> You can't make it illegal. The first amendment protects it.
I'm not a legal expert but the first amendment doesn't generally give the right to secretly record people, especially in places where there are already laws about hidden cameras, recording, privacy, etc.
It's not about the shape as much as the intention and execution.
Perhpas they were talking about blasting music in public spaces.
In which case, the First Amendment still probably wouldn't apply, unless we're talking about laws against specific musical content, since content-neutral restrictictions on public speech are broadly legal.
> people are listening full blast to their phones with no headphones - I find this about 100x more obnoxious than filming
Two very different concerns. One is annoying in that very moment and has no lasting consequences. The other can have all kinds of consequences depending on what was secretly recorded, and where that recording was used.
I wonder when we will move onto harder tasks -- I remember around 2007 people were using Crysis (also a first-person shooter) as a test of new computers as when it was released hardly any computer could run it without turning down all the settings. These days I'd expect most (although not all) low end hardware could run that well.
Must have been on the first attempts, right? As the name suggests, a meme (mimesis) is about imitation but also propagation at scale, otherwise everything would be a meme. The first attempts count as original. Once it gets traction others could very well be genuine technical achievements but in an "also ran" format.
It's like a series where every episode follows the exact same blueprint with very minor changes to the details. It doesn't get old from the first couple of episodes, but it sure does in a few more.
And I was thinking exactly of the "Doom on pregnancy test" example myself but that's worse than average. If my memory serves me, that was a case of using just the plastic shell of a pregnancy test and replacing all the hardware.
This line suggests the units themselves were targeted individually with a hack:
> Danfoss said the affected cold units were older models whose security software could not be updated to ward off a risk they had identified.
But the problem with networked devices spread across tens of thousands of pretty much unguarded locations, surrounded by unvetted employees, but taking orders form a central location is that there is no such thing as "not online". They'll talk to the management server used to set up the nightly defrost schedules across the fleet. Even if they are in an isolated VLAN, it's always one step away from someone connecting a Pi to that network and off they go online. There's only so much zero-trust, NAC/802.1x and segmentation can do when some devices will be too old to support these and their network will be the entry point to the management server, then to the whole fleet.
I'm honestly very surprised that a couple of things things haven't happened yet: the central server for managing these fleets getting hacked and allowing access to the entire fleet, and/or the companies realizing that the only way to limit the reach of an attack is to physically not have the hardware needed to do remote control.
So this is how it was done 25 years ago: Only the used ports (ethernet jacks) on a network is activate, disconnecting a device and the port closes. That strictly speaking doesn't mean that there aren't way to get devices on the network, but it does make it a lot harder. You're absolutely correct about these networks being in hostile environments, but why then do we pretend that they are not? Fridges like these have never not been in a hostile environment, so why aren't basic security measures taken to secure the physical side of things?
In my world the central server can be hack in two ways, that is by a malicious operator or via some scheme like the US/Israeli attack on Irans uranium centrifuges. The central server also have no business being online, that to is on a closed network, running the whitelisted applications from the manufacturer.
This is how it was done in this [0] very nice 60 years old (I'm sad now) movie. [Spoiler alert] An alarm is triggered so many times the guards just disable it. Alert fatigue has worked the same forever. Nobody wants to check the thousands of false alarms that probably happen every day across thousands of locations.
As long a schedule is conceived in one place and applied in another, even with human intervention on both sides, either one of the sides can be swindled. At this point with the bar for a successful hack being lower than ever, completely removing the hardware necessary to make remote changes is probably the only way to limit the blast radius.
Maybe allowing to send the schedule but requiring a local employee to operate a local hardware only control to apply it could work, but who has the money for this kind of complexity. Something like this on every freezer (device, really) in a fleet probably costs multiples of the money they lost with the spoiled food.
> When was the last time you changed the temperature setting on your fridge or freezer?
Then again when was the last time you opened your freezer hundreds of times during one day, letting humid air in and building ice at an accelerated rate? These units actively heat up the back of the freezer (evaporator plate) nightly to quickly melt the ice without warming up the food.
