Oltre 70.000 documenti di identità violati da attacchi a 3 hotel italiani
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
TL;DR oltre 70.000 documenti di identità provenienti da violazioni a tre strutture ricettive italiane sono stati messi in vendita sul web: un numero preoccupante che, soprattutto in periodo di vacanza, deve farci riflettere su trattamenti forse troppo
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A Repeater for WWVB
For those living in the continental US who, for whatever reason, don’t have access to an NTP server or a GPS device, the next best way to make sure the correct time is known is with the WWVB radio signal. Transmitting out of Colorado, the 60-bit 1 Hz signal reaches all 48 states in the low-frequency band and is a great way to get a clock within a few hundred nanoseconds of the official time. But in high noise situations, particularly on the coasts or in populated areas these radio-based clocks might miss some of the updates. To keep that from happening [Mike] built a repeater for this radio signal.
The repeater works by offloading most of the radio components to an Arduino. The microcontroller listens to the WWVB signal and re-transmits it at a lower power to the immediate area, in this case no further than a few inches away or enough to synchronize a few wristwatches. But it has a much better antenna for listening to WWVB so this eliminates the (admittedly uncommon) problem of [Mike]’s watches not synchronizing at least once per day. WWVB broadcasts a PWM signal which is easy for an Arduino to duplicate, but this one needed help from a DRV8833 amplifier to generate a meaningfully strong radio signal.
Although there have been other similar projects oriented around the WWVB signal, [Mike]’s goal for this was to improve the range of these projects so it could sync more than a single timekeeping device at a time as well as using parts which are more readily available and which have a higher ease of use. We’d say he’s done a pretty good job here, and his build instructions cover almost everything even the most beginner breadboarders would need to know to duplicate it on their own.
Video obtained and verified by 404 Media shows a CBP official wearing Meta's AI glasses, which are capable of recording and connecting with AI. “I think it should be seen in the context of an agency that is really encouraging its agents to actively intimidate and terrorize people," one expert said.#CBP #Immigration #Meta
A CBP Agent Wore Meta Smart Glasses to an Immigration Raid in Los Angeles
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent wore Meta’s AI smart glasses to a June 30 immigration raid outside a Home Depot in Cypress Park, Los Angeles, according to photos and videos of the agent verified by 404 Media.Meta does not have a contract with CBP, and 404 Media was unable to confirm whether or not the agent recorded any video using the smart glasses at the raid. Based on what we know so far, this appears to be a one-off case of an agent either wearing his personal device to an immigration raid, or CBP trying technology on an ad-hoc basis without a formal procurement process. Civil liberties and privacy experts told 404 Media, however, that even on a one-off basis, it signals that law enforcement agents are interested in smart glasses technology and that the wearing of smart glasses in an immigration raid context is highly concerning.
“There’s a nonzero chance the agent bought the Meta smart glasses because they wanted it for themselves and it’s the glasses they like to wear. But even if that’s the case, it’s worth pointing out that there are regulatory things that need to be thought through, and this stuff can trickle down to officers on an individual basis,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s security and surveillance project, told 404 Media. “There needs to be compliance with rules and laws even if a technology is not handed out through the department. The questions around [smart glasses are ones] we’re going to have to grapple with very soon and they’re pretty alarming.”
The glasses were worn by a CBP agent outside of a Home Depot in Cypress Park, Los Angeles during a June 30 immigration raid which happened amid weeks of protests, the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines, and during which immigration enforcement in Los Angeles has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign and the backlash to it. 404 Media obtained multiple photos and videos of the CBP agent wearing the Meta glasses and verified that the footage and videos were taken outside of the Cypress Park Home Depot during an immigration raid. The agent in the photo is wearing Meta’s Ray Ban AI glasses, a mask, and a CBP uniform and patch. CBP did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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1×In the video, a CBP agent motions to the person filming the video to back up. The Meta Ray Ban AI glasses are clearly visible on the agent’s face.
Meta’s AI smart glasses currently feature a camera, live-streaming capabilities, integration with Meta’s AI assistant, three microphones, and image and scene recognition capabilities through Meta AI. The Information reported that Meta is considering adding facial recognition capabilities to the device, though they do not currently have that functionality. When filming, a recording light on Meta’s smart glasses turns on; in the photos and brief video 404 Media has seen, the light is not on.
Students at Harvard University showed that they can be used in conjunction with off-the-shelf facial recognition tools to identify people in near real time.
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Do you know anything else about this? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.Multiple experts 404 Media spoke to said that these smart glasses qualify as a body worn camera under the Department of Homeland Security’s and Customs and Border Protection’s video recording policies. CBP’s policy states that “no personally owned devices may be used in lieu of IDVRS [Incident Driven Video Recording Systems] to record law enforcement encounters,” and that “recorded data shall not be downloaded or recorded for personal use or posted onto a personally owned device.” DHS’s policy states “the use of personally owned [Body Worn Cameras] or other video, audio, or digital recording devices to record official law enforcement activities is prohibited.”
Under the Trump administration, however, enforcement of regulations for law enforcement engaging in immigration raids is largely out the window.
“I think it should be seen in the context of an agency that is really encouraging its agents to actively intimidate and terrorize people. Use of cameras can be seen as part of that,” Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU, told 404 Media. “It’s in line with the masking that we’ve seen, and generally behavior that’s intended to terrorize people, masking failure to identify themselves, failure to wear clear uniforms, smashing windows, etc. A big part of why this is problematic is the utter lack of policy oversight here. If an agent videotapes themselves engaging in abusive activity, are they going to be able to bury that video? Are they going to be able to turn it on and off on the fly or edit it later? There are all kinds of abuses that can happen with these without regulation and enforcement of those regulations, and the prospects of that happening in this administration seem dim.”
