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The Daily Beast: Encrypted Phone Company Was Secretly Commandeered by FBI to Track Criminals' GPS Data
by jim bell 06 Jan '22

06 Jan '22

The Daily Beast: Encrypted Phone Company Was Secretly Commandeered by FBI to Track Criminals' GPS Data. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-secretly-harvested-criminals-gps-data-usi… "An undercover FBI operation that gained backdoor access to the encrypted phones of suspected criminals across the world also allowed the agency to collect information on users’ locations, according to a new report by VICE. Harvested from Anom, a phone service used largely by criminals, the GPS data was then passed on by the FBI to other authorities. One document obtained by VICE purported to show the location of an alleged drug trafficker’s phone, recorded when the person sent a message across the Anom platform. The outlet reported that it was not possible to disable location services, and that users would not have known that their GPS data was being collected. The FBI declined to comment to VICE. It was previously reported that the efforts of the agency’s joint sting operation, also involving Australian law enforcement and Europol, had recorded the messages sent by Anom users. The operation has so far led to hundreds of arrests globally.

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Surveillance-states money
by professor rat 06 Jan '22

06 Jan '22

With pandemics offsets may be sought for associated loss of human and civil rights. Surveillance state money is another matter entirely. Because this new technology is so pervasive and so threatening in the hand of genocidal state terrorists the only offset in this case is totally liquidation of all earthly powers. As it happens this is the anarchists minimum program so - welcome to the revolution!

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New Law Will Install Kill Switches In All New Cars
by jim bell 06 Jan '22

06 Jan '22

New Law Will Install Kill Switches In All New Cars https://autos.yahoo.com/law-install-kill-switches-cars-170000930.html "Once again, drivers get screwed by politicians in DC… Back in 1998, sci-fi TV series The X-Files aired an episode called “Kill Switch” about an AI gone rogue. Told when the internet was still accessed by most using dial-up modems, it was a fascinating tale of technology run amuck, a message about not handing too much of your life over to the digital world. While it might also seem like a sci-fi tale, soon enough the United States federal government could force automakers to install kill switches authorities can access and use to shut down any newer vehicle." End of quote. Jim Bell's comment: Now, I wonder which idiot will criticize me for posting this, perhaps saying I'm 'posting Pentagon propaganda', or claiming I am 'advocating' this technology.

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[spam][crazy] Diagnosing an Explosive Failure
by k 06 Jan '22

06 Jan '22

# build vmem-wip of mimalloc git clone https://github.com/xloem/mimalloc mkdir mimalloc/build cd mimalloc/build cmake .. make -j cd ../.. # use it to build pytorch git clone https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch cd pytorch LD_PRELOAD=../../mimalloc/build/libmimalloc.so VMEM_PREFIX=vmem python3 setup.py build I've tried the above just about two or three times on a raspberry pi running ubuntu 64. When I do, a SIGKILL is sent ijmmediately to all running processes. My PTYs close. GDM restarts its session. Quite surprising that a software bug run by a non-root user would cause that. I'm still presently pretty inhibited around root-process and live-kernel debugging, so my approach would be to narrow down the build process and the code executed using manual bisection of source lines. The likely culprit is the addition of libseccomp to the code, as a stop-gap to prevent the use of fork() corrupting memory: + // disable fork and clone, which would write to the same vmem file + void * fctx = seccomp_init(SCMP_ACT_ALLOW); + if (fctx) { + seccomp_rule_add(fctx, SCMP_ACT_ERRNO(ENOMEM), SCMP_SYS(fork), 0); + seccomp_rule_add(fctx, SCMP_ACT_ERRNO(ENOMEM), SCMP_SYS(clone), 0); + seccomp_load(fctx); + seccomp_release(fctx); + } I'm not sure if the disabling of clone() is actually needed as well, I just saw somewhere they were similar similar calls. The explosive error doesn't happen on the small test case I wrote. Only on the large build. I may not debug this immediately as I have other things going on today, but it seemed pleasant I guess to add it to the list. It's not often you encounter a software bug that resets your entire system interface.