There is no reason to directly trigger it remotely but they probably work on a customizable schedule, to account for different store opening times, timezones, or freezer size and model. The hackers could target that schedule to make the defrost last longer.
You're right, a commercial freezer is a different beast than a household one. But what good does it really do anyone to be able to adjust that defrost schedule remotely? Surely the personnel on site are the ones best equipped to schedule the defrost cycles of their equipment?
Within a store certain freezers get more traffic than others, depending on how they're stocked, where they're located, etc, and therefore likely require more frequent defrosting. But that's something the store managers can figure out. It doesn't need to be managed remotely by some third party. So why did someone engineer that capability?
More features, generally, means more failure modes. More ways to exploit the system. Adding fringe features that aren't actually necessary (or desired) has become a strange industrial compulsion. It's very unhealthy and disordered behavior from an engineering standpoint--sacrificing reliability and simplicity for... what exactly? Some centralized control capability? But why?
That's like saying the store manager should manage the store website and networks instead of the chain's IT department.
No grocery store manager is going to be a licensed refrigeration technician. Ask them if they know about basic refrigeration concepts like superheat and subcooling, high side and low side pressures, compressor oils...
Further, a grocery store wants to optimize efficiency down to the percent, because that will save tens of millions of dollars over the fleet, and CO2 emissions. A store manager hardly has the capability.
You're confusing specialized refrigeration maintenance (which, at least in the US requires EPA certification) with general end user operations tasks. It is the store manager's job to know how to operate, optimize, and take basic care of their equipment. Just like it's an excavator operator's job to know how to check the fluids and grease the machine. They don't need to rebuild the engine or do specialized maintenance like lineboring, but they are responsible for basic care of the machinery.
To be clear I don't think the defrost schedule is the way the hackers enabled this or else every device would be affected. The older devices probably connect to the SaaS server in an insecure way and could be exploited en-masse.
> Surely the personnel on site are the ones best equipped to schedule the defrost cycles of their equipment?
The purpose of the automation is the same as always, to run at peak effectiveness and reduce human error. Most of the workers in this industry much like the fast food one, are low paid, low skill, receiving only basic training, with a high turnover rate, across tens of thousands of locations from major cities to somewhere in the sticks. Even a disgruntled employee can do a lot of damage that's only obvious too late. So this extra work is taken out of their hands. You should really see a lot of the machines the big fast food chains use, you'd be amazed.
This kind of decision was never left to the store manager. In the past they'd get a printout and probably fail to follow the instructions occasionally, which may or may not cause damage or increases operating costs across the entire fleet. Now it's done over the network like everything else, for better or worse.
> Adding fringe features that aren't actually necessary (or desired) has become a strange industrial compulsion.
> More features, generally, means more failure modes.
Here's the kicker, they are necessary and desired by the customer and the failure scenarios were almost definitely factored into their calculations. I know you had a solid 5-10 minutes of though on the topic but for supermarket chains that's how they manage to operate cheaper, that's how they don't increase the cost of the food.
And normally I'd agree (more) with you but the small scale of the hack makes me think they've done a decent job at securing them so far. Spending more on people and security to avoid any hack (right?), or losing efficiency over tens of thousands of locations costs more than the spoiled food.
I'd be fascinated to know how much impact on TCO remote control actually has. There's definitely an economy of scale argument, if you can make tens of thousands of devices a couple percent more efficient that has a real impact, but does the remote control capability actually move the needle that much?
There isn't a complex real time control scenario here.. Obviously defrosting too much wastes energy, so you'll want to get that one right. But does having centralized control over that really make a difference at scale? Does having centralized control over temperature set-point make any difference?
From the basic physics of the process it's hard to imagine real time remote control being a decisive factor in efficiency.
> I know you had a solid 5-10 minutes of though on the topic but for supermarket chains that's how they manage to operate cheaper, that's how they don't increase the cost of the food.
