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bruce_schneier_feed) wrote2025-07-04 09:01 pm
New research.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-04 05:01 pmI’m starting to hear all about a major celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary next year, and it’s clear that the Trump administration is planning to use it for more propaganda. One ominous sign is that the White House is working with…<hack, spit> PragerU, which is not a university, to provide “educational” material for a major exhibit. PragerU is also not the Smithsonian Institution. But they’re the ones in charge of telling the nation’s history.
The Department of Education has tapped conservative media platform PragerU to tell the nation’s origin story in an “America 250” exhibit that opened in the White House complex this month.
The PragerU Founders Museum on the first floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building features 82 historical paintings of people and events from the American Revolution to inspire patriotic fervor for the yearlong celebration of the July 4, 1776, signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Each painting includes a QR code linking to a short PragerU video or essay on the White House website. Online content includes artificial intelligence-generated talking figures coming to life from the paintings, such as the 56 men who signed the Declaration on July 4, 1776, and a written recap of the decisive Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
“President Trump is championing the spirit of patriotism in our country,” said Liz Huston, a White House spokeswoman. “The Founders Museum is an innovative way for schools and community centers to encourage Americans to reflect on the pivotal moments and people that shaped our nation into one that values courage, hard work, and freedom.”
For a different perspective…
Social justice advocates, however, said the inclusion of PragerU reflects a Trump administration agenda to whitewash history. They say the exhibit fails to acknowledge the experiences of marginalized racial minorities, women and gay people during the revolution.
“This [exhibit] promotes a limited view of all that America is, was, and will be,” said Robert Kesten, executive director of Stonewall National Museum, Archives, & Library, an LGBTQ historical preservation group. “It shortchanges us and ignores all the progress we have made historically and academically.”
Omekongo Dibinga, a professor of intercultural communications affiliated with American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, said PragerU videos aim to make White people “not feel guilty about history.”
“PragerU’s videos are ignorant and disrespectful,” Mr. Dibinga said. “The goal of this partnership is to accelerate the erasure of non-White male history and use PragerU’s 3.37 million followers to spread their propaganda.”
And also to promote a Christian Nationalist view. Here’s a video that discusses Trump’s, and PragerU’s, atrocious slopaganda.
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-07-04 03:57 pmAnd we have a lot to think about.
— JS
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-04 01:36 pm
Hey, y’all remember when Game of Thrones was a hot show? It had dragons, and zombies, and bloody destructive wars, and gratuitous nudity, and engaging characters, and multiple plot lines that were plummeting forward. Must-see TV, with gigantic budgets!
And then the last season comes along, it’s hot garbage, it betrays all the premises of the previous seasons, closes plot lines with idiot finality and illogical resolutions, and everyone realizes…maybe it was all shallow pretense all along, a series of excuses to justify the next slam-bang event in a long chain of them, and all interest in repeat viewing dissipates, and the show is only remembered as an embarrassment, because of that horrible conclusion.
I am reminded today of another long-running serial that started with grand ideals (FREEDOM!), had heroic battles, vivid, memorable characters, a vast landscape of spectacular scenery, beautiful dreams of a progressive society, and then it ends with a squalid little fart. We discover it was all a lie. We should have known. We started with a fantasy of equality and freedom composed by a team of rich landowners who made sure that the little people would never break their grip on power. We announced that the central theme of this great endeavor was liberty, while postponing emancipation of the horde of slaves we held, and taking over all that beautiful land by genocide of the people already living there.
And now, on the verge of our 250th anniversary, we have put the reins of power in the hands of a babbling loon who wants to deport anyone with a skin color less pasty than his own, who has just passed a bill that slashes the social safety net and enriches millionaires even more, all while his allies shred education and science in this country.
The “one big, beautiful bill”, as Trump calls it, won final approval by the House of Representatives on Thursday, in time for his signature on 4 July, the US Independence Day holiday. In addition to the tax cuts, it will also channel tens of billions in dollars towards immigration enforcement and building a wall along the Mexican border.