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Repurposing a Familiar Drug for COVID-19 | Harvard Medical School
by jim bell 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/repurposing-familiar-drug-covid-19 Disulfiram "This article is part of Harvard Medical School’s continuing coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education, and policy related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the disease COVID-19. "For the past year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to engulf the globe, fueled in part by novel variants and the uneven distribution of vaccines. Every day, hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases and thousands of new deaths are still being reported worldwide, creating a need for drugs that can combat the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. "Now, new research led by investigators at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital points to a well-known and widely available drug called disulfiram (marketed as Antabuse) as a possible treatment for COVID-19 "In the retrospective study, published Oct. 28 in PLOS ONE, patients taking disulfiram for alcoholism were less likely to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, and those who did get infected were less likely to die from COVID-19 than those not taking the drug. "The researchers caution that since the study was observational, it cannot establish a cause-and-effect link between disulfiram and disease development. However, they say, the results are encouraging enough to warrant further study and clinical testing. "The precise mechanism of the drug against SARS-CoV-2 is not yet known, but researchers have hypothesized that it may prevent the virus from taking hold by interfering with an enzyme it requires to replicate. "Additionally, disulfiram may blunt the symptoms of severe COVID-19 by inhibiting a protein involved in hyperinflammation. If disulfiram’s effect against SARS-CoV-2 is confirmed, it could become a useful tool against the virus. A pandemic pivot "In spring 2020, SARS-CoV-2 was rapidly spreading across the world, and it was quickly becoming apparent that the most severe—and deadly—symptoms of COVID-19 are caused by an intense inflammatory response to the virus.

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Two common compounds show effectiveness against COVID-19 virus in early testing | UF Health, University of Florida Health
by jim bell 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

https://m.ufhealth.org/news/2021/two-common-compounds-show-effectiveness-ag… "Diphenhydramine and Lactoferrin against COVID-19. "A pair of over-the-counter compounds has been found in preliminary tests to inhibit the virus that causes COVID-19, University of Florida Health researchers have found. "The combination includes diphenhydramine, an antihistamine used for allergy symptoms. When paired with lactoferrin, a protein found in cow and human milk, the compounds were found to hinder the SARS-CoV-2 virus during tests in monkey cells and human lung cells. "The findings by David A. Ostrov, Ph.D., an immunologist and associate professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine and his colleagues, are published in the journal Pathogens. “We found out why certain drugs are active against the virus that causes COVID-19. Then, we found an antiviral combination that can be effective, economical and has a long history of safety,” Ostrov said. "Due to his earlier research with colleagues at UF, Ostrov already knew diphenhydramine was potentially effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The latest discovery has its roots in a routine meeting of scientists with the Global Virus Network’s COVID-19 task force. One researcher presented unpublished data on federally approved compounds that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 activity, including lactoferrin. "Like diphenhydramine, lactoferrin is available without a prescription. Ostrov thought about pairing it with diphenhydramine and ran with the idea. In lab tests on human and monkey cells, the combination was particularly potent: Individually, the two compounds each inhibited SARS-CoV-2 virus replication by about 30%. Together, they reduced virus replication by 99%. "The findings, Ostrov said, are a first step in developing a formulation that could be used to accelerate COVID-19 recovery. It also raises the prospect of further study through an academic-corporate partnership for human clinical trials focused on COVID-19 prevention. Additional research into the compounds’ effectiveness for COVID-19 prevention is already underway in mouse models. "To establish their findings, the research team focused on proteins expressed in human cells known as sigma receptors. In COVID-19 cases, the virus “hijacks” stress-response machinery, including sigma receptors, in order to replicate in the body. Interfering with that signaling appears to be the key to inhibiting the virus’s potency. “We now know the detailed mechanism of how certain drugs inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Ostrov said. "Data from the experiments show that a highly specific sigma receptor binding drug candidate (with pain relieving properties), and formulated combinations of over-the-counter products (such as diphenhydramine and lactoferrin) have the potential to inhibit virus infection and decrease recovery time from COVID-19, the researchers concluded. "While the findings are encouraging, Ostrov cautions against self-medicating with either diphenhydramine or lactoferrin as a COVID-19 prevention or treatment. The type of lactoferrin used in the research differs slightly from the type that is commonly available to consumers, he noted. Lactoferrin is commonly used as a supplement to treat stomach and intestinal ulcers, among other uses. "Scientists from UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, College of Pharmacy and Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency collaborated on the research. Media contact: Ken Garcia at kdgarcia(a)ufl.edu or 352-265-9408 Learn more about UF Health's efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic at Coronavirus.UFHealth.org. About the Author Doug Bennett Science Writer, Editor Doug Bennett joined the UF Health staff in January 2015 as a science writer and editor. His topic areas include anatomy; biochemistry and molecular biology; molecular genetics and microbiology; pathology,...Read More