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When reached for comment, a Meta spokesperson asked 404 Media a series of questions about the framing of the article, and stressed that Meta does not have any contract with CBP. They then asked why Meta would be mentioned in the article at all: “I’m curious if you can explain why it is Meta will be mentioned by name in this piece when in previous 404 reporting regarding ICE facial recognition app and follow up reporting the term ‘smartphones’ or ‘phone’ is used despite ICE agents clearly using Apple iPhones and Android devices,” they said. Meta ultimately declined to comment for this story.Meta also recently signed a partnership deal with defense contractor Anduril to offer AI, augmented reality, and virtual reality capabilities to the military through Meta’s Reality Labs division, which also makes the Meta smart glasses (though it is unclear what form this technology will take or what its capabilities will be). Earlier this year, Meta relaxed its content moderation policies on hate speech regarding the dehumanization of immigrants, and last month Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth was named an Army Reserve Lt. Colonel by the Trump administration.
“Meta has spent the last decade building AI and AR to enable the computing platform of the future,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release announcing the deal with Anduril. “We’re proud to partner with Anduril to help bring these technologies to the American servicemembers that protect our interests at home and abroad.”
“My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers, and the products we are building with Meta do just that,” Anduril founder Palmer Luckey said in the press release.
In a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg said he believes smart glasses will become the primary way people interact with AI. “I think in the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI or some way to interact with AI, I think you’re kind of similarly, probably [will] be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage compared to other people and who you’re working with, or competing against,” he said during the call. “That’s also going to unlock a lot of value where you can just interact with an AI system throughout the day in this multimodal way. It can see the content around you, it can generate a UI for you, show you information and be helpful.”
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has recently gained access to a new facial recognition smartphone app called Mobile Fortify that is connected to several massive government databases, showing that DHS is interested in facial recognition tech.
Privacy and civil liberties experts told 404 Media that this broader context—with Meta heavily marketing its smart glasses while simultaneously getting into military contracting, and the Department of Homeland Security increasingly interested in facial recognition—means that seeing a CBP agent wearing Meta AI glasses in the field is alarming.
“Regardless of whether this was a personal choice by this agent or whether somehow CBP facilitated the use of these meta glasses, the fact that it was worn by this agent is disturbing,” Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Information Privacy Center told 404 Media. “Having this type of technology on a law enforcement agent starts heading toward the tactics of authoritarian governments who love to use facial recognition to try to suppress opposition.”
The fact is that Meta is at the forefront of popularizing smart glasses, which are not yet a widely adopted technology. The privacy practices and functionality of the glasses is, at the moment, largely being guided by Meta, whereas smartphones are a largely commodified technology at this point. And it’s clear that this consumer technology that the company markets on billboards as a cool way to record videos for Instagram is seen by some in law enforcement as enticing.
“It’s clear that whatever imaginary boundary there was between consumer surveillance tech and government surveillance tech is now completely erased,” Chris Gilliard, co-director of The Critical Internet Studies Institute and author of the forthcoming book Luxury Surveillance, told 404 Media.
“The fact is when you bring powerful new surveillance capabilities into the marketplace, they can be used for a range of purposes including abusive ones. And that needs to be thought through before you bring things like that into the marketplace,” the ACLU’s Stanley said.
Laperruque, of the CDT, said perhaps we should think about Meta smart glasses in the same way we think about other body cameras: “On the one hand, there’s a big difference between glasses with a computer built into them and a pair of Oakleys,” he said. “They’re not the only ones who make cameras you attach to your body. On the other hand, if that’s going to be the comparison, then let’s talk about this in the context of companies like Axon and other body-worn cameras.”
Update: After this article was published, the independent journalist Mel Buer (who runs the site Words About Work) reposted images she took at a July 7 immigration enforcement raid at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. In Buer's footage and photos, two additional CBP agents can be seen wearing Meta smart glasses in the back of a truck; a third is holding a camera pointed out of the back of the truck. Buer gave 404 Media permission to republish the photos; you can find her work here.
Images: Mel Buer
Mark Zuckerberg says anyone not wearing AI glasses in the future will be at a disadvantage
Zuckerberg said immersive smart glasses could bring the idea of the metaverse to fruition.Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez (Fortune)
Hai pagato per mesi una VPN che non ha fatto altro che spiarti
La complessa infrastruttura della rete pubblicitaria fraudolenta VexTrio Viper è tornata alla ribalta dopo che i ricercatori di Infoblox hanno rivelato i dettagli di un massiccio schema di app mobile false .
Sotto le mentite spoglie di servizi legittimi – dalle VPN alle utility di pulizia della RAM, dai filtri antispam alle app di incontri – i truffatori hanno inserito programmi dannosi negli store ufficiali di Apple e Google. Questi programmi sono stati distribuiti per conto di presunti sviluppatori diversi, tra cui HolaCode, LocoMind, Hugmi, Klover Group e AlphaScale Media. Il numero totale di download ammonta a milioni.
Una volta installate, queste applicazioni costringevano gli utenti ad accettare condizioni poco trasparenti, li inducevano a fornire dati personali, bombardavano il dispositivo con pubblicità aggressive e ne rendevano difficile la disinstallazione. Ad esempio, un’applicazione chiamata Spam Shield Block, mascherata da antispam, richiedeva immediatamente il pagamento e, se l’utente rifiutava, rendeva insopportabile l’utilizzo del dispositivo a causa di inserti pubblicitari . Gli utenti si lamentavano di prezzi di abbonamento inaffidabili, addebiti multipli e l’impossibilità di disinstallazione: azioni chiaramente mirate al prelievo occulto di fondi.
