CISA and allied governments are warning users to secure their routers as Russian state-backed hackers continue compromising the devices and turning them into proxy nodes to disguise attacks against critical infrastructure. The advisory urges users to disable outdated SNMP versions, use strong passwords, update firmware, and turn off unnecessary router services to reduce the risk of being swept into these botnets. Ars Technica reports: "Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 16 cyber actors continue to exploit poorly configured and vulnerable networking devices worldwide, opportunistically compromising multiple critical infrastructure sector networks," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Monday. The hacking groups are tracked under various names, including Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, Crouching Yeti, Dragonfly, Ghost Blizzard, and Static Tundra. The advisory was co-issued by governments from around the world, including Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, and the UK.

The primary means of compromise the agency warned about was hackers scanning IP ranges with active Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agents that accept common or default authentication credentials. These scans are run by the very sorts of router botnets the actors are trying to enroll the targeted device in. By sending malicious traffic from spoofed addresses, the hackers can use the SNMP agent on poorly configured routers to run malware. SNMP allows users to collect and organize information about managed networking devices or to modify that information to change device behavior.

With control of a device, the hackers then use it as an exit node when probing or attacking targets in the communications, defense, energy, financial services, and government sectors. By funneling the malicious traffic through a benign-appearing device on a trustworthy IP address, the attackers are able to lower the chances of getting blocked by firewalls and other security defenses. Monday's advisory made no mention of identical operations carried out in recent years by China. So-called residential proxies are also a go-to tool used by financially motivated criminal hackers to obscure their true IP address. In many cases, these sorts of proxies are made up of millions of streaming devices that are sold with preloaded malware.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/2139254/us-government-warns-that-russia-state-hackers-are-coming-after-your-router?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

German textile firm ZEGO has filed for insolvency and is blaming a March cyberattack that shut down production for nearly six weeks. "ZEGO's filing adds another name to the short but growing list of companies that say a digital break-in was commercially fatal to their business," reports The Register. From the report: In a notice to customers and suppliers, the organization said it had exhausted every available option before seeking insolvency protection. Managing director Johannes Zenglein described the filing as "one of the most difficult steps in our company's 37-year history." "The cyberattack of March 29, 2026, however, impacted our company to an extent that we could not fully compensate for despite our best efforts," Zenglein wrote. "The consequences resulted in a production outage of nearly six weeks and significant financial strain. These effects ultimately impacted our financial situation so severely that filing for insolvency became necessary."

ZEGO did not disclose what kind of attack it suffered, whether ransomware was involved, who was behind it, or whether customer or employee data was compromised. What it has made clear is that the operational disruption alone was enough to push the business beyond the point of recovery. ZEGO said insolvency proceedings have now been initiated, but insisted the filing does not necessarily spell the end of the business. It said it plans to keep production running while administrators attempt to restructure the business, preserve jobs, and keep customers and suppliers on board.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/2111209/german-firm-files-for-insolvency-after-cybercriminals-shut-down-production-for-6-weeks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A coalition of 12 states led by California is suing to block the $111 billion Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. merger, arguing it would reduce competition in theatrical distribution, blockbuster films, and basic cable licensing. The challenge (PDF) defies the DOJ's approval of the deal. Variety reports: The coalition, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, alleges that the $111 billion transaction violates the Clayton Act by lessening competition in three distinct markets: wide-release theatrical distribution, "top-grossing" theatrical distribution, and basic cable licensing. "The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.," Bonta said in a statement on Monday.

The suit argues that the combined company will control 27% of the wide-release theatrical distribution market, 30% of the submarket comprising "anticipated blockbuster films," and 27% of the basic cable bundle. The states argue that such consolidation will harm theaters and cable and satellite providers that rely on competition among distributors. Paramount and Warner Bros. are two of the five remaining legacy studios. Together, all five -- including Disney, Sony and Universal -- control 86% of theatrical distribution and 90% of blockbuster distribution, the states said. Warner Bros. and Paramount are also the second- and third-largest basic cable distributors, respectively.

[...] The states are expected to seek an injunction to block the transaction, which Paramount expects to close sometime after July 22. The 12 states in the coalition are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. [...] All are represented by Democratic attorneys general. "Consolidation here not only leads to higher prices -- it also leads to fewer opportunities for important stories to come to life, and fewer ways for audiences to encounter stories, ideas, and perspectives beyond their own experiences," Bonta said. "In this country, no one is above the law. With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets. America has no kings in government or our economy."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/1740256/states-sue-to-block-paramount-warner-bros-merger-defying-doj?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Apple agreed to use Intel's U.S. chipmaking plants after White House officials pressured Tim Cook during tariff-relief talks last summer. MacRumors reports: In August 2025, Apple CEO Tim Cook was in Washington to lobby the Trump administration to drop its proposed 100 percent tariff on semiconductor imports -- a levy that would have raised costs across Apple's product line. Apple reportedly secured an exemption after pledging to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S., although many of those investments were already planned. During the meetings, president Trump and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick are said to have urged Cook to use Intel's fabrication plants to make some of Apple's chips. The link between the tariff talks and the Apple-Intel deal had not been previously reported.

Almost a year later, Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that Apple would begin using Intel-made chips in some products. "We need to design and build our Chips right here in America," the president posted. The news sent Intel shares to record highs. According to a person familiar with the negotiations cited by the WSJ, Apple plans to have Intel make chips for both Mac laptops and iPhones. The report doesn't say which chips or in what volume, and Apple is expected to remain reliant on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, for the majority of its custom silicon.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/1732247/apple-reportedly-agreed-to-intel-chips-to-avoid-white-house-tariffs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

America "is facing what's projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history," according to experts interviewed by the Washington Post:

Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech. It "could hobble the American economy for years to come," predicts the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Lightcast, a labor market data company, calls it "the largest labor shortage the country has ever seen." JPMorgan Chase warns of a national security risk from "a pervasive talent deficit that constrains the nation's capacity to build, compete, and protect its interests." There will be shortages in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction worker and airplane mechanics — jobs AI generally can't do...

Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance. "We have pumped so many young people into business and finance" when what's really in demand are graduates in other fields, [said Ron Hetrick, Lightcast's principal economist]. "It's like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, 'We really don't need them.' And the factory just keeps pumping them out." But the principal reason for the looming workforce shortages is much more basic. A protracted decline in birth rates is coinciding with a record wave of retirements, data shows.

