First-person account of someone accidentally catching several Humboldt squid on a fishing line. No photos, though.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Anonymous • August 29, 2025 7:33 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/identical-twin-convicted-rape-cold-175405227.html
=While submitting additional DNA from the scene, the detectives were faced with an unusual dilemma — the evidence was linked to identical twin brothers John Aurthur Marubbio and Russell Anthony Marubbio.
Since they were twins, investigators were unable to differentiate between the two and identify which one was the suspect.
While identical twins start with the same DNA, rare mutations can arise after the twins split in early development, creating subtle genetic differences.
Parabon was able to analyze the samples and conclusively identify Russell Marubbio as the twin whose DNA was at the crime scene.=
Clive Robinson • August 29, 2025 7:53 PM
@ ALL,
Are tech giants getting nervous? They should be
Is the sub title of an opinion piece in The Register.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/25/overinflated_ai_balloon/
Which gives an “AI Bubble” report card of,
“Mediocre at best, on the way down, and never going to get an A grade now.”…
Hence the main title of,
“The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon”
Which to some of us is not exactly news.
It quotes a report that marks Current LLM systems down as being at,
“The not particularly bright or trustworthy intern”
“bottom end” level/Grade…
Pointing out,
“There’s a whole shadow world of people using AI at work. They’re just not using them “for” serious work. Instead, outside of IT’s purview, they use ChatGPT and the like “for simple work, 70 percent prefer AI for drafting emails, 65 percent for basic analysis. But for anything complex or long-term, humans dominate by 9-to-1 margins.”
Before the article author asks the all to obvious
“Why?”
Before saying,
“Because a chatbot “forgets context, doesn’t learn, and can’t evolve.” In other words, they’re not good enough for mid-grade or higher work. Think of them as a not particularly bright or trustworthy intern.”
Then stating a painful truth that even the dumbest of investors is going to realise before long,
“That may be good enough for $20 a month, but – spoiler alert – AI costs will have risen by ten times or more by next year.”
Then asking the “ROI or Not?” Question,
Will bottom-end AI be worth that to you? Your company?”
The answer being very likely “Definitely NOT!”.
The article ends as some have suspected, by talking about the Tech Stocks crash back in the 1990’s that wiped out many small investments, and goes on to end,
“Most companies, though, have found that AI’s golden promises are proving to be fool’s gold.
I suspect that soon, people who’ve put their financial faith in AI stocks will be feeling foolish, too.”
I can’t argue with that prognosis, because it’s really just a question of time as history repeatedly shows…
ResearcherZero • August 29, 2025 10:30 PM
@Clive
RE: AI’s golden promises are proving to be fool’s gold.
Part of any successful insider trading scheme is to squeeze as much fat out of the pig as possible and ensure you are in a position where you cannot be prosecuted. 😉
Some might lose their jobs and homes when the entire house of cards comes down, but they will be too busy dealing with day to day survival and too poor to mount any response.
Everyone else will be too busy blaming the bankers to figure out what exactly took place.
lurker • August 30, 2025 1:08 AM
@Clive Robinson, ALL
Has Taco Bell seen the light, or just cutting their losses? For light amusement, search terms:
taco bell drive-thru AI
@Clive
I’m changing my handle to KC from Anonymous to lessen any confusion here.
To add to your commentary on AI, it’s being
observed that newer models are getting more expensive, not less.
Although the cost per token is going down, the number of tokens used for so-called reasoning is going up.
Many newer AI models double-check their answers, go out to the web for more intel, and so on. But the improved quality comes at a cost.
To avoid price shocks, many consumers could be nudged towards “dumber” AIs. But other businesses, such as those that use AI to write resource-intensive code, could see a decline in margins or worse.
I use the free versions. Maybe it’s best I don’t know what I’m missing.
I sent a family member an article about an AI discovering new physics. My hunch is that those scientists had one of the less dumber models.
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ai-reveals-unexpected-physics-dusty.html
Jon (a different Jon) • August 30, 2025 2:39 PM
Maybe it’s just me, KC, but “go out to the web for more intel” does not necessarily lead to improved quality, whatever the cost.
