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Difesa e industria, così il governo pensa a una regia nazionale per la sicurezza

@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo

Secondo Milano Finanza il governo Meloni starebbe puntando a costruire un vero e proprio consorzio nazionale della difesa a guida pubblica. L’obiettivo? Integrare capacità industriali, attrarre fondi europei e generare occupazione, sviluppando tecnologie dual-use che abbiano ricadute anche civili,




Kilopixel by Ben Holmen turns a CNC machine and a thousand wooden blocks into pixel art.#art #coolthings


Watch This Guy’s Interactive Wooden Pixel Machine Make Art in Real Time


Sitting in my office in NYC, I sent a CNC machine in a guy’s workshop in Wisconsin a 40 by 25 pixel drawing and watched it flip hand painted wooden blocks across a grid, one by one, until the glorious smiling 404 Media logo appeared—then watched it slowly erase, like a giant Etch A Sketch, moving on to the next drawing.

Designer Ben Holmen created the Kilopixel, a giant grid made of 1,000 wooden blocks that a robot arm slowly turns to form user-submitted designs. “Compared to our modern displays with millions of pixels changing 60 times a second, a wooden display that changes a single pixel 10 times a minute is an incredibly inefficient way to create an image,” Holmen wrote on his blog detailing the project.

Choosing what to make the pixels from was its own hurdle: Holmen wrote that he tried ping pong balls, Styrofoam balls, bouncy balls, wooden balls, 3D printed balls, golf balls, foam balls, “anything approximately spherical and about 1-1.5in in diameter.” Some of these were too expensive; others didn’t hold up well to paint or drilling. Holmen settled on painted wooden blocks, each serving as one 40mm pixel. To be sure each block was exactly the right size, he built 25 shelves and drilled 40 holes into each, threading the blocks onto the shelves using metal wires. “This was painstaking and time consuming - I broke it down into multiple sessions over several weeks,” he wrote. “But it did create a very predictable grid of pixels and guaranteed that each pixel moved completely independently of the surrounding pixels.
youtube.com/embed/d5v3DRdMQ8U?…
From there, he used a CNC machine, which moves on the X, Y, and Z axes: across the grid, up and down, and the flipping finger that pokes inward to turn the pixel-blocks. Holmen wrote that he connected a Raspberry Pi to the CNC controller, which queries an API to get the next pixel in the design, activates the “pixel poker,” and reads a light sensor to determine whether the pixel face is painted black or raw wood.

Two webcams stream the Kilopixel to Youtube, with a view of the whole grid and a view of the poker turning the blocks one by one. “The camera, USB hub, and light are hung from the ceilingwith a respectful amount of jank for the streaming phase of this project,” Holmen wrote. Anyone with a Bluesky account can connect their account and submit a pixel drawing for the machine to create, and people can upvote submissions they want to see next. Once it’s finished, the system uploads a timelapse of the painting to the site and posts it to Bluesky, tagging the submitter.

Drawn by @[url=did:plc:pt47oe625rv5cnrkgvntwbiq]Sam Cole[/url], completed in 44m39 Draw your own at kilopx.com
kilopixel (@kilopx.com) 2025-08-05T20:33:14.719821Z

I'm recording timelapses for every submission - this took 41 minutes in real time. Soon you'll be able to submit your own images to be drawn on my kilopixel! Can't wait to share this with the world and see what y'all come up with
Ben Holmen (@benholmen.com) 2025-07-21T04:59:32.203Z


This entire process took him six years. I asked Holmen in an email what it cost him: “Probably around $1000 and hundreds of hours of my time,” he told me.

And the project isn’t over: It still requires some babysitting. Sometime early Tuesday morning, the rig got misaligned while working on an elaborate pixellated American Gothic, with the flipper-finger grasping at the air between blocks instead of turning them. Holmen had to manually reset it in the morning, entering the feed to tinker with the grid.

He said he plans to run it 24/7, but that it might not go flawlessly at first. “I've had to restart the controller script twice in 10 hours, and restart the YouTube stream once,” he said on Monday, before the overnight error. “I am planning to run it for a few days or weeks depending on interest, then I'll move on to a different control concept. I don't want to babysit a finicky device all the time.”
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
When I checked Kilopixel’s submissions on Monday, someone had drawn the Hacker News logo—a sure sign that a hug of death was coming. I asked Holmen if he’s had issues with overload. “Just one—I undersized my web server for the attention it got,” he told me on Monday evening. “It's been #1 on Hacker News for about 10 hours, which is a lot of traffic. kilopx.com has received about 13,000 unique visitors today, which I'm very pleased with. The article has received about 70,000 unique visitors so far.”

The Kilopixel experiment might also be setting a time-to-penis record: In the six hours it’s been online as of writing this, I haven’t seen anyone try to make the robot draw a dick, yet. Holmen mentioned “defensive features” built into the web app in his blog for mitigating abuse, but so far people have behaved themselves. “I expect the best and worst out of people on the internet. I built an easy way for admins to delete gross or low effort submissions and enlisted a couple of trusted friends to keep an eye on the queue with me,” Holmen told me. “I'm certain there are ways to work around things, or submit enough to make cleanup a chore, but I decided to not lock things down prematurely and just respond as things evolve.”




Shared ChatGPT indexed by Google; how Wikipedia is fighting AI slop; and the history of how we got to Steam censorship.#Podcast


Podcast: Google Is Exposing Peoples’ ChatGPT Secrets


We start this week with Joseph’s story about nearly 100,000 ChatGPT conversations being indexed by Google. There’s some sensitive stuff in there. After the break, Emanuel tells us about Wikipedia’s new way of dealing with AI slop. In the subscribers-only section, Sam explains how we got to where we are with Steam and Itch.io; that history goes way back.
playlist.megaphone.fm?e=TBIEA5…
Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.




È morto Vladimiro Zagrebelsky


A nome dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni, esprimiamo il nostro profondo cordoglio per la morte di un giurista straordinario e di un uomo che ha saputo mettere la sua competenza e il suo rigore al servizio della libertà e dei diritti fondamentali.

La sua voce è stata per noi un riferimento morale e culturale in molte battaglie per l’affermazione dello Stato di diritto e la tutela della dignità della persona. Con sensibilità e coraggio, ha saputo unire il pensiero giuridico più alto a un impegno civile concreto, sempre dalla parte delle persone più vulnerabili.

Per noi Vladimiro è stato anche un amico, generoso e attento, con cui abbiamo condiviso riflessioni profonde e momenti cruciali di confronto, sempre guidati da valori comuni: la laicità delle istituzioni, il rispetto dell’autonomia individuale, la difesa dei diritti civili.

Ci mancherà la sua intelligenza limpida, la sua ironia sottile, la sua determinazione gentile.

Con Marco Cappato e l’Associazione Luca Coscioni tutta, lo ricorderemo con affetto, stima e gratitudine.

Un abbraccio affettuoso alla sua famiglia.

L'articolo È morto Vladimiro Zagrebelsky proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.