From 2024 to 2032, when the last baby boomers sign up for Social Security payments, more than 18 million college-educated workers will leave the labor force while fewer than 14 million enter it, according to the Georgetown center. Meanwhile, even as the number of people with associate and bachelor's degrees falls, the number of jobs requiring them will grow, the center forecasts. That will leave a gap of 4.6 million workers. Lightcast puts the deficit at an even higher 6 million... The effect of population shifts on the supply of talent, with or without degrees, has been compounded by a drop in the proportion of high school graduates choosing to go to college, a sharply reduced rate of immigration, and a growing number of Americans leaving the workforce altogether because of such issues as lack of child care, early retirement, incarceration and substance addiction, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Three interesting statistics from the article:

U.S. college/university enrollment in 2023 was down by nearly 2 million students since its peak in 2010, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Education Department.
America's low birth rate since 2010 "means the number of college-age Americans is forecast to decline by another 13 percent through 2041."
South Dakota has just 41 workers for every 100 open jobs... while California and nine other states have more workers than jobs, the Chamber of Commerce found.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0443258/america-may-soon-be-facing-largest-labor-shortage-in-its-history?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики GNOME OS, дистрибутива для разработчиков и тестировщиков GNOME, представили инициативу по созданию инструментария для упрощения тестирования экспериментальных версий программ в дистрибутивах, распространяемых в форме атомарно обновляемых монолитных системных образов. Развиваемый инструментарий GNOME OS Developer Tool Suite позволит собирать, распространять и тестировать расширения к дистрибутивам, поставляемым в форме системных образов. Инструментарий даст возможность разработчикам и тестировщикам изменять части системы и тестировать вносимые изменения, не нарушая при этом монолитность системного образа, не используя изолированные от системы контейнеры и не отключая механизмы обеспечения безопасности.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65897

BrianFagioli writes: Cloudflare has launched Precursor, a new behavioral bot detection system that monitors mouse movement, typing cadence, scrolling, clipboard activity, page visibility, and other signals across an entire browsing session. The system is designed to catch advanced bots that can run JavaScript, use real browsers, and pass traditional CAPTCHA challenges. Cloudflare says Precursor does not record actual keystrokes and instead studies timing and rhythm. The company also says the data is not tied to user identities or persistent profiles. Even so, software that watches how people move and type throughout a visit raises privacy concerns, especially as Cloudflare claims bots now generate roughly 57 percent of all Internet requests.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/1645252/cloudflare-precursor-watches-your-mouse-and-keyboard-to-decide-if-you-are-human?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The European Union is considering major new restrictions on children's access to social media, including age limits, phased access, and an outright ban. "This is not about whether children can access social media," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "It is about when social media can access our children." The Verge reports: Social media platforms could also be forced to prove their services are not harmful before young people are allowed to use them. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc's executive arm could propose new legislation within months, after reviewing recommendations from a panel of experts released today.

The panel recommended using a phased approach, including "no screens at all" for children under 3, supervised internet use for those under 13, and some limits for older teens. It also said social media platforms should have to prove their services are safe to younger users, an approach von der Leyen said she supports. Von der Leyen said the Commission will consider the report and return with proposals "after the summer." Any legislation would still need approval from the European Parliament and the EU's 27 member countries before becoming law across the bloc.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/1638208/social-media-limits-are-coming-for-teens-across-europe?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A new Incogni survey suggests Americans are pulling back from social media, with more than half saying "maintaining an online presence feels like work" and 55% reporting they post less than they did five years ago. "The full study concludes that there's been a significant shift in public attitudes toward social media," reports PCMag. "Where it was once fun and relaxing, it's now growing dark and angsty..." From the report: As the chart shows, there's also a clear correlation with age. A full 60% of Gen Z respondents feel the pain of maintaining a social presence. Perhaps they have a niggling hope that they might still be discovered as an influencer? Those of us in the Boomer category are clearly more relaxed about it, with just 38% saying that maintaining a social presence feels like work. The survey quizzed respondents about how they feel when they don't keep up with checking their socials and, by extension, how they'd feel if they just plain quit. They were given choices, both positive (peace, relaxation, and relief) and negative (anxiety, fear of missing out, and discomfort).

Overall, positive reactions held slightly greater sway, with an average of about 21% compared with 19% for negative reactions. The Gen Y contingent accentuated that split, with 25% positive and 21% negative, while Gen X went even further, with 20% positive and just 13% negative. But the Gen Z group flipped the results, identifying 27% negative and 26% positive reactions to going without social media.

There's another force pushing folks away from the socials: increasing politicization. Of the survey's respondents, 44% agreed that political content is driving people away from social media, and only 20% disagreed. Among Gen Z respondents, the impetus was stronger: 48% agreed, and just 13% disagreed. These negative feelings associated with politics only serve to highlight the positive reactions to deleting your social media.

Are you posting less on social media than you did five years ago, and are you being more selective about who can see what you post? Then you're with the majority. More than half of the respondents answered yes to each of those questions. But would you ever parlay fewer posts into no posts (aka quit posting entirely)? When asked what it would take to finally get them to terminate a social media account, a die-hard group of one in six respondents said there's nothing that could make them quit. But more than half could picture quitting due to security concerns, and almost half accepted the possibility that harassment or hate speech could send them packing. Others cited the amount of time wasted on scrolling through social media and the mental health threats of doomscrolling.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0548235/why-55-of-americans-stopped-posting-on-social-media?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A state-owned newspaper in China recently published a satellite image of a data center in Gainesville, Va., writing in English that the development of artificial intelligence posed a threat to Americans' physical and financial well-being. A comic strip made to look as if it had been published by a Maryland news outlet -- created with OpenAI's ChatGPT by people in China, the tech company said -- circulated on X this year, blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills. It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash. A video shared on X by a known covert Russian influence operation questioned the viability of a data center that an American company, Firebird, is constructing in Armenia, the small Caucasus nation that has been a focus of Kremlin pressure. "The country's electrical grid instability may render it useless," the video's narrator says.

All are examples of a push by foreign adversaries to seize on what polls have shown is deep ambivalence -- verging at times on hostility -- about the spread of the data centers needed to power A.I. in the United States and elsewhere. China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have sought to use state media outlets to turn the controversy over data centers in the United States into "a domestic fracture point," according to a new analysis by Alethea, a threat intelligence company, which identified scores of articles and posts on social media this year. These campaigns, whose impact on public opinion remains to be seen, have raised alarms in Washington, where A.I. is seen as a top issue heading into this year's midterm elections.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0530223/china-russia-and-others-seek-to-inflame-debate-over-ai-data-centers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Сразу во 2-м и 3-м чтении 8.07.2026 был принят очень важный для целой отрасли закон. Закон носит рамочный характер и предполагает, что правительство выпустит массу подзаконных актов, регулирующих отдельные технические и правовые вопросы. Закон, в случае одобрения Советом Федерации и Президентом РФ, вступит в действие в основном уже с 1 сентября 2026 г., хотя полностью все положения заработают с 1 марта 2027 г. В ситуации уже состоявшегося внедрения моделей, там где потребуется применение только национальных или суверенных моделей, их можно будет продолжать использовать до 1 сентября 2032 г.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/ai/18337915#cut0 ) )

"Git and email are the two really only tools I use," Linus Torvalds said at Open Source Summit India 2026. But ZDNet reports that he also shared his thoughts on Rust, C, and patch-checking tools:

"I use Google as a way to look things up." He added, "I'm unusual; most of the other maintainers end up using many more tools, and I think a lot of them are starting to use AI tools for patch checking," while he "works at a higher level. I work with people, not tools."

When asked about Rust both in Git and the kernel, he pushed back against hype: "I'm not sure Rust is going to take over the world. I still think Rust is very interesting, [but] I still find C to be a much simpler tool." Torvalds continued, "I'm much more excited about all the tools we have for verification of C," including "automated patch verification tools" and "automated email checking tools for patches like Sashiko." Summing up, Torvalds told the Mumbai audience: "I'm more of a hack-and-slash kind of person, and I still like the raw and simple power of C, and I don't think that's going to change."