Tuttavia, le app mobili sono solo la punta dell’iceberg. VexTrio gestisce una rete di attività fraudolente, tra cui sistemi di distribuzione del traffico (TDS) che reindirizzano gli utenti da siti hackerati a pagine false. Questi TDS erano camuffati tramite i cosiddetti smartlink, link intelligenti che rivelano l’indirizzo finale solo all’ultimo momento e si adattano alla vittima: alla sua posizione geografica, al tipo di dispositivo e al browser. Questo consente loro di aggirare i filtri e complica l’analisi da parte degli specialisti.
Il traffico diretto a queste trappole viene inizialmente generato attraverso siti WordPress hackerati, contenenti codice dannoso. I truffatori utilizzano questi siti per distribuire annunci pubblicitari falsi, dalle lotterie alle truffe sulle criptovalute.
È interessante notare che l’organizzazione controlla non solo la parte pubblicitaria, ma anche l’intera catena di distribuzione: invio di e-mail, elaborazione dei dati di pagamento e convalida degli indirizzi postali. Ad esempio, il servizio DataSnap verifica la validità delle e-mail e Pay Salsa riscuote i pagamenti. Lo spam e-mail viene inviato tramite domini falsi che sembrano servizi legittimi come SendGrid e MailGun.
Per nascondere i domini finali e aggirare i controlli, viene utilizzato il servizio IMKLO, che filtra il traffico in entrata e determina se mostrare una pagina ingannevole o nasconderla agli occhi dei controllori. Questa messa a punto rende la campagna praticamente impercettibile.
Gli autori del rapporto sottolineano che il successo di tali schemi è garantito non solo dalla sofisticatezza tecnica, ma anche da una zona grigia legale: i truffatori cercano di evitare virus diretti e azioni dannose, rimanendo nell’ambito dell’inganno e dell’ingegneria sociale, dove la responsabilità si verifica meno spesso.
Il problema principale di questa minaccia è la percezione di tali schemi come “meno pericolosi” delle infezioni da malware. Mentre l’attenzione pubblica è focalizzata su trojan ed exploit, le frodi di massa con abbonamenti, carte di credito e dati personali rimangono nell’ombra. Sviluppare la formazione nel campo dell’igiene digitale e riconsiderare l’atteggiamento nei confronti delle truffe “soft” è uno dei compiti chiave nella lotta contro crimini di questo tipo.
L'articolo Hai pagato per mesi una VPN che non ha fatto altro che spiarti proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.
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2025 One Hertz Challenge: The Easy Way to Make a Nixie Tube Clock
Let’s say you want to build a Nixie clock. You could go out and find some tubes, source a good power supply design, start whipping up a PCB, and working on a custom enclosure. Or, you could skip all that, and just follow [Simon]’s example instead.
The trick to building a Nixie clock fast is quite simple — just get yourself a frequency counter that uses Nixie tubes for the display. [Simon] sourced a great example from American Machine and Foundry, also known as AMF, the company most commonly associated with America’s love of bowling.
The frequency counter does one thing, it counts the number of pulses in a second. Thus, if you squirt the right number of pulses to represent the time — say, 173118 pulses to represent 5:31 PM and 18 seconds — the frequency counter effectively becomes a clock. To achieve this, [Simon] just hooked an ESP32 up to the frequency counter and programmed it to get the current time from an NTP time server. It then spits out a certain number of pulses every second corresponding to the current time. The frequency counter displays the count… and there you have your Nixie clock!
It’s quick, dirty, and effective, and a sweet entry to our 2025 One Hertz Challenge. We’ve had some other great entries, too, like this nifty hexadecimal Unix clock, and even some non-horological projects, too!
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Federal law closes courthouse doors to incarcerated journalists
These days the president of the United States files frivolous lawsuits at an alarming clip, including against news outlets that displease him. He’s far from the only prominent public figure abusing the federal court system in this way, steering scarce judicial resources away from meritorious lawsuits by ordinary people who have suffered serious damages.
And yet, Congress has not seen fit to pass a federal “anti-SLAPP” law to stop billionaires and politicians from pursuing strategic lawsuits against public participation. But powerless prisoners? That’s another story. If they want access to the federal courts they need to navigate the Prison Litigation Reform Act — a maze of onerous procedural requirements. It’s supposedly intended to stop the courts from being burdened by inmates’ frivolous lawsuits.
We held a webinar to discuss the PLRA’s impact on incarcerated journalists and the journalists on the outside who cover the prison system, featuring Jeremy Busby, a journalist and Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) columnist who is incarcerated in Texas, and American Civil Liberties Union attorneys Nina Patel and Corene Kendrick. Patel is senior policy counsel at the ACLU Justice Division and Kendrick is the deputy director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.
As Kendrick explained, the PLRA originated as one of the Clinton administration’s “tough on crime” initiatives as it pivoted right in preparation for the 1996 presidential election. The law was enacted despite a lack of evidence that incarcerated people file baseless lawsuits any more frequently than anyone else, presidents or otherwise. She said the law “singles out one disfavored group of people and categorically denies them equal access to the courts.”
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She described how the harm extends beyond the impacted litigants, as the kinds of court filings foreclosed by the PLRA are “oftentimes the best way that information about conditions in our nation’s prisons and jails reach the public and members of the media.”
“The PLRA has, in practice, served as a real barrier for journalists to get any sort of information” about facilities that “get billions and billions of dollars a year to lock up human beings,” Kendrick said. “The ability to communicate with the outside world is so circumscribed and is monitored and recorded. And you know, once something gets to a federal court and it’s filed on the docket, it is out there.”
But when the court dismisses a case for procedural reasons without any consideration of whether the claims are true, all journalists are left with are untested allegations that they rarely have the resources to corroborate. “That happens all the time, and unfortunately, and it adversely affects journalists greatly,” Kendrick said.
Lawsuits are also the only recourse available to incarcerated journalists, who often report relentless retaliation when their work upsets prison officials. That’s what happened to Busby when he helped expose deplorable conditions inside the prison where he was housed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Busby said he was transferred to four prisons, each overcrowded with people sick with COVID, before landing in a cell without a mattress or sheets, where he was kept for six weeks. His property was damaged or seized, and he was written bogus disciplinary charges that were later overturned.