Applicare la legge 194, garantire un servizio essenziale


Dichiarazione di Chiara Lalli, Mirella Parachini e Anna Pompili, responsabili della campagna Aborto senza ricovero


La vicenda siciliana ripropone la questione della garanzia di un servizio medico essenziale, quale l’interruzione volontaria della gravidanza (IVG), anche laddove ci siano alte percentuali di obiezione di coscienza tra i ginecologi.

L’articolo 9 della legge 194, quello che permette al personale sanitario di sollevare obiezione di coscienza, è certamente il più applicato, ma non – guardacaso – nella sua interezza. La seconda parte, infatti, impone agli “enti ospedalieri” e alle “case di cura autorizzate” di assicurare “in ogni caso l’espletamento delle procedure previste dall’articolo 7 e l’effettuazione degli interventi di interruzione della gravidanza richiesti secondo le modalità previste dagli articoli 5, 7 e 8. La regione ne controlla e garantisce l’attuazione”.

La legge stessa, dunque, fornisce gli strumenti per garantire alle donne l’accesso all’IVG. Basterebbe applicarla, il che vale anche per le strutture sanitarie con il 100% di obiettori di coscienza, che sono comunque tenute ad assicurare il percorso per l’IVG.

C’è poi l’aggiornamento delle linee di indirizzo ministeriali sulla IVG farmacologica che permettono la deospedalizzazione della procedura. Sono passati ben 5 anni, e solo in due Regioni è ammessa, con la possibilità di autosomministrazione del misoprostolo a domicilio. È evidente che, anche se non risolutiva, la deospedalizzazione limiterebbe enormemente il peso dell’obiezione di coscienza sull’accesso all’IVG. C’è da chiedersi come mai proprio nelle Regioni – come la Sicilia – dove questi ostacoli sono più pesanti e dove i bilanci della sanità sono più problematici, non si sia pensato a questa semplice soluzione.

Ecco perché abbiamo lanciato la campagna Aborto senza ricovero. Per garantire a tutte le donne di scegliere, per non sprecare risorse preziose e per chiedere ai consigli regionali di approvare procedure chiare e uniformi per l’aborto farmacologico in modalità ambulatoriale e senza ricovero.

L’aborto con il metodo farmacologico è sicuro ed efficace e il ricovero non ne aumenta la sicurezza, ma ne decuplica i costi. È il principio dell’appropriatezza delle procedure: a parità di efficacia e di sicurezza, se la persona che deve esservi sottoposta la richiede, deve essere privilegiata la modalità assistenziale che comporta minore spreco di risorse per la sanità pubblica.

È un dovere non solo per evitare lo spreco di risorse, ma anche – in questo caso – per garantire il diritto di scelta delle donne, un principio irrinunciabile e che dovrebbe essere sempre garantito.

Si può firmare QUI


L'articolo Applicare la legge 194, garantire un servizio essenziale proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.



Lega Israele
La Lega ha presentato una legge per punire chi critica Israele - L'INDIPENDENTE
lindipendente.online/2025/08/0…


Il Ministro Giuseppe Valditara ha firmato due decreti che stanziano complessivamente 45 milioni di euro, di cui 25 milioni per la #scuola in #carcere e 20 milioni per l'istruzione in #ospedale e #domiciliare, con il fine di potenziare l’offerta forma…


Cosa vuole fare la Cina con le stablecoin

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Dopo le novità negli Stati Uniti, la Cina si prepara a lanciare (a Hong Kong) le prime stablecoin. L'obiettivo è sfidare il dollaro attraverso l'internazionalizzazione dello yuan, ma l'iniziativa sarà limitata: Pechino non vuole rinunciare al controllo sul settore

in reply to Informa Pirata

Business to business. Non permetteranno mai di farle usare ai propri cittadini...
Ho scritto il mio pensiero riguardo a come gli USA siano riusciti ad ottenere potere con le stablecoin: medium.com/@0AlexITA/il-parado…

Informa Pirata reshared this.



Driver of destruction: How a legitimate driver is being used to take down AV processes



Introduction


In a recent incident response case in Brazil, we spotted intriguing new antivirus (AV) killer software that has been circulating in the wild since at least October 2024. This malicious artifact abuses the ThrottleStop.sys driver, delivered together with the malware, to terminate numerous antivirus processes and lower the system’s defenses as part of a technique known as BYOVD (Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver). AV killers that rely on various vulnerable drivers are a known problem. We have recently seen an uptick in cyberattacks involving this type of malware.

It is important to note that Kaspersky products, such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security (KES), have built-in self-defense mechanisms that prevent the alteration or termination of memory processes, deletion of application files on the hard drive, and changes in system registry entries. These mechanisms effectively counter the AV killer described in the article.

In the case we analyzed, the customer sought our help after finding that their systems had been encrypted by a ransomware sample. The adversary gained access to the initial system, an SMTP server, through a valid RDP credential. They then extracted other users’ credentials with Mimikatz and performed lateral movement using the pass-the-hash technique with Invoke-WMIExec.ps1 and Invoke-SMBExec.ps1 tools. The attacker achieved their objective by disabling the AV in place on various endpoints and servers across the network and executing a variant of the MedusaLocker ransomware.

In this article, we provide details about the attack and an analysis of the AV killer itself. Finally, we outline the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by the attackers.

Kaspersky products detect the threats encountered in this incident as:

  • Trojan-Ransom.Win32.PaidMeme.* (MedusaLocker variant)
  • Win64.KillAV.* (AV killer)


Incident overview


The attack began using valid credentials obtained by the attacker for an administrative account. The adversary was able to connect to a mail server via RDP from Belgium. Then, using Mimikatz, the attacker extracted the NTLM hash for another user. Next, they used the following PowerShell Invoke-TheHash commands to perform pass-the-hash attacks in an attempt to create users on different machines.
Invoke-WMIExec -Target "<IP>" -Domain "<DOMAIN>" -Username "<USER>" -Hash "<HASH>" -Command "net user User1 Password1! /ad" -verbose
Invoke-SMBExec -Target "<IP>" -Domain "<DOMAIN>" -Username "<USER>" -Hash "<HASH>" -Command "net user User2 Password1! /ad" -verbose
Invoke-SMBExec -Target "<IP>" -Domain "<DOMAIN>" -Username "<USER>" -Hash "<HASH>" -Command "net localgroup Administrators User1 /ad" -verbose
An interesting detail is that the attacker did not want to create the same username on every machine. Instead, they chose to add a sequential number to the end of each username (e.g., User1, User2, User3, etc.). However, the password was the same for all the created users.

Various artifacts, including the AV killer, were uploaded to the C:\Users\Administrator\Music folder on the mail server. These artifacts were later uploaded to other machines alongside the ransomware (haz8.exe), but this time to C:\Users\UserN\Pictures. Initially, Windows Defender was able to contain the ransomware threat on some machines right after it was uploaded, but the attacker soon terminated the security solution.

The figure below provides an overview of the incident. We were able to extract evidence to determine the attacker’s workflow and the involved artifacts. Fortunately, the analyzed systems still contained relevant information, but this is not always the case.