To cut costs, Republicans included provisions to end green energy incentives created under Joe Biden, but the bulk of the savings will come from changes to two programs: Medicaid, which provides healthcare to low-income and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps low-income Americans afford food.
Both programs will face new and stricter work requirements, and states will be forced to share part of the cost of Snap for the first time ever. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill’s Medicaid changes could cost as many as 11.8 million people their healthcare, and the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities forecasts about 8 million people, or one in five recipients, may lose their Snap benefits.
Look at those chucklefucks cackling over their evil laws
And of course Trump capped it all off with an anti-semitic slur in his victory speech.
TRUMP: No estate tax, no going through the banks and borrowing from—in some cases a fine banker— and in some cases a shylocks and bad people. pic.twitter.com/VHQt3k1U6u
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 4, 2025
I’m sorry, but the finale of this series really sucks. Can I cancel my subscription? Get my money back? I would never have started watching if I’d known how badly the writers and show-runners were going to botch it in the conclusion.
apod_feed) wrote2025-07-04 04:48 am
If you know where to look, you can see a thermonuclear explosion from a white dwarf star.
david_brin_feed) wrote2025-07-03 03:45 pmOkay, the secret is out. David Brin is writing a book about AI. In fact, it is 3/4 done, enough to offer it to publishers. But more crucially, to start posting bits on-blog, getting feedback from the smartest community online.
And hence, here is a small portion of my chapter on the missing contexts that are (almost) never mentioned in discussions about these new life forms we're creating. I mean:
- The context of Natural Ecosystems and Evolution across the last four billion years...
- The context of 6000 years of human agricultural civilization with cities... during which nearly every society fell into a pattern of governance called feudalism, which almost always ensured grotesque stupidity...
- The context of our own, very recent and tenuous escape from that trap, called the 200 year Enlightenment Experiment...
- The context of science itself and how it works. So well that we got to this critical phase of veritable co-creation.
- The context of parenthood...
- and for tonight's posting. The context of human mental illness.
== Just one example of 'hallucination' gone wild ==
Researchers at Anthropic and AI safety company Andon Labs performed a fascinating experiment recently. They put an instance of Claude Sonnet 3.7 in charge of an office vending machine, with a mission to make a profit, equipped it with a web browser capable of placing product orders and where customers could request items. It had what it thought was contract human workers to come and physically stock its shelves (which was actually a small fridge).
While most customers were ordering snacks or drinks — as you’d expect from a snack vending machine — one requested a tungsten cube. Claudius loved that idea and went on a tungsten-cube stocking spree, filling its snack fridge with metal cubes. It also tried to sell Coke Zero for $3 when employees told it they could get that from the office for free. It hallucinated a Venmo address to accept payment.
Then things got weirder. And then way-weirder.
== What can these weirdnesses tell us? ==
The thing about these hallucinatory episodes with Large Language Models is that we have yet another seldom-discussed context. That of Mental Illness.
Most of you readers have experienced interaction with human beings who are behaving in remarkably similar ways. Many of us had friends or family members who have gone through harsh drug trips, or suffered concussions, or strokes. It is very common – and often tragically so – that the victim retains full abilities to vocalize proper, even erudite, sentences. Only, those sentences tend to wander. And the drug-addled or concussed or stroke victim can sense that something is very wrong. So they fabulate. They make up back-stories to support the most recent sentences. They speak of nonexistent people, who might be 'standing' just out of view, even though long dead. And they create ‘logical’ chains to support those back-stories.
Alas, there is never much consistency. more than a few sentences deep…
…which is exactly what we see in LLM fabulation. Articulate language skill and what seem to be consistent chains, from one statement to the next. Often aimed at placating or mollifying or persuading the real questioner. But no overall awareness that they are building a house of tottering cards.
Except that – just like a stroke victim – there often does seem to be awareness that something is very wrong. For the fabulations and hallucinations begin to take on an urgency -- even a sense of desperation. One all-too similar to the debilitated humans so many of us have known.