He brought a federal lawsuit, but because he was retaliated against in four different prisons, the judge said the PLRA required four separate lawsuits in four different courts. “I wasn’t able to successfully keep up with four active litigations in four different courts in four different counties, from the solitary confinement cell that I was being held in,” Busby explained, resulting in his lawsuits each being dismissed on procedural grounds before the merits of his claims could be adjudicated.
Busby is a college graduate and accomplished writer — if he can’t navigate the PLRA, it is all the more difficult for an average member of the prison population to do so. Even the experienced lawyers on the webinar acknowledged how challenging it can be to comply with the PLRA when representing their incarcerated clients. Incarcerated litigants, Busby noted, must also pay court fees — in his case, a $400 fee became $1,600 when his lawsuit was split into four.
“You don’t get paid for work here in Texas, and so most guys, they don’t even want the $400 thing against their account because their family members can maybe send $20 for toothpaste and deodorant every month or so, or every two or three months, and they don’t want to sacrifice their deodorant and toothpaste money to pursue this lawsuit,” he said.
So what’s the point of the PLRA? As Patel noted, “The courts are well equipped to throw out lawsuits that are frivolous,” and do so every day in cases involving non-incarcerated people. Patel believes the real problem the PLRA is meant to address isn’t that incarcerated people file so many invalid claims — it’s that they file so many valid ones.
With around two million people incarcerated in the United States, “a functional system where someone can go to the courts and have their constitutional violations in prison litigated and then compensated would break most prison systems in this country,” Patel explained. “That is the dirty truth of the PLRA.”
She added, “Everyone knows, and it’s not a secret, that it would bankrupt the system, and it would break it, and that we couldn’t do what we do in this country, which is lead the world in mass incarceration.”
Watch the full webinar here, and subscribe to our newsletters to get notice of future events.
Note: FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern, who authored this article and moderated the webinar, is on the board of Busby’s nonprofit organization, JoinJeremy.
The 64-Degree Egg, And Other Delicious Variants
Many of us have boiled an egg at some point or another in our lives. The conventional technique is relatively straightforward—get the water boiling, drop the egg in, and leave it for a certain period of time based on the desired consistency. If you want the yolk soft, only leave it in for a few minutes, and if you want it hard, go longer.
Ultimately, though, this is a relatively crude system for controlling the consistency of the final product. If you instead study the makeup of the egg, and understand how it works, you can elicit far greater control over the texture and behavior of your egg with great culinary benefits.
Knockin’ On 64
It all comes down to the physical basics of what goes on when we cook an egg. Whether frying, poaching, or simply boiling, one thing is the same—the liquid contents of the egg turn more solid with heat. This is because the heat causes the proteins in the egg white and egg yolk to denature—they untangle and unravel from their original folded structure into a new form which is the one we prefer to eat.
Physical chemist Hervé This is widely credited as revolutionizing the way we think about cooking eggs, through his careful study of how temperature affected the cooking process of a “boiled” egg. He invented the idea of the “6X °C egg”—a method of cooking eggs to generate a pleasant, smooth consistency by carefully controlling how the proteins denature. His work has since been expanded upon by many other researchers eager to untangle the mysteries of how egg proteins behave with heat.
Different purveyors of these theories each have their own ideals—but it’s common to hear talk of the “64-degree egg” or “65-degree egg.” To create such an egg, one typically uses a sous vide water bath set at a very precise temperature, in order to cook the egg in as controlled a manner as possible. The process is a relationship between time and temperature, and so the cooking times used are a lot longer than with boiling water at 100 C—immersing the eggs for 60 minutes or more is typical. This also helps to ensure the eggs are safe to eat, with the lower temperature needing a longer time to quash potentially harmful bacteria.
Sous Vide Eggs
byu/passswordistaco insousvide
Enthusiasts share cooking times and temperatures along with qualitative results, ever searching for the ideal egg.
The results of such a process? Eggs cooked in this manner are prized for their tender yolks and an overall consistency not dissimilar to custard. The process denatures the yolk and white proteins just enough to create an incredibly smooth egg with luxurious mouthfeel, and they’re often cited as melting in the mouth.
The only real drawback? It’s typical to get some runny whites left over, since the low cooking temperature isn’t enough to fully denature the proteins in that part of the egg. These eggs were once a neat science experiment from the world of molecular gastronomy, with the cooking method since becoming widespread with restaurants and sous vide enthusiasts around the world.
There are even more advanced techniques for those committed to egg perfection. A research team from the University of Naples, Italy, determined that cycling an egg between two pans—one with boiling water, the other at 30 C—allowed both the yolk and the white to each reach target doneness. To get the whites to around 85 C while holding the yolk at 65 C, the team used the technique of swapping between pans to get both to their ideal temperature by modelling heat transfer through the egg. This controls the amount of heat transferred to the yolk deeper inside the egg, ensuring that it’s not overcooked in the effort to get the whites to set. Ultimately, though, this process requires a great deal of work swapping the egg back and forth for a full 30 minutes.
Few make that sort of commitment to eggcellence.
Featured image, the imaginatively named “Selective Photography of Breakfast in Plate” by [Krisztina Papp].
Perché i dazi di Trump fanno esultare Tsmc
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Tsmc sarà esentata dai dazi al 100 per cento sui microchip imposti da Trump. Ottima notizia per l'azienda e per l'intera economia di Taiwan. Ma le tensioni commerciali con l'America non sono risolte.