Incident flow
Incident flow

This kind of attack highlights the importance of defense in depth. Although the organization had an AV in place, the attacker was able to use a valid account to upload an undetectable artifact that bypassed the defense. Such attacks can be avoided through simple security practices, such as enforcing the use of strong passwords and disabling RDP access to public IPs.

The AV killer analysis


To disable the system’s defenses, the attackers relied on two artifacts: ThrottleBlood.sys and All.exe. The first is a legitimate driver originally called ThrottleStop.sys, developed by TechPowerUp and used by the ThrottleStop app. The application is designed to monitor and correct CPU throttling issues, and is mostly used by gamers. The driver involved in the incident has a valid certificate signed on 2020-10-06 20:34:00 UTC, as show below:
Status: The file is signed and the signature was verified
Serial number: 0a fc 69 77 2a e1 ea 9a 28 57 31 b6 aa 45 23 c6
Issuer: DigiCert EV Code Signing CA
Subject: TechPowerUp LLC
TS Serial number: 03 01 9a 02 3a ff 58 b1 6b d6 d5 ea e6 17 f0 66
TS Issuer: DigiCert Assured ID CA-1
TS Subject: DigiCert Timestamp Responder
Date Signed: 2020-10-06 20:34:00 UTC

HashValue
MD56bc8e3505d9f51368ddf323acb6abc49
SHA-182ed942a52cdcf120a8919730e00ba37619661a3
SHA-25616f83f056177c4ec24c7e99d01ca9d9d6713bd0497eeedb777a3ffefa99c97f0

When loaded, the driver creates a device at .\\.\\ThrottleStop, which is a communication channel between user mode and kernel mode.

ThrottleStop device driver communication overview
ThrottleStop device driver communication overview

Communication with the driver is carried out via IOCTL calls, specifically using the Win32 DeviceIoControl function. This function enables the use of IOCTL codes to request various driver operations. The driver exposes two vulnerable IOCTL functions: one that allows reading from memory and another that allows writing to it. Both functions use physical addresses. Importantly, any user with administrative privileges can access these functions, which constitutes the core vulnerability.

The driver leverages the MmMapIoSpace function to perform physical memory access. This kernel-level API maps a specified physical address into the virtual address space, specifically within the MMIO (memory-mapped I/O) region. This mapping enables reads and writes to virtual memory to directly affect the corresponding physical memory. This type of vulnerability is well-known in kernel drivers and has been exploited for years, not only by attackers but also by game cheaters seeking low-level memory access. The vulnerability in ThrottleStop.sys has been assigned CVE-2025-7771. According to our information, the vendor is currently preparing a patch. In the meantime, we recommend that security solutions monitor for the presence of this known vulnerable driver in the operating system to help prevent exploitation by EDR killers like the one described in this article.

The second artifact, All.exe, is the AV killer itself. Our analysis began with a basic inspection of the file.

HashValue
MD5a88daa62751c212b7579a57f1f4ae8f8
SHA-1c0979ec20b87084317d1bfa50405f7149c3b5c5f
SHA-2567a311b584497e8133cd85950fec6132904dd5b02388a9feed3f5e057fb891d09

First, we inspected its properties. While searching for relevant strings, we noticed a pattern: multiple antivirus process names inside the binary. The following image shows an excerpt of our query.

AV names inside the binary
AV names inside the binary

We were able to map all the processes that the malware tries to kill. The table below shows each one of them, along with the corresponding vendor. As we can see, the artifact attempts to kill the main AV products on the market.

Process namesVendor
AvastSvc.exe, AvLaunch.exe, aswToolsSvc.exe, afwServ.exe, wsc_proxy.exe, bccavsvc.exeAvast
AVGSvc.exe, AVGUI.exe, avgsvca.exe, avgToolsSvc.exeAVG Technologies (Avast)
bdlived2.exe, bdredline.exe, bdregsvr2.exe, bdservicehost.exe, bdemsrv.exe, bdlserv.exe, BDLogger.exe, BDAvScanner.exe, BDFileServer.exe, BDFsTray.exe, Arrakis3.exe, BDScheduler.exe, BDStatistics.exe, npemclient3.exe, epconsole.exe, ephost.exe, EPIntegrationService.exe, EPProtectedService.exe, EPSecurityService.exe, EPUpdateService.exeBitDefender
CSFalconContainer.exe, CSFalconService.exe, CSFalconUI.exeCrowdStrike
egui.exe, eguiProxy.exe, ERAAgent.exe, efwd.exe, ekrn.exeESET
avp.exe, avpsus.exe, avpui.exe, kavfs.exe, kavfswh.exe, kavfswp.exe, klcsldcl.exe, klnagent.exe, klwtblfs.exe, vapm.exeKaspersky
mfevtps.exeMcAfee (Trellix)
MsMpEng.exe, MsMpSvc.exe, MSASCui.exe, MSASCuiL.exe, SecurityHealthService.exe, SecurityHealthSystray.exeMicrosoft
QHPISVR.EXE, QUHLPSVC.EXE, SAPISSVC.EXEQuick Heal Technologies
ccSvcHst.exe, ccApp.exe, rtvscan.exe, SepMasterService.exe, sepWscSvc64.exe, smc.exe, SmcGui.exe, snac.exe, SymCorpUI.exe, SymWSC.exe, webextbridge.exe, WscStub.exeSymantec (Broadcom)
PSANHost.exe, pselamsvc.exe, PSUAMain.exe, PSUAService.exePanda Security (WatchGuard)
SentinelAgent.exe, SentinelAgentWorker.exe, SentinelHelperService.exe, SentinelServiceHost.exe, SentinelStaticEngine.exe, SentinelStaticEngineScanner.exe, SentinelUI.exeSentinelOne
SophosFileScanner.exe, SophosFIMService.exe, SophosFS.exe, SophosHealth.exe, SophosNetFilter.exe, SophosNtpService.exe, hmpalert.exe, McsAgent.exe, McsClient.exe, SEDService.exeSophos

When the binary is executed, it first loads the ThrottleBlood.sys driver using Service Control Manager (SCM) API methods, such as OpenSCManagerA() and StartServiceW().

ThrottleStop/ThrottleBlood driver loading process
ThrottleStop/ThrottleBlood driver loading process

The AV killer needs the ThrottleStop driver to hijack kernel functions and enable the execution of kernel-mode-only routines from user mode. To invoke these kernel functions using the driver’s vulnerable read/write primitives, the malware first retrieves the base address of the currently loaded kernel and the addresses of the target functions to overwrite. It achieves this by utilizing the undocumented NtQuerySystemInformation function from Win32.

Kernel base address gathering
Kernel base address gathering

Passing the SystemModuleInformation flag allows the function to return the list of loaded modules and drivers on the current system. The Windows kernel is referred to as ntoskrnl.exe. The base address is always different because of KASLR (Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization).

To perform read/write operations using MmMapIoSpace, the system must first determine the physical address used by the kernel. This is achieved using a technique called SuperFetch, which is packed in the open-source superfetch project available on GitHub. This project facilitates the translation of virtual addresses to physical addresses through a C++ library composed solely of header files.

