Dose of Paranoia - 2025-08-09
It gets worse before it gets worse...
Important Stuff
Wow - it takes a lot to look as stupid as the US these days - at least here, unlike in the UK, people who demonstrate in support of the Palestinians being targeted for genocide by Israel can’t be (legally) arrested just for showing up. Apparently. because the organization behind the peaceful protest was declared a “terrorist organization,” attendees with placards referring to the group could face 14 years in prison. The UK seems to be on a bad decisions roll this week, also implementing a new age verification requirement for “adult content” that will make its citizens more prone to identity theft while most definitely not “protecting the children.” It is so refreshing (and a bit disappointing) to see a country other than the US (and Israel) doing so much to “own goal” itself in such a short time. And I feel a bit patriotic dumping on someone else’s country instead of my own for a change. Thanks, guys! (Of course, the shitbags in DC are taking notes…)
And also (of course), the incredible stupidity of Trump voters keeps contributing to the Golden Age - improving our aircraft industry and lowering prices for us all. Thanks, guys - fuck you very much.
Infosec/Scam Stuff
Paying the piper for security - If you are using the free version of Dashlane password manager, you are gonna have to pay up starting in mid September. I don’t see anything wrong with this - a password manager is a good investment in your online security and software companies need to pay their bills. I personally use BitWarden ($10 a year for the family plan) and recommend it. My other recommended security investment for Paranoid Prose readers is NextDNS - for $20 a year, they provide you with blocking of malware, advertising, and phishing sites on your phone, tablet, smart TVs, and computers as well as parental controls for the kiddos. Both of these solutions will work for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android devices. I don’t get any kickbacks from these folks - I just think they provide good protection and have used them myself for years.
AI opens a whole new world - for attackers - As AI gets baked into more and more products (whether we like/need it or not), it provides attackers with new ways to steal information or even take control of smart home devices. Researchers were able to embed hidden instructions into Google Calendar invites which were then processed by Google’s Gemini AI and resulted in unwanted actions being taken by smart devices. And another AI enabled hack allowed the attacker (fortunately a researcher in this case) to steal confidential information from a Google Drive account via a feature in ChatGPT which connects Chat-GPT to your (or corporate) documents “for productivity.” These “prompt injection” attacks give attackers a whole new way to hack systems without knowing how to code and open up a whole new category of risks for unsuspecting users.
Clanker companions - or cult leaders - A recent study of how Americans use chatbots noted that teens are using them for “companionship.” Hmmmm. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have run stories this week about AI chatbots seem to reinforce delusions and lead vulnerable people down some dangerous rabbit holes. Yet on the other hand, there are also stories of AI chatbots providing engagement and companionship to isolated and elderly people. This feels like a subject that urgently needs rigorous, structured, scientific study - but I guess we will have to rely on studies outside of America for this, now that the Mad King of America has decided that all government grants will need political appointee approval.
Tech Stuff
Chat-GPT 5 is out and it is… there - OpenAI’s rollout of its new version of Chat-GPT has not gone well. For it’s first day, it insisted that the word blueberry has three letter bs in it. They fixed that. And the demo they were so proud of contained some suspiciously AI looking charts that made no sense. And the initial test results from some safety researchers were… not so good. All of this from a product that “puts the expertise of PhDs in many fields at everyone’s fingertips.” Please, I beg you, do not rely on Chat-GPT as a search tool or to make any decisions that have any impact on anything more important than which socks you wear today. Yes, LLMs are good at certain very specific tasks, but they are being sold as these magical knowledge machines for the general public which they are most certainly not. And much of the research into the safety of AI has been suppressed - and when research does get published, the news is not good - even when the research is being done by the AI firms themselves.
Miscellany
A lesson about what to do with fascists from someone who fought them last time around. This man is my hero!
In spite of what the regime and the media want you to think, the crime stats for 2024 were lower than any time since the 1960s. Of course, Americans think exactly the opposite.
Apparently, Denmark has decided that letters are just so… twentieth century. Wonder how long this will take to end up here in the US…
And here is something to watch and listen to while you do your mysterious and important work in Macro Data Refinining.
Another reason to save our avian friends - for data storage.
A final thought - I am a firm believer in luck’s role in our life - being in the right place at the right time (and born in the right place at the right time), meeting the right people, and encountering (and taking) the right opportunities plays a huge role in how life turns out. This is one of the sources of inequality in our society - we are not all equally positioned to access this type of luck - but there are some things we can do as individuals to try and access more of that luck - here is an interesting piece about that. While this is definitely not a solution to the systemic inequality in society, I think it is a worthwhile read, especially for the people in your life who are starting on their journey.