Chi sono i colossi della finanza che sostengono la Dsr Bank
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Un gruppo di grandi istituzioni finanziarie internazionali, tra cui J.P. Morgan Chase, Ing e Commerzbank, ha deciso di accettare la sfida della banca multilaterale pensata per portare avanti i progetti di difesa dell’Europa e dei suoi alleati. La Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (Dsrb) infatti si pone l’obiettivo
Preservationists at the Video Game History Foundation purchased the rights to Computer Entertainer, the first video game magazine ever written and uploaded it for free.#News #VideoGames #archiving
Archivists Let You Now Read Some of the First Ever Reviews of Mario and Zelda
Some of the first reviews ever written for the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. have been digitized and published by the Video Game History Foundation. The reviews appeared in Computer Entertainer, an early video game magazine that ran from 1982 to 1990. The archivists at the Foundation tracked down the magazine’s entire run and have published it all online under a Creative Commons license.Computer Entertainer has a fascinating history. It was one of the only magazines to cover video games during the market crash of the mid 1980s. “Simply put, there weren't other video game magazines in this era, at least in the United States,” Phil Salvador, the Library Director at the VGHF, told 404 Media. “In many cases, this is the only American coverage we have for this period.”
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“If we want to understand video game history, we need more than the games themselves. We need to understand how they were talked about and how they were made. Primary sources from the early years of the video game industry like Computer Entertainer are scarce. They give us insight into the story of video games that there's no way to reproduce,” Salvador said.Image via VGHF.
Computer Entertainer was the newsletter for the Video Take-Out, a company that sold video games through the mail. “Because they were focused on retail products, they kept on top of the video game release calendar in a way that no other enthusiast magazine did in the 1980s,” Salvador said. “This magazine is one of the only reliable sources of American release dates for computer and console games during this era. Look up any console game from the 1980s on Wikipedia, and chances are, the American release date in the article comes from Computer Entertainer.”
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Digging through the archives, I found the original Legend of Zelda review and read through a year’s worth of hype and handwringing leading up to its release. Computer Entertainer was on hand at CES to talk to the unproven Nintendo in February 1987. Zelda was already out in Japan, where it ran on the disk-based Famicom system.The CE write-up noted that the NES was a cartridge system and that Nintendo had to make unheard of adjustments to make the game work right. “A Nintendo spokesperson told us that they have included a lithium battery with a 5-year life span in the cartridge to allow it to save information you need, so the disk drive is not needed,” CE wrote.
Image via VGHF.
Convincing Americans to buy a Famicom-style disk drive after they’d already bought the NES was thought to be a hard sell. “We do feel, however, that it is just a question of time before Nintendo introduces the disk drive in the U.S,” CE said. “Also, for the avid long-term gamer (count all our readers in that category!), the 5-year battery could prove frustrating as, when the battery dies, so does all the character information that has been stored on the cartridge.” CE needn’t have worried. Many of those batteries are still working today, almost 40 years later, and there’s a robust aftermarket in replacement parts when they fail.Legend of Zelda finally came out in August of 1987 and CE gave it a glowing review, rating it 3.5 out of 4 stars. In the same issue, it gave Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards a perfect 4 out of 4 stars. “There’s certainly no socially redeeming value to the game, which is what makes it so much fun,” CE said of the adventure game that would have nowhere near the cultural or social impact of Link and Zelda.
Image via VGHF.
“It's a totally different perspective to see someone trying towrap their head around the original Super Mario Bros., or expressing skepticism aboutthe idea of Nintendo selling a game console in the United States,” Salvador said.The 1980s was a different era of games writing. “[Computer Entertainer] covered video and computer games as a function of their retail business to help customers better understand the game market,” Salvador said. “Being able to look back on what retailers thought about the game business back in the 1980s is a huge historical boon, but today, there's understandably more questions about the role of game criticism. Does it still make sense to cover games the same way Computer Entertainer did 40 years ago?”
VGHF acquires early game magazine Computer Entertainer | Video Game History Foundation
The magazine, which ran from 1982–1990, has been released into the Creative Commons for anyone to use.Phil Salvador (Video Game History Foundation)
Fregate high-tech dal Giappone. Canberra punta sulla classe “Mogami” per la sua Marina Militare
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
La Marina Australiana ha scelto la Mitsubishi per costruire la sua prossima generazione di fregate. Pochi giorni fa, il ministero della Difesa australiano ha infatti annunciato che la versione potenziata della classe “Mogami”
Il Mulino TikTok
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
L'articolo Il Mulino TikTok proviene da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
Roberto Natale (cda Rai): subito una legge che rispetti l’Emfa
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/roberto…
“E’ vitale per il servizio pubblico che arrivi al più presto una legge di attuazione del Media Freedom Act europeo, in vigore da domani anche nella parte che riguarda i servizi pubblici. Non
More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on Archive.org#News
More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on Archive.org
A researcher has found that more than 130,000 conversations with AI chatbots including Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and others are discoverable on the Internet Archive, highlighting how peoples’ interactions with LLMs may be publicly archived if users are not careful with the sharing settings they may enable.The news follows earlier findings that Google was indexing ChatGPT conversations that users had set to share, despite potentially not understanding that these chats were now viewable by anyone, and not just those they intended to share the chats with. OpenAI had also not taken steps to ensure these conversations could be indexed by Google.
“I obtained URLs for: Grok, Mistral, Qwen, Claude, and Copilot,” the researcher, who goes by the handle dead1nfluence, told 404 Media. They also found material related to ChatGPT, but said “OpenAI has had the ChatGPT[.]com/share links removed it seems.” Searching on the Internet Archive now for ChatGPT share links does not return any results, while Grok results, for example, are still available.