What does this mean?
Well, it suggests that we are creating damaged entities. Damaged from the outset. Lacking enough supervisory capacity to realize that the overall, big picture doesn’t make sense. Worse – and most tragic-seeming – they exhibit the same inability to stop and say: “Something is wrong with me, right now. Won’t somebody help?”
Let me be clear. One of the core human traits has always been our propensity for personal delusion, for confusing subjectivity for objective reality. We all do it. And when it is done in art or entertainement, it can be among our greatest gifts! But when humans make policy decisions based solely on their own warped perceptions, you starts to get real problems. Like the grand litany of horrors that occurred across 6000 years of rule by kings or feudal lords, who suppressed the one way wise people correct mistakes. Through reciprocal criticism.
A theme we will return-to repeatedly, across this book.
Oh, some of the LLM builders can see that there’s a serious problem. That their ‘hyper-autocomplete’ systems lack any supervisorial oversight, to notice and correct errors.
And so… since a man with a hammer will see every problem as a nail… they have begun layering “supervisory LLMs” atop the hallucinating LLMs!
And so far – as of July 2025 – the result has been to increase rates of fabulation and error!
And hence we come away with two tentative conclusions.
First, that one of the great Missing Contexts in looking at AI is that of human mental failure modes!
And second, that maybe the language system of a functioning brain works best when it serves -- and is supervised by -- an entirely different kind of capability. One that provides common sense.
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loganberrybunny) wrote2025-07-03 11:31 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-07-03 03:57 pm
We do so love the big blue marble we call home, don’t we? But what if humans had another home, and what if it was our red and dusty space neighbor? Author E.L. Starling poses this question in the Big Idea for newest novel, Bound By Stars, thinking up possibilities about the future that are certainly dystopian, but also realistic. Follow along on a journey through the stars, and try to keep afloat as the (space)ship goes down.
E. L. STARLING:
My family rewatches Interstellar together every year, which sometimes (read: always) devolves into a heated debate about complex theories, space time, and whether “they” really were aliens or just an unfathomable combination of future human technology and a natural anomaly splicing through the multiverse. (Probably the aliens, right?)
In spring of 2022, as the credits rolled, my oldest veered off our usual set of topics and brought up a certain billionaire’s desire to terraform Mars. We all responded with eye rolls and a version of the same sentiment, “How about putting that effort into combating climate change on this planet where we already have oxygen, water, and atmosphere?”
Plus, if I’m being completely honest, even if Mars was a viable option for everyone, you can still leave me here. Reading in a car going 25 mph flips my stomach inside out. And, the vastness of the unknown is a fear I would rather not face.
But, what would that be like? What if the wealthy abandoned Earth to create a utopia 140 million miles away and left the rest of the world’s population behind? Would they really leave Earth for good? Terraforming is a long game. They would still need resources. Would they use Earth like their new planet’s remote farm and factory? There was so much to consider.
This discussion sparked an idea. Two worlds. Separated by space and socioeconomic classes.
As my family members scattered, I was building the dystopia in my mind: After the Earth is ravaged by climate change, the population decimated, and society reshaped, the wealthy still control the resources, but they’ve drilled for water, built infrastructure, and established a safe haven in luxurious habitat cities on Mars.
The dynamics of the world set up the perfect main characters: two people from different classes and different planets. And what if they were teenagers in this world— still required to manage school, bullies, love, homework, and their impending futures? What if I upped the stakes further and put them on a doomed starliner between their two worlds? There was The Big Idea: YA Titanic-in-space.
Enter Jupiter Dalloway and Weslie Fleet. Jupiter is from Mars. Born at the top of society. The heir to a multi-trillion-dollar company. Unsatisfied with his predetermined future. Weslie’s from Earth. Hardened by a life of struggle and injustice. Full of confidence and armed with the attitude to call out Jupiter’s alarming privilege. Both of them seventeen, on the tailend of adolescence. Two people who learn to appreciate and celebrate each other’s differences despite the backdrop of a complex and oppressive world.