Torvalds also warned against overestimating Rust's benefits: "Rust fixes a few easy bugs that you can make in C, but it does not fix the logic errors, right? It does not think for you, and when you write incorrect code, the language does not matter. The end result will be incorrect." On mixed C/Rust code bases, he pointed out that guarantees are limited: "The guarantees that Rust give you only apply in the Rust-only parts of your code base, and wherever you interact with C code, all bets are off," with most Rust code in Linux talking to "core kernel C code" that is "much better quality... because that code has been tested in every single environment."

At the same time, Torvalds pointed out, "some of our big and more high-profile bugs in the kernel lately have been logic errors" rather than the kind of memory errors Rust prevents.

"It was just bad programming, which sadly happens even in carefully maintained subsystems and important kernels that are supposed to be very secure."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/2126243/linus-torvalds-on-rust-c-bugs-and-ai-patch-checking-tools?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После пяти месяцев разработки опубликован выпуск проекта IncidentRelay 1.1, развивающего открытую систему для организации дежурств, маршрутизации оповещений и сопровождения инцидентов, запускаемую на собственном сервере (self-hosted). IncidentRelay 1.1 отмечен как первый стабильный выпуск (ветка 1.0 имела статус бета-версии). Проект ориентирован на SRE, DevOps и инфраструктурные команды, которым требуется локально разворачиваемая альтернатива SaaS-сервисам для управления дежурством (on-call management), применения политик эскалации и реагирования на инциденты. Код проекта написан на Python и распространяется под лицензией MIT.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65895

Организация The Document Foundation объявила о начале бета-тестирования офисного пакета LibreOffice 26.8. Готовые установочные пакеты подготовлены для различных дистрибутивов Linux, Windows и macOS. Релиз состоится 18-20 августа.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65894

"Japan's experimental reusable rocket took off and safely landed in a first test flight Saturday," reports the Associated Press, as Japan "seeks to achieve the technology key to cut launch costs and compete in the global space market dominated by SpaceX."

The RV-X rocket lifted off, hovered and moved horizontally before landing [watch the video here] during its less than one-minute flight at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Noshiro Testing Center in northeastern Japan, which was livestreamed by the NVS, a group of space fans...
Saturday's flight is a step forward for Japan in achieving the technology needed to develop a lower cost successor to the country's current mainstay, single-use H3 series.

Japan's test comes the same week that China recovered an orbital booster rocket for the first time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0522200/japans-space-agency-conducts-first-test-flight-for-experimental-reusable-rocket?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

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TOTAL TRAFFIC: 23MB

America "is facing what's projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history," according to experts interviewed by the Washington Post:

Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech. It "could hobble the American economy for years to come," predicts the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Lightcast, a labor market data company, calls it "the largest labor shortage the country has ever seen." JPMorgan Chase warns of a national security risk from "a pervasive talent deficit that constrains the nation's capacity to build, compete, and protect its interests." There will be shortages in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction worker and airplane mechanics — jobs AI generally can't do...

Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance. "We have pumped so many young people into business and finance" when what's really in demand are graduates in other fields, [said Ron Hetrick, Lightcast's principal economist]. "It's like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, 'We really don't need them.' And the factory just keeps pumping them out." But the principal reason for the looming workforce shortages is much more basic. A protracted decline in birth rates is coinciding with a record wave of retirements, data shows.

From 2024 to 2032, when the last baby boomers sign up for Social Security payments, more than 18 million college-educated workers will leave the labor force while fewer than 14 million enter it, according to the Georgetown center. Meanwhile, even as the number of people with associate and bachelor's degrees falls, the number of jobs requiring them will grow, the center forecasts. That will leave a gap of 4.6 million workers. Lightcast puts the deficit at an even higher 6 million... The effect of population shifts on the supply of talent, with or without degrees, has been compounded by a drop in the proportion of high school graduates choosing to go to college, a sharply reduced rate of immigration, and a growing number of Americans leaving the workforce altogether because of such issues as lack of child care, early retirement, incarceration and substance addiction, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Three interesting statistics from the article:

U.S. college/university enrollment in 2023 was down by nearly 2 million students since its peak in 2010, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Education Department.
America's low birth rate since 2010 "means the number of college-age Americans is forecast to decline by another 13 percent through 2041."
South Dakota has just 41 workers for every 100 open jobs... while California and nine other states have more workers than jobs, the Chamber of Commerce found.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0443258/america-may-soon-be-facing-its-largest-labor-shortage-in-its-history?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader necro81 writes: There are several companies, such as Tesla, trying to make semi trucks fully electric. The capital cost for such a truck, and the MW-scale infrastructure to recharge it, may be a hard sell for some operators. [IEEE Spectrum notes that's a charging infrastructure "that most freight corridors do not yet reliably provide."] But some companies are instead adding batteries and an electric motor to the semi-trailers that trucks haul behind them.

"The Nivalis Powered Trailer Kit centers on an electric axle [rated at 50 kilowatts-peak]... capable of both propulsion assistance and regenerative braking. It draws on a 60-kilowatt-hour, 400-volt lithium-ion battery pack charged from three sources: the axle itself during braking and deceleration, a full-rooftop array of photovoltaic panels generating up to 3.7 kilowatts-peak, and a 32-amp, three-phase AC grid connection available during parking stops."

This approach is more akin to a plug-in hybrid: the truck may still be diesel-powered, but the electric assist from the trailer allows the truck to run more efficiently. Replacing diesel with kWh can save operators money while also reducing emissions. This incremental approach may be more accessible and less capital-intensive than replacing the truck itself.
From the article:

The driver's only window into the system is a small display readable from the cab's side mirror that shows the system status and battery charge level. Nothing about the trailer's handling or licensing requirements changes. The partners project savings of up to 7,000 liters of diesel per trailer per year, which is enough to keep about 19 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air...

Trailer Dynamics, an Aachen-based company, has conducted field tests with BMW Logistics, DB Schenker, Duvenbeck, and Volkswagen Konzernlogistik, reporting average fuel savings of around 40% for diesel tractor combinations, substantially higher than the up to 18% reduction implied by the Nivalis projection... Trailer Dynamics prices its system between €145,000 and €195,000 and targets a payback period of no more than five years. Nivalis targets five to six years at current costs.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0121226/semi-trailer-trucks-test-converting-into-plug-in-hybrids?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

California drew more than $335 billion in venture capital funding this year, reports the Los Angeles Times, citing data released Thursday by PitchBook on private market funding:

Its next biggest competitor, New York, raised less than a tenth of California's total. Texas raised 1/40th of the amount... Although a campaign for a new tax on billionaires has convinced some ultra-rich residents to shift to other states and businesses often complain that high property and energy costs and an anti-business regulatory regime make it too tough to make money in the state, the inability of the top talent, companies and investors in AI to set up elsewhere shows California's enduring attraction.

The state's economy grew 5% last year to a record $4.25 trillion, making it larger than every country other than the U.S., China and Germany. It is home to nearly 400 billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights... Among metropolitan regions, Los Angeles ranked behind only Silicon Valley and New York, which attracted $98 billion and $11.5 billion in venture investment, respectively... Investors poured in nearly $8 billion across 207 deals in the Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Ana metro areas, up 28% from a year earlier, according to PitchBook...

