Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Canonical Launches Enterprise Store For Ubuntu Pro
  2. Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement Over Pirated Books Used To Train Claude
  3. AT&T Loses Key Ruling In Bid To Stop Offering Basic Phone Service In California
  4. Judge Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros Merger
  5. The Galaxy Card Is Samsung’s Answer To the Apple Card
  6. US Police Now Armed With Israeli Spy Vans Simulating Mobile Phone Towers
  7. Drinking 5 Cups of Coffee a Day Could Reduce Heart Risk
  8. Hackers Are Exploiting Recently Patched WordPress Bugs, Putting Millions of Websites at Risk
  9. New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones
  10. Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch
  11. China’s New AI Model Halts New Subscriptions As Demand Swamps Capacity
  12. Head of US Safety Agency Resigns
  13. AliExpress Hit With Record $625 Million Fine After Failing To Make EU-Ordered Fixes
  14. LG Monitors Silently Install Adware-Like App On Windows PCs
  15. Hacker Wipes Romania’s Entire Land Registry Database

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Canonical Launches Enterprise Store For Ubuntu Pro

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
BrianFagioli writes:
Canonical has launched the Enterprise Store as part of Ubuntu Pro, giving organizations a way to manage Ubuntu software distribution in restricted networks, behind firewalls, and in air gapped environments. The on premises proxy sits between devices and Canonical software stores, allowing companies to cache downloads, control software revisions, and manage snaps and charms without requiring every system to connect directly to the internet. The Enterprise Store is designed for organizations with strict security requirements, including regulated industries and environments where predictable software updates and audit controls are important.

Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement Over Pirated Books Used To Train Claude

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A federal judge has approved Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement over pirated books used to train its Claude chatbot, with authors and publishers set to receive about $3,000 per book. The case produced a mixed ruling for the AI industry: training on copyrighted books was found not to be illegal, but Anthropic’s use of pirated copies from shadow libraries was. The Associated Press reports:
District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers. About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was “the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”

So Claude doesn’t have to unlearn what it stole?

By schwit1 • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Proves the old adage that It’s cheaper to ask for forgiveness than permission.

AT&T Loses Key Ruling In Bid To Stop Offering Basic Phone Service In California

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A federal judge rejected AT&T’s request to temporarily block California rules requiring it to offer basic phone service to new customers in its wireline territory. AT&T wants to retire its copper-based phone network and stop service for nearly 200,000 California customers in 2027, but the state argues the company can meet its obligations with modern alternatives like fiber rather than abandoning Carrier of Last Resort requirements altogether. Ars Technica reports:
To win a preliminary injunction, AT&T had to show it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that California rules are preempted by a Federal Communications Commission order. US District Judge Linda Lopez denied AT&T’s request for a preliminary injunction during a motion hearing on Thursday, according to a docket entry. The case is in US District Court for the Southern District of California. […] AT&T could appeal Lopez’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and could appeal later if it loses the underlying case. But since it has not obtained the injunction it asked for, AT&T for now remains under California’s orders to keep offering phone service to potential customers while the case continues.

just becase…

By SumDog • Score: 3 Thread
If I lived in California, I’d be tempted to get a physical, copper landline to be one of those remaining 200,000, just to piss AT&T off.

Want monopoly powers, no responsibilities.

By Frobnicator • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

The laws are simple enough. The landline companies are given enormous public benefits, right-of-way access, monopoly access to customers, and more. They’re also told as a responsibility they must provide services to certain groups, a relatively small cost in comparison to the tremendous benefits.

They’re might quick to back out of the responsibilities when it has a tiny cost.

It would be interesting if the state were to counter-offer, yes they can cut off the few thousand customers, in exchange for being charged for every square inch of that is currently a free or low-cost easement for their cables, wires, boxes, conduits, poles, and towers, plus the adjacent ground cleared for them. And bills for billions of dollars in property repairs and damages done in the process, and an escrow account with funds to remove all the lines, conduits, poles, and towers when that eventual day comes.

Judge Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros Merger

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A federal judge has temporarily paused the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger after a 12-state coalition led by California argued the deal would violate antitrust law. The 14-day restraining order (PDF) preserves the status quo while the court considers a preliminary injunction, which could effectively determine whether the merger survives. Variety reports:
“Plaintiff States’ showing at least demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive relief,” the judge wrote, adding that Paramount has acknowledged it will not be harmed by the delay until the end of September. “Paramount and Warner Bros. will continue to operate as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they wait for the Court to adjudicate this case. The balance of equities, combined with the public’s vital interest in antitrust enforcement, therefore tips sharply in favor of the requested injunctive relief.”