J.
not important • August 30, 2025 4:15 PM
My comment related to
AI firm says its technology weaponized by hackers
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crr24eqnnq9o
was taken yesterday for moderation.
@Moderator and @Bruce – what is wrong with that comment or it just removed and not posted yet based on my name???
lurker • August 30, 2025 6:27 PM
@not important
The first stage of moderation is automated. If that says “held for moderation” you can usually assume the comment has been blackholed, for maybe a perceived naughty word. Guessing what words are naughty is left as an exercise for the gentle reader.
Re the bbc article, Anthropic: crocodile tears. They must have known that anything put online will be pushed to its limts; and if they didn’t know, they got all they deserved.
not important • August 30, 2025 7:00 PM
@lurker – thank you. I did not add anything except parts from actual article from highly respectable source as bbc – that was puzzled me.
@ Jon (a different Jon), J.
”go out to the web for more intel” does not necessarily lead to improved quality, whatever the cost.
You’re right, not necessarily. How that process is managed seems important.
I’m wondering if they mean something more like RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) or agentic RAG systems with reasoning – said to help with emerging info and hallucinations.
Helpful search term: ‘Improved Accuracy’
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/traditional-rag-vs-agentic-rag-why-ai-agents-need-dynamic-knowledge-to-get-smarter/
Dancing On Thin Ice • August 30, 2025 9:15 PM
2 connected stories in the news:
A DOGE employee copied 300 million names, birthdays, and Social Security numbers to an unsecure cloud server vulnerable to hacking.
https://time.com/7312556/doge-social-security-data-whistleblower-complaint/
Many media outlets are self censoring themselves to not cover stories or topics that may draw unfavorable scrutiny by the current United States administration which erodes trust in whether their reporting is independent.
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/foreign-journalists-in-the-u-s-are-self-censoring-to-protect-themselves-from-the-trump-administration/
cls • August 31, 2025 12:45 PM
Re:
A DOGE employee copied 300 million names, birthdays, and Social Security numbers to an unsecure cloud server vulnerable to hacking.
Yes, of course they did. How else could Palantir so easily scoop up all our info?
Clive Robinson • September 1, 2025 4:58 AM
@ Brice, ALL,
The first of another month and the day a lot of kids go back into education for “the new year”…
But this caught my eye,
Why haven’t quantum computers factored 21 yet?
For many reading it they would loose three or four points on the “will to live scale”.
However for others it’s been their very will to succeed for a half decade or so….
As the intro states,
“In 2001, quantum computers factored the number 15. It’s now 2025, and quantum computers haven’t yet factored the number 21. It’s sometimes claimed this is proof there’s been no progress in quantum computers. But there’s actually a much more surprising reason 21 hasn’t been factored yet, which jumps out at you when contrasting the operations used to factor 15 and to factor 21.”
KC • September 1, 2025 11:33 AM
Why haven’t quantum computers factored 21 yet?
Hmm. Most of us seem not to be looped in to the factors at work here.
Craig Gidney had a quiz:
Suppose I showed you the series of quantum operations for factoring 21 using Shor’s algorithm. How many times more operations do you expect it to use, compared to the circuits used for factoring 15?
Most guessed 2x. Some guessed 10x.
But he figures it to have a blow up in cost of 100x.
“And this 100x increase in cost explains why no one has factored 21 with a quantum computer yet.”
He lists the 3 reasons, related to modular multiplications, that 15 is so much cheaper than 21.
He tosses in that it could be actually 10,000x more operationally expensive due to error correction.
More work to do!
not important • September 1, 2025 6:55 PM
Principles for Biometric Data
Security and Privacy
https://www.ibia.org/download/datasets/4955/Principles%20for%20Biometric%20Data%20Security%20and%20Privacy.pdf
That is what I was talking about many times:
=Effective notice and consent is to be conveyed with brief written
statements, in ordinary language, readily comprehended by the notified or consenting person.