Nearly 90% of invested dollars [in California] went to AI firms, up from last year, when around 65% of new funds were allocated to AI. "If you're a tech company and you're not an AI company, you have a very, very difficult opportunity ahead of you to raise capital," Stanford said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/2326225/billionaire-exodus-california-drew-10x-more-venture-capital-than-any-other-state-this-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Which jobs are most threatened by AI? "Programmers, software engineers and other tech industry employees," goes one common answer.

"But many economists are more concerned about a different, larger group of white-collar workers," reports the New York Times: customer service reps, bookkeepers, payroll clerks and HR specialists, "who fly under the radar but collectively account for tens of millions of jobs..."

They are spread across the country and throughout the economy, working in every industry, in big cities and small towns, at major corporations and mom-and-pop businesses... These jobs typically offer a middle-class salary or a pathway to achieving one — much as manufacturing jobs did for men before decades of globalisation and automation wiped many of them away... For now, such an outcome is a fear, not a forecast. Despite high-profile layoffs in tech and finance, there is little firm evidence that AI has hurt the labour market as a whole.

Economists have become increasingly convinced that disruptions are likely, but they say it is too early to know where or how widespread they will be. They remain broadly sceptical of claims that the technology will lead to mass unemployment in the near future. Some AI industry leaders have walked back such predictions in recent weeks. But given the extraordinary pace at which companies are adopting AI — and at which the technology is improving — economists say policymakers need to consider the potential effects on the labour market. And they say they are concerned that the public debate has focused too much on software engineers and a relative handful of other high-status careers — lawyers, consultants, economists — rather than the workers who could be most vulnerable...

Economists at Northwestern University recently recalculated measures of AI exposure based on the makeup of the total workforce, not just the people using the technology. Administrative and front-line roles, such as customer service representatives, rose to the top of the list. "The most affected jobs are secretaries, are routine clerks," said Michelle Yin, one of the working paper's authors. "They're not computer scientists or data scientists at all."

The article also includes this counterpoint from an economist at the University of Illinois who has studied earlier waves of white-collar automation: that like other disruptive technologies, AI likely will also create new jobs. So the possibility exists AI will make workers more productive and allow them to earn more. "I would be cautious about just focusing on what are we losing as opposed to what are we going to gain on the other side."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/2224249/forget-coders-the-real-ai-threat-is-in-the-back-office?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Linus Torvalds once said LLMs might bring a 10X increase to programmer productivity. But speaking at Open Source Summit India 2026, he now says that number was "not scientific,"
reports ZDNet. "That was pulled out of my ass number, obviously."

Today, he continued, "we're at the point where hopefully it creates more productivity than it takes away," but "we certainly saw more junk being generated by LLMs than we saw useful code up until the like early this year.... it can actually be a huge drain on resources when it takes humans a lot of effort to figure out that, hey, this machine-generated report was not true." Even now, he said, "most of the good ones require more than just the LLM," because "we've had to push back quite a bit... if you find a bug with an LLM, it's not enough to just ask the LLM to make a bug report and then throw it over the fence to us. We want to see a suggested patch; we want to see the human who ran the LLM act as a kind of back-and-forth."

Torvalds described many AI-generated patches as "mindless band-aid kind of patches... they may fix the immediate problem, but the kind of bug remains, and it just is waiting in the hallway to hit you in another place." For his own toy projects, he uses LLMs as prototypers: "I use them as a way to prototype things... quite often the code is not usable in that form, but it's a great way to try something out," while insisting that for kernel-level fixes, "LLMs, in my experience, have not been at that level yet."

Torvalds acknowledged that some AI-found issues have been "absolutely, stunningly, I mean, interesting in a painful kind of way," especially security problems that "show up in the technology press two days later." Despite the embarrassment, he said, "I'm very much not a shoot-the-messenger kind of person. I think we're much better off with LLMs finding bugs, even when they are embarrassing, and they are things that we should probably have found two decades ago."

Torvalds also said he's using AI "for my own toy projects... Every time I travel to some new place, and this is the first time I've been to India, I send the kids pictures of where I am, and for some strange reason, Godzilla seems to follow me around and gets added to those pictures."

ZDNet notes that Torvalds concluded, "There are many useful and less useful uses for AI," and "I think Godzilla is a great place to stop."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/2053201/linus-torvalds-on-ai-junk-patches-humans-and-godzilla?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Elon Musk and Sam Altman criticized each other in new posts on X," reports CNBC, "highlighting the billionaires' long-standing tussle over OpenAI's evolution."

This week, SpaceX released the Grok 4.5 generative AI model, while OpenAI debuted its own GPT-5.6 Sol. For days, Musk and Altman have hyped up their respective releases, but on Saturday the rivalry got personal. In response to a post about Apple filing suit against OpenAI on Friday over alleged theft of trade secrets, Musk wrote, "Scam Altman strikes again ...." Minutes after his post, Musk doubled down, writing, "He takes scamming to a whole new level." Next, Musk published a photo of Altman that included the words, "I'm doing this because I love it."

"By 'this' he means scamming," Musk wrote, including two rolling-on-the-floor-laughing emojis. Musk then replied to that post, writing, "He might literally love scamming more than any human alive!"
The flurry of social activity got Altman's attention. "[H]omeboy you're the one sellling public market investors on short-term space datacenters," Altman wrote in an X post of his own that garnered over 11 million views.

"We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves," Musk fired back.

Separately, Altman put Musk's fresh wave of attention in the context of OpenAI's fresh model release. "[T]here are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way to tell is that elon is obsessed with me again," Altman wrote on X.

Reacting to another post, Altman wrote that he was "not afraid of apple, but i have tremendous respect for them. s-tier company," CNBC reports — leading to a sarcastic response from X's head of product. "Incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best."

And CNBC notes that Musk "replied with a face-with-tears-of-joy emoji."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/1842219/elon-musk-and-sam-altman-spar-on-x-after-apple-files-openai-lawsuit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск проекта PhotoGIMP, развивающего надстройку над графическим редактором GIMP 3.x, делающую интерфейс и поведение более привычными для пользователей, знакомых с Adobe Photoshop. Изменения сводятся к переработке настроек, компоновки меню и панелей инструментов, включению расширенных шрифтов, замене пиктограмм и изменению горячих клавиш. Код проекта распространяется под лицензией GPLv3. PhotoGIMP может работать поверх штатных дистрибутивных пакетов с GIMP, а также при установке GIMP из пакета в формате Flatpak.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65893

The CEO of SK Hynix, one of the three largest DRAM producers, predicted to Reuters that the memory industry will see its "worst-ever" supply shortages in 2027, reports the hardware/gaming news site Wccftech:

SK Hynix has also forecasted that, given the current market demand, they will fall way short of fulfilling the market demand, and that will continue beyond 2030. The comments from SK Hynix are in line with what Samsung and Micron executives have already said. Samsung has warned of 2027 being the worst year in terms of shortages and that things will continue this way till 2028 and beyond. Meanwhile, Micron has said that the current shortages are only the "first innings" and that both DRAM/NAND supply will be tight, as they are only able to meet 40-50% of the total market demand in the coming years.

Heightened demand from AI customers and multi-year agreements further put pressure on the market. The big three DRAM makers have already prioritized premium DRAM segments such as HBM and LPDDR5X, while commodity memory such as DDR5, DDR4, and entry-level LPDDR RAM has taken a back seat. While these have boosted the profits of SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung, they have devastated the consumer segment, which is facing the worst kind of price hikes that are affecting all sorts of components and platforms, including PCs, Smartphones, Consoles, etc...

