to verify a person’s identity and their immigration status, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media. The document also says any face photos taken by the app, called Mobile Fortify, will be stored for 15 years, including those of U.S. citizens.
The document provides new details about the technology behind Mobile Fortify, how the data it collects is processed and stored, and DHS’s rationale for using it. On Wednesday 404 Media reported that both ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are scanning peoples’ faces in the streets to verify citizenship.
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Licio Gelli, la P2, la separazione delle carriere
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/licio-g…
Siamo nei primi mesi del 1981. I giudici di Milano Gherardo Colombo e Giuliano Turone stanno indagando sul falso rapimento dell’agosto 1979 del bancarottiere Michele Sindona che controlla le attività illecite di Cosa Nostra
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Gli Stati Uniti sono pronti a colpire il Venezuela. Ecco cosa sta succedendo
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Gli Stati Uniti sono pronti a colpire il Venezuela e Donald Trump ha dato il via libera per procedere alle azioni militari all’interno del Paese. Potrebbe accadere già nelle prossime ore. Questo è quanto riporta il Miami Herald – rapidamente ripreso da Forbes e altri
Adriano Maini likes this.
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I've just received my Bark Sweden wooden case, it's the second one, as I got one for my FP5 too. This time I bought the Masur birch, with reinforced corners.
It's absolutely beautiful!
It's a real piece of art and it fits like a glove on my FP6.
It's about 1 mm over the glass screen so the screen should be well protected. The grip is more secure than with the original Fairphone cover (which is also good).
It's not cheap, but I think it's really worth the money.
If you're thinking about a Christmas gift for yourself think of this case. 😁
I'll leave some pics.
(More pics in the comment).
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Rasterfahndung: Daten von 153 Millionen Fluggästen landen 2024 beim BKA
netzpolitik.org/2025/rasterfah…
Neue irische Datenschutzbeauftragte: Menschenrechtsorganisation reicht Beschwerde bei EU-Kommission ein
netzpolitik.org/2025/neue-iris…
Giustizia, estirpato un cancro
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
L'articolo Giustizia, estirpato un cancro proviene da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
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AMNESTY: Il sistema europeo Schengen discrimina chi difende i diritti umani
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
L'emissione di visti ostacola le persone che difendono i diritti umani di varie parti del mondo, impedendo a molte di loro di partecipare a importanti conferenze
L'articolo AMNESTY: Il sistema europeo Schengen discrimina chi difende i diritti umani proviene da
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Prenotazioni eureka
"Eureka" è un progetto pensato per avvicinare le ragazze e i ragazzi dell'ultimo anno della scuola media al liceo classico. L'obiettivo è far vivere loro l'esperienza di una lezione-tipo, al posto dei classici corsi di alfabetizzazione.
Chiunque voglia sperimentare l'esperienza liceale e conoscere meglio l'offerta del liceo classico Augusto, può iscriversi a uno dei 6 incontri disponibili, scegliendo la data e seguendo le istruzioni per la prenotazione.
Nelle stesse date, dalle 16 alle 17, è previsto anche uno sportello dedicato esclusivamente alle famiglie, per rispondere alle loro domande e chiarire eventuali dubbi. Anche le famiglie dei ragazzi che non partecipano alle lezioni sono invitate a utilizzare questo servizio.
Clicca sul link per prenotare la data che preferisci
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Referendum e invasioni di campo
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/referen…
La migliore spinta per la campagna elettorale del “NO” alla “deforma” (copyright del compianto Felice Besostri) è arrivata dalla replica della signora presidente del Consiglio verso la sentenza della Corte dei Conti riguardante il ponte sullo stretto di Messina. Replica che è
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E la chiamano “riforma”, non vendetta
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/e-la-ch…
Siamo molto oltre Gelli e la P2, che avendo ancora il fastidio dei comunisti e dell’Unione Sovietica, dovevano pur procedere con qualche cautela
L'articolo E la chiamano “riforma”, non vendetta proviene da Articolo21.
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La giustizia giusta è quella veloce. Lettera aperta alla Presidente Meloni
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/la-gius…
Presidente Giorgia Meloni, la dico semplice. Se un forte fa del male a un debole, questo può denunciarlo. Cioè, può chiedere a chi è più forte del
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Sangiuliano mostra a Formigli il braccialetto con scritto “siete dei poveri comunisti” | VIDEO
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
L’ex ministro Gennaro Sangiuliano, ora candidato di Fratelli d’Italia alle regionali in Campania, ha fatto parlare di sé per aver mostrato durante il programma Piazzapulita un braccialetto con la scritta “Siete dei poveri comunisti”. Il conduttore
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@Roberto Burioni lascia Facebook, nonostante le decine di migliaia di follower.