Lengthy fine print pro-forma
statements, such as most software license agreements, real estate documents, and loan documents do not meet this principle.=
not important • September 1, 2025 7:02 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ai-ummasking-ice-officers-washington-180000957.html
=An activist has started using artificial intelligence to identify Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents beneath their masks — a use of the technology sparking new
political concerns over AI-powered surveillance.
Dominick Skinner, a Netherlands-based immigration activist, estimates he and a group of volunteers have publicly identified at least 20 ICE officials recorded wearing masks during arrests. He told POLITICO his experts are “able to reveal a face using AI, >if they have 35 percent or more of the face visible.”
agents in masks have become a potent symbol of unaccountable government force. The
masking, and the counter-campaign to identify agents, has prompted a crossfire of bills on Capitol Hill.
In response to efforts to identify ICE agents, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who
chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology, introduced the
Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act in June, which would make it illegal to
publish a federal officer’s name with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation.
In the absence of federal regulation, the International Biometrics + Identity
Association, a trade group that represents the identification technology industry,
published ethical standards for facial recognition providers in 2019, which includes
ensuring that people’s biometric data isn’t collected
without people’s knowledge and
consent.
Privacy experts suggest that stronger data protections would be more effective for
protecting officers from doxing than wearing masks or outlawing posting officers’ names.=
On a funny note: (Attention DHS Secretary) they may have full face covered masks like Halloween masks generated by AI with no match to actual person.
Clive Robinson • September 2, 2025 12:25 PM
@ Bruce, ALL,
This actually made me laugh whilst shaking my head,
4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over its Age Verification Law
Yup to 9f the supposedly scuzziest web sites there are, are taking a UK Govenment Agency to US Federal Court…
https://www.courtwatch.news/p/4chan-and-kiwi-farms-sue-the-uk-over-its-age-verification-law
Put simply the UK “Online Safety Act” is a deeply intrusive piece of surveillance legislation that the UK Government and their inept agents OfCom believe falsely has “Global applicability”.
This is based on the same nonsense to be found in the UK RIPA and “snoopers charter” legislation.
By international agreement sovereign nations and those within them have no liability to another nation or it’s courts.
Thus 4Chan and Kiwi Farms, not having any infrastructure etc in the UK have claimed in a US Federal Court OfCom have no rights to claim what they are trying to claim.
Oh and one aspect of this is “free speech”.
I hope the Federal Court finds against the UK’s OfCom as it will make life that much safer from the increasingly dangerously authoritarian behaviour by the UK Government and it’s agents.
Remember the reason Apple killed their E2EE storage service, was not because the UK Gov demanded against UK iPhone users… But because the UK demanded it against “ANY Apple Users, Anywhere at, Anytime in the World”.
Clive Robinson • September 2, 2025 1:23 PM
@ not important, ALL,
With regards,
“An activist has started using artificial intelligence to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beneath their masks”
Hmm what is that nonsense LEO’s and other “might is right” authoritarians keep claiming something like,
“If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide…”
I guess that the ICE thugs –from what has appeared on social media so far– really have done a great deal wrong, to need the level of hiding they are doing…
The thing is it just goes to show they really know what they are obviously enjoying doing, is not just questionable morally, but is almost probably criminal…
The thing is it’s very much “Political Jack Boots” behaviour.
George Orwell pointed out that political failures need an invented enemy at home to blame for their failings. As well as a distant oriental enemy to start a war with again to cover up their failings and prevent them being removed from office…
I guess the Trumper or his string pullers studied some “English Lit” at some point…
not important • September 2, 2025 5:24 PM
@Clive said
“If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide…”
With total respect to Clive, I highly disagree. All our privacy concerns are against this statement because we all have something to hide, not illegal – just personal.
Otherwise we will fall to this statement:
‘Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.’ Robert Penn Warren
I’ll suggest that all LEOs should have
1)body cams; 2)id number tag on the uniform which only Agency could map to actual LEO identity if complain made against LEO actions.
not important • September 2, 2025 5:31 PM
How sheer luck made this tiny Caribbean island millions from its web address
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5xdp427veo
=almost every country and territory had a domain based on either its English or own language name. This included the small Caribbean island of Anguilla, which landed the address .ai.