SK Hynix, like Samsung and Micron, is also preparing to embark on a multi-year and multi-billion dollar expansion plan with new fabs and facilities being laid out across South Korea. SK Hynix is also considering the construction of Fabs in the US, Japan, and Southeast Asia, though the final plans are yet to be cemented. Micron recently started construction of its new facility that will be used for DRAM production. As SK Hynix proudly marks its Nasdaq debut, its CEO's sobering forecast serves as a clear reminder: the memory industry is entering its most challenging chapter yet. With 2027 poised to bring the worst supply shortages in history and tight conditions likely persisting beyond 2030, the AI boom is reshaping the entire semiconductor landscape.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/1747258/sk-hynix-ceo-warns-2027-will-be-memorys-worst-year-ever-shortages-may-outlast-the-decade?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Wall Street Journal says "an intense 27-year-old activist who had been leading sit-ins at OpenAI to protest the dangers of AI" was just part of a larger movement.

"The Bay Area's AI boom is drawing young disillusioned men and women to join the fight against it. They are upending their lives and leaving behind careers for think tanks, nonprofits and street protest groups."

Their cause is now riding a surge of anti-AI backlash. Many Americans are souring on the technology amid mass layoffs, data center sprawl, reports of chatbot-fueled attacks by unstable users and hacking tools that have panicked cybersecurity professionals. Seventy percent of U.S. adults believe AI will cost jobs, and 55% believe it will do more harm than good in their daily lives, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. But for activists on the front lines, the driving fear is often more dramatic: human extinction. They cling to dire predictions, like Geoffrey Hinton's. The Nobel laureate, dubbed the "godfather of AI" for his work on artificial neural networks, warns of a 10% to 20% chance AI will wipe out humans.
At its most extreme and troubling end, some believe they must stop an AI apocalypse by any means necessary. In April, an unknown assailant fired 13 shots at the home of an Indianapolis councilman, leaving a note: "no data centers." That same month, authorities arrested a 20-year-old Texas college student for an attack on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home in San Francisco, and charged him with attempted murder and arson. The student was carrying an anti-AI document with a section on "our impending extinction," according to a federal criminal complaint. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have said his actions appear to have been driven by an "acute mental-health crisis, not a desire to harm."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0643218/wsj-reports-on-hard-line-activists-ramping-up-for-the-war-with-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"While KDE and GNOME dominate the landscape, a relative newcomer is starting to make waves with features other desktops still don't fully support," argues XDA Developers:

Linux 7.0 was the first release of the kernel to officially support Rust, but COSMIC has been all-in on Rust since the very beginning, and COSMIC 1.1 finally stripped all the leftovers of C language from the desktop. It no longer has any traces of Nautilus (the GNOME file manager), and then there's now a COSMIC-native system monitor to replace the GNOME System Monitor, so you have even fewer chances of being afflicted by C-related problems. [The article calls COSMIC's system monitor "much better at showing detailed information about everything from processes to network and disk usage compared to the GNOME and KDE alternatives."]

Stacking Windows
As someone who used to love following Windows news, one of the most disheartening announcements was when Microsoft gave up on Sets, a feature that essentially turned every app window into a tab you could combine with other apps in the same window. I never thought I'd see that feature again, until COSMIC came along. Simply called "stacking", COSMIC has a feature that is exactly what Sets was supposed to be, though this time, you have more control. By default, apps still open in their proper, typical windows, with a title bar as you'd expect. But if you do want to combine multiple apps into one, you can right-click the title bar (or press Super + S) to enable stacking for that window. Then, simply drag another window over that one to start stacking them as tabs. This essentially gives you a whole new way to create "workspaces", as you can have a single window with all the tools you need, so you don't need to jump between different windows all the time, and you can keep a given window focused on a specific workload, but have multiple apps within it. It's a great reminder of what Microsoft took from us, too.

Tiling, But On Demand
Tiling windows is one of those features some power users simply love, and yes, there are ways to make it happen on KDE and GNOME with third-party apps or extensions, but those aren't ideal. It's an extra step to set them up, and very often they don't play nice with all the features those desktops offer, especially as new updates come out and those tools may have a hard time keeping up with the development of the desktops themselves. COSMIC is fantastic because not only does it have built-in window tiling, it's entirely controllable by the user. You can set any workspace to use tiling or floating windows depending on your preference, all completely independent of each other, and you can also choose the new default behavior for new workspaces so things are always tuned to your preferences. You can turn tiling on or off for a given workspace easily, and of course, even while tiling is on, you can allow certain apps to ignore it and still float above others. Not all these capabilities are exclusive to COSMIC, but to have this kind of feature built in with this level of control is still leagues better than anything KDE or GNOME offer in this regard.

The article argues COSMIC also makes customization extremely simple without stifling your options (like tweaking color options for your desktop). "This desktop environment just keeps getting better, and it's quickly establishing itself as a major competitor to long-standing alternatives."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0543243/is-the-cosmic-desktop-getting-better-than-kde-and-gnome?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft released its 2026 Environmental Sustainability Report showing that last year it matched its entire electricity consumption with renewable energy, reports The Register.

"The bad news is it also increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25%" — mostly due to datacenter construction and a decision to stop purchasing some renewable energy certificates:

In 2020, Microsoft set itself the goal of becoming "carbon-negative" by 2030. Its own figures show emissions heading only upwards, from 13 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020, to 20 million tons in 2025. However, Microsoft estimates that without the carbon reduction initiatives it has already put in place, emissions would now stand at 34 million tons...

For the first time, Microsoft claims to have replenished more [water] than it withdrew during 2025, returning 14,278 million liters (3,771 million gallons). Elsewhere, the corporation says its Circular Centers program reused 92% of decommissioned servers and their components.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/1944220/ai-driven-datacenter-builds-increased-microsofts-emissions-25-in-one-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the Id Software layoffs," John Carmack posted Thursday to his 2.8 million followers on X.com:

My "Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand" statement isn't aging well, and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month.

I'm saddened, but I can't muster anger or outrage over it. I don't have access to the books, but I suspect that Id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft's perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios.

To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal. You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from Id games.

Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy? Could they have created more things for fans to buy? Could they have cost effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games? Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones? Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper? I really don't know.

The game isn't over yet, and I hope the studio rallies through.

Id Software co-founder John Romero also shared his thoughts on X.com:

I'm so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs. I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It's a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history.

The people at id have done a great job moving that legacy forward. DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein are not easy names to carry on, especially in today's industry. The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people.

Romero also expressed his hope for "digital preservation" of Id's ongoing history (including code and assets). "I'm thinking of everyone at id today, and everyone else affected by yesterday's layoffs. Romero Games was there a year ago. I know how devastating it is, and my heart's with all of you.