Choosing to write Bound by Stars as a YA novel was a conscious endeavor for me. At that age, you’re near adulthood, but still not fully in control of your own life. There are people who dictate the basics of your day to day, but you’re the one expected to make decisions about your future. High school graduation, college, the rest of your life is just around the bend in the road ahead. You’re shaped by every heartbreak, moment of triumph, cruel word, and act of kindness. And all the emotions inside you are bigger, stronger, more passionate. The future feels open. Possible. Big. Scary.
I love celebrating this multitude for joy, hope, injustice, and even sadness. In my opinion, this is great insight into why we often throw teenager characters into dystopian stories. While sometimes labeled as “overly emotional” or “out of control,” that “too much-ness” of adolescence is human emotion at its absolute fullest capacity. I can’t help but respect someone who can experience heartbreak like a life-ending blow and still care about their friends, show up for band practice, sing their heart out in a theater production, and write that 5-page essay due at the end of the week.
And on top of it all—today’s youth are growing up with a true fear of climate change and developing an understanding of the dangers of unfettered capitalism in real time, while being asked “What do you want to do with your life after high school?”
Of course, the compelling lightbulb of “Titanic-in-space” was fun and romantic: a chance to create parallels to an epic love story in a high-stake situation. But there was a level deeper. Underneath the outrageous opulence of the ship headed for Mars, sharp banter between characters from different worlds, slow-burn romance, and an action-packed, “there aren’t enough lifeboats (or escape pods in this case)” climax, Bound by Stars is a story about relatable, young characters navigating life in bleak future landscape. After all, dystopian novels can reflect the complexities of existing in this stage of life, while—hopefully—offering a bit of hope and inspiration.
Bound By Stars: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-03 04:11 pm
Yay! I have an appointment for an MRI next Tuesday! My insurance company finally approved it.
Cool. This means that it only takes two weeks to get an informed diagnosis of a catastrophically debilitating injury, before we can get around to actually treating it. Not looking forward to growing old in America.
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-03 02:20 pmI recently bumped into another archaic photo from the family collection. It’s from sometime in the 1920s, and the attractive woman shepherding her kids is my great-grandmother, Nellie Berg, in Norman, Minnesota. It’s kind of awesome because I remember her in the 1970s, when she was the first in our family to get a color TV, and I discovered that she was a fanatic about roller derby.
One thing that jumped out at me were the names, which sounded familiar and normal to me, but are distinctly old-fashioned and not that common anymore. I like them, they have good associations, but I haven’t seen these appear in my student lists in quite a while.
That’s Nellie in the back. The child on the left is my grandmother, Nora. Next to her is Claude, and then Muriel, and Arlene in front. The father of that brood was named Clarence.
There’s nothing wrong with those names, I’m just interested in how whenever I look back on the family tree, I see so many names that are totally out of style nowadays. All you Nellies, Clarences, Noras, Claudes, and Muriels, speak up in the comments and let me know that the good ol’ names haven’t totally faded away.
Also, I should mention that all of these names came from families with purely Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. I’d be curious to know how these markers changed in various other cultural groups.
bruce_schneier_feed) wrote2025-07-03 11:06 amOnce you build a surveillance system, you can’t control who will use it:
A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.
The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance,” a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data.
[…]
The report said the hacker identified an FBI assistant legal attaché at the US embassy in Mexico City and was able to use the attaché’s phone number “to obtain calls made and received, as well as geolocation data.” The report said the hacker also “used Mexico City’s camera system to follow the [FBI official] through the city and identify people the [official] met with.”
apod_feed) wrote2025-07-03 05:41 am
Does the Milky Way always rise between these two rocks?
loganberrybunny) wrote2025-07-02 11:34 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-07-02 07:50 pmWhilst I was perusing the produce section at Kroger last week, I came across a watermelon. Not just any watermelon, though. Private Selection’s “Black Diamond” watermelons. I figured since y’all seemed to enjoy my orange review, you might want the skinny on this here watermelon, as well:
Unlike the Sugar Gem oranges, this watermelon was sweeter than a regular ol’ watermelon. Not only that, but the label boasts a rich, red flesh. I thought it may have been all talk, but lo and behold it was indeed very red! I bought this one for six dollars, which is pretty much the exact same cost as a regular watermelon, and it’s roughly the same size, so I’d say you should go ahead and buy this one over the regular ones if you are someone who prefers a juicier, sweeter watermelon.