E loro lo seguono...
Questo dimostra che c'è la possibilità di avere contatti social con migliaia di persone anche senza dover sottostare per forza alle forche caudine di Meta e senza dover scendere a compromessi avvilenti con la propria morale.
Speriamo non sia il primo e speriamo che qualcuno di loro si accorga anche del Fediverso, perché pur con tutto l'apprezzamento per certe prese di posizione resto convinto del fatto che se lasci un social commerciale per andare su un altro social commerciale forse stai un po' girando in tondo.
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Inni al duce e cori fascisti nella sede dei giovani di Fratelli d’Italia a Parma, il Pd: “Meloni non ha niente da dire?” | VIDEO
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
Inni al duce e cori fascisti: è quello che si sente in un video registrato fuori dalla sede di Fratelli d’Italia a Parma. Registrato il 28 ottobre, anniversario della marcia su Roma, e diffuso sui social dal presidente del
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"La direttiva dell'Unione europea 2014/24, valida in tutti i paesi membri, stabilisce che se i costi di un'opera pubblica aumentano di oltre il 50% rispetto al contratto iniziale, bisogna indire una nuova gara d'appalto aperta a tutte le imprese europee. Nel caso del Ponte, il contratto originale del 2006 prevedeva circa 4,6 miliardi di euro, mentre oggi la stima dei costi arriva a 13,5 miliardi, quasi tre volte tanto. Ciò significa che, secondo la normativa europea, il governo avrebbe dovuto avviare una nuova gara internazionale, invece di riattivare semplicemente il vecchio contratto con Eurolink, il consorzio incaricato della costruzione."
direi che l'obiezione della corte è sensibile e NON politica. il rispetto delle regole degli appalti è importante. come non pulirsi il culo dei regolamenti europei che ci siamo impegnati a rispettare.
in sostanza la corte ha bocciato l'opera solo perché è stata finanziata con i soliti metodi mafiosi all'italiana. e non è un nodo politico.
la corte dei conti, che fa un vaglio tecnico finanziario e non politico, ha solo dimostrato di essere un'istituzione più seria e rispettosa delle regole del governo.
Ponte sullo Stretto, perché la Corte dei conti ha bocciato il progetto e cosa succede ora
I magistrati contabili negano il visto alla delibera Cipess da 13,5 miliardi approvata ad agosto per il ponte sullo Stretto. Le motivazioni entro 30 giorniRiccardo Piccolo (Wired Italia)
L' Alchimista Digitale likes this.
freezonemagazine.com/articoli/…
Questa autrice della Repubblica Ceca ci ha abituati a romanzi profondi ed emozionanti, tra i quali Il lago, Mona, L’isola e con L’uomo invisibile conferma una volta di più le sue eccezionali doti narrative e scrittorie. Come accade in altri romanzi della Bellová, il luogo in cui si svolge la vicenda non è reale, o […]
L'articolo Bianca Bellová – L’uomo invisibile proviene da FREE ZONE
freezonemagazine.com/news/linw…
In libreria dal 7 Novembre 2025 Un thriller soprannaturale alla Stephen King, un romanzo che fa per i trenini giocattolo ciò che Chucky ha fatto per le bambole. Annie Blunt, illustratrice di libri per bambini, ha vissuto un anno devastante: la morte improvvisa del marito e una controversia legata a una delle sue opere […]
L'articolo Linwood Barclay – Whistle. Trenini
Hai il browser con l'ai? hai hai hai!
@Privacy Pride
Il post completo di Christian Bernieri è sul suo blog: garantepiracy.it/blog/ai-brows…
I nuovi browser con AI integrata escono delle fottute pareti. Perché? Beh, non certo per il nostro bene... diciamo che non è manna dal cielo. Clicca qui per contribuire al mio lavoro L'argomento è divisivo e polarizzante: c'è chi li ama e chi li odia.
Privacy Pride reshared this.