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[imagegen][ot][wrongish] RU outdid OpenAI, Research community stepping up
by k 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

Automated Image Generation "Everybody" knows that current neural networks can make any photorealistic image you want. But access to this is not universal. OpenAI made Dall-E some time ago: https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/ Their big hallmark was an "armchair in the shape of an avocado". If you look at their examples with some experience, it looks kinda like they trained for a subset of what's possible, maybe to stimulate competing research. This means they needed fewer resources to produce only the images they demonstrate. That stagnated for a while. People made public approaches such as vqgan and diffusion, mostly (but not all) using a model called CLIP that was released by OpenAI and has significant limitations that can be worked around. Here's a recent one of these developments: https://github.com/openai/glide-text2im . Many of these were aided by work by Katherine Crowson with EleutherAI, and a good community-cooperated result of them is maybe https://github.com/pixray/pixray . A community attempt to replicate Dall-E itself sprang up eventually, and their work was eventually made mainstream, but wasn't very powerful when I last looked: https://github.com/borisdayma/dalle-mini . It's quite inspiring to see the hard work from random peeps, and I know they are still training their model to be better. All of sudden, Russia comes in and releases a public model that at a biased glance looks like somebody just threw a goldmine at it. The encouraged way to use it is to visit a site in russian with javascript and captchas: https://huggingface.co/sberbank-ai/rudalle-Malevich Meanwhile, researchers have finally gotten on board with training networks, as can be see by the new research image model that is being trained live right now as we speak: https://huggingface.co/training-transformers-together/dalle-demo-v1

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Steve Jobs Meets Andrew Cuomo, Linda Lacewell - APPLE CARD SCANDLE
by Gunnar Larson 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