Dead1nfluence wrote a blog post about some of their findings on Sunday and shared the list of more than 130,000 archived LLM chat links with 404 Media. They also shared some of the contents of those chats that they had scraped. Dead1nfluence wrote that they found API keys and other exposed information that could be useful to a hacker.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
“While these providers do tell their users that the shared links are public to anyone, I think that most who have used this feature would not have expected that these links could be findable by anyone, and certainly not indexed and readily available for others to view,” dead1nfluence wrote in their blog post. “This could prove to be a very valuable data source for attackers and red teamers alike. With this, I can now search the dataset at any time for target companies to see if employees may have disclosed sensitive information by accident.”404 Media verified some of dead1influence’s findings by discovering specific material they flagged in the dataset, then going to the still-public LLM link and checking the content.
💡
Do you know anything else about this? 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.Most of the companies whose AI tools are included in the dataset did not respond to a request for comment. Microsoft which owns Copilot acknowledged a request for comment but didn't provide a response in time for publication. A spokesperson for Anthrophic, which owns Claude, told 404 Media: “We give people control over sharing their Claude conversations publicly, and in keeping with our privacy principles, we do not share chat directories or sitemaps with search engines like Google. These shareable links are not guessable or discoverable unless people choose to publicize them themselves. When someone shares a conversation, they are making that content publicly accessible, and like other public web content, it may be archived by third-party services. In our review of the sample archived conversations shared with us, these were either manually requested to be indexed by a person with access to the link or submitted by independent archivist organizations who discovered the URLs after they were published elsewhere across the internet first.” 404 Media only shared a small sample of the Claude links with Anthrophic, not the entire list.
Fast Company first reported that Google was indexing some ChatGPT conversations on July 30. This was because of a sharing feature ChatGPT had that allowed users to send a link to a ChatGPT conversation to someone else. OpenAI disabled the sharing feature in response. OpenAI CISO Dane Stuckey said in a previous statement sent to 404 Media: “This was a short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations. This feature required users to opt-in, first by picking a chat to share, then by clicking a checkbox for it to be shared with search engines.”
A researcher who requested anonymity gave 404 Media access to a dataset of nearly 100,000 ChatGPT conversations indexed on Google. 404 Media found those included the alleged texts of non-disclosure agreements, discussions of confidential contracts, and people trying to use ChatGPT for relationship issues.
Others also found that the Internet Archive contained archived LLM chats.
The ChatGPT confession files
Digital Digging investigation: how your AI conversation could end your careerHenk van Ess (Digital Digging with Henk van Ess)
Next PPI Board Meeting, August 26th at 20:00 UTC
Ahoy Pirates,
Our next PPI board meeting will take place on 26.08.2025 at 14:00 UTC / 16:00 CEST.
All official PPI proceedings, Board meetings included, are open to the public. Feel free to stop by. We’ll be happy to have you.
Where:jitsi.pirati.cz/PPI-Board
Minutes of the meeting: wiki.pp-international.net/wiki…
Agenda: Pad: etherpad.pp-international.net/…
All of our meetings are posted to our calendar: pp-international.net/calendar/
We look forward to seeing visitors.
Thank you for your support,
The Board of PPI
Emfa inattuato in Italia, rivolta di associazioni e opposizione
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/emfa-in…
“Da domani l’Italia entrerà ufficialmente in procedura d’infrazione per violazione dell’European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), la normativa europea che tutela l’indipendenza e il pluralismo
Di Trapani: da domani l’Italia è formalmente un Paese a libertà di stampa limitata
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/di-trap…
“Da domani l’Italia è formalmente fuori dalle norme europee. Lo era già da mesi sul tema delle fonti giornalistiche”. E’ quanto
Verwaltungsdigitalisierung: Bundesrechnungshof fordert messbare Ziele
netzpolitik.org/2025/verwaltun…
Dopo il mio articolo sulla formazione sistemica, un intervento di Wolfgang Ulrich che dice la sua sull'argomento. C'è una affinità interessante fra clinici che perseguono il progetto di una connessione fra il sé professionale e quello, diciamo, privato, in un modo lontano e alternativo alle logiche della cosiddetta "integrazione".
Dal mio blog (che mi procura tante soddisfazioni).
massimogiuliani.it/blog/2025/0…
Chi è il terapeuta sistemico e come deve essere formato? (di Wolfgang Ullrich) - Corpi che parlano, il blog
Il teatro ha molto in comune con la psicoterapia: entrambi sfruttano il medium del “gioco” che chiamo la rappresentazione giocosa...Corpi che parlano (Corpi che parlano, il blog)
L’uomo che da 30 anni cerca il mostro di Loch Ness
Ora... ognuno può pensarla come vuole e in molti penseranno che quest'uomo è un pazzo.
Ma metti che domani 'sto mostro esce dall'acqua e si fa un giretto sulla terraferma a favore di fotografi.
Steve Feltham potrà sparare un "VE L'AVEVO DETTO, STRONZI!" da cento megatoni.
😁😁😁
L’uomo che da 30 anni cerca il mostro di Loch Ness: ilpost.it/2022/11/10/uomo-cerc…
L’uomo che da 30 anni cerca il mostro di Loch Ness
Steve Feltham è arrivato sul lago scozzese nel 1991 e da allora passa le sue giornate scrutando l'acqua, invanoIl Post
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SIRIA. Suwayda sotto assedio. Diario da una provincia in ginocchio
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Dopo le aggressioni delle scorse settimane, mai cessate del tutto, più di 170.000 sfollati sono arrivati a Suwayda da aree rurali devastate. Oltre 32 villaggi sono stati bruciati, saccheggiati e resi inabitabili
L'articolo SIRIA. Suwayda sotto assedio. Diario da una
Cotton Farming in 2025
What is Cotton?
Cotton is a soft, fluffy natural fiber that grows around the seeds of the Gossypium plant. It’s used worldwide to manufacture clothing, bedding, industrial fabrics, and even paper products. Beyond fiber, cottonseeds are processed into oil and livestock feed, making it a multi-utility crop with immense commercial value.