Parole condivise per esplorare il nostro patrimonio culturale
La Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze e il Museo Galileo uniscono le forze in un progetto innovativo che unisce musei, archivi e biblioteche per viaggiare nel sapere in modo semplice e smart.
Vincitore del bando Digital MAB, promosso dalla Scuola nazionale del patrimonio e delle attività culturali, nell’ambito di Dicolab – Cultura al digitale, il progetto intende svolgere ricerche integrate tra patrimoni differenti (fotografie, stampe, manoscritti, oggetti). A partire dalla interoperabilità dei dati, l’obiettivo è la realizzazione di un modello di archivio iconografico di risorse di varia tipologia consultabile in modo trasversale con un’interfaccia di ricerca per l’accesso alla teca digitale del Museo Galileo tramite parole chiave controllate nel Thesaurus della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze per creare collegamenti con risorse di altre biblioteche, di archivi e di musei.
L'articolo Parole condivise per esplorare il nostro patrimonio culturale proviene da Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze.
Andrew Cuomo Uses AI MPREG Schoolhouse Rock Bill to Attack Mamdani, Is Out of Ideas#AISlop
Andrew Cuomo Uses AI MPREG Schoolhouse Rock Bill to Attack Mamdani, Is Out of Ideas
I am haunted by a pregnant bill in Andrew Cuomo’s new AI-generated attack ad against Zohran Mamdani.Cuomo posted the ad on his X account that riffed on the famous Schoolhouse Rock! song “I’m just a bill.” In Cuomo’s AI-generated cartoon nightmare, Zohran Mamdani lights money on fire while a phone bearing the ChatGPT logo explains, apparently, that Mamdani is not qualified.
The ad bears all the hallmarks of the sloppiest of AI trash: weird artifacting, strange voices that don’t sync with the mouths talking, and inconsistent animation. It feels both surreal and of the moment and completely ancient.
🎶“I’m Just A Shill” (FT. Zohran) pic.twitter.com/ga3JxnYO7B
— Andrew Cuomo (@andrewcuomo) October 30, 2025
And then there’s the pregnant bill.The Schoolhouse Rock! Bill is an iconic cartoon character that has been parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of pictures of the cartoon bill online, all available to be gobbled up by scrapers and turned into training data for AI.
For some reason, the bill in Cuomo’s ad has thick red lips (notably absent in the original) and appears to be pregnant. Adding to the discordant AI jank of the image, the pregnancy is only visible when the bill is standing up. Sometimes it’s leaning against the steps and in those shots it has the slim figure characteristic of its inspiration. But when the bill stands it looks positively inflated, almost as if the video generator used to make Cuomo’s ad was trained on MPREG fetish art of the bill and not the original cartoon itself. The thick and luscious red lips are present whether the bill is leaning or standing.
Towards the end of the ad, an anthropomorphic phone with a ChatGPT logo wanders into the scene. Standing next to the pregnant bill, I could not but help but think that the phone is the father of whatever child the bill carried.
My observation led to an argument in the 404 Media Slack channel and opinions were split. “It does not seem pregnant to me,” said Emanuel Maiberg.
Jason Koebler, however, came to my defense. He circled the pregnant belly of the cartoon bill and shared it. “Baby is stored in the circle area,” he said.Perplexed by all this, I reached out to Cuomo’s campaign for an explanation. I wanted a response to the ad and to get his thoughts on AI-generated political content. More importantly, I needed to know their opinion on the pregnancy. “Does that bill look pregnant to you?” I asked. “I think it looks pregnant, but my editors are split. I would love for the Campaign to weigh in.” Out of journalist due diligence, I also reached out to Mamdani’s press office. Neither campaign has responded to my request for it to weigh in on the pregnancy of the AI-generated cartoon bill.
This is not the first time the Cuomo campaign has used AI. An ad in early October featured a deepfaked Cuomo working as a train operator, stock trader, and a stagehand. A week ago, the Cuomo campaign released a long, racist video depicting criminals endorsing Mamdani. Critics called the ad racist. The campaign deleted it shortly after it was posted and blamed the whole thing on a junior staffer.
It is worth noting that Cuomo's AI slop is being deployed most likely because the candidate has been utterly incapable of generating any authentic excitement about his campaign in New York City or on the internet, and he is facing a digitally native, younger candidate who just seems effortlessly Good At the Internet and Posting.