The 12-state coalition, led by California, brought a motion for the temporary restraining order. The states are also seeking a preliminary injunction, which would block the merger until the judge rules on the merits of the states’ lawsuit. The 14-day restraining order could be extended to as long as 28 days. Martinez-Olguin, of the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California in Oakland, also set a hearing on the preliminary injunction for Aug. 3, though that date, too, could be delayed if the parties agree. Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, hailed the judge’s ruling as a “critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day.”
“History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans’ lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people,” Bonta said. “With our lawsuit, we’re fighting for a free and fair market and a thriving film and television industry that serves creatives and audiences alike. We have a full tank of gas, the law on our side, and look forward to continuing to make our case.”

Checks to SCOTUS and POTUS didn’t clear

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
I’m sure that they’ll get the bribes sorted out so the merger can proceed.

Meanwhile EA games is about to get hit with 20 billion dollars in debt from the Saudis buying it. Which I’m sure is just fine.

It sure would be nice if we had someone regulating the economy…

From the regulatory point of view…

By williamyf • Score: 3 Thread

… The WBD merger with Netflix had more chances of passing, because there was less overlap between both companies. Yes, there was overlap in streaming, but that was it.

Paramount not only has (again) overlap in streaming, but has also overlap in movie studios, TV production, Linear TV stations (both OtA and Cable), and a long myriad of other things big and small.

While is true that “The Ellinsons” had the go-ahead/simpathy of the executive branch (i.e. “Trump”), other powers in the USoA, as well as other important jusrisdictions (UK, EU)* were not soo keen on THAT merger. And let’s face it, neither company wants to combine if that means not being able to operate in the EU, or UK (or other important jurisdictions abroad).

Silver Lining for WBD, if the merger fails due to regulatory hurdles, Paramount has to pay WBD a 7 milliard break-up fee, which WBD can use to sustain themselves while they ponder their next move. Maybe try again with Netflix, or sell themselves to AppleTV, where regulatory hurdles would be less.

More than one

By rufey • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

There is another lawsuit filed in Delaware. This one is concerning possible “side” deals that were made that would enrich the current POTUS at the expense of shareholders. Has to do with corporate governance more than anything.

It was filed by The Public Integrity Project. More info here. Also an interview with one of the lawyers who filed the suit

The Galaxy Card Is Samsung’s Answer To the Apple Card

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired:
Nearly seven years after Apple debuted the Apple Card, Samsung is following the iPhone maker’s footsteps with the Galaxy Card, aiming for its own slice of the credit card market. The announcement comes two days before Samsung’s second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, where it’s expected to showcase new smartwatches and folding smartphones. The Galaxy Card is issued by Barclays on the Visa network; the Apple Card, originally issued by Goldman Sachs but now transitioning to Chase, is on the MasterCard network. There is a physical card — it’s not made of titanium but recycled steel.

The virtual card will be provisioned to a user’s Samsung Wallet account. With no annual fee, Samsung says cardmembers can earn 5 percent cash rewards on all in-store or online purchases made directly from Samsung in the US, 3 percent cash rewards on purchases made with the Galaxy Card using Samsung Wallet, 2 percent cash rewards on streaming service subscriptions, and 1 percent cash rewards on everything else with the physical card. The cash rewards can be redeemed as a statement credit or transferred to a checking or savings account. The annual percentage rate (APR) varies by cardmember, but the card has no foreign transaction fees. Other perks include a 20 percent discount on Samsung’s VIP Advantage membership, which offers extended device protection, specialized support, and exclusive deals, and $200 in cash rewards after spending $2,000 in the first 90 days.

Applications open up on July 22. The Samsung Wallet app is only available on Samsung smartphones and watches, so what happens if a consumer switches to a different smartphone brand? The company says Galaxy Card is not limited to Samsung device owners and that anyone can use the physical card, but you lose the key perks; the card can be managed through a BarclaysUS.com online portal. (Similarly, if an iPhone owner switches to Android, their physical Apple Card will still work, but they lose access to the Apple Wallet app and the 3 percent daily cash perk on Apple purchases; there’s a web portal to manage the account.)

Re:the sweet sweet middle man

By blackomegax • Score: 4, Informative Thread
The apple card is pretty great. Solid titanium “cool” card to whip out. An app with incredibly tight design and integration and spending awareness info. Never get anything like that from a bank..

US Police Now Armed With Israeli Spy Vans Simulating Mobile Phone Towers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an X post by Josh Walkos, author of the Substack We the Free:
If you thought Flock was bad check out Falconet. Falconet from Israeli company Cognyte serves as a cell tower simulator that intercepts cell phone data from all devices within range. Police mount these systems in Tahoes so the vehicles can collect information while driving through areas without any direct interaction with targets. This mobile approach generates ongoing records of phone locations and communications for everyone nearby rather than only suspects, which creates comprehensive movement profiles and bypasses traditional warrant requirements under the Fourth Amendment.