Physical address calculation
Physical address calculation

The superfetch C++ library makes use of the NtQuerySystemInformation function, specifically using the SystemSuperfetchInformation query. This query returns all current memory ranges and their pages. With this information, the superfetch library can successfully translate any kernel virtual address to its respective physical address.

Calling kernel functions


Now that the physical base address has been collected, the malware must choose a kernel function that can be indirectly called by a system call (from user mode). The chosen syscall is NtAddAtom, which is rarely used and easily callable through ntdll.dll.

NtAddAtom address collection
NtAddAtom address collection

By loading ntoskrnl.exe with the LoadLibrary function, the malware, among other things, can easily discover the offset of the NtAddAtom function and thus determine its kernel address by adding the current base address and the offset. The physical address is obtained in the same way as the kernel base. With the physical addresses and driver loaded, the malware can exploit the vulnerable IOCTL codes to read and write the physical memory of the NtAddAtom function.

Kernel code injection using vulnerable driver
Kernel code injection using vulnerable driver

To call any kernel function, the AV killer writes a small shellcode that jumps to a target address within the kernel. This target address can be any desired kernel function. Once the function completes, the malware restores the original kernel code to prevent system crashes.

Kernel code injection diagram
Kernel code injection diagram

Process killer main routine


Having obtained all the necessary information, the AV killer starts a loop to find target processes using the Process32FirstW() and Process32NextW API calls. As we mentioned earlier, the list of target security software, such as MsMpEng.exe (Windows Defender), is hardcoded in the malware.

MsMpEng.exe match found
MsMpEng.exe match found

The AV killer checks all running processes against the hardcoded list. If any match, it kills them by using the vulnerable driver to call the PsLookupProcessById and PsTerminateProcess kernel functions.

If a process is killed, a message indicating this, along with the name of the process, is displayed in the console, as depicted in the following image. This suggests that the malware was being debugged.

MsMpEng.exe was killed
MsMpEng.exe was killed

Like most antivirus software available today, Windows Defender will attempt to restart the service to protect the machine. However, the main loop of the program will continue to identify and kill the associated AV process.

Defender tries to restart, but is killed again
Defender tries to restart, but is killed again

YARA rule


Based on our analysis of the sample, we developed the following YARA rule to detect the threat in real time. The rule considers the file type, relevant strings (most of which are related to AV processes), and library function imports.
import "pe"

rule AVKiller_MmMapIoSpace {
meta:
description = "Rule to detect the AV Killer"
author = "Kaspersky"
copyright = "Kaspersky"
version = "1.0"
last_modified = "2025-05-14"
hash = "a88daa62751c212b7579a57f1f4ae8f8"
strings:
$shellcode_template = {4? BA 00 00 40 75 00 65 48 8B}
$ntoskrnl = "ntoskrnl.exe"
$NtAddAtom = "NtAddAtom"
$ioctl_mem_write = {9C 64 00 80}
$ioctl_mem_read = {98 64 00 80}
condition:
pe.is_pe and
pe.imports("kernel32.dll", "DeviceIoControl")
and all of them
}

Victims


Based on our telemetry and information collected from public threat intelligence feeds, adversaries have been using this artifact since at least October 2024. The majority of affected victims are in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Brazil.

Attribution


This particular AV killer tool was recently used in an attack in Brazil to deploy MedusaLocker ransomware within a company’s infrastructure. However, this type of malware is common among various threat actors, including various ransomware groups and affiliates.

Conclusion and recommendations


This incident offers several valuable lessons. First, that strong hardening practices must be implemented to protect servers against brute‑force attacks and restrict public exposure of remote‑access protocols. Had the victim limited RDP access and enforced robust password policies, the initial breach could have been prevented. Furthermore, this incident underscores the necessity of defense in depth. The AV killer was able to disable the system’s defenses, allowing the attacker to move laterally across machines with ease. To mitigate such threats, system administrators should implement the following mechanisms:

  • Application whitelisting and strict enforcement of least‑privilege access.
  • Network segmentation and isolation to contain breaches and limit lateral movement.
  • Multi‑factor authentication (MFA) for all remote‑access channels.
  • Regular patch management and automated vulnerability scanning.
  • Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) to identify anomalous behavior.
  • Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools for real‑time monitoring and remediation.
  • Comprehensive logging, monitoring, and alerting to ensure rapid incident detection.
  • Periodic security assessments and penetration testing to validate the effectiveness of controls.

Recently, we have seen an increase in attacks involving various types of AV killer software. Threat protection services should implement self-defense mechanisms to prevent these attacks. This includes safeguarding application files from unauthorized modification, monitoring memory processes, and regularly updating detection rules on customers’ devices.

Tactics, techniques and procedures


The TTPs identified from our malware analysis for the AV killer are listed below.

TacticTechniqueID
DiscoveryProcess DiscoveryT1057
Defense EvasionImpair Defenses: Disable or Modify ToolsT1562.001
Defense EvasionImpair Defenses: Indicator BlockingT1562.006
Privilege EscalationCreate or Modify System Process: Windows ServiceT1543.003
ImpactService StopT1489

Indicators of compromise


Vulnerable ThrottleBlood.sys driver
82ed942a52cdcf120a8919730e00ba37619661a3
Malware observed in the incident
f02daf614109f39babdcb6f8841dd6981e929d70 (haz8.exe)
c0979ec20b87084317d1bfa50405f7149c3b5c5f (All.exe)
Other AV killer variants
eff7919d5de737d9a64f7528e86e3666051a49aa
0a15be464a603b1eebc61744dc60510ce169e135
d5a050c73346f01fc9ad767d345ed36c221baac2
987834891cea821bcd3ce1f6d3e549282d38b8d3
86a2a93a31e0151888c52dbbc8e33a7a3f4357db
dcaed7526cda644a23da542d01017d48d97c9533


securelist.com/av-killer-explo…



Can a Thermal Printer Cure ADHD?


No, of course not. Per Betteridge’s law, that’s the answer to any headline with a question mark. On the other hand, while a thermal printer might not cure ADHD, it can help treat it — according to [Laurie Hérault], to the point of curing his procrastination habit. Even if you don’t have ADHD, you probably do procrastinate sometimes, so this hack is worth a look.

The printer itself is a key hardware portion of the hack, but the hack itself is purely organizational. [Laurie] started with post-its before adding automation. Before the post-it notes came a simple realization: [Laurie] could sit and play games for hours, but not buckle down for serious work for more than a few minutes, if he could even get started. (Who can’t relate?) That sent him down a rabbit hole reading about the psychology of what makes games so addictive — and the idea of “gamification” that was so popular in educational circles not long ago.

Unlike work, games give you a loop of unambiguous, instant, and continuous feedback to pump your dopamine circuits. [Laurie] uses the example of an FPS. You aim, you shoot — and either you miss, or you hit the target. Either way, there’s feedback. When you hit, your brain gives you dopamine. This fast loop of input -> feedback is what [Laurie] felt he was missing from his day.