With the continuing boom in artificial intelligence (AI), more and more companies and individuals are paying Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory, to register new websites with the .ai tag.
The number of .ai websites has increased more than 10-fold in the past five years, and has doubled in the past 12 months alone, according to a website that tracks domain name registrations.
In its draft 2025 budget document, the Anguillian government says that in 2024 it earned 105.5m East Caribbean dollars ($39m) from selling domain names. That was almost a quarter (23%) of its total revenues last year. Tourism accounts for some 37%, according to the IMF.
As a British Overseas Territory, Anguilla is under the sovereignty of the UK, but with a high level of internal self-governance.
At the start of this year, Identity Digital announced that it had moved where all the .ai domains are hosted, from servers in Anguilla, to its own global server network. This is to prevent any disruption from future hurricanes, or any other risks to the island’s infrastructure, such as power cuts.
Anguilla’s position is not without precedent. The similarly tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu signed an exclusive deal in 1998 to license its .tv domain name.
Reports say this granted exclusive rights to US domain name registry firm, VeriSign in exchange for $2m a year, which later rose to $5m.=
ResearcherZero • September 3, 2025 12:49 AM
Over 700 organizations, including major cybersecurity companies have been affected by a supply chain attack on Salesloft Drift. The attack targeted API keys, OAuth tokens and credentials that can be used for further breaches of large companies. The breaches were conducted by Shiny Hunters in collaboration with Scattered Spider and LapSus$ (as Scattered LapSus$ Hunters) in a now combined and ongoing campaign against Salesforce instances.
The group gained access to Salesforce instances after obtaining an OAuth token for the Drift chatbot, which allowed the attackers to recover text fields of support cases.
‘https://trust.salesloft.com/?uid=Drift%2FSalesforce+Security+Update
Some big names such as Zscaler, Palto Alto, Google and Cloudflare were among those hit.
https://www.seqrite.com/blog/google-salesforce-breach-unc6040-threat-research/
ResearcherZero • September 3, 2025 2:02 AM
@Dancing On Thin Ice
Censoring themselves to not cover stories or topics that present a significant danger to themselves and their financial flows – that threaten themselves and their financial flows.
Who needs security when you can plagiarise and replicate stupidity en masse? 😉
Microsoft is giving Copilot ‘free’ to any government agency that signs up to its package deal of products, ensuring plenty of future security incidents and supply chain attack vectors.
Once agencies sign up to the “deals” they will become locked-in to long-term dependence on products that will become more expensive and significantly increase the entire federal government vulnerability to widespread threat of whole-of-systems compromise or failure.
‘https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/02/microsoft_rewarded_for_security_failures/
To speed up the ease of access to telecommunications systems and customer data, the FCC is shredding regulation faster than public commentary can respond on the associated risks to data security, consumer rights and the wide range of dangers of an unregulated environment.
ResearcherZero • September 3, 2025 2:47 AM
@not important, @ALL
RE:Lengthy fine print pro-forma statements
At a time when signals are coming from the top that rules do not really matter, all of the agencies and regulations that protect consumers from unconscionable conduct are being cut.
In business there are no friends and written contracts are lethal weapons. Expect many people to be exploited through the use of real estate documents, loan documents and business contracts by swindlers and scammers left to operate without scrutiny. As many people do not properly read a contract and do not hire the services of legal representation to examine said document, plenty of people will lose their homes, properties and businesses. (Perhaps to a new manager who kindly offers to handle things for you?)
The kinds of people who predate through the use of financial exploitation first establish trust with their victims and have a keen sense of who is likely to be both malleable and unable to maintain the emotional composure to mount a successful defense. This often takes place at a time when the target is emotionally, physically or financially vulnerable, less likely to be situationally aware and not able to detect or properly respond to the assault.
When the time comes to fleece the victim, the predator may offer a renewed contract with a few alterations which change the terms of the original contract, hidden in plain sight. They of course will not mention the alterations and will insist it is unchanged.