This is, unfortunately, how a lot of politics works in 2025. Desperate campaigns and desperate presidents are in a slop-fueled arms race to make the most ridiculous possible ads and social media content. It looks cheap, is cheap, and is the realm of politicians who are totally out of ideas, but increasingly it feels like slop is the dominant aesthetic of our time.
AI-generated imagery takes New York politics by storm
Andrew Cuomo's AI campaign ad sparked criticism.Bobby Cuza (Spectrum News NY1)
In a series of experiments, chimpanzees revised their beliefs based on new evidence, shedding light on the evolutionary origins of rational thought.#TheAbstract
Chimps Are Capable of Human-Like Rational Thought, Breakthrough Study Finds
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Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.Chimpanzees revise their beliefs if they encounter new information, a hallmark of rationality that was once assumed to be unique to humans, according to a study published on Thursday in Science.
Researchers working with chimpanzees at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda probed how the primates judged evidence using treats inside boxes, such as a “weak” clue—for example, the sound of a treat inside a shaken box—and a "strong" clue, such as a direct line of sight to the treat.
The chimpanzees were able to rationally evaluate forms of evidence and to change their existing beliefs if presented with more compelling clues. The results reveal that non-human animals can exhibit key aspects of rationality, some of which had never been directly tested before, which shed new light on the evolution of rational thought and critical thinking in humans and other intelligent animals.
“Rationality has been linked to this ability to think about evidence and revise your beliefs in light of evidence,” said co-author Jan Engelmann, associate professor at the department of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, in a call with 404 Media. “That’s the real big picture perspective of this study.”
While it’s impossible to directly experience the perspective of a chimpanzee, Engelmann and his colleagues designed five controlled experiments for groups of anywhere from 15 to 23 chimpanzee participants.
In the first and second experiments, the chimps received a weak clue and a strong clue for a food reward in a box. The chimpanzees consistently made their choices based on the stronger evidence, regardless of the sequence in which the clues were presented. In the third experiment, the chimps were shown an empty box in addition to the strong and weak clues. After this presentation, the box with the strong evidence was removed. In this experiment, the chimpanzees still largely chose the weak clue over the empty box.
In the fourth experiment, chimpanzees were given a second “redundant” weak clue—for instance, the experimenter would shake a box twice. Then, they were given a new type of clue, like a second piece of food being dropped into a box in front of them. They were significantly more likely to change their beliefs if the clue provided fresh information, demonstrating an ability to distinguish between redundant and genuinely new evidence.
Finally, in the fifth experiment, the chimpanzees were presented with a so-called “defeater” that undermined the strong clue, such as a direct line of sight to a picture of food inside the box, or a shaken box containing a stone, not a real treat. The chimps were significantly more likely to revise their choice about the location of the food in the defeater experiments than in experiments with no defeater. This experiment showcased an ability to judge that evidence that initially seems strong can be weakened with new information.
“The most surprising result was, for sure, experiment five,” Engelmann said. “No one really believed that they would do it, for many different reasons.”
For one thing, he said, the methodology of the fifth experiment demanded a lot of attention and cognitive work from the chimpanzees, which they successfully performed. The result also challenges the assumption that complex language is required to update beliefs with new information. Despite lacking this linguistic ability, chimpanzees are somehow able to flexibly assign strength to different pieces of evidence.
Speaking from the perspective of the chimps, Engelmann outlined the responses to experiment five as: “I used to believe food was in there because I heard it in there, but now you showed me that there was a stone in there, so this defeats my evidence. Now I have to give up that belief.”
“Even using language, it takes me ten seconds to explain it,” he continued. “The question is, how do they do it? It’s one of the trickiest questions, but also one of the most interesting ones. To put it succinctly, how to think without words?”
To hone in on that mystery, Engelmann and his colleagues are currently repeating the experiment with different primates, including capuchins, baboons, rhesus macaques, and human toddlers and children. Eventually, similar experiments could be applied to other intelligent species, such as corvids or octopuses, which may yield new insights about the abundance and variability of rationality in non-human species.
“I think the really interesting ramification for human rationality is that so many people often think that only humans can reflect on evidence,” Engelmann said. “But our results obviously show that this is not necessarily the case. So the question is, what's special about human rationality then?”