Cognyte sells the technology directly to U.S. agencies, as shown by the Texas Department of Public Safety purchase of four Tahoes where over three point eight million dollars went to the interception equipment. Adoption spreads through routine vehicle procurement with little external review of how the collected data is stored or shared. Once active the systems permit warrantless collection of private cell phone data across entire communities during normal patrols, which enables potential misuse and leaves individuals with no effective way to discover or contest the surveillance.

Re:Ummmm.....

By AleRunner • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

“bypasses traditional warrant requirements under the Fourth Amendment.” = VIOLATES the 4th Amendment. Bypassing The US Constitution to track Americans without a warrant, is a Constitutional Violation, and a CRIME.

Much more easily this would be a breach of wiretapping laws such as ECPA and would likely need a warrant to be legal, either under FISA or normal criminal law. No need to get into a complex constitutional case. It’s also not going to work if you switch off old mobile modes and lock your phone into LTE, 4G, 5G or greater modes of network use, a feature which is definitely available on the free phoneOSs like LineageOS and GrapheneOS.

Re:Ummmm.....

By gtall • Score: 5, Informative Thread

I think the alleged administration under la Presidenta has shown that laws can be conveniently ignored until some entity like the ACLU gets a court order. But that won’t stop them, they’ll find some comma out of place in the court order and interpret the law in a different way, and the ACLU will have to refile to get the crap stopped. Once stopped with a temporary injunction, the alleged administration will shop for a judge that will lift it. If the ACLU continues to get injunctions, eventually the alleged administration will get it in front of their paid for Nazis on the Supreme Court which will find in these extenuating circumstances that the alleged administration can ignore the 4th Amendment as if it never appeared in the Constitution.

Re:EFF Rayhunter

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

You mean ICE showing up to demand you delete the post that hurt their feelings? https://newrepublic.com/post/2…

Sounds like a blatant first amendment violation to me.

Re:lotta “excuses” here

By drinkypoo • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Israel was created to get Jews out of Europe.

Israel was proposed to get Jews out of Europe, but then the UK decided it didn’t want to run that ball in because (among other reasons) T.E. Lawrence convinced them it would lead to atrocity. The US is ok with atrocities (being founded on top of them) and went ahead and completed the touchdown and has been busy spiking the ball directly into Iran ever since. If you still think the US gives two shits about Europe after refusing to enter WWII until after Pearl Harbor, I really have no idea what to say to you about that.

Re:Stingray?

By nightflameauto • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Yeah, well, the U.S. are led by a bunch of criminals for quite a long time right now. “The System” seems to be unable to deal with that situation. If the midterms don’t bring even a smidge of change, I assume it’d be best to leave the country before it turns into a second North Korea…

What’s sad is that even if the Democrats get as much power as possible, they’ll use it to piss themselves into doing nothing in the name of healing the country or some bullshit. And with no consequences, it’ll just be one more election before the pendulum swings back this direction. We need consequences for the outright lawbreaking, constitution ignoring ignoramuses in charge now, but I don’t see it happening with our current round of available politicians.

Drinking 5 Cups of Coffee a Day Could Reduce Heart Risk

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A new American Heart Association scientific statement concludes that up to about 400 milligrams a day, or roughly three to five cups of plain coffee, is safe for most adults and may be linked to lower risks of cardiovascular disease. The benefits appear to depend heavily on the source and preparation, with coffee and tea looking more favorable than energy drinks, and added sugar, cream, syrups, or sweeteners potentially canceling out the upside. ScienceAlert reports:
“Caffeine consumed in coffee is a key part of daily life for millions of people,” says Gregory Marcus, cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and Chair of the AHA volunteer writing group behind the statement. “In our review of the most recent research, for most adults, intake of up to 400 milligrams of caffeine per day, the equivalent of up to five cups of caffeinated coffee per day without added sugars or fillers, is safe and does not increase cardiovascular risk.”

The statement focused on caffeine’s relationship with cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood pressure and diabetes, as well as types of cardiovascular disease, including arrhythmias, coronary artery disease, stroke, and heart failure. The picture that emerges is complicated, but generally positive. […] All up, the new AHA statement concludes that there’s a growing body of evidence that caffeine isn’t harmful when taken in moderation, and that coffee specifically may be beneficial.
The statement was published in the journal Circulation.

Old news

By codeButcher • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Here is a sample from the first page of /. search results for “cup coffee”.
* Drinking 5 Cups of Coffee a Day Could Reduce Heart Risk - 2026-07-21
* 2 To 3 Cups of Coffee a Day May Reduce Dementia Risk. But Not if It’s Decaf. - 2026-02-10
* Drinking Tea and Coffee Linked To Lower Risk of Head and Neck Cancer in Study - 2024-12-24
* Caffeine May Reduce Body Fat and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Study Suggests - 2023-03-15
* Drinking Several Cups of Coffee a Day May Be Linked To Longer Lifespan in Study - 2022-10-04
* Coffee Drinking Linked To Lower Mortality Risk, New Study Finds - 2022-06-02
* Tea and Coffee May Be Linked To Lower Risk of Stroke and Dementia, Study Finds - 2021-11-18
* Drinking Coffee May Cut Risk of Chronic Liver Disease, Study Suggests - 2021-06-22
* Could Drinking Coffee Lower Your Risk of Heart Failure? - 2021-02-21

Of course, gym rats have used coffee for a small energy boost before workouts, as well as a recovery drink after, for a couple of years now. Biohackers have drunk “butter coffee” aka “bulletproof coffee” for some years now for energy. (You have to know how different additions will affect your aims.) The general idea of course is to “stack” benefits from various practices: exercise, antioxidants, ketones, fasting, circadian rhythm/sleep, etc. etc.