Acting as an agent, they sell the victim’s property/business to another unsuspecting dupe and exit, leaving those who have been swindled to fight it out amongst themselves instead.
Clive Robinson • September 3, 2025 9:18 AM
@ not important, ALL,
With respect to,
“@Clive said…”
It was not me “saying”, I was “attributing” a well known piece of authoritarian nonsense, to those who in effect claim their presumed “might is right”.
That is not those who think that there is such a thing as a “fair society” but what is a “criminal autocracy” that is a despotic / tyrannical lunacy kept in power by authoritarian followers who are not constrained, and the real “Welfare Mothers” draining the economy of trillions so they can oppress others on a whim of deluded mantra and cognitive deficit.
As for you list of two points,
1,
2,
Can I suggest a third?
In the US and other places, those who get accused are not alowed a right of reply to often false and baseless accusations by the “authoritarian followers”
Untill recently in the UK there was the presumed right of “innocent untill proven guilty” in a fair tribunal (court). And those in authority and who publicly reported were told they could not report in any way that was prejudicial to that right of presumed innocence.
Not so in the US where we know the likes of the FBI blatantly try to prejudice any defendant by what is an abuse of power that no matter how egregious carries no sanctions. Whilst the defendant is conspicuously denied a fair right of reply, so they are unfairly tried in public and any tribunal proceeding is thus biased before it starts, and there is no way to remedy this by “moving the trial” etc, the Internet and right of free speech has stopped this being in any way effective.
Therefore, I suggest that two things be done.
Firstly the right of the defendant to a fair trial becomes protected. With the notion of misfeasance in office or public be extended so sanctions have teeth.
Secondly that the “records” of all Guard Labour be it as part of their public or private life becomes public without restriction. Such that even their most minor of peccadilloes become public and can thus be held up for examination. After all there are the notions of,
“Equity in Arms”
And
“Justice has to be seen to be done”
If they are taking the “We are holier than thou” alleged “moral high ground” they should be shown up for what they actually are…
After all the definition of “Justice” is given and accepted as,
1, The quality of being just; through fairness.
2, In the interest of justice, we should treat everyone the same.
Should apply to those who stand accused, those who investigate, those who accuse, those who report, and those who judge.
In biblical terms (John 8:7) Jesus challenges the self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the law who want to stone to death an alleged adulterous woman. By kneeling down and asking the woman for not just who had made the accusations but other things, which he wrote in the dust
When the self-righteous continued to question Jesus He stood up and turned to them and said,
“Let he who is without sin amongst you be the first to cast a stone”
Which most know. However what many miss is the reason for Jesus writing in the dust the woman’s testimony.
All parts of a proceeding are “Evidence to be considered” and it has to be not just heard in public, but recorded for all time in public.
Part of this is now called “Evidence of good character” for some reason in the UK and other places it is “assumed” against much contrary evidence that those who represent authority are implicitly of “good character”.
Thus those of the genus “Macropus rufus” become painfully apparent.
not important • September 3, 2025 4:58 PM
@Clive – thank you for clarification.
I could only add that for my own opinion in really equal and just system those who follow laws (private citizens, corporations, LEOs, judges, prosecutors)should be ALWAYS in better condition versus those who break/disregard the law.
@ALL
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/dna-testing-method-could-play-120005584.html
=the analysis was conducted by Astrea Forensics, a company that specializes in whole genome sequencing — a type of DNA analysis that can be used for difficult-to-treat samples.
Whole genome sequencing is “a method that attempts to read nearly all of a person’s DNA, covering the entire genetic code of about 3 billion bases,” or letters, said Daniele Podini, an associate professor at George Washington University.
The key difference, Podini said, is conventional testing provides a limited DNA
“fingerprint,” like a barcode on a supermarket product, while whole genome sequencing (WGS) offers a full genetic “blueprint” with much more detailed insights.
“WGS is an advancement in DNA testing which enables more comprehensive collection and
evaluation of DNA and has wide application throughout the relevant scientific
communities,” prosecutors said. “It has been accepted by the CDC, the FDA,
paleontologists, virologists, and the medical communities.”