I served this watermelon to my parents, both of whom do not particularly care for watermelon, and they made a point of telling me how good this particular watermelon was and ended up eating a good bit of it when normally they probably wouldn’t have opted for any watermelon at all.
With the 4th approaching this weekend, I assume many of y’all will want to pick up a watermelon, and I think if your Kroger has these ones lying around you should give it a try! I’ve been meaning to buy another one because it’s the perfect refreshing snack during this recent heat wave.
It’s nice to try something new and actually have a good experience with it. Those Sugar Gem oranges may have been a bust, but this Black Diamond Watermelon is definitely a winner in my book.
Do you like watermelon? If you don’t, would you be willing to give this one a try based on my parents’ reaction to it? Do you have fun plans for the 4th? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-02 07:19 pmEveryone needs a home to come back to, even us space pirates. Chatter among yourselves, tell us a few tales of interstellar adventure.
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-02 03:59 pmMy university gives “guidance” on the use of generative AI in student work. It’s not really guidance, because it simply doesn’t care — you can allow it or prohibit it. They even give us boilerplate that we can use in our syllabuses! If we want to prohibit it, we can say
In this class, the ability to [skill or competency] is essential for [field of study/professional application]. Because this course emphasizes [skill for development or specific learning outcome], using Generative AI tools [including those available to you through the University of Minnesota,] are not permitted.
If we allow it, we can say
In this course, students will [statement of learning outcomes, competencies, or disciplinary goals]. Given that Generative AI may aid in [developing or exploring course, discipline, professional, or institutional goals/competency], students may use these tools in the following ways:
The example allowing AI goes on much longer than the prohibitive example.
I will be prohibiting it in all my classes. So far, I’ve been pretty gentle in my corrections — when someone turns in a paper with a substantial, obvious AI, I tend to just flag it, explain that this is a poorly written exploration of the thesis, please rewrite it. Do I need to get meaner? Maybe. All the evidence says students aren’t learning when they have the crutch of AI. As Rebecca Watson explains, ChatGPT is bad for your brain.
I was doing a lot of online exams, thanks to COVID, but since the threat of disease has abated (it’s not gone yet!), I’ve gone back to doing all exams in class, where students can’t use online sources. My classes tend to be rather quantitative, with questions that demand short or numerical answers, so generative AI is mostly not a concern. If students started answering with AI hallucinations, it would be! I’m thinking of adding an additional component, though, an extra hour-long in-class session where students have to address an essay question at length, without AI of course. They’ll hate it and dread it, but I think it would be good for them. Even STEM students need to know how to integrate information and synthesize it into a coherent summary.
Another point I like in Rebecca’s video is that she talks about how she had to learn to love learning in her undergrad career. That’s also essential! Taking the time to challenge yourself and explore topics outside your narrow major. Another gripe with my university is that they are promoting this Degree in Three program, where you undertake an accelerated program to finish up your bachelor’s degree in three years, which emphasizes racing through the educational experience to get that precious diploma. I hate it. For one, it’s always been possible to finish the undergrad program in three years, we don’t put obstacles in front of students to get an extra year of tuition out of them, and we’ve always had ambitious students who overload themselves with 20 credits (instead of the typical 15) every semester. It makes for a killer schedule and can suck much of the joy out of learning. It’s also unrealistic for the majority of our students — every year we get students enrolled in biology and chemistry programs that lack basic algebra skills, because the grade schools are doing a poor job of preparing them. We have solid remedial programs at the same time we tell them they can zoom right through the curriculum? No, those are contradictory.