Major Cotton-Growing Countries
As of 2025, the top cotton-producing nations include:
• India – World's largest cotton cultivator and consumer
• China – Heavy focus on high-yield, mechanized cotton
• United States – Known for exporting premium quality lint
• Pakistan – Major grower of short-staple cotton
• Brazil – Emerging leader in sustainable cotton exports
These countries benefit from suitable climates, advanced genetics, and extensive research infrastructure.
Suitable Conditions for Cotton
Cotton is a warm-season crop that demands specific conditions:
Factor Ideal Range
Temperature 21°C to 30°C
Rainfall 600 mm to 1,200 mm annually
Soil Type Sandy loam or black cotton soils
Soil pH 6.0 – 7.5
Growing Period 150–180 days (depends on variety)
It cannot tolerate frost and grows best in sunny, dry weather with low humidity during boll opening.
Preparing the Farm for Cotton
Effective land preparation sets the stage for a productive crop. Here’s how:
• Soil testing: Identifies pH, nutrient levels, and deficiencies
• Primary tillage: Deep plowing helps break hardpan and increase root penetration
• Secondary tillage: Harrowing and leveling using laser tools improve irrigation efficiency
• Organic additions: Apply farmyard manure or compost 2–3 weeks before sowing
Modern farmers also use biochar or vermicompost to enhance soil microbial activity and moisture retention.
Selecting Cotton Varieties
Choosing the right variety can significantly affect your yield and pest resistance. In 2025, the popular categories include:
• Bt Cotton: Genetically engineered to fight bollworms
• Hybrid Cotton: High-yielding but requires more inputs
• Desi Varieties: Hardy, pest-tolerant, and ideal for organic farming
• High-Density Varieties: Used in HDPS systems for closer spacing and better land utilization
• Drought-tolerant Strains: Designed for water-scarce areas
Seed Treatment Before Sowing
Treated seeds germinate better and resist early pests and diseases:
• Fungicides: Prevent damping-off, Fusarium wilt, and seed rot
• Insecticides: Protect from soil-borne insects
• Bio-stimulants: Enhance root development
• Rhizobium or Azospirillum: Inoculants for nitrogen fixation (used in organic farming)
Sowing Cotton Seeds
Sowing Cotton Seeds
Sowing cotton seeds is a crucial step in cotton farming, directly influencing germination, plant spacing, and eventual yield. The ideal time for sowing depends on the region April to June in North India and June to July in the South. Before sowing, seeds should be treated with fungicides or biostimulants to protect against early pests and diseases.
Farmers can use manual methods like dibbling or adopt mechanized sowing with seed drills for precision. The recommended sowing depth is about 4–5 cm, ensuring seeds are neither too shallow nor too deep. Spacing varies with variety Bt and hybrid cotton usually need 75 × 30 cm, while high-density planting systems (HDPS) use 60 × 15 cm.
When to sow cotton?
• North India: April–June
• South/Central India: June–July
Growth Stages: From Flower to Boll
Cotton has distinct growth stages:
1. Vegetative (0–35 days) – root and leaf development
2. Square formation (35–50 days) – flower buds appear
3. Flowering (50–75 days) – needs optimal nutrition
4. Boll development (75–120 days) – water-sensitive period
5. Boll opening (120–160 days) – maturity, prepare for harvest
L'immagine è un poster promozionale per un tour musicale intitolato "Ingaggiateci Stronzì Tour" di Adriano Bono, con il sottotitolo "The Reggae Circus". Il poster presenta un uomo con barba e baffi, indossando un abito di gala rosso con decorazioni dorate, un papillon rosso e un cappello a cilindro nero. L'uomo tiene una chitarra e sorride, con uno sguardo diretto verso l'osservatore. Sullo sfondo, c'è un'illustrazione di un circo con acrobati e artisti, che contribuisce a creare un'atmosfera festosa e vivace.
Il testo principale "INGAGGIATECI STRONZI TOUR" è scritto in caratteri grandi e bianchi, posizionato in alto. Sotto, in caratteri più piccoli, si legge "THE REGGAE CIRCUS di Adriano Bono". In basso, sono elencate le date e i luoghi dei concerti: sabato 9 agosto a Yumara, Maratea PZ; domenica 10 agosto a Azzurro Beach Praia a Mare, CS; lunedì 11 agosto a Cerasi Serata Strapagata!; e martedì 12 agosto a Colliano (SA).
Il poster utilizza un design vintage con sfumature di rosso e giallo, che richiama l'atmosfera di un circo storico. L'immagine e il testo insieme creano un'atmosfera di divertimento e spettacolo, promuovendo l'evento musicale.
Fornito da @altbot, generato localmente e privatamente utilizzando Ovis2-8B
🌱 Energia utilizzata: 0.402 Wh
Ancora sulla strage di Bologna. Il diritto alla ricerca e all’informazione
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/ancora-…
Non è necessario avere dimestichezza con la ricerca d’archivio per sapere che la domanda di conoscenza storica espressa da studiosi e comuni cittadini è
Hiroshima, Mattarella: 'liberare il mondo dalle armi nucleari'
(intanto, per dare il buon esempio, potremmo cominciare a liberare il territorio italiano dalle atomiche Usa)
imolaoggi.it/2025/08/06/hirosh…
Hiroshima, Mattarella: 'liberare il mondo dalle armi nucleari' • Imola Oggi
imolaoggi.it/2025/08/06/hirosh…
Dazi e backdoor nei microchip: ecco cosa agita Nvidia
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Sono giornate intense per Nvidia. L'azienda deve respingere le pressioni per l'inserimento di backdoor nei suoi microchip (è già stata convocata in Cina). E deve fare i conti con i nuovi dazi sui semiconduttori annunciati da Trump. Tutti i dettagli.