“Forensic methods are subject to intense legal scrutiny before they are accepted as
common practice, and that’s what we are seeing here,” Lents said. “This is the normal
way that new techniques are introduced into the legal forensic toolkit, in test cases
with a great deal of scrutiny and expert testimony.”=
not important • September 3, 2025 5:21 PM
What new weapons on show at huge parade say about China’s military strength
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr1reyr059o
=China is going all the way with AI and drones
There were a wide range of drones, some of them AI-powered, but the one that grabbed
eyeballs was the AJX-002 giant submarine drone.
Also known as an extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle (XLUUV) measuring up to 20m (65ft) in length, it could possibly do surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
China also showed off its GJ-11 stealth attack drone, dubbed the “loyal wingman”, which can fly alongside a manned fighter jet and aid it in its attacks.
Besides an array of conventional aerial drones, there were also “robotic wolves”.
Experts say these could be used for a variety of tasks from reconnaissance and sweeping
for mines, to hunting down enemy soldiers.
The drone display shows a clear direction that China wants to take with its military
strategy, where it “not only wants to augment, but replace traditional structures”.
“Alacrity in the kill chain matters,” adds Mr Neill, pointing out that in a fast-moving battle, decisions have to be made in “nanoseconds” to defeat the enemy and gain the upper hand – which is what AI can do.
Many countries are still concerned about deploying AI in their military systems and asking “how comfortable are we in putting AI in the kill chain”, he adds.
But China is very comfortable with that, Dr Raska says. “They believe they can control AI. They are going all the way to integrate it into their systems.”=
Trottel • September 4, 2025 9:20 AM
Re: Why haven’t quantum computers factored 21 yet?
If you’re capable of factoring 21, you’re well on your way to handling 221=23*7=42.
Apparently, 42 does seem to have deep metaphysical implications after all..
Re: lost comments
The alleged moderation is the main reason I hardly come here anymore. Tired of guessing what´s so offensive in my prose to get it flushed out. I see the comment traffic is now more something of a trickle.
Bob • September 4, 2025 9:28 AM
@Clive said
“If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide…”
Cardinal Richelieu:
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
KC • September 4, 2025 10:28 AM
@Trottel, Clive Robinson, All
Re: Why haven’t quantum computers factored 21 yet?
Have you seen additional dialogue here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45082587
Strilanc (author?):
“[…] Samuel Jacques had a pretty good talk at PQCrypto this year, and he speculates about timelines in it [2].
(I’m the author of this blog post and of 1.)
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJxENYdsB6c “
sllabres:
“From the talk of Samuel Jacques: Timeline for RSA-2048 at about 2088 (conservative extrapolation) or ~2052 (Moore’s‑law‑style growth)”
early in convo, someone speculates there could be additional beneficial applications of QC if it is tinkered with.
not important • September 4, 2025 7:11 PM
@Bob – that quote I love for a long time. Thank you!
ResearcherZero • September 5, 2025 12:16 AM
PASTE_YOUR_KEYS_HERE (as in new randomly generated keys)
Always be generating new keys when setting up a platform or system installation. Or just copy and paste them from the developer’s documentation and find out the hard way what happens when developers produce products that do not automatically generate new keys.
Sitecore ViewState deserialization via static ASP.NET machine keys copied from documentation allowed remote code execution, config exfiltration and remote access.
‘https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/unknown_miscreants_snooping_around_sitecore/
Sitecore CMS is used by many large enterprises such as automotive, airlines, banks etc.
https://labs.watchtowr.com/is-b-for-backdoor-pre-auth-rce-chain-in-sitecore-experience-platform/
lurker • September 5, 2025 1:31 AM
Zuckerberg sues FaceBook
With all the discussion on what is identity, and how can you prove it, it seems the social media behemoth has no way to permanently distinguish between Mark Steven Z of Indiana, and Mark Elliot Z of someplace else. Their photos are different too.
ResearcherZero • September 5, 2025 1:47 AM
@Clive
In the world you are talking about Scotty from Marketing could not become Prime Minister.