You’d want to organize the post-its better than this. (Image by Pexels.)
That’s where the post-it notes came in. Post-its went up on a board with all of his tasks for the day; the input was his completing the tasks, and the feedback was taking them down, crumpling them up, and putting them into a clear jar that would serve as a score bar for his productivity. The feedback actually rewarded multiple senses this way: the tactility of crumpling paper, the sound of it, and the visual of the rising level of the jar.

A key insight [Laurie] had in this process is that many productivity apps (including gamifying ones) are focused too much on high-level tasks by default. “Clean the kitchen,” for example. That’s too big! It’s daunting, and it takes too long for that immediate, gamified feedback. Instead [Laurie] breaks down “Cleaning the Kitchen” into “Clean the dishes”, “Wipe the Counter”, “Take out the Trash”, et cetera. The smaller the steps, the more frequent the reward, and the easier it is to start them without exerting much willpower: just like a video game.

Of course writing all of those post-it notes gets tedious, especially for recurring and pre-scheduled tasks, and that tedium increases exponentially when breaking tasks down into the smallest possible chunks. That’s where the thermal printer came in. [Laurie] wrote a simple software utility to allow him to create high-level tasks, and break them down into small action items that are immediately sent to the thermal printer. After that, the system works just as it does with the post-it notes. He promises to share this software, but it does not seem to have yet been released. Hopefully he’s not procrastinating on that, or our faith in the process is ruined.

Thermal printers are great for lifehacks, like this hack for receipt-like mementos, or this one to ease the load on a dungeon master. If you prefer you can skip the ‘life’ part of lifehacks, and just make an instant camera.


hackaday.com/2025/08/06/can-a-…



A Speed Loader For Your 3D Printer Filament


Reloading filament on a 3D printer is hardly anyone’s favorite task, but it’s even worse when you’re trying to shove stiff filament down a long and winding Bowden tube. Enter the speed loader from [Mr Flippant], which aims to take the pain out of this mechanically-frustrating chore.

The design is simple enough. It’s a small handheld tool that uses a 12 VDC gear motor to drive a set of Bondtech-style drive gears that you might find in an extruder. They’re assembled in a 3D printed housing with a microswitch to activate the motor, and a 9 volt battery to supply the juice.

To use the device, first thread the filament into the beginning of the Bowden tube. The idler gear is on a hinge, such that clamping it into position around the filament with the main gear activates the microswitch and turns the motor on, driving the filament all the way to the extruder. Job done! [Mr Flippant] notes that the filament should be as straight and unkinked as possible for best results, but that’s good advice when 3D printing in general.

Funnily enough, around these parts, when we talk about speed loaders, we’re usually discussing tapes.

youtube.com/embed/EtV3ZXkA_nE?…

youtube.com/embed/qL7nFMtGzdM?…

Thanks to [LookAtDaShinyShiny] for the tip!


hackaday.com/2025/08/06/a-spee…



LoRaSense Pi Hat aims to Kick Start IoT Projects


A photo of the HAT with the LoRa module and relay visible on the top

[Avi Gupta] recently sent in their LoRaSense RGB Pi HAT project. This “HAT” (Hardware Attached to Top) is for any Raspberry Pi with 40-pin header. The core of the build is the custom printed circuit board which houses the components and interconnects. The components include an SHT31 temperature and humidity sensor, an SX1278 LoRa module, and a 10 amp 220 VAC relay. The interconnects include support for UART, I2C, SPI, and WS2812B RGB LED interfaces as well as a stackable header for daisy chaining HATs.

The attached components in combination support a wide range of use cases. Possible uses for this Raspberry Pi HAT include smart home systems, agricultural projects, industrial monitoring, smart greenhouse, remote weather stations, or alerting systems. You can detect weather conditions, send and receive information, switch mains powered loads, and use RGB LEDs for status and alerting.

If you’re interested in LoRa technology be sure to read about the Yagi antenna that sends LoRa signals farther.


hackaday.com/2025/08/05/lorase…



Adobe Experience Manager Forms sotto attacco! Patch urgente per bug RCE zero-day da score 10


Il 5 agosto 2025, Adobe ha rilasciato un aggiornamento di sicurezza urgente per Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms su Java Enterprise Edition (JEE), risolvendo due gravi vulnerabilità: CVE-2025-54253 e CVE-2025-54254.

La più pericolosa, il CVE-2025-54253, è una zero-day attivamente sfruttata in natura prima della patch, con un punteggio CVSS di 10.0, il massimo possibile. Un attaccante non autenticato può sfruttare questa falla per ottenere il pieno controllo del server vulnerabile, eseguendo comandi da remoto, accedendo a dati sensibili e muovendosi lateralmente nella rete.

La vulnerabilità è causata da una configurazione errata in alcune installazioni di AEM Forms, dove risulta abilitata per impostazione predefinita la modalità di sviluppo di Apache Struts. Questo consente l’esecuzione di espressioni OGNL, tipiche degli attacchi RCE. Inoltre, è stato segnalato un bypass dell’autenticazione che consente l’esecuzione degli exploit anche senza credenziali.

Adobe ha confermato che un proof-of-concept è stato pubblicamente disponibile per un breve periodo prima di essere rimosso. Tuttavia, al momento non sono noti exploit pubblici completamente funzionanti, anche se è altamente probabile che esistano versioni private utilizzate da attori malevoli.

La seconda vulnerabilità, CVE-2025-54254, è anch’essa critica (CVSS 8.6) e riguarda una falla di tipo XXE (XML External Entity) che permette la lettura arbitraria del file system. Anche in questo caso è stata confermata la disponibilità di un PoC pubblico.

Adobe invita gli utenti a installare immediatamente l’aggiornamento che porta AEM Forms su JEE alla versione 6.5.0-0108, classificata come aggiornamento di priorità 1. In assenza della possibilità di aggiornare subito, è fortemente consigliato limitare l’accesso esterno agli endpoint AEM Forms e disattivare la modalità di sviluppo di Struts in tutti gli ambienti.

Inoltre, è fondamentale controllare i log di accesso e di sistema alla ricerca di attività sospette, come richieste contenenti sintassi OGNL, che potrebbero indicare tentativi di exploit.

L'articolo Adobe Experience Manager Forms sotto attacco! Patch urgente per bug RCE zero-day da score 10 proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.





Bastian’s Night #437 August, 7th


Every Thursday of the week, Bastian’s Night is broadcast from 21:30 CEST (new time).

Bastian’s Night is a live talk show in German with lots of music, a weekly round-up of news from around the world, and a glimpse into the host’s crazy week in the pirate movement.


If you want to read more about @BastianBB: –> This way


piratesonair.net/bastians-nigh…



Ponte sullo Stretto, sì al progetto definitivo. Salvini: “Ci sarà la metro e 120mila posti di lavoro”


@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
Il Ponte sullo Stretto si farà: parola di Matteo Salvini. Esulta in conferenza stampa il ministro delle Infrastrutture e Trasporti, che parla di “giornata storica”, dopo che il Cipess ha approvato il progetto definitivo per la realizzazione del ponte che



un governo è legittimo se fa cose illegittime?


a tutti gli ebrei che sono brave persone: Netanyahu è un vostro problema da voi creato. voi dovete fermarlo.


fino a quando il mondo sarà popolato di bulli non avrà neppure senso porsi il problema delle armi atomiche, perché gli scenari distruttivi per l'umanità sono infiniti. bello scegliere di uccidere 1 milione di persone solo 1000 al giorno invece che tutte assieme.