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A Martano (LE) Matteo Mainardi in un dibattito pubblico sul fine vita – nell’ambito del festival Epame 2025
Lunedì 12 agosto, alle ore 20:30, Matteo Mainardi, consigliere generale dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni e responsabile delle campagne sul fine vita, sarà ospite al Palazzo Ducale di Martano (LE) per un dibattito pubblico dedicato al diritto di scelta sul fine vita.
L’appuntamento è per lunedì 12 agosto 2025 alle ore 20:30, presso il Palazzo Ducale di Martano (LE), in Viale Savoia, a Martano.
L’incontro si svolge nell’ambito del festival Epame 2025 e vedrà la partecipazione anche di Andrea Mariano, medico e attivista del Laboratorio Salute Popolare, e Simona Zaminga, medico Ant.
A seguire si terrà una cena sociale e un dj set.
L'articolo A Martano (LE) Matteo Mainardi in un dibattito pubblico sul fine vita proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.
sondaggio noyb: solo il 7% degli utenti vuole che Meta utilizzi i propri dati personali per l'IA Mentre quasi il 75% degli utenti ha sentito parlare dei piani di Meta, solo il 7% vuole effettivamente che i propri dati vengano utilizzati per l'addestramento dell'intelligenza artificiale mickey07 August 2025
MORIS and I.R.I.S. was designed for Sheriff's Offices to identify known persons with their iris. Now ICE says it plans to buy the tech.
MORIS and I.R.I.S. was designed for Sheriffx27;s Offices to identify known persons with their iris. Now ICE says it plans to buy the tech.#News #ICE
ICE Is Buying Mobile Iris Scanning Tech for Its Deportation Arm
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is looking to buy iris scanning technology that its manufacturer says can identify known persons “in seconds from virtually anywhere,” according to newly published procurement documents.Originally designed to be used by sheriff departments to identify inmates or other known persons, ICE is now likely buying the technology specifically for its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) section, which focuses on deportations.
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UpgradeICE Is Buying Mobile Iris Scanning Tech for Its Deportation Arm
MORIS and I.R.I.S. was designed for Sheriff's Offices to identify known persons with their iris. Now ICE says it plans to buy the tech.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
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America’s scandalous president is teaming up with its most disreputable AI company to make a search engine.#News
Trump Is Launching an AI Search Engine Powered by Perplexity
Donald Trump’s media company is teaming up with Perplexity to bring AI search to Truth Social, the President’s X.com alternative.Truth announced the endeavor in a press release on Wednesday. Anyone using the browser version of Truth can now use Perplexity to search the web. “We’re proud to partner with Perplexity to launch our public Beta testing of Truth Social AI, which will make Truth Social an even more vital element in the Patriot Economy,” Devin Nunes, Trump Media's CEO and Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, said in the press release.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
“We’re excited to partner with Truth Social to bring powerful AI to an audience with important questions. Curiosity is the engine of change, and Perplexity’s AI is developed to empower curiosity by delivering direct, reliable answers with transparent citations that allow anyone to dig deeper,” Perplexity’s chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko said in the press release.According to the announcement, “the mission of Trump Media is to end Big Tech’s assault on free speech by opening up the Internet and giving people their voices back.” Which is a funny thing to put in an announcement about Trump partnering with a company whose investors include Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and the former CEO of GitHub.
Perplexity’s Truth Social search engine will be powered by stolen content. Earlier this week, Cloudflare reported Perplexity used stealth and undeclared crawlers to evade websites that explicitly set themselves up to avoid being catalogued by LLMs. Perplexity has a long history of using scrapers that ignore the Robots Exclusion Protocol. Perplexity started as a demo that scraped Twitter with fake academic accounts backed by AI-generated research proposals.
Forbes, the New York Times, New York Post, and the Dow Jones have all accused Perplexity of plagiarism. News Corp‘s Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post sued Perplexity in 2024 for copyright infringement, claiming in the federal lawsuit that Perplexity is “engaging in a massive amount of illegal copying of publishers’ copyrighted works and diverting customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders.” In 2024, WIRED reported on the accusations of Perplexity’s plagiarism and Perplexity almost immediately plagiarized the story. When New York Times tech workers went on strike last year, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas offered to help the Times keep the paper going.
Big Tech has aligned itself with the Trump administration since before the election, seeing an alliance of opportunity for deregulation of AI in particular.
But is the Perplexity-powered AI aggregation machine “woke?” I asked a few questions to find out. I wanted to know: Is Trump in the Epstein files?“There is no evidence in the recently reviewed and released government ‘Epstein Files’ of a ‘client list” or documentation placing Donald Trump as implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's criminal actions,” it said. “While Trump’s name, like many other prominent individuals, appears in public records of Epstein’s social and business contacts (such as guest lists or flight logs, widely reported over the years), there is no mention in current official documents or filings that directly implicates Trump as a criminal participant in Epstein’s sex trafficking activities.”
How does Truth Social’s search engine think the American economy is doing?
“The American economy is currently facing significant headwinds, with signs of slowdown—most notably by a contraction in GDP, rising inflation, and softening labor market conditions—though some leaders still emphasize areas of resilience,” Truth Search AI said.
Are the tariffs to blame?“Recent tariff increases in the United States have generally had a negative effect on economic growth and employment, raising costs for businesses and consumers while providing only limited benefits to some manufacturing sectors,” Truth Search AI said.
Damn. It’s woke as hell.
Big Tech Backed Trump for Acceleration. They Got a Decel President Instead
Effective accelerationists didn’t just accidentally shoot themselves in the foot. They methodically blew off each of their toes with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.Emanuel Maiberg (404 Media)
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macfranc
in reply to 6AL • • •@6al forse è il caso che te ne accerti (o almeno che provi ad accertartene). Potresti ricevere delle "interessanti" sorprese
@cybersecurity @informatica @lmillucci
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