If justice has to be seen to be done, then the government will be put in the embarrassing position (when credible evidence is available) of having to prosecute government officials who break the law, rather than cast aspersions or make unfounded claims and then lie about it. A large quantity of the political waffle amongst the other self-serving rhetoric.
Many of the public inquiries that have taken place would not have been needed, as action would have already taken place. Justice would have been served. Public outrage quelled, resulting in the loss of numerous points of contention that are stirred up to win political support. Political hacks would be scrutinized – perhaps even burdened with the consequences of their actions – something they cannot afford morally or financially.
This would require increased accountability. What was said on the record would hold weight.
Real public scrutiny would reveal countless occasions where serious lawbreaking was ignored and allowed to continue, needlessly placing many at harm without intervention in spite of the full knowledge of law enforcement, judiciary, watchdogs and their political masters.
Vast amounts of money would then flow to the public need, inequality would shrink and lives would be saved by a functional justice system that sought to protect the public before profit. Properly functioning institutions are integral to a full and functioning Democracy.
During the Great Depression a group of Technocrats wanted to merge the US, Canada and Greenland. Widespread inequality and unemployment provided the means of opportunity. They believed technology was a ‘revolutionary agent’ that could empower their lust for power.
‘https://asiatimes.com/2025/03/1930s-tech-bros-wanted-to-merge-the-us-canada-and-greenland/
The dream of a North American Technocracy with a ruling elite, PR team and Electronic God.
https://novum.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-technocracy
ResearcherZero • September 5, 2025 2:14 AM
@Clive
Would you it surprise you if I was to say that individuals involved in creating Robodebt had previously been involved in insider social security fraud schemes and embezzlement?
Given that some of the people involved in setting up Robodebt had already been caught and prosecuted for previous involvement in fraud, bribery and embezzlement schemes that had run sequentially at the time. If the justice system had of worked properly and the crimes had become public knowledge instead of the convictions being both inadequate and suppressed, then a number of people may have become ineligible to work in senior positions or elected to office. Their previous actions and reputations should have warned of what was to come.
Robodebt victims awarded the largest class action settlement in Australian history
“…now the matter won’t go before a court. Without the piercing gaze of the law and judiciary, there are many questions of government and public service accountability that may never be answered.”
Of course we will never know the full story because justice has to be seen to be done.
‘https://theconversation.com/robodebt-compensation-is-a-win-for-victims-but-now-we-may-never-know-the-full-story-264587
Clive Robinson • September 5, 2025 11:20 AM
@ Bob, not important, ALL,
With regards “Cardinal Richelieu” and the “If you give me six lines…” quote that so many attribute to him…
It is definitely typical of many that have a power seeking mind set. But not power directly, but from behind figurehead puppets with their “your humble servant” routines so they can step back and leave the puppet to “take the fall” when it inevitably goes wrong (as history showed it eventually did).
However as I’ve noted here before even though widely attributed to the Cardinal, there is no actual evidence he actually said it.
The first appearance in writing was some time after he had met his demise in 1642 in the 1723 memoir published from the letters of Françoise Bertaut de Motteville who had died in 1689. She had apparently heard about it at best second hand from members of the French Court.
Also her reputation / motives with regards the Cardinal is shall we say a little suspect because the Cardinal had her and her mother exiled to Normandy under watch / guard for the crime of being Spanish and too close to the Court…
However we know from other sources that the Cardinal was shall we say evil in his intent… And several later and unfortunate events that had dramatic effect on France can be traced back to him and his schemes.
So as the old saying has it,
“If the cap fits, then wear it.”
And even if the Cardinal did not say it, it summed up his character.
Clive Robinson • September 5, 2025 5:45 PM
@ ResearcherZero,
With regards,
“Would it surprise you if I was to say that individuals involved in creating Robodebt had previously been involved in insider social security fraud schemes and embezzlement?”
Not in the slightest…
Previous UK Governments spent hundreds of millions chasing individuals as benefit cheats / thieves. Quit innocent people who had only done what Government “Benefit Advisors” had told them to were suddenly denied benifits for months if not years because of what the advisors had told them to.