Ecco come OpenAI si ingarella con SpaceX di Musk

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Un tempo uniti dallo stesso sogno poi nemici giurati. Sam Altman sta trattando una vendita di azioni che potrebbe portare la valutazione di OpenAI a superare quella di SpaceX di Elon Musk, oggi la società tech privata più valutata al



La settimana scorsa abbiamo fatto tappa a #Barcellona.
Siamo partiti a piedi dal WTC e abbiamo percorso tutta la Rambla fino a Plaza Catalunya.
Lungo la Rambla, ovviamente, non c'è molto traffico, forse anche a causa dei lavori in corso.
Arrivati a Plaza Catalunya, però... non c'era traffico eccessivo nemmeno lì: tanti mezzi pubblici, tanti taxi (per la gran parte elettrici) e pochissimo traffico privato. Anzi, in alcune zone ho avuto l'impressione che il traffico privato non ci fosse proprio.
Abbiamo proseguito per Passeig de Gracia per andare a vedere le architetture di Gaudi e c'era poco traffico anche lì.
Da lì abbiamo raggiunto, sempre a piedi, la Sagrada Familia passando per Carrer de Mallorca.
In questa zona meno taxi, un po' di mezzi privati in più, ma sempre ben servito dal trasporto pubblico.
Niente strobazzamenti di clacson, traffico fluido e rilassato.
Ritorno in metropolitana, puntualissima e con fermate in punti strategici.
Consiglio la visita al nostro ministro delle infrastrutture #salvini , vedi mai...
#barcelona #barcellona #traffico #mezzipubblici #mobilita #sostenibilita

AV reshared this.



si può disinnescare l'AI di meta da whatsupp? levarsela di torno?
in reply to Andrea R.

@harinezumi mi ero interessato anch'io: pare non si possa, però è importante non usarla mai o sei fregato



Tutte le difficoltà e i dubbi sul piano della Cina per i semiconduttori

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
La Cina vorrebbe razionalizzare il proprio settore dei semiconduttori, oggi formato da tante aziende spesso ridondanti, favorendo le acquisizioni e la nascita di grandi campioni nazionali. L'attuazione del piano, però,



Netanyahu è come un bubbone di pus, quasi maturo. va solo strizzato.



sternuti, naso che cola: temo di essere allergico ai virus del raffreddore


80 anni fa, uno dei crimini di guerra più duri della storia dell'umanità. Una bomba atomica veniva sganciata sulla città di Hiroshima, spazzandola via. Tale gesto non fu fatto da stati considerati terrosti o dittatoriali, ma da quelli che si auto qualificano come, "la culla della democrazia", gli esportatori di pace. Sono tanto democratici e pieni di pace, che sono stati gli unici di un gesto del genere.
6 agosto 1945: bomba atomica a Hiroshima – Giorni di Storia
giornidistoria.net/6-agosto-19…



a ciccio! ma chíttese! adesso faccio una legge che se donald truzzo vuole passare per Monteverde naa strada dov'abbito je mollo 15mila carcinculo

reshared this



trump è un bullo, e c'è una sola cosa che non serve a niente: ascoltarli.

informapirata ⁂ reshared this.

in reply to simona

"bullo" è un eufemismo.
Si presenta come vittima di complotti, rafforzando il senso di persecuzione tra i suoi sostenitori.
Usa il potere mediatico per intimidire, screditare o ridicolizzare chi lo critica.
Alimenta un clima di scontro più che di dialogo.
Si, è un ottimo presidente!!


FLUG - Festa per Debian 13 (Trixie)


firenze.linux.it/2025/08/festa…
Segnalato da Linux Italia e pubblicato sulla comunità Lemmy @GNU/Linux Italia
Giovedì 14 agosto 2025 ci ritroveremo alle 21:00, all’Ultravox alle Cascine per festeggiare l’uscita di Debian GNU/Linux Trixie, la tredicesima versione di questo sistema operativo



La mia opinione su Nanjou-san wa Boku ni Dakaretai


Ho scoperto questo manga di recente e me ne sono innamorato. Affronta tematiche importanti senza banali superficialità, offrendo uno spaccato "chiaramente un po' romanzato" della vita degli studenti delle superiori. Onestamente, non ne ho mai abbastanza!

🌕⭐: Non amo dare voti assoluti, ma questo per me se li merita tutti. Aspetto con impazienza i nuovi capitoli.



Fermi tutti, perché siamo davanti all’ennesima figura da clown del duo Meloni-Tajani.

Inviano un diplomatico a Caracas, in Venezuela, per trattare la liberazione di una quindicina di nostri connazionali detenuti.

Hanno solamente annunciato la visita alle autorità venezuelane, senza concordare altro. Quindi, all’arrivo del diplomatico italiano, dopo averlo fatto attendere per qualche ora in una sala d’attesa, lo hanno rispedito in patria con le seguenti parole: "Non siamo più al tempo delle colonie."

Uno schiaffo diplomatico e una becera figura a livello internazionale per quel governo che ogni due per tre ci fa la manfrina della “credibilità internazionale”.

Questo accade quando non hai idea di cosa significhi diplomazia e rispetto diplomatico. Questo accade quando sei servo. Questo accade semplicemente perché l’asino può fingersi cavallo, ma prima o poi dovrà ragliare.

E ha ragliato per la seconda volta in pochi giorni, dopo averlo fatto in Libia, dove anche da lì il Ministro degli Interni Piantedosi è stato rispedito a casa in malo modo!

GiuseppeSalamone



Slavs and Tatars - L'intreccio tra identità, spiritualità e post colonialismo


🧭 Quando spiritualità, politica e tradizioni si intrecciano, nascono spazi inaspettati, capaci di superare ogni binarismo.
Slavs and Tatars, collettivo di arte e ricerca, ci ricorda che le identità non sono mai chiuse: sono fatte di passaggi, contaminazioni, transiti fra mondi come i simboli e i rituali che attraversano l’Eurasia.

Nel dialogo con Kathleen Reinhardt e Leah Feldman, il loro lavoro appare come un continuo attraversamento: dalle pratiche spirituali e conviviali (come il samovar o la condivisione del tè) a quelle linguistiche e politiche, sempre alla ricerca di ciò che sfugge alle categorie imposte.
La loro idea di postcoloniale non si rifugia nell’identità da difendere, ma apre possibilità: celebra le mescolanze, crea collettività mai precostituite, né dettate dall’alto.
Penso a certe risonanze con il lavoro di Mona Hatoum: anche lei capace di trasformare simboli domestici e geografici in strumenti di disorientamento critico.