I mean.. maybe? But nothing you wrote actually demonstrates that.
[edit] I guess if it's not about efficiency but instead a trust issue then it makes more sense from a marketing standpoint. But generally remote control isn't a great way to work around untrusted operators with physical access. They could just prop a door open or slice the seal if they wanted to..
Angry people are more likely to want to make themselves heard. But Windows' problem isn't technical, like performance, stability, compatibility, etc. It's actually great in some of those aspects. The problem is that Microsoft is working hard to shovel shit on top of what could be a great OS. That shit is the part aimed at extracting more from users for MS' benefit. That's not what an OS is supposed to be, certainly not a paid one.
> I’m stating that the Windows problem was very different. [...] They were all trials.
Except it isn't and they weren't. MS Windows never came with trials, it came with shortcuts. OEMs bundled with their Windows image more of their (crap) full software than trials.
And to this day debloating tools are tasked with removing full MS bundled (or auto installed) software like Teams, Outlook, DevHome, Copilot, M365, Recall, etc. So exactly the same problem as Apple Intelligence. Whether you consider it useful is up to you. Whether it's bundled is up to Apple.
Fair point. It was OEMs. But that’s normally how you got windows. I don’t use windows much these days so I have no idea what the modern annoyances are.
The answer is staring you in the face but I'm not surprised you never bothered even to scratch the surface. The ICC doesn't replace national courts. Actually it encourages them to do their job. But sometimes the national courts can't settle it. For example the biggest point of an international court is that they should be able to settle international disputes. Get it? Inter-national. That's when the two parties are different countries, each with their own elected representatives and their own judges to decide in each country's favor. So what do you do then? You go to an international body which has no intrinsic bias or conflict of interest, ideally.
I see how you're trying to twist this into an act of "sovereignty" but not signing up is usually a sign that the respective country is a common perpetrator of exactly the type of crime the ICC would convict (war crimes, genocide, that type of thing). And wouldn't you know it, just check out the list ;).
ICC is trying to get the elected officials in Israel on trial for enacting a defensive policy they think is vital for the country, and overwhelmingly supported by their public.
Good company, eh? The US, Israel, terrorist organization Hamas. That's what you're saying right?
You know you hit rock bottom when your defense is saying "the terrorist organization also does it". But I have full confidence in you that you will manage to dig yourself even deeper.
I'm sure Israel would love to have the Swiss as their neighbors but it's Hamas they're dealing with. And it's not a "terrorist organization", in Gaza it is a government that commits terror. The ministry of education or health in Gaza are Hamas. The police are Hamas. The tax collectors are Hamas.
Israel should have the Swiss for their neighbors but they decided to ethnically cleanse and colonize Palestine instead of creating Israel in Europe where it belongs. Palestinians are fighting for their lives and their land, Israel is fighting to ethnically cleanse the indigenous people off the land they've been living on continuously for thousands of years.
Since we can't wind the clock back 8 decades and Israel exists now and has Hamas as neighbour we actually need to engage with the reality. Instead of tacitly arguing that the nuclear armed state established because it's citizens were persecuted for centuries needs to dissolve itself and go back to Europe. Also over half the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East.
Do you think both sides should accept (and we in the West aggressively incentivise) a two state deal and get on with it, or do you think the Palestinians should fight on to get the whole of Palestine back?
We actually can wind the clock back 8 decades. I think you’ll find a lot of support for this inevitability in the US. I support a single Palestinian state.
Do you see how you’re arguing based on “centuries of persecution” (not by the Palestinians) but the Palestinians aren’t even offered 80 years of consideration? This blatant and illogical framing is what is being rejected by post-internet generations.
Why this arbitrary timeframe of “8 decades”? Why not 6 (to Jordanian and Egyotian control of West Bank and Gaza) or 9 (to British control) or 11 (Ottoman - Turkish - control) or 300 (Jewish control)?