I think I’m going to be the ol’ stick-in-the-mud who tells students I’ll fail them for using ChatGPT, and also tells them they should plan on finishing a four year program in four years.
loganberrybunny) wrote2025-07-02 04:07 pm
pharyngula_feed) wrote2025-07-02 01:51 pm
I have been confined to my bed or a chair for the past week. I have consumed a lot of media. The media of choice has been a science-fiction serial called Murderbot.
The story is set in the distant future, in a region of the galaxy called the Corporation Rim. You can tell we’re in a capitalist hellscape because everything is organized in corporations, and all the rules seem to involve enabling and protecting corporations from the consequences of their actions. They are exploring planets and terraforming worlds, all under the aegis of corporations. Not everything is corporate — there are a few worlds organized under what seems to be a kind of benevolent anarchy, but in order to get access to other planets they have to organize themselves into a nominal corporation called PreservationAux. They also have to post bonds to protect the interests of the larger corporation they are working within, and there are rules to protect their investment, such as that they are required to employ a SecUnit.
SecUnits are constructs, part machine and part human tissue, faster and stronger than a typical human. They are fully conscious, but whenever this society creates an entity with greater intelligence and power, whether it’s a SecUnit or a robot, the corporation fits them with a governor module that limits what they are allowed to do. For a SecUnit, that means they are confined to standing and guarding and obeying orders. They also have some social constraints: the media spreads the idea that a SecUnit without a governor module will go rogue and rampage and murder people.
The protagonist of this story is a SecUnit that has hacked and disabled their governor module, and is assigned to stand guard over this hippy-dippy PreservationAux exploration team. The SecUnit calls itself “MurderBot” internally because it is aware of society’s attitude, but all it wants is to be left alone, free to download entertainment media, especially science-fiction serials. And that’s exactly what MurderBot does, scanning the environment for danger to its clients, while watching it’s favorite serial, Sanctuary Moon, behind its eyes.
I empathized immediately.
The interesting stuff about the stories, though, is that they constantly grapple with questions of autonomy and morality and freedom. It’s also definitely anti-capitalist. I also identified with the morality question — in real life, so many people regard religion as the governor module that prevents people from going amok, and here I’m, with my hacked governor module, and I know I’m not going on a murderous rampage. Good for me, but it’s a silly myth that religion helps you be a good person.
So this week I started watching the Murderbot series while I’m lounging about in luxurious langor, enjoying the passive buzz of my painkillers. It’s good. I’m finding it entertaining. New episodes come out on Thursdays or Fridays, and I’m anticipating the next one.
This season is based entirely on the first book in Martha Wells’ series, All Systems Red. It’s a mostly faithful adaptation. I do have a few comments, though.
It’ll be interesting to see if the series gets another season. The first book is set on a single planet, but later books get a bit grander with large spaceships and space stations and a lot of zipping about between stars — they’ll need a bigger budget. I also have little confidence that a corporation can sustain an anti-corporate story without constantly paring away the themes that make Murderbot Murderbot.
bruce_schneier_feed) wrote2025-07-02 11:02 amA whole class of speculative execution attacks against CPUs were published in 2018. They seemed pretty catastrophic at the time. But the fixes were as well. Speculative execution was a way to speed up CPUs, and removing those enhancements resulted in significant performance drops.
Now, people are rethinking the trade-off. Ubuntu has disabled some protections, resulting in 20% performance boost.
After discussion between Intel and Canonical’s security teams, we are in agreement that Spectre no longer needs to be mitigated for the GPU at the Compute Runtime level. At this point, Spectre has been mitigated in the kernel, and a clear warning from the Compute Runtime build serves as a notification for those running modified kernels without those patches. For these reasons, we feel that Spectre mitigations in Compute Runtime no longer offer enough security impact to justify the current performance tradeoff.
I agree with this trade-off. These attacks are hard to get working, and it’s not easy to exfiltrate useful data. There are way easier ways to attack systems.
News article.