Simboli come il Simurgh, il cetriolo sotto sale o la lingua stessa diventano strumenti per costruire mondi condivisi, lontani da logiche etno-nazionali e imperiali, offrendo “ospitalità” a chi spesso, nei musei o nei discorsi ufficiali, non trova spazio per riconoscersi.

Anche qui nel Poliverso e su Friendica possiamo fare delle nostre interazioni un laboratorio di attraversamento, ascolto e ridefinizione reciproca.

Quali confini sentiamo il bisogno di attraversare?
Come si intrecciano, nelle nostre storie, le radici spirituali e politiche che portiamo dentro?

🔗 moussemagazine.it/magazine/sla…

@Arte e Cultura @Cultura, Storia, Libri, Arte, Architettura, Scuola, Design, Fumetti e Bookwyrm @arthistory group
#arte #artecomtemporanea #SlavsAndTatars

reshared this

in reply to Nicola Pizzamiglio

@Nicola Pizzamiglio

se non metto il titolo cosa succede su mastodon?

Succede esattamente quello che succede con un post Mastodon: semplicemente lo vedi come un post mastodon.

Comunque con Friendica puoi scrivere post con titolo o senza titolo. L'unica differenza è che se linki un post con titolo, chi lo visita lo vede come se fosse un articolo di wordpress, mentre se lo posti senza titolo sembra più un post di Facebook.

La modifica che hai fatto ora però serve solo per chi vede il tuo post dal proprio account mastodon

in particolare se si taggano i gruppi, che fosse meglio così.

Sì, con i gruppi è meglio usare il titolo, ma ormai Lemmy e NodeBB riescono a estrapolare il primo paragrafo come se fosse il titolo e quindi puoi aprire un thread anche da mastodon.

Io per esempio (ma solo quando ho tempo da perdere) certe volte scrivo un post senza titolo vero ma con titolo "finto".

Se infatti scrivo all'inizio del post un paragrafo come

[h1][b][url=https://informapirata.it]Questo è il mio blog[/url][/b][/h1]

seguito da un testo qualsiasi come

 Testo del paragrafo
@test@feddit.it

Il risultato sarà questo:

Questo è il mio blog

Testo del paragrafo
@Test: palestra e allenamenti :-)

e sarà visibile così anche da Mastodon:

Questa voce è stata modificata (1 mese fa)
in reply to Franc Mac

@Franc Mac Grazie per la spiegazione. Ora ho capito meglio (quasi) tutto!

arthistory group reshared this.



Intelligenza artificiale, tutti i piani di SoftBank su Nvidia e Tsmc

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
SoftBank, la holding giapponese di Masayoshi Son (vicinissimo a Trump), aumenta le partecipazioni in Nvidia e Tsmc. Il gruppo, che già partecipa al mega-progetto Stargate, vuole diventare il campione della "super-intelligenza artificiale".



The lawsuit alleges XVideos, Bang Bros, XNXX, Girls Gone Wild and TrafficFactory are in violation of Florida's law that requires adult platforms to verify visitors are over 18.

The lawsuit alleges XVideos, Bang Bros, XNXX, Girls Gone Wild and TrafficFactory are in violation of Floridax27;s law that requires adult platforms to verify visitors are over 18.#ageverification


Florida Sues Huge Porn Sites Including XVideos and Bang Bros Over Age Verification Law


The state of Florida is suing some of the biggest porn platforms on the internet, accusing them of not complying with the state’s law that requires adult sites to verify that visitors are over the age of 18.

The lawsuit, brought by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, is against the companies that own popular porn platforms including XVideos, XNXX, Bang Bros and Girls Gone Wild, and the adult advertising network TrafficFactory.com. Several of these platforms are owned by companies that are based outside of the U.S.

Uthmeier alleges that the companies are violating both HB3 and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

On January 1, Florida joined 19 other states that require adult websites to verify users’ ages. Twenty-nine states currently have nearly identical legislation enacted for porn sites, or have bills pending. Age verification legislation has failed in eight other states.

“Multiple porn companies are flagrantly breaking Florida’s age verification law by exposing children to harmful, explicit content. As a father of young children, and as Attorney General, this is completely unacceptable,” Uthmeier said in a press release about the lawsuit. “We are taking legal action against these online pornographers who are willfully preying on the innocence of children for their financial gain.”
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
The Free Speech Coalition along with several co-plaintiffs, including the sex education platform O.school, sexual wellness retailer Adam & Eve, adult fan platform JustFor.Fans, and Florida attorney Barry Chase filed a challenge to Florida’s law earlier this month. “These laws create a substantial burden on adults who want to access legal sites without fear of surveillance,” Alison Boden, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, said in a press release published in December. “Despite the claims of the proponents, HB3 is not the same as showing an ID at a liquor store. It is invasive and carries significant risk to privacy. This law and others like it have effectively become state censorship, creating a massive chilling effect for those who speak about, or engage with, issues of sex or sexuality.”

Age Verification Laws Drag Us Back to the Dark Ages of the Internet
Invasive and ineffective age verification laws that require users show government-issued ID, like a driver’s license or passport, are passing like wildfire across the U.S.
404 MediaEmanuel Maiberg


After the Supreme Court upheld Texas’ age verification legislation in June, the Free Speech Coalition dropped the lawsuit in Florida. "However, we are continuing to monitor the governmental efforts to restrict adults' access to the internet in Florida," Mike Stabile, the director of public policy for the Free Speech Coalition, said in a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat. “The Paxton decision does not give the government carte blanche to censor content it doesn't like.”

Experts say, and more than a year of real-world anecdotal evidence has shown at this point, that age verification laws are invasive of user’s privacy, chilling for Constitutional adult speech, and don’t work to keep children away from potentially harmful material.

As it has in many states once age verification legislation went into effect, Pornhub pulled access from Florida entirely on January 1, replacing the homepage with a video message from activist and performer Cherie DeVille: "As you may know, your elected officials in Florida are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website," DeVille says. " While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”




Ricordare l’eccidio di Carini è un dovere morale


@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/ricorda…
L’ultimo oltraggio subito da Nino Agostino, agente di Polizia e da sua moglie Ida Castelluccio, assassinati il 5 Agosto del 1989 a Villa Grazia di Carini è stato l’annullamento senza rinvio della sentenza di condanna soltanto





Contracting records reviewed by 404 Media show that ICE wants to target Gen Z, including with ads on Hulu and HBO Max.#News #ICE


ICE Is About To Go on a Social Media and TV Ad Recruiting Blitz


Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is urgently looking for a company to help it “dominate” digital media channels with advertisements in an attempt to recruit 14,050 more personnel, according to U.S. government contracting records reviewed by 404 Media. The move, which ICE wants to touch everything from social media ads to those played on popular streaming services like Hulu and HBO Max, is especially targeted towards Gen Z, according to the documents.

The push for recruitment advertising is the latest sign that ICE is trying to aggressively expand after receiving a new budget allocation of tens of billions of dollars, and comes alongside the agency building a nationwide network of migrant tent camps. If the recruitment drive is successful, it would nearly double ICE’s number of personnel.