What would Steve Jobs stand for? Dear Mr. Tim Cook: Bank.org invites Apple to radically innovate Apple Card. Goldman Sachs has a history of poor ethical stewardship, at the global level. Similarly, New York's former Governor Andrew Cuomo and NY-DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell is now world famous for women's rights (you know the story). On March 23, 2021, Lacewell published NY-DFS' Findings on Apple Card and its. Underwriter Goldman Sachs Bank. Mr. Cook, former Superintendent of NY-DFS, Ms. Linda Lacewell's stone faced propaganda assured that Apple Card did not discriminate against women, while under Goldman Sachs management. Ms. Lacewell said <https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202103231> , “The report also notes that the use of credit scoring in its current form and laws and regulations barring discrimination in lending are in need of strengthening and modernization to improve access to credit. Consumer frustration with the Apple Card policy of not permitting an account holder to add an authorized user drew attention to the following: a person who relies on a spouse's access to credit, and only accesses those accounts as an authorized user, may incorrectly believe they have the same credit profile as the spouse. This is one part of a broader discussion we must have about equal credit access.” xNY.io recently collated 61 highlights to the Report on Apple Card Investigation from March 2021: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xH16OKyuXzB-MVqIznMWDE9w8RRdmZCw/view?usp=… . Mr. Cook, the Apple Card investigation was to assess women's access to equitable finance. March 2021 also saw New York State Attorney General Letitia James' formal green light to launch an independent investigation into sexual harassment allegations < https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/second-woman-accuses-gov-andrew-cuomo-of-sexu… > lodged against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Lacewell's legacy is authoring reports disparaging women. As such, the integrity of the Apple Card investigation must be rationally considered as flawed. Likewise, Goldman Sach has a history of unethical posturing on matters specific to women and girls (via global regulatory arbitrage structures). Mr. Cook, Peter Oppenheimer is Apple's former CFO and in 2014 joined Goldman Sachs' board of directors and serves on key committees such as Audit (Chair), Governance, Risk. There is no logical reason for Apple to trust the Apple Card report and your former CFO is well aware of the legacy of Goldman's unethical antics and regulatory arbitrage frameworks that take advantage of the world's most vulnerable populations. Mr. Cook, at the very least, it is now clear the former superintendent is famous for publishing reports that disperage women. Salacious as this may sound, all this is true and we cannot ignore the facts of the matter. What would Steve Jobs say? Apple Card can innovate the market globally. Mr. Cook, Apple Card should consider moving to Bank.org to make history. This is a smart pivot for you. We invite Apple to join Bank.org as we build the World's Best Bank. Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar Larson Dear Mr. Tim Cook: Bank.org invites Apple to radically innovate Apple Card. Goldman Sachs has a history of poor ethical stewardship, at the global level. Similarly, New York's former Governor Andrew Cuomo and NY-DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell are now world famous for women's rights (you know the story). On March 23, 2021, Lacewell published NY-DFS' Findings on Apple Card and its. Underwriter Goldman Sachs Bank. Mr. Cook, former Superintendent of NY-DFS, Ms. Linda Lacewell's stone faced propaganda assured that Apple Card did not discriminate against women, while under Goldman Sachs management. Ms. Lacewell said <https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202103231> , “The report also notes that the use of credit scoring in its current form and laws and regulations barring discrimination in lending are in need of strengthening and modernization to improve access to credit. Consumer frustration with the Apple Card policy of not permitting an account holder to add an authorized user drew attention to the following: a person who relies on a spouse's access to credit, and only accesses those accounts as an authorized user, may incorrectly believe they have the same credit profile as the spouse. This is one part of a broader discussion we must have about equal credit access.” xNY.io recently collated 61 highlights to the Report on Apple Card Investigation from March 2021: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xH16OKyuXzB-MVqIznMWDE9w8RRdmZCw/view?usp=… . Mr. Cook, the Apple Card investigation was to assess women's access to equitable finance. March 2021 also saw New York State Attorney General Letitia James' formal green light to launch an independent investigation into sexual harassment allegations < https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/second-woman-accuses-gov-andrew-cuomo-of-sexu… > lodged against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Lacewell's legacy is authoring reports disparaging women. As such, the integrity of the Apple Card investigation must be rationally considered as flawed. Likewise, Goldman Sach has a history of unethical posturing on matters specific to women and girls (via global regulatory arbitrage structures). Mr. Cook, Peter Oppenheimer is Apple's former CFO and in 2014 joined Goldman Sachs' board of directors and serves on key committees such as Audit (Chair), Governance, Risk. There is no logical reason for Apple to trust the Apple Card report and your former CFO is well aware of the legacy of Goldman's unethical antics and regulatory arbitrage frameworks that take advantage of the world's most vulnerable populations. Mr. Cook, at the very least, it is now clear the former superintendent is famous for publishing reports that disperage women. Salacious as this may sound, all this is true and we cannot ignore the facts of the matter. What would Steve Jobs say? Apple Card can innovate the market globally. Mr. Cook, Apple Card should consider moving to Bank.org to make history. This is a smart pivot for you. We invite Apple to join Bank.org as we build the World's Best Bank. Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar Larson -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xny.io/> | Bank.org <http://bank.org/>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

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Executive’s 1953 prediction for the future goes viral for haunting accuracy
by jim bell 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/telephone-company-executi…

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Report: Chinese company attacks US researchers for exposing its role in spying, human rights abuses | American Military News
by jim bell 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/01/report-chinese-company-attacks-us-… "In a scrambled effort to prevent the U.S. from banning its products, a Chinese surveillance company is lashing out at the American company that exposed its involvement in mass surveillance of minorities in China." "According to a letter sent last year and obtained by Axios this week, China’s surveillance giant Hikvision requested that congressional ethics officials investigate Pennsylvania-based company IPVM – described as “the world’s leading video surveillance information source” — for alleged lobbying disclosure violations. "

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