Re:Exercising for 30 minutes every day

By AleRunner • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You can do both.

Re:“roughly three to five”

By AleRunner • Score: 5, Funny Thread

On this site we call it 4±1.

Never forget your error bars.

Re:Exercising for 30 minutes every day

By Mr. Dollar Ton • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Sure you can, but you only really need the exercise.

Re: Black coffee

By HnT • Score: 5, Informative Thread

You forget an important factor in roasting to charcoal level: it evaporates any origin-related differences to the point they can even vary between (more expensive) arabica and robusta freely AND thereby taking away literally all bargaining power the coffee farmers have.
Bending consumer tastes this way massively benefits Starbucks, and shows the very ugly and extremely colonial side of coffee.

Which is why third-wave coffee is generally a welcome change to see, and why we should consider buying from these small roasters more often. And their coffee beans taste WAY better, even without milk or sugar, and even when cooled down.

Hackers Are Exploiting Recently Patched WordPress Bugs, Putting Millions of Websites at Risk

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
Hackers are breaking into websites that run vulnerable versions of the popular blogging software WordPress, according to several cybersecurity firms. One estimate puts the number of vulnerable WordPress websites at tens of millions as of Monday. Last week, WordPress patched two critical security flaws, urging people who run its software on their websites to update it “immediately.” The vulnerabilities are so severe that WordPress enabled forced updates where possible. Since then, cybersecurity companies Patchstack, Hexastrike, and WatchTowr have all warned that hackers are exploiting the vulnerabilities in the wild, meaning they are taking over websites that are still running susceptible versions of WordPress.

It’s unclear how many WordPress-powered websites on the internet are at risk, but it’s possible to make some educated guesses. The vulnerable versions of WordPress are 6.9.0 through 6.9.4, and 7.0.0 to 7.0.1. According to WordPress’ official stats, there are more than 400 million websites that run those flawed versions, although these statistics likely don’t reflect websites that have recently been patched. Cybersecurity consultant Daniel Card, who told TechCrunch that he looked at a sample of around 3,500 WordPress websites, estimates that less than 15% are vulnerable. Applying Card’s projection across the total population of WordPress websites on the internet, the total figure would still be around 90 million. […] One of the critical WordPress bugs was found and reported by Adam Kues of cybersecurity firm Searchlight Cyber, which dubbed it WP2Shell. Paired with the other bug, hackers can take full remote control of vulnerable websites.

Get it managed

By TheMiddleRoad • Score: 4, Funny Thread
Somebody runs the updates and scans for hacks for me. Since then, no issues.

What?

By zmollusc • Score: 3 Thread

“Hackers Are Exploiting Recently Patched WordPress Bugs” ?
They must be pretty rubbish patches if hackers can still exploit the bugs.

Forgot who said it…

By jddj • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

WordPress: a remote root shell with a cool blogging feature.

And…I run it.

Already updated before I saw this.

WordPress again

By gweihir • Score: 3 Thread

This thing seems to have the most incompetent developers, ever.

Re:WP REST API

By _merlin • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Bugs in plug-ins and themes are a separate (and arguably bigger) issue. But for vulnerabilities in WordPress itself, the REST API is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s been a liability ever since it was added.

New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A draft New Orleans Police Department drone manual briefly published online would have allowed police drones to carry weapons with written approval from the superintendent, according to 404 Media. NOPD says the document was only an early draft and that its current policy (PDF) bans drones from carrying weapons or hazardous materials. 404 Media reports:
The current version, live as of July 1, has different language: “The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind,” referring to small Unmanned Aerial Systems, or drones. According to the NOPD, the operations manual it published to the internet with the rules for weaponized drones was an early draft. “The manual published on July 1 is the current published version of the policy. Earlier versions were draft versions that were presented for review before adoption of the current policy,” NOPD told 404 media. “NOPD has made it clear we are not and will not be equipping drones with weapons or other hazardous materials.”

NOPD didn’t answer follow-up questions about how or why the draft version of the manual was published. But the publication of a police drone manual that opens the door for weaponized quadcopters is important, and comes as drone companies and police flirt with the idea of putting weapons on their drones. New Orleans has long been a pioneer of camera and drone driven policing and the cops have used controversial tactics to get around public scrutiny and regulations. It shows that what the police are circulating amongst themselves and thinking about privately, what they perhaps want to happen, does not match public policy.

Quick, what’s the new excuse?

By fuzzyfuzzyfungus • Score: 3 Thread
What are we going to use to handwave all the ‘officer involved shootings’ now that the claim that you feared for your life in the face of an imminent threat is no longer plausible? We can’t really put these to work until we’ve decided on suitable legal cover!

Well

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Everyone flying your “don’t tread on me” flags, now is your time to speak up. Isn’t this in your purview?

hazardous materials

By awwshit • Score: 4, Funny Thread

> The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind

Well that eliminates a drone battery.

Re:Quick, what’s the new excuse?

By nightflameauto • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

What are we going to use to handwave all the ‘officer involved shootings’ now that the claim that you feared for your life in the face of an imminent threat is no longer plausible? We can’t really put these to work until we’ve decided on suitable legal cover!

The current federal excuse is that anyone that disagrees with the authorities on any level is to be labeled a terrorist. I’m assuming once these start mowing people down, all of those people will be labeled terrorists too. It does tend to shut down the critical thinking of anyone who might otherwise protest, with the added benefit that protesters are now also seen as domestic terrorists. HOORAY! WE’RE FINALLY ALL TERRORISTS!

Re:Well

By jenningsthecat • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Please stop misusing the term Fascist. That’s a political-economy, not “someone I disagree with”. Do they promote a totalitarian system of government where the government breaks down the economy by industry and directs production through a corporatist management system? If not, you’re using the word wrong.

Wikipedia says:
“Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum. What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.

Your implicit assumption that there is anything like consensus regarding the definition of Fascist is at best lame, and at worst disingenuous.

Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
sandbagger writes:
Fark.com is ancient in internet terms. It’s not social media. It’s not quite a news site. It’s a holdover from the dot-com era and is invisible to Google, which makes its community great but has necessitated begging.
"[W]e won’t survive this year without more TF subscribers,” wrote founder Drew Curtis in a post on Bluesky. “Spread the word.”

For the unfamiliar, Fark is one of the web’s OG community news sites that features a wonderfully weird mix of user-submitted links, absurd headlines, Photoshop contests and comment-section mayhem. It has also been featured numerous times on Slashdot over the decades, from a 2007 review of founder Drew Curtis’ book and a 2010 story about his skepticism of “the wisdom of crowds” to a full Slashdot interview with Curtis in 2015. For longtime readers of both sites, Fark feels like an old neighbor from an earlier, stranger and arguably more fun era of the internet.

Fark sucks

By DrMrLordX • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

N/t

so long, it’s been good to know ya

By spoot • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Yea. I once paid for totalfark. But as it slid into a political echo chamber, I got bored real quick. The fact that Drew posted his begging for dough on blue sky is telling. The whiskey must have saturated the servers beyond repair. Good riddance.

Lost me a long time ago.

By Revek • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
I was there for the beginning and in the end they went way overboard on the SJW. They started really looking forward to the smell of their own farts. Not to mention in the entire time they were having those fark parties they have never once came withing two hundred miles of me. So fuck you drew while you stew in problems of your own creation.

Re:so long, it’s been good to know ya

By Wolfling1 • Score: 4, Informative Thread
I terminated my TF subscription for the same reason. I may lean to the left, but Fark is a far left authoritarian echo chamber, and it manifests the most toxic characteristics of that political leaning. Its almost funny, as they’ve done more harm to the left than they’ll ever really understand. Perhaps its demise will actually be good for the world.

Re:so long, it’s been good to know ya

By He Who Has No Name • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

I have a Fark account that’s nearly 25 years old, including more than one submitted headline that made it to the pre-TF front page.

I don’t think I’ve even visited Fark in maybe 15 years. They got… how do I put this gently… *extremely* thought-police-y in a Orwellian-Kafka-esque way that straight up made my skin crawl. Later on what they were doing escaped containment and was known more widely as “woke”. They were one of the early zealot converts and, well, it didn’t work out very well for them long term.

So long and thanks for all the foobies, I guess.

China’s New AI Model Halts New Subscriptions As Demand Swamps Capacity

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Moonshot AI has temporarily paused new subscriptions for its Kimi K3 model after demand surged beyond the company’s current capacity within days of the launch. The open-source Chinese AI model, described as one of the largest of its kind at 2.8 trillion parameters, has rattled U.S. rivals by beating Anthropic’s Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests. The Associated Press reports:
“Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected,” Moonshot AI, which is Beijing-based, wrote in a X post late on Sunday. “Over the past 48 hours, demand has pushed close to the limits of our current capacity.” Moonshot said that it’s prioritizing existing subscribers and would be temporarily pausing new ones. “We’re adding capacity as fast as we can and will reopen new subscription spots in batches,” it added. The AI startup also posted a similar message on Chinese social media.

“New model releases generally trigger massive interest, which can strain existing compute infrastructure,” said Lian Jye Su, a chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia. “This does show Moonshot AI does not have sufficient compute chips to serve the current surge in demand.” Su said that the key reason was more likely due to Moonshot not fully anticipating the surge in K3’s popularity. K3 is “very demanding” in terms of compute requirements, he said, making compute allocation challenging and expensive.

Computational Demand

By silentbozo • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

The demand is real… whether they can scale the workload down to actually make money remains to be seen.

Long term there are major benefits to society if they can drive down the cost of energy, cooling, and computational infrastructure to support democratized access to LLMs and diffusion models without bankrupting providers.

In the meantime, I would just settle for a decent search engine that didn’t require me to go to page 3 of search results (and forcing me to verify that I’m a human for daring to click to page 2 of the search) to find a relevant link that wasn’t SEO spam. You’d think that a university agricultural reference for the public would be in the top rankings when searching for a specific variety of vegetable, but apparently today, that’s no longer the case.

#Metoo

By greytree • Score: 3, Funny Thread
I have also halted new subscriptions for my new AI model as demand swamps capacity(*).
.
.
.
(*) Zero.

What benefits to society?

By rsilvergun • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
The systems aren’t creative they’re just really really fancy search engines that regurgitate what they have ingested.

Best case scenario this is going to be a large increase in productivity in a society that already has problems with automation devouring jobs.

If China was actually communist I think that might be useful. Since they wouldn’t be dependent on jobs to distribute goods and services. But China is the furthest thing from communist.

That said I know the argument can be made that it’s basically impossible for any country to become communist as laid out by Karl Marx and that’s not a hill I want to die on. But we have been automating factory work and blue collar work non-stop since the eighties. Workers have lost a lot of leverage because of that and pay his gone down noticeably and measurably.

It’s all well and good to say we should embrace new technology but if we aren’t socially and economically and hell emotionally capable of that what then?

In a world where if you don’t work you don’t eat we keep eliminating jobs through automation. How is that going to be sustainable?

And if you’re going to tell me they’re going to be new jobs, be specific. Tell me exactly what those new jobs are going to be.. are we all going to be plumbers? Is it plumbers all the way down?

We have major social problems that I don’t think anyone has any solution to biting Us in the ass. And so far everybody’s solution seems to be the just pretend the problems don’t exist, stick their fingers in their ears and yell la la la at the top of their lungs.

Head of US Safety Agency Resigns

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Chris Fall has resigned as director of the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation just three months after being appointed to lead the Commerce Department’s federal AI testing institute. Arvind Raman, who oversees the Commerce office responsible for the institute, will serve temporarily in the role. “The Commerce Department did not provide a reason for Fall’s departure,” reports Reuters. From the report:
Fall’s exit marks the latest change in direction for Trump’s approach to AI. The president upon returning to office in 2025 said the federal government should take a hands-off approach to the tech sector. He has since taken a more active role in monitoring the technology, though his public statements and policies appear to change week by week.

The institute is responsible for working with leading AI labs such as Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind and OpenAI to test their unreleased models for vulnerabilities. The group is staffed by scientists and engineers, who are focused on calculating the “demonstrable risks” posed by advanced AI models, according to the institute’s website. They want to limit opportunities for U.S. adversaries to use AI to develop chemical or biological weapons, or corrupt the data used to train American AI models.

So…

By zurkeyon • Score: 3 Thread
His hands off approach of what is potentially the most dangerous technology since the Nuke, was wrong? Huh… Who knew? ;-D

Re:So…

By Plugh • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
More relevant, Commerce is run by Howard Lutnik, who BBC just implicated heavily about getting Epstein services and lying to Congress. And who unilaterally decided Anthropic (run by Dario who is Democrat and therefore an Enemy of the State) could not release Fable for weeks until they bent the knee. And who approved OpenAI ChatGPT5.6 saying they did not even need government approval. Because Sam Altman already bend the knee.

who do these fucks work for?

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

“The Commerce Department did not provide a reason for Fall’s departure,” reports Reuters.”

These assholes clearly don’t work for The People, or they would explain this shit. Who do they work for? Donnie Dipshit? Vlad?

I guess…

By nicolaiplum • Score: 3 Thread

… he was the Fall guy for the Administration?

I hate faux-careful reporting like this

By shilly • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

”though [Trump’s] public statements and policies [on AI] appear to change week by week”

They don’t appear to change. That would imply the policy is set as A. Then changes to B. Then to C. That is not what happens. It’s just the dodderings of an idiot who hasn’t the first fucking clue but thinks he has. It’s not policy and it’s not statements he makes. It’s drivel, no more and no less, and should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

AliExpress Hit With Record $625 Million Fine After Failing To Make EU-Ordered Fixes

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The European Commission has fined AliExpress more than $625 million, the largest penalty yet under the Digital Services Act, after finding that the marketplace failed to “diligently assess and mitigate risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products on its e-commerce platform.” EU officials said flagged products repeatedly reappeared, sellers could evade safeguards, and AliExpress’s recommendation and ad systems helped amplify dangerous goods. Ars Technica reports:
For shady sellers, the risks of detection appeared low. The e-commerce site’s mandatory brand authorization system was also ineffective and understaffed, the EC found, and AliExpress did not penalize traders for selling illegal products as its policy claims it would. Making things worse, AliExpress “inadequately assessed how its recommender and advertising systems exacerbate the spread of illegal products,” the EC said. So rather than remove illegal products, AliExpress was recommending them to consumers and helping to maximize exposure. Talking to the press, the European Union’s tech chief, Henna Virkkunen, noted that one in five Europeans shop monthly at retail sites like AliExpress, Temu, and Shein.

AliExpress also relied on a single quantitative metric to gauge how effectively its systems were working to weed out illegal products. And that metric did not properly measure the extent of the harm. EC testing found that “a high volume of illegal products” — including unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics — “continued to circulate despite AliExpress’ moderation efforts.” In June 2025, AliExpress was ordered to bring its platform into compliance with the DSA but failed to make the necessary changes, the EC said. The fine was calculated to be proportionate to the nature of the violations, which the EC considered “particularly serious infringements,” and to penalize AliExpress’s delayed interventions to mitigate flagged risks.

[…] AliExpress told Ars it was “surprised” by the “disproportionate” fine. AliExpress said it plans to appeal the decision, claiming the EC ignored its “sound risk management framework and the significant, proactive enhancements we have made.” The massive online retailer noted that its EU market is substantially smaller than its China market and said that it invests “substantial resources in risk assessment and mitigation, product safety and consumer protection” and “has been and continues to be committed to meeting our obligations to consumers.”

Re:Does EU has any authority over it?

By smooth wombat • Score: 5, Informative Thread

They do business in the EU. If you do business in a country, you are subject to their rules and regulations.

Re:Amazon

By dgatwood • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

AliExpress and Amazon are both cesspools, where thousands of sellers sell identical or nearly identical products under different brand names with different markup. And most of the products are trash.

Case in point, I bought a bunch of metric bolts and nuts at Amazon, and they wouldn’t screw onto each other. They would get to some random point and the nuts would stop turning. Sometimes it was half an inch up, sometimes it was two inches up, but the failure rate was something like 40% and I budgeted for 20%. I ended up buying a tap and die set and rethreading all the bolts. It actually would have been cheaper to buy the bolts in 5-packs from Lowe’s. (On the other hand, if it happens again, I don’t have to buy the tap and die set again, so I guess that’s a “win”.)

I’ve reached a point where about one in five Amazon products results in a return, because the quality is so poor, the descriptions are inadequate, etc. I buy enough stuff that they tolerate my return rate, but it’s a huge hassle that I wish I didn’t have to deal with. If I want a high risk of fixer-upper hardware, I’d rather buy from AliExpress for half the price and wait a week. :-/

Re:Does EU has any authority over it?

By Njovich • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

What is it with the legal fan-fiction about EU here in Slashdot where people think European laws are optionals. When US fines an EU company you never see these remarks.

Ali has subsidiaries in Europe, billions in revenue, data centers. How do you exactly see that play out that they decide not to pay a fine? They will just decide to give up on billions to save millions? And then nobody that works for Ali can enter Europe again? Is that your legal strategy?

Re:Does EU has any authority over it?

By Njovich • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

You’re right, but when was the last time the US fined an EU company? VW, for the diesel thing, was the last one I remember.

Are courts open today? If so, probably today. Most recent one to hit the news was Bosch, that last month got a 36M dollar fine.

In this size class, in the past few years you had large fines for Credit Suisse, SAP, Gunvor Group, Trafigura, Ericsson, UBS.

Of course the US likes to just fine entire continents and countries at once using illegal tariffs through executive orders. But that’s not quite the same thing as no court is involved there.

Re: Amazon

By Flu • Score: 4, Informative Thread
EU is currently investigating Amazon, too. I would expect them to be found liable, as well.

LG Monitors Silently Install Adware-Like App On Windows PCs

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VideoCardz reports that connecting certain LG monitors to Windows PCs can trigger Windows Update to automatically install the LG Monitor App Installer, which runs at startup and repeatedly displays McAfee trial promotions. From the report:
Gamers Nexus reproduced the behavior with an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B after receiving reports from monitor owners. Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appeared one minute later. The installation did not display a consent prompt or require the user to approve the download.

Gamers Nexus tested the application across 32 consecutive system boots. It displayed a McAfee promotion during 31 of them. On the remaining boot, it promoted one of LG’s own monitor utilities. The McAfee popup offered a 30-day trial that would convert into a paid subscription. The behavior does not appear to be limited to newly purchased displays. Gamers Nexus also received the popup on an LG UltraFine 32UN880-B purchased three years earlier. User complaints about LG Monitor App Installer date back to at least 2024, although the recent increase in reports suggests that more models may now be receiving it.

Crap like this

By Waffle Iron • Score: 5, Funny Thread

is why I’m sticking to just toggle switches and blinking lights.

Re: How to turn off these silent installs?

By JaredOfEuropa • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
People expect a driver to be just that: a driver, that provides whatever is needed to make full use of the device, and nothing else. Maybe MS ought to be a little bit more like Apple, set some strict policies, and police them.

Chris Titus fixed this

By RitchCraft • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Chris Titus just released a video addressing this issue. His tool now allows you to block this crap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

Re:How to turn off these silent installs?

By EvilSS • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Yep, unfortunately some companies just can’t help themselves and instead of sending down drivers and apps necessary to use the hardware, they are abusing it with their crapware. File under “This is why we can’t have nice things.” MS could police this but given their behavior, shouldn’t come as a surprise they don’t.

Re:Logitech

By unrtst • Score: 4, Informative Thread

382MB for my Razer mouse.

I don’t much care if it’s less than a gig though.

That’s ridiculous! WOW

$ du -h /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/hid/ | tail -n1 | awk '{print $1}'
4.7M

That covers all mice. The individual mice drivers sizes range from 13K - 277K.

I’m sure that 382MB Windows driver for your Razer mouse includes GUI utilities and such as well though. So here’s the corresponding utilities on Linux (Debian version):
openrazer-daemon : 560K installed size
openrazer-driver-dkms : 837K installed size
openrazer-meta : 37K installed size
python3-openrazer : 144K installed size

I thought 10-20MB would be bloated, but 382MB?!!? What are they packing in there? And is that just the download size, or the installed size?

Hacker Wipes Romania’s Entire Land Registry Database

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A hacker reportedly wiped Romania’s entire land registry database after a failed extortion attempt, halting property transactions across the country and preventing notaries from issuing land extracts, authenticating sales, or registering mortgages. “On the dark web, the hacker also boasted to have begun backup copies of stolen data in an attempt to prevent it from being restored,” reports Cybernews. “However, Romanian officials have managed to at least restore the ANCPI’s website and post a message saying they were rebuilding the agency’s entire network from scratch. It appears that the agency has an offline copy of the wiped data.” From the report:
First, the hacker breached Romania’s cadastre agency, the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising (ANCPI), posting on a hacking forum: "[RO] Thy arss shall be spanked, Romania! [ANCPI].” “In addition to the data of Romanian citizens, from various databases collected through ANCPI networks, there is also a copy of the GitLab servers containing the source code of all their systems, such as Eterra, RENNS, as well as a version of my little ransomware program,” the announcement continued.

“The official government website announced a shutdown of IT systems due to ‘technical problems,’ but this is a bit of an understatement. An offer of assistance was made, but without insistence or pressure.” Indeed, the ANCPI initially claimed technical issues but had to admit it was facing a cyberattack. Today, no one can really access the institution’s systems. And since the extortion didn’t work, the hacker — who seems to have entered the database using valid credentials — deleted all data they had stolen, including internal documents, employee credentials, and, of course, land registry data.

In the summary

By Himmy32 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

It appears that the agency has an offline copy of the wiped data.

heading towards a success story?

By drnb • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It appears that the agency has an offline copy of the wiped data.

Seems like this is heading towards a success story? Critical systems hacked and data lost. System rebuilt from scratch and data restored. Temporary service outage during rebuild/restore.

Yeah, preventing the intrusion would have been a better success story, but the above is also a success.

Re: In the summary

By getuid() • Score: 4, Informative Thread

They actually do.

The whole system used to be paper based until few years ago. My guess is they’ll be going back to the paper version for a few days/weeks.

But for obvious reasons, it’s more practical to repair the digital version and resume operations ASAP.

Re: In the summary

By tigersha • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

In South Africa’s capital the building that contained all the property data burned down about 10 years ago. Since that was not digitized yet is was and still is a major problem

I’m Romanian and this is BS

By rpetre • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
It was sheer incompetence from the authorities. Unpatched CVEs from 2021, wide open internal network, extremely poor admin passwords, the whole shebang. We’re lucky it was essentially a lone script kiddie that did a smash and grab looking for the AD (he’s allegedly Algerian and he’s been doing similar kinds of hacks before). If it truly were the Russians, they could have done MUCH, MUCH worse. From leaking the database and exposing hidden properties of various politicians, to silently modifying or corrupting data. Of course the authorities went through all the possible bad takes. From denying it even happened, to blaming shadow organizations (like your post does), to getting mad at the press for trying to contact the hacker. Now they are pivoting into “after all no sensitive data was lost and we’re migrating it to new infra so no harm no foul”.