Engelmann and his colleagues hypothesize that humans differ in the social dimensions of our rational thought; we are able to collectively evaluate evidence not only with our contemporaries, but by consulting the work of thinkers who may have lived thousands of years ago. Of course, humans also often refuse to update beliefs in light of new evidence, which is known as “belief entrenchment” or “belief perseveration” (many such cases). These complicated nuances add to the challenge of unraveling the evolutionary underpinnings of rationality.
That said, one thing is clear: many non-human animals exist somewhere on the gradient of rational thought. In light of the recent passing of Jane Goodall, the famed primatologist who popularized the incredible capacities of chimpanzees, the new study carries on a tradition of showing that these primates, our closest living relatives, share some degree of our ability to think and act in rational ways.
Goodall “was the first Western scientist to observe tool use in chimpanzees and really change our beliefs about what makes humans unique,” Engelmann said. “We're definitely adding to this puzzle by showing that rationality, which has so long been considered unique to humans, is at least in some forms present in non-human animals.”
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Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.
Everyone loses and nobody wins if America decides to resume nuclear testing after a 30 year moratorium.#News #nuclear
Trump Orders Nuclear Testing As Nuke Workers Go Unpaid
Last night Trump directed the Pentagon to start testing nukes again. If that happens, it’ll be the first time the US has detonated a nuke in more than 30 years. The organization that would likely be responsible for this would be the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a civilian workforce that oversees the American nuclear stockpile. Because of the current government shutdown, 1,400 NNSA workers are on furlough and the remaining 375 are working without pay.America detonated its last nuke in 1992 as part of a general drawn down following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Four years later, it was the first country to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which bans nuclear explosions for civilian or military purposes. But Congress never ratified the treaty and the CTBT never entered into force. Despite this, there has not been a nuke tested by the United States since.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
Trump threatened to resume nuclear testing during his first term but it never happened. At the time, officials at the Pentagon and NNSA said it would take them a few months to get tests running again should the President order them.The NNSA has maintained the underground tunnels once used for testing since the 1990s and converted them into a different kind of space that verifies the reliability of existing nukes without blowing them up in what are called “virtual tests.” During a rare tour of the tunnel with journalists earlier this year, a nuclear weapons scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory told NPR that “our assessment is that there are no system questions that would be answered by a test, that would be worth the expense and the effort and the time.”
Right now, the NNSA might be hard pressed to find someone to conduct the test. It employs around 2,000 people and the shutdown has seen 1,400 of them furloughed and 375 working without pay. The civilian nuclear workforce was already having a tough year. In February, the Department of Government Efficiency cut 350 NNSA employees only to scramble and rehire all but 28 when they realized how essential they were to nuclear safety. But uncertainty continued and in April the Department of Energy declared 500 NNSA employees “non-essential” and at risk of termination.
That’s a lot of chaos for a government agency charged with ensuring the safety and effectiveness of America’s nuclear weapons. The NNSA is currently in the middle of a massive project to “modernize” America’s nukes, an effort that will cost trillions of dollars. Part of modernization means producing new plutonium pits, the core of a nuclear warhead. That’s a complicated and technical process and no one is sure how much it’ll cost and how dangerous it’ll be.
And now, it may have to resume nuclear testing while understaffed.
“We have run out of federal funds for federal workers,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a press conference announcing furlough on October 20. “This has never happened before…we have never furloughed workers in the NNSA. This should not happen. But this was as long as we could stretch the funds for federal workers. We were able to do some gymnastics and stretch it further for the contractors.”
Three days later, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) said the furlough was making the world less safe. “NNSA facilities are charged with maintaining nuclear security in accordance with long-standing policy and the law,” she said in a press release. “Undermining the agency’s workforce at such a challenging time diminishes our nuclear deterrence, emboldens international adversaries, and makes Nevadans less safe. Secretary Wright, Administrator Williams, and Congressional Republicans need to stop playing politics, rescind the furlough notice, and reopen the government.”
Trump announced the nuclear tests in a post on Truth Social, a platform where he announces a lot of things that ultimately end up not happening. “The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” the post said.
Matt Korda, a nuclear expert with the Federation of American Scientists, said that the President’s Truth social post was confusing and riddled with misconceptions. Russia has more nuclear weapons than America. Nuclear modernization is ongoing and will take trillions of dollars and many years to complete. Over the weekend, Putin announced that Russia had successfully tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile and on Tuesday he said the country had done the same with a nuclear-powered undersea drone. Russia withdrew from the CTBT in 2023, but neither recent test involved a nuclear explosion. Russia last blew up a nuke in 1990 and China conducted its most recent test in 1996. Both have said they would resume nuclear testing should America do it. Korda said it's unclear what, exactly, Trump means. He could be talking about anything from test firing non-nuclear equipped ICBMs to underground testing to detonating nukes in the desert. “We’ll have to wait and see until either this Truth Social post dissipates and becomes a bunch of nothing or it actually gets turned into policy. Then we’ll have something more concrete to respond to,” Korda said.