The thing is these disabled people the Government were persecuting, even if they were entirely Benefit Cheats / thieves were still only responsible for a tiny fraction of the money being swindled out of the public purse.
The real cheats were,
1, Central Government Agencies.
2, The “rackman” style landlords.
3, Local Government depts.
4, The contract medical assesment organisations.
Were responsible for around 90% of the loss to the government purse.
Even though UK Ministers had been told who the real Benefit cheats / thieves were by Police investigators and auditing / oversight organisations, as far as I’m aware the Ministers stuck to totally false “Political Mantra” narratives. With the result none of those who were guilty of swindling tens if not hundreds of millions got prosecuted… Because it would have blown the lid off of the can of worms of “thieving friends and their kick backs to politicos”.
All I can say is “keep your eyes open” on the local “political nonsense” by the current UK political incumbents.
Mostly they are in breach of “Ministerial rules” but as some go out, those stepping into their shoes have been caught out when Tony Blair was UK Prime Minister and he “shielded them etc” instead of being barred from public office for life they got a 90second Sin Bin time out.
Local Government of the same political stripe were “filling their boots” going back oh half a century or so…
So yeh “colour me unsurprised”.
Clive Robinson • September 5, 2025 6:04 PM
@ ResearcherZero, ALL,
With regards RoboDebt and similar in other countries (yup it’s far from just Auz and UK)
“Given that some of the people involved in setting up Robodebt had already been caught and prosecuted for previous involvement in fraud, bribery and embezzlement schemes that had run sequentially at the time.”
Those caught were from memory those who were not very bright light-bulbs, and did not put in “cut outs” and other defensive measures.
Now consider what they could do and get away with by the use of the “black box” aspects of Current AI and the “Digital Neural Network” training and input data feeding tricks.
If done through a near invisible consultancy, think how it can be used to implement “Political Mantra” not just at one arms length but several.
Remember Cambridge Analytica?
Remember anyone getting summoned to enquires or courts?
No me neither, though we know of several US GOP members who can be named easily who were in it way above the collar…
Never got questioned because they had friends in UK Government ministerial level. One of whom we know was “Boris the blowjob Johnson” one time UK Prime Minister. Who you might remember was “Great Mates” with the Doh-Gnarled Trumper…
No really anonymous • September 5, 2025 6:56 PM
More poor opsec in this administration.
A highly placed justice department official was caught on film bragging about sensitive data to someone they met on Hinge on their second date. How stupid or vain to you have to be to do that?
KC • September 6, 2025 10:01 AM
@ResearcherZero, Clive Robinson, not important, all
AI news is ever flowing. I’m absolutely positive you’ve seen the news from Switzerland.
A public AI for the public good: Apertus
“Currently, Apertus is the leading public AI model: a model built by public institutions, for the public interest. It is our best proof yet that AI can be a form of public infrastructure like highways, water, or electricity,” said Joshua Tan, Lead Maintainer of the Public AI Inference Utility.”
“Furthermore, for people outside of Switzerland, the Public AI Inference Utility [link in plaintext] will make Apertus accessible as part of a global movement for public AI.”
God bless the Swiss. I’ve tried a few prompts to see how this may differ from other LLMs. Any thoughts on how you think it does?
Here was one experiment: What are the three best foods in Switzerland?
Apertus: 1) Swiss Chocolate 2) Fondue 3) Rosti
ChatGPT: 1) Fondue 2) Raclette 3) Swiss Chocolate
So, some small differences in a one sample experiment.
From ETHZ:
“With this release, we aim to provide a blueprint for how a trustworthy, sovereign, and inclusive AI model can be developed,” says Martin Jaggi, Professor of Machine Learning at EPFL and member of the Steering Committee of the Swiss AI Initiative. The model will be regularly updated by the development team which includes specialized engineers and a large number of researchers from CSCS, ETH Zurich and EPFL.”
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Anonymous • August 29, 2025 5:55 PM
WTH?