💡
Do you work at ICE? Did you used to? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

“ICE has an immediate need to begin recruitment efforts and requires specialized commercial advertising experience, established infrastructure, and qualified personnel to activate without delay,” the request for information (RFI) posted online reads. An RFI is often the first step in the government purchasing technology or services, in which it asks relevant companies to submit details on what they can offer the agency and for how much. The RFI adds “This effort ties to a broader national launch and awareness saturation initiative aimed at dominating both digital and traditional media channels with urgent, compelling recruitment messages.”

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#News #ice


“The ability to quickly generate a lot of bogus content is problematic if we don't have a way to delete it just as quickly.”

“The ability to quickly generate a lot of bogus content is problematic if we donx27;t have a way to delete it just as quickly.”#News


Wikipedia Editors Adopt ‘Speedy Deletion’ Policy for AI Slop Articles


Wikipedia editors just adopted a new policy to help them deal with the slew of AI-generated articles flooding the online encyclopedia. The new policy, which gives an administrator the authority to quickly delete an AI-generated article that meets a certain criteria, isn’t only important to Wikipedia, but also an important example for how to deal with the growing AI slop problem from a platform that has so far managed to withstand various forms of enshittification that have plagued the rest of the internet.

Wikipedia is maintained by a global, collaborative community of volunteer contributors and editors, and part of the reason it remains a reliable source of information is that this community takes a lot of time to discuss, deliberate, and argue about everything that happens on the platform, be it changes to individual articles or the policies that govern how those changes are made. It is normal for entire Wikipedia articles to be deleted, but the main process for deletion usually requires a week-long discussion phase during which Wikipedians try to come to consensus on whether to delete the article.

However, in order to deal with common problems that clearly violate Wikipedia’s policies, Wikipedia also has a “speedy deletion” process, where one person flags an article, an administrator checks if it meets certain conditions, and then deletes the article without the discussion period.

For example, articles composed entirely of gibberish, meaningless text, or what Wikipedia calls “patent nonsense,” can be flagged for speedy deletion. The same is true for articles that are just advertisements with no encyclopedic value. If someone flags an article for deletion because it is “most likely not notable,” that is a more subjective evaluation that requires a full discussion.

At the moment, most articles that Wikipedia editors flag as being AI-generated fall into the latter category because editors can’t be absolutely certain that they were AI-generated. Ilyas Lebleu, a founding member of WikiProject AI Cleanup and an editor that contributed some critical language in the recently adopted policy on AI generated articles and speedy deletion, told me that this is why previous proposals on regulating AI generated articles on Wikipedia have struggled.

“While it can be easy to spot hints that something is AI-generated (wording choices, em-dashes, bullet lists with bolded headers, ...), these tells are usually not so clear-cut, and we don't want to mistakenly delete something just because it sounds like AI,” Lebleu told me in an email. “In general, the rise of easy-to-generate AI content has been described as an ‘existential threat’ to Wikipedia: as our processes are geared towards (often long) discussions and consensus-building, the ability to quickly generate a lot of bogus content is problematic if we don't have a way to delete it just as quickly. Of course, AI content is not uniquely bad, and humans are perfectly capable of writing bad content too, but certainly not at the same rate. Our tools were made for a completely different scale.”

The solution Wikipedians came up with is to allow the speedy deletion of clearly AI-generated articles that broadly meet two conditions. The first is if the article includes “communication intended for the user.” This refers to language in the article that is clearly an LLM responding to a user prompt, like "Here is your Wikipedia article on…,” “Up to my last training update …,” and "as a large language model.” This is a clear tell that the article was generated by an LLM, and a method we’ve previously used to identify AI-generated social media posts and scientific papers.

Lebleu, who told me they’ve seen these tells “quite a few times,” said that more importantly, they indicate the user hasn’t even read the article they’re submitting.

“If the user hasn't checked for these basic things, we can safely assume that they haven't reviewed anything of what they copy-pasted, and that it is about as useful as white noise,” they said.

The other condition that would make an AI-generated article eligible for speedy deletion is if its citations are clearly wrong, another type of error LLMs are prone to. This can include both the inclusion of external links for books, articles, or scientific papers that don’t exist and don’t resolve, or links that lead to completely unrelated content. Wikipedia's new policy gives the example of “a paper on a beetle species being cited for a computer science article.”

Lebleu said that speedy deletion is a “band-aid” that can take care of the most obvious cases and that the AI problem will persist as they see a lot more AI-generated content that doesn’t meet these new conditions for speedy deletion. They also noted that AI can be a useful tool that could be a positive force for Wikipedia in the future.

“However, the present situation is very different, and speculation on how the technology might develop in the coming years can easily distract us from solving issues we are facing now, they said. “A key pillar of Wikipedia is that we have no firm rules, and any decisions we take today can be revisited in a few years when the technology evolves.”

Lebleu said that ultimately the new policy leaves Wikipedia in a better position than before, but not a perfect one.

“The good news (beyond the speedy deletion thing itself) is that we have, formally, made a statement on LLM-generated articles. This has been a controversial aspect in the community before: while the vast majority of us are opposed to AI content, exactly how to deal with it has been a point of contention, and early attempts at wide-ranging policies had failed. Here, building up on the previous incremental wins on AI images, drafts, and discussion comments, we workshopped a much more specific criterion, which nonetheless clearly states that unreviewed LLM content is not compatible in spirit with Wikipedia.”


#News #x27


Dopo tanto lavoro, Ghost ha finalmente attivato la federazione Activitypub (e non solo). Ma quali sono le newsletter e i blog italiani basati su #Ghost?

@Discussioni sul Fediverso italiano

Al momento questi sono quelli che abbiamo censito e che ricondividiamo per tutti gli interessati:

1) oradecima by Martino Wong: @oradecima by Martino Wong
2) Dungeonauta: @Dungeonauta
3) Monryse: @MonRyse
4) Mindthechart Intelligence: @MindTheChart Intelligence
5) Restworld: @Restworld Blog
6) Il Blog di Davide Benesso: @Davide Benesso: curiosità e automiglioramento
7) Gaming Review: @GamingReview.it
8) WPC Tech: @WPC Tech
9) The Submarine: @The Submarine
10) Manolo Macchetta: @Manolo Macchetta
11) Flavio Pintarelli: @Flavio Pintarelli | Writer & Strategist
12) Giovanni Bertagna: @Giovanni Bertagna - Blog

CONOSCI ALTRI BLOG E NEWSLETTER BASATI SU GHOST? ALLORA SEGNALACELI!



Helsinki, l'atto finale dell'Europa


altrenotizie.org/spalla/10755-…



Ago 8
Apertura della diciassettesima edizione del GiocAosta
Ven 10:00 - 11:00 Piazza Chanoux, Aosta
GiocAosta il fan account nel Fediverso
Tutti gli spazi fissi di giocAosta aprono al pubblico, a partire dal grande padiglione di piazza Chanoux con la sua ludoteca di oltre 3.000 giochi in scatola in prestito gratuito. E poi giochi giganti e calcio balilla, scacchiere e puzzle, giochi astratti e tornitori… si parte!