"Four Xbox studios are already out the door," noted IGN, but shared some thoughts about the future:

Some have expressed concern that id Software would be unable to lead development on any new games in its current state, and that it might be relegated to support studio status. But in a new statement [posted to id Software's page on X.com] id Software said it was now at the staffing level it was back when it made the much-loved 2016 Doom reboot — and insisted it was still capable of making "great games."
"While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for... We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/058235/id-co-founders-carmack-and-romero-respond-to-microsofts-layoffs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Состоялся выпуск [ Lanemu ]( https://gitlab.com/Monsterovich/lanemu ) P2P VPN 0.14 — реализации децентрализованной виртуальной частной сети, работающей по принципу Peer-To-Peer, при котором участники подключены друг к другу, а не через центральный сервер. Участники сети могут находить друг друга через BitTorrent-трекеры или BitTorrent DHT, либо через других участников сети при обмене таблиц адресов (peer exchange). Приложение является бесплатным и открытым аналогом таких приложений как Hamachi, Radmin, Zerotier, написано на языке Java (c отдельными драйверными компонентами на языке Си) и распространяется под лицензией GNU LGPL 3.0. Поддерживается запуск в Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD и macOS.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/internet/18337289#cut ) )

Facial recognition technology in U.K. shops "will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders," reports The Guardian, "with civil liberties groups warning of a 'dangerous escalation' towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector."

Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury's, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to "alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match". Facewatch's chief executive, Nick Fisher, said the "unique technical development" would be launched in autumn and would warn police in an average of four seconds when the "worst offenders" were flagged on its network... Charlie Whelton, the policy and campaigns officer at [civil liberties nonprofit] Liberty, said it was concerned about this "untested, opaque development" and the way facial recognition technology had been allowed to "proliferate without anything to govern it".
"It's not against the law to walk into a shop even if you've committed crimes in the past," he said. "The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn't committed a crime, but there's a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it's not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it's very hard to argue with that when it happens to you." A number of people have been forced to leave shops after being falsely identified by Facewatch technology as a shoplifter, with some describing it as "Orwellian" and saying they felt as though they were "guilty until proven innocent"...

The use of the Facewatch technology looks set to quickly expand, with Sainsbury's recently announcing plans to increase its use from 55 stores to more than 200 by the end of the year. Facewatch said it alerted retailers almost 300,000 times that a "known repeat offender" had entered a store during the first six months of 2026, and that its system allowed staff to intervene "before theft, abuse or violence could occur or escalate"... [E]xperts argue the use of facial recognition technology in shops to catch shoplifters is disproportionate. Nuala Polo, the UK public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, which studies the impact of AI on society, said: "There are other, much less intrusive means that you can use to catch shoplifters where you don't need to be scanning millions of faces every day, virtually without consent...."

The campaign group Big Brother Watch has criticised police for "inserting themselves into this cowboy operation" and said people would be matched against "a secret blacklist compiled by unaccountable businesses and private security guards".

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0259226/facial-recognition-in-uk-shops-will-soon-instantly-alert-police-about-offenders?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Чат-платформа Chatto, предназначенная для организации общения в сообществах и командах разработчиков, переведена в разряд открытых проектов. Платформа оптимизирована для достижения максимальной отзывчивости интерфейса, минимального потребления ресурсов бэкендом и простоты развёртывания на своём сервере инфраструктуры для групповых чатов, не зависящей от внешних сервисов. На стороне пользователей доступ осуществляется из браузера через web-интерфейс. Код написан на языке Go и открыт под лицензией AGPLv3.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65891

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Состоялся выпуск Lanemu P2P VPN 0.14 - реализации децентрализованной виртуальной частной сети, работающей по принципу Peer-To-Peer, при котором участники подключены друг к другу, а не через центральный сервер. Участники сети могут находить друг друга через BitTorrent-трекеры или BitTorrent DHT, либо через других участников сети (peer exchange). Приложение является бесплатным и открытым аналогом VPN Hamachi, написано на языке Java (c отдельными компонентами на языке Си) и распространяется под лицензией GNU LGPL 3.0. Поддерживается запуск в Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD и Mac OS.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65890

The Associated Press reports:

An islandwide blackout struck Cuba on Friday for the second time this week as the nation of nearly 10 million people grapples with a crumbling power grid and fuel shortages stemming from a U.S. energy blockade...

Authorities reported that they have already begun restoring power to some areas. On Monday, another massive blackout affected nearly 10 million people nationwide. Authorities reported during the week that service was gradually being restored from that outage.

"While total blackouts have become increasingly common in the Caribbean country, it's unusual for back-to-back ones to hit just days apart..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0327230/10-million-cubans-suffer-nationwide-blackout---for-the-second-time-this-week?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Meta has axed a controversial feature that allowed users to modify photos from public Instagram accounts using AI," reports TechCrunch:

The feature, which wasn't designed to alert a user if their photos were used in this way, prompted immediate backlash... The company issued a blog post Friday announcing that it was removing the feature. Puck News founding partner Dylan Byers was the first to share the company's decision... Byers notes that the decision to do away with the feature came "amid scrutiny from users and talent agencies, including CAA."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0150219/meta-removes-controversial-ai-feature-on-instagram-after-backlash?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Since February, New York state police have arrested 48 people for trespassing on a former IBM campus in Somers, New York, reports the Wall Street Journal. 30 of the arrests were teenagers.

The long-vacant site has become a magnet for so-called urban explorers, who prowl abandoned malls, hospitals, power plants, amusement parks, factories and any other disused structure they can breach... [I]t's been turbocharged by artsy videos on Instagram and TikTok that spur others to create their own posts, luring still more curiosity seekers... In Somers, social-media images of the old IBM campus — a sprawling, pyramid-studded 1980s complex designed by the late I.M. Pei's firm — show dystopian scenes: busted windows, tossed rooms and graffitied walls. But they also give eerie glimpses of conference rooms and cubicles unchanged since IBM left a decade ago, as if employees had fled the daily grind one day and never returned...

One man in his mid-20s faces felony charges; police allege he had a loaded 9mm gun and took a Sony camera and power strip among other souvenirs. Andrew Proto, a defense lawyer, said "a 15-second clip" isn't worth a criminal record... Proto said he has represented or advised several minors arrested on the campus. The Somers town court clerk said some defendants received a 6-month "adjournment in contemplation of dismissal," meaning charges will be dropped and their arrest sealed if they avoid trouble. Some explorers who have posted about the IBM site say they follow an observe-and-preserve ethos and reject vandalism. They say they're driven by curiosity, the thrill of roaming forbidden spaces and a zeal to document discoveries — and that they're careful and know their limits.

"It actually gives me hope when I hear that kids are out there getting into trouble," says Bradley Garrett, a cultural geographer and author of the book "Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City," about his own urbex adventures. He sees urban exploration as "a gateway drug in a good way, sometimes, into intellectual curiosity about history and culture." But Garrett said popular spots can be "loved to death" online — and then shut down, looted or set ablaze.

"Trespassers were blamed for a March 30 fire, reports a local newspaper, "that damaged one of the buildings and required volunteer firefighters to spend three hours extinguishing the blaze."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/2129203/people-keep-sneaking-into-an-empty-ibm-campus---and-then-getting-arrested?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

For nearly two years the Free Software Foundation has been fighting web crawlers (including many aggressively scraping training data for AI models). A botnet controlling about five million IPs hit one system for six months in 2025. Their systems administrator wrote this week that they view these as distributed denial-of-service attacks.

How are they fighting back?