Worse, he thinks the resumption of testing would be bad for US national security. “It actually puts the US at a strategic disadvantage,” Korda said. “This moratorium on not testing nuclear weapons benefits the United States because the United States has, by far, the most advanced modeling and simulation equipment…by every measure this is a terrible idea.”
The end of nuclear detonation tests has spurred 30 years of innovation in the field of computer modeling. Subcritical computer modeling happens in the NNSA-maintained underground tunnels where detonations were once a common occurrence. The Los Alamos National Laboratories and other American nuclear labs are building massive super computers that are, in part, the result of decades of work spurred by the end of detonations and the embrace of simulation.
Detonating a nuclear weapon—whether above ground or below—is disastrous for the environment. There are people alive in the United States today who are living with cancer and other health conditions caused by American nuclear testing. Live tests make the world more anxious, less safe, and encourage other nuclear powers to do their own. It also uses up a nuke, something America has said it wants to build more of.
“There’s no upside to this,” Korda said. He added that he felt bad for the furloughed NNSA workers. “People find out about significant policy changes through Truth social posts. So it’s entirely possible that the people who would be tasked with carrying out this decision are learning about it in the same way we are all learning about it. They probably have the exact same kinds of questions that we do.”
Opinion | America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.
The $1.7 trillion overhaul is already underway.W.J. Hennigan (The New York Times)
Su #Sicurnauti è online la sezione sulle minacce digitali più avanzate, dedicata a #studenti e #genitori. Scopri i contenuti su #Unica.
Qui il video ➡ youtube.com/watch?v=9GLq2EyFyx…
Qui l’infografica ➡ unica.istruzione.gov.
Ministero dell'Istruzione
Su #Sicurnauti è online la sezione sulle minacce digitali più avanzate, dedicata a #studenti e #genitori. Scopri i contenuti su #Unica. Qui il video ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GLq2EyFyxM Qui l’infografica ➡ https://unica.istruzione.gov.Telegram
Comitato Genitori Liceo Augusto reshared this.
Primi passi con Linux: corso base gratuito
pcofficina.org/primi-passi-con…
Segnalato da PCOfficina in via Pimentel 5 a #Milano e pubblicato sulla comunità Lemmy @GNU/Linux Italia
Nel corso
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Gli ultimi mammut della Terra
Un piccolo gruppo continuò a vivere per millenni su una sperduta isola nel circolo polare artico: la sua estinzione è ancora un misteroIl Post
WeAreFairphone
in reply to Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 • • •Jeff likes this.
Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹
in reply to WeAreFairphone • — (Firenze) •@WeAreFairphone
Unfortunately, I only have one phone and I can't take a picture of itself. As soon as my son exits from the shower I'll ask him.
I think he could be out around January 😁
Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹
in reply to WeAreFairphone • •@WeAreFairphone
Here they are!
🌼 Dagnabbit, Pascaline! 🌼
in reply to WeAreFairphone • • •@WeAreFairphone
Yes please 😊
@max
genofire
in reply to WeAreFairphone • • •do you know what Reinforced Corner or MagSafe mean?
I would really link compared photos. Maybe you do not have @max but somewhere else here.
Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹
in reply to genofire • •@genofire @WeAreFairphone
Reinforced corners are exactly what they mean: the corners of the covers have something different, they probably build that part in a different way or with different material but they're a bit different from the rest of the cover.
The MagSafe must be some Apple stuff. A tag maybe or something like that, and the cover probably has some room for it. I guess... as mine is without it.
thorcik
in reply to Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 • • •Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹
in reply to thorcik • •@thorcik
The one on FP5 was elm, darker than this. I liked it so much.
Lars Winkler
in reply to Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 • • •I want this too.
Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 likes this.
DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 • • •That is beautiful, @max ! Tagging for #SolarPunkSunday!
#FP6 #Fairphone #PhoneCase
Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹
in reply to DoomsdaysCW • •DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹 • • •