AI slop isn't dead!
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This is by no means a new article (June 2026), but this lengthy paper details a reimagining of the case against AI intellectual property theft as unfair business practice rather than strict copyright infringement. Along the way, it's a stellar review of US copyright caselaw.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6999539
The gist is that, similar to how one news agency can't just rip off another's reporting, AI constitutes an unfair free-riding off of creators' work. That isn't strictly about copyright, and IMO it's a strong argument unto itself.
RE: https://mstdn.social/@amydiehl/117091079295104127
Fellow dudes in tech, this is not only something we need to read and re-read and integrate more deeply into shaping tech, this is something we need to boost and socialize among our circles.
“This file is automatically generated by [filename], do not manually edit”
Okay, so where’s [filename]
… … this IS [filename] :neodog_0_0:
There are now shops that specialize in drilling out the Meta glasses LED so it still appears functional but provides no warning.
Odin was begging me for chicken, so I showed him a piece and told him to lie down (it's his least favorite command because he associates it with getting detangled)
But, he was already flush up against the edge of the furniture to lean in as close to me as possible
He kept bumping his chest and aborting the attempt to lie down, giving me this look like "Mother. I am trying. Mother. Why have you set this impossible task for me. There is no possible way I could ever lie down. There is an Object here. Mother, this is cruel"
(I gave it to him after he at least got his head down a bit)
@ra6bit On the defense side, I don't see how it's any different than when nerds started hucking db_autopwn at broadcast once they had access. Yes the attackers can scale up, but the mitigations should be the same. Until we see anything novel from an LLM, I'm not concerned about it.
I know that's not the popular opinion but it's the only one that makes sense to me.
I got to test @othermod's PSPi v6. It is a Pi retrofit for the iconic Sony PSP, and it's perfectly integrated—even down to a functional WiFi switch!
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmPTgMoZUI
RE: https://infosec.exchange/@jessica_lyons/117094184984878259
My biggest agentic AI fear is that critical infrastructure will start using it. But I'm also not an expert so maybe that explains it.
New from 404 Media: Meta just published a patent showing what it might use for its AI smart glasses. Patent is to use facial recognition to identify specific people, record them, make a highlight reel of your night. Example given is clips from a dinner party.
Well, I'm one week in to my experiment in switching my main web browser driver from Chrome to Firefox, after Google rolled out the final nail in the extension manifest v2 coffin. You know, because things like uMatrix are too dangerous for anybody to use.
I originally switched to Chrome as I was impressed by some of the anti-exploit stuff they were doing, and it seemed to be the direction that everybody else was going. But in hindsight now, I can only conclude that I continued to use Chrome due partly to some form of Stockholm Syndrome.
v2 stuff aside, my Chrome annoyances included:
Chrome history is excluded from Time Machine Backups for reasons I can't really fathom. If I restore my machine from backup, why on earth would I want Chrome to not have any record of websites I've visited?
Long conversations in ChatGPT are slow and make Chrome go unresponsive
Regardless of which "Copy as plain text" extension I used, if I copy any text normally and then follow up with a "Copy as plain text" copy, I always get the rich text. If I want to copy as plain text, I need to re-select new text for the ability to copy it as plain text.
All of the above (including support for extensions like uMatrix) are not a problem with Firefox. You can even import your old rules that Chrome refuses to let you see anymore if you like.
The downsides I've noticed over the period of a week:
Google maps zooming is less fluid than with Chrome. But I'll also note that Safari also has this problem, so I suspect that Maps is doing some Chrome-only magic to make it work nice.
Anyway, that's it. As with anything, use <product> that fits your needs. For me, it's Firefox. And before anybody chimes in with a "Why not use <whatever>Fox?", I'll have to say that there's a certain leap of faith required to run any fork of <big_thing>. I barely trust Google/Apple/Mozilla/etc., so to put faith in a fork of their code that's maintained by who-knows-whom, who will definitely not run into hard times where they want some extra cash... well, that's optimistic. 😂
In einer Woche 40.000 Stimmen für ein Verbot von Spanner-Brillen??? Ich dachte das wäre schon verboten, egal ob mit Brille, Handy, Fernglas oder KI
https://weact.campact.de/petitions/wir-sind-kein-content-spannerbrillen-verbieten
I spent the past few days going down various fascinating rabbit holes using a nifty new service called Decryptads.com, which scrapes a metric ton of adtech data from websites and apps about who they allow to collect data and serve ads.
A search in DecryptAds for the hugely popular sports network espn.com, e.g. reveals 143 ad partners and 19 registered data broker domains are listed within its ads.txt and app-ads.txt files. That data broker information is gradually becoming available because four states — California, Oregon, Texas and Vermont — have recently passed laws requiring data brokers to register if they buy or sell data on consumers from those states. DecryptAds reports that almost half of those data brokers are collecting geolocation data from espn.com visitors who aren’t blocking ads, while another three disclose that they collect device fingerprints and sensitive personal information.
DecryptAds also makes it easy to learn the beneficiaries and national origins of the advertising firms lurking in apps and websites, displaying a conspicuous warning when adtech partners of an app or website are based in “geo-risk” areas like China and Russia, or in countries with strong financial and political ties to both — such as Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
According to DecryptAds, espn.com works with four different advertising entities that are based in either Russia, China or the UAE, including the adtech firm Between Digital, which lists a New York address. However, the dossier on Between Digital flags them as a Russian firm, showing that their publisher offers (PDF) are processed through Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private commercial bank and one of several financial institutions placed under U.S. sanctions in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.
A search for several top U.S. military news websites — including armytimes.com, airforcetimes.com, defensenews.com, navytimes.com, marinecorpstimes.com and federaltimes.com — shows they all allow Between Digital to serve ads and track users, as well as two entities in the UAE and another in the ownership secrecy haven of Panama. DecryptAds reports that Between Digital is collecting ad data on approximately 55,000 partner websites.
This service is a gold mine for security researchers, journalists and anyone interested in privacy, adtech, AI slop sites, residential proxies, malvertising, etc. Want to read more? Check out today's story:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/whos-tracking-you-use-this-new-service-to-find-out/
That word "vault" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Vault Secrets Operator 1.3.0 up to 1.4.1 is vulnerable to an arbitrary file read and credential exfiltration issue in the AppRole authentication configuration that may allow a tenant with limited Kubernetes RBAC permissions to read files from the operator pod’s filesystem and transmit their contents to a tenant-controlled endpoint, potentially leading to privilege escalation within the cluster.
Boosts
"LLM-generated patches did not resolve the vulnerability, added a new vulnerability, or both, an average 53.9% of the time."
👁️👄👁️
1password.com/blog/why-ai-...
Whether it is Meta AI glasses used to harass & covertly film women, Apple AirTags used to track women, Meta algorithms that push sexist ads, Grok AI tools that nudify women's images, tech companies continue to create harassment by design instead of privacy by design.
https://www.irishtimes.com/technology/2026/08/13/women-continue-to-bear-the-brunt-of-bad-tech-decisions/
🇪🇺🇮🇪This is why we don't use cats to herd sheep ...
Fridays are bin lorry days. And here it comes.
Ethics aside, we can clearly no longer deny the utility of necromancy. Perhaps a year ago, when the pathetic shambling of the animated dead so often made a hollow mockery of our arts. But now! Incantations that once took weeks of toil can be wrested from their tormented souls in mere minutes!
Without the awesome power of the newly dead coursing through our veins, how are we to solve the great problems of our age, like the mysterious disappearance of so many of our elderly and sick friends, or the festering piles of rotten flesh that now clog our streets and homes?
If you still have qualms about using the large soul providers, you can always obtain your own local, free range specimens, although of course they won’t obey quite as faithfully as ones from the leading charnel houses.
Honestly, do you want to be left behind?
Over one in four people in Clacton would rather have Count Binface as their MP than the leader of Reform UK. 100x more votes than he got against Andy Burnham. 👍🏼
Farage was so scared of being photoed next to a 🗑️ he didn't even turn up for the count results. Count Binface had his say though ⬇️
This was published 114 years ago Today
"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be my main achievement in life, I think.
so, (barely) reading between the lines of what Twitch's staff said:
1) they were forced by Amazon to add the AI training setting and to make it opt-out, because the overlords know perfectly well there's no reason anyone would ever opt-in
2) the actual Twitch staff who run Twitch do not like this and are of the same mind about it as all of you
3) Taking the time to opt-out, even if you don't really stream, gives them data to take to meetings with their overlords to prove that Twitch users dislike AI and pushing it too hard will drive people from the site.
Settings > Security and Privacy > Training for Generative AI
I don't get the argument that public institutions "have to be where people are". Why?
Pornhub has about the same amount of monthly active users as X. No one thinks our EU commissioners or the Swedish parliament must be on Pornhub.
In the pre-socials era no one expected the prime minister to make his statements in the gossip press "because that's where people are".
I think its time to dismiss that "where people are" argument altogether. No one will listen to me, but still 😐. #plus1
Ich möchte keine Livestreams zu Waldbränden. Ich will Medien, die Zusammenhänge herstellen und faktenbasiert Konsequenzen fordern.
Ich will eine Bundesregierung, die etwas gegen die sich verschärfende Klimakatastrophe unternimmt. Ich will Landesregierungen, die sie darin unterstützen und Kommunen, die sie dazu antreiben.
Ich will eine Politik, die unsere Lebensgrundlage sichert, statt sie zu zerstören.