We noticed patterns in the scrapers that were abnormal, which gave us material for writing regular expressions. Searching for the regular expression then gave us a large lists of IP addresses. Looking up the origin of those IP addresses revealed that some of the crawlers were using botnets of residential IP addresses to scrape faster and avoid detection. We looked for what kinds of botnets might be generating the kind of traffic that we were seeing, and one that we suspected was called the "Vo1d" botnet, comprised of smart TVs running some sort of compromised app... We got confirmation that at least some of the botnet traffic hitting GNU Savannah was originating through the Vo1d/Popa botnet.

We placed our regular expressions in fail2ban, and found that we were hitting the maximum rules that could be added to UFW firewall rules on our systems which showed degradation around 65,000 rules... We learned about ipset and configured fail2ban to add IP addresses that it found to IP sets. Using ipset, we kept building larger IP sets and did not find instability with as large as five million rules...

We eventually found a promising project on Framasoft's forge Framagit called reaction written by ppom... After we ran into scaling issues with our initial implementation, we developed a much faster implementation where the reaction shutdown process would export the IP sets to disk and the reaction startup process would restore the IP sets. This allowed us to have nearly instantaneous restarts of the service to apply new rules. We published both of our configurations upstream to reaction's wiki so that everyone can benefit from it. reaction's getting started documentation now leads to the method that we proposed...

Many sysadmins know about fail2ban, but not enough people know about reaction. I am very grateful to ppom for the help they have provided and for the tremendous project they have released to the world with reaction. We have implemented other defenses as well, but reaction is doing the majority of the automated work keeping our sites online.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/0450256/how-the-fsf-sysadmins-are-blocking-botnets-with-reaction?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nerds.xyz reports:

DuckDuckGo just gave its browser a feature that a lot of people have been waiting for. The privacy-focused browser can now block most video ads on YouTube, letting users watch videos without sitting through the pre-roll and mid-roll interruptions that have become part of everyday life on the platform. The feature is already enabled by default for iPhone, Windows, and Mac users running the latest version of the browser. Android users can turn it on manually... with DuckDuckGo planning to enable it by default in a future update...

To make it work, DuckDuckGo relies on the same community-maintained filter lists used by uBlock Origin, along with some of its own compatibility rules. The company says you might notice a bit of extra buffering before a video starts, but once playback begins, most ads should be gone.

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli argues that the feature raises questions about how creators are compensated when ad revenue is bypassed.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/2045206/duckduckgos-browser-now-blocks-most-youtube-ads?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Студия Smartly Dressed Games объявила о публикации исходного кода игры Unturned, реализованной в жанре симулятора выживания с открытым миром. Игра написана на языке C# с использованием платформы .NET и проприетарного игрового движка Unity. В опубликованный код не вошли античит-библиотеки и сторонний движок поиска пути A*.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65889

Проект B1ackOS GNU/Linux развивает дистрибутив на базе Debian Sid (Unstable), использующий модель непрерывной публикации обновлений (Rolling). В качестве системы инициализации используется systemd, а управление пакетами осуществляется с помощью APT. Проект использует собственный репозиторий пакетов. В качестве инсталлятора в консольной сборке задействован Debian Installer, а в графических редакциях - Calamares. Поддерживаются архитектуры amd64, i386 и arm64.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65887

Environmental groups want America's FCC "to slam the brakes on orbital datacenters," writes The Register.
They're arguing for an environmental impact assessment for what could be 1 million satellites:

Earthjustice, acting on behalf of DarkSky International, Environment America, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), filed a petition this week... The filing doesn't target any single company. Instead, it asks the regulator to put the entire emerging orbital datacenter sector on hold while it assesses the cumulative effects of proposals from SpaceX, Starcloud, Blue Origin, Cowboy Space, and any similar applications that follow. According to the petition, those proposals collectively seek "well over a million datacenter satellites" in low Earth orbit.... " increasing the existing volume of satellites in low-earth orbit by multiple orders of magnitude."

The groups argue that the FCC is trying to apply licensing rules written for much smaller satellite constellations to an entirely new class of infrastructure. "If ever a situation warranted a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement [PEIS], it is this one," the petition says. It argues that a single review would allow the agency to examine "the risks, alternatives, needs, costs, and impacts of this sudden transformation of Earth's exosphere" before deciding whether any of the projects are in the public interest. The petition raises concerns about rocket launch emissions, pollutants released as satellites burn up during atmospheric reentry, depletion of the ozone layer, orbital debris, light pollution, impacts on wildlife, and interference with astronomy.

It also argues that the combined effects of these constellations cannot be understood by evaluating applications one at a time.... "It is difficult to imagine a better example of multiple projects presenting essentially identical impacts and risks that compound synergistically and cumulatively than the present proposals..." The petition argues that the FCC's current approach, which generally treats satellite licenses as categorically excluded from detailed environmental review, is no longer fit for proposals measured not in dozens or thousands of spacecraft but in hundreds of thousands and, potentially, millions.
If the FCC agrees, orbital datacenter operators will have a mountain of paperwork to clear before sending their hardware skyward.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/1917235/orbital-datacenter-plans-need-an-environmental-review-fcc-told?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Flexible, app-based scheduling lets large pools of part-time workers choose four-hour shifts and even select the type of work they prefer," writes long-time Slashdot reader Tony Isaac. While the system started during the pandemic when factories faced severe labor shortages, the model is now "supplying hundreds of trained workers each week... while giving people — from retirees to sidejob hustlers to longtime employees — control over their hours."

NPR says it's attracting "people who may not be seeking a traditional career in the industry or even a 40-hour workweek,"
It's a change that manufacturers including Stanley Black & Decker and Georgia-Pacific are embracing... Today, in any given week, about 450 flexible workers — roughly half the pool — pick up shifts at the [GE Appliances] plant, with workers putting in an average of 24 hours a week. Their contributions have been key to GE Appliances' $180 million expansion of the Georgia plant, completed last year, which added 600 new jobs... [Darcy Duvall, the plant's director of human resources operations] has also come to see that many workers prize flexibility despite the significant trade-offs — like lower pay and almost no benefits. MyWorkChoice employees can opt into their own group healthcare plan, but few do... The flexible work option has also helped GE Appliances keep longtime employees with decades of experience on the job.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/0639259/this-factory-was-severely-short-on-workers-then-it-offered-flexible-work?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

In March, Anthropic's Claude "quietly deployed software to spy on China-based customers," reports the Washington Post — apparently to unmask Chinese rivals "suspected of hijacking its technology to make their own AI tools smarter."

Last week Anthropic removed the spyware "after a software developer revealed its existence and privacy advocates criticized Anthropic, saying it had surveilled its own users."

Anthropic's tracking code was designed in part to catch Chinese firms "distilling" its AI models, a technique that involves pressing a large, expensive AI system to serve as a tutor to a smaller, cheaper one. Asking the larger system huge numbers of questions — hundreds of thousands or more — generates responses that can be used to upgrade the power of the smaller one on the cheap. Distillation isn't illegal, and it has been used for years in the AI industry. But distillation without permission is against AI companies' rules, and, used effectively, is giving Chinese AI companies a major leg up, American AI companies say... Anthropic and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI have both accused Chinese AI companies of using this technique to build copycat AI models of their own.