Israel was NOT created through ethnic cleansing. It was a declared a state first, and only then attacked by the Arabs in Palestine and around it, which led to whatever narrative of history you wish to accept. But at the time of the Nakba Israel was already a done deal, legally speaking.
Now, one must ask what would have happened to the Jews in Palestine had they lost that war...
1. Around half of Israelis are not from Europe, but from Arab countries (Sephardic). Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria etc.
2. Jews have always lived on this land, for as long as history is recorded. Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem have had continuous Jewish presence for thousands of years.
3. The land belonged to the British mandate and before to the Ottomans, never a self-governing Palestinian group (which are just Arabs).
4. Palestinians are not fighting for their lives and land; that has been offered many times before, starting in the 1930s with various plans, then with the British partition plan, then many other times culminating in Oslo accords and later in the Gaza disengagement. They could have had one state, two states, autonomy, whatever they wanted. They refused all of those, because their STATED goal is to completely and thoroughly remove Jews from that land, which is considered holy to Islam (Al Aqsa mosque is built on the ruins of the Jewish temple mount).
Now when Islam came into being, around the sixth century, Jews were a few thousand years old already. So think about this when you try to attribute the land to this group or that.
Palestinians were cleansed off their indigenous land via the Nakba and Zionist aggression since then. I never said all Jews in Palestine are Ashkenazi, I said Israel, the European colony, should be in Europe. Ashkenazis have no genetic ties to Palestine:
The State of Palestine is. Hamas is more like a political party, so your question is like asking if the Conservative Party is a member of the ICC, it makes no sense.
Being a political party and not a state, Hamas cannot enter into treaties, no more than the local chess club can enter into a treaty. Depending on the political processes of Palestine (of which I have no idea) it might be able to withdraw The State of Palestine from the Rome Statute, but it hasn't done that so far.
> “An Interdisciplinary Synthesis Across Economics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Game Theory, and Spiritual Tradition.”
If one were inclined, they could shorten the title to "AI Synthesis Across Economics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Game Theory, and Spiritual Tradition." Maybe that's an Easter egg.
AI submissions, soon AI reviewers, and shortly after only AI readers.
The guy's name is "nosloP" spelled backwards. Maybe spelled normally it's supposed to signify the opposite.
> AI submissions, soon AI reviewers, and shortly after only AI readers
This is already happening. Write code with an AI agent, agent creates PR, other agents review, coding agent iterates, PR gets merged, and hopefully real humans use the application and provide feedback
The latter step is also now staring to be replaced by AI (user directs agent to access app, get data, perform actions)
At least code has some sort of validation mechanism. The tests can pass or fail. The prod system can crash or not. There are plenty of limits here that make fully automated code deployment dangerous but it is still meaningfully different from text meant to communicate an idea.
I filed a PR with bytedance for an AI vision project. The PR was written by AI, 4x reviewed by the github AI, and fixed by my AI. The PR review was by a Bytedance AI bot, and it looked pretty good. Let's see what my AI will answer today.
As much as I’m confident this reasercher is just a skinsuit for a slop machine I don’t exactly trust pangram. I’ve apparently been flagged for possible AI slop comments based on Pangram results before.
Oddly it seems to have happened on longer posts? Don’t know if that may play a part.
That the name in no slop backwards is too wild to be real, but it's a real person.
I mean it's everywhere now. I complained already at my workplace multiple times, we get huge Claude generated documents, which people then ask Claude to summarize. I don't mind some of it in principle but people are too lazy now to input all the details so you get a bunch of fantasies that were explicitly ruled out already. It's tiring.
I went to a "town hall" at my company last friday, the slides were all obviously AI-generated, the text was too, without anybody proofreading it.
How do i know? Because i doubt "Access&Identity will help us push forward the productivity of all collaborators" was what the team responsible for the prompt wanted to say.
I'm not a legal expert but the first amendment doesn't generally give the right to secretly record people, especially in places where there are already laws about hidden cameras, recording, privacy, etc.
It's not about the shape as much as the intention and execution.
reply