In a May blog post, Anthropic said that Chinese companies' use of distillation, along with evading U.S. export controls on high-end computer chips, has allowed them to "trail closely" behind U.S. models. But if these techniques can be blocked, it might be possible for the United States to "lock in a 12-24 month lead" on Chinese capabilities, the company said... This month, Anthropic said in a letter to U.S. senators that was obtained by The Post that it uncovered a campaign in which Chinese tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI team used roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to generate more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude to improve its own technology. In February, Anthropic made similar accusations against the Chinese firms Deepseek, Moonshot and MiniMax and said the campaigns were "growing in intensity and sophistication...." Anthropic and OpenAI have appealed to the U.S. government, arguing that distillation amounts to intellectual property theft that harms the U.S. in the geopolitical AI contest....

That Chinese AI labs are using U.S. models to improve their own technology appears beyond dispute. In a February 2025 study, researchers from China's Peking University and the state-funded Chinese Academy of Sciences developed methods to detect signs of distillation in leading large language models. They concluded that, with the exception of ByteDance's Doubao, most domestic models they tested showed substantial evidence of distillation, mostly drawing from U.S. models... In one set of intensive tests, a Qwen model misidentified itself as Claude nearly a third of the time, the Chinese researchers found.

U.S. firms have also used distillation to piggyback on AI systems made by others. In 2024, OpenAI released a tool to make it easier for customers to distill its own models and produce data sets for AI training. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in court testimony in May that his AI company xAI used distillation to train its models and that the technique is common throughout the industry.

The article also notes that Anthropic "said it has banned nearly 700,000 accounts that were using Claude in China." But the article includes this quote from Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution's China Center. "Anthropic's framing is that this is a geopolitical contest for basically the future of the world and freedom and democracy. It's that this is not just undercutting the U.S. commercially, but undercutting American strategic advantage in the most powerful technology we know today."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/040239/chinas-ai-companies-may-be-distilling-americas-ai-models?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликовано: 2026-07-11T16:43:19+00:00

Финал конкурса научно-популярных видеороликов «Хрустальный пингвинопитек-2025»

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loRFMR3Xc2A

Сформировано шестое корректирующее обновление дистрибутива Debian 13, в которое включены накопившиеся обновления пакетов и добавлены исправления в инсталлятор. Выпуск включает 124 обновления с устранением проблем со стабильностью и 120 обновлений с устранением уязвимостей.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65888

"We need you in the fight," says the American legal expert in privacy, surveillance, AI, and Internet freedom of speech who became the EFF's new executive director in March.

As EFF celebrates the anniversary of its founding 1990, "Each headline is different, but they tell one story: Many of the threats that once seemed hypothetical are now reality, and EFF's work to ensure technology supports rights, justice, freedom, and innovation for all people has never been more critical."

Governments and large corporations possess surveillance capabilities that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Ever greater concentrations of power are shaping speech, creativity, markets, and democratic institutions. Governments are increasingly seeking to control the internet and people's ability to access information and communicate freely. Our community's work is fundamental to the future of our countries, our livelihoods, and literally our lives...

These are perilous times. It is also a moment of extraordinary possibility. The future of AI has not been written and we can work together to get it right. We can make sure our laws reflect the needs of the modern digital age. We can build the technologies that empower rather than marginalize communities.
For me, the work starts with recognizing that digital rights are not a siloed policy issue. We must fight and win on the digital terrain to organize, speak freely, access healthcare, find work, receive an education, and participate fully in democracy. We can and must reject a false choice between innovation and civil liberties, and build power across movements to make sure technology truly works for people...

EFF's founders understood something remarkably prescient: Technology and civil liberties would become inseparable. Now we all live digital lives, and the important digital rights issues that EFF has worked on since 1990 have become kitchen-table issues all around the world. EFF's founders understood that how technology is built, developed, used, and controlled deeply intersects with rights, justice, freedom, and democracy. EFF's unique combination of world-class lawyers, activists, and public interest technologists pursue change simultaneously in the courts, legislatures, companies, and our communities, and pierce through false choices. This integrated, intersectional approach, grounded in deep legal, policy, and technical expertise, is a linchpin in fighting and winning against some of the most powerful forces in the world — both governments and trillion-dollar companies.

We defend people against unlawful government data collection and challenge license plate and face surveillance in our communities. We shape AI law and policy to protect civil liberties and support creativity and innovation. We push companies to strengthen encryption, fight to ensure you have the right to own what you buy, and build public interest technologies like Privacy Badger and Certbot that millions of people rely on every day. This work matters because it all answers the same question: Will technology empower or control us?

Major battles the executive director sees on the horizon"

"Challenge increasingly sophisticated government and corporate surveillance systems that endanger our rights, democracy, safety and security."

"Preserve strong encryption and online anonymity."

"Ensure AI is developed and used in ways that respect fundamental rights and works for those who build it, use it, and are affected by it."

"Confront the concentrations of power that limit access to new creativity and defend the rights of developers to build and innovate."

"To meet these challenges, we must not only utilize the powerful levers of successful litigation, smart policy interventions, and effective public interest technology tools. We must also build a broader movement that recognizes that fights on the digital terrain are integral to all our fights for rights and justice... Together, our EFF community can help broaden the public conversation about technology's role in society and continue building the collective power necessary to shape the future rather than react to it....

"I'm looking forward to meeting more of you at my first EFFecting Change livestream on August 12 with Cory Doctorow, and hope this conversation is just the beginning of finding new ways to work together..."

The blog post ends by noting that "We need you and others in the fight. Please renew your membership, become a recurring monthly supporter, and introduce someone new to EFF by snagging them a gift membership.

"Everything we accomplish — every lawsuit, every policy victory, every public interest technology tool, every campaign — is possible because people like you are committed to ensuring technology strengthens freedom, privacy, creativity, and opportunity for everyone.
"The future we want and need will be built by people and movements working together to ensure technology empowers rather than oppresses.
"Let's build that future together."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/10/2241251/eff-celebrates-36th-anniversary-says-we-need-you-in-the-fight?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Meta "said in a court filing on Monday that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties," reports Reuters, "over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety."

Meta put forward the figure in its response to the attorneys general's filings on how penalties should be calculated if the states prevailed at trial. The number, which has not previously been disclosed and is close to Meta's market capitalization of around $1.5 trillion, comes ahead of an August trial in Oakland, California, over the claims brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey against the company. Meta said the amount was unsupported by the evidence. "A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement," the company said in the filing. "The plaintiffs' outlandish calculations have no basis in fact or law," the company said in a statement, adding that it would continue to defend itself against the states' demands.

A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement the lawsuit "alleges Meta has prioritized profits over the safety of kids and fueled the mental health crisis we see impacting a generation of American children. The California Department of Justice looks forward to holding Meta fully accountable at trial in August...."

Meta has denied the allegations, saying the attorneys general have no evidence it misled consumers about its platforms' alleged addictiveness because "social media addiction" is not an established psychiatric condition, and therefore statements that its platforms were not addictive could not be false... Last month, [U.S. District Judge] Rogers rejected Meta's bid to cancel the trial, saying there remained factual disputes over whether its social media platforms were addictive, whether Meta falsely denied it designed them that way, and whether it "partially" directed the platforms at children.

"A further 14 states have brought claims under their own laws, which will be heard at a separate trial in February..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Sparkatron for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/0614250/meta-says-us-states-seek-14-trillion-in-penalties-in-augusts-youth-safety-trial?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Are you armed?!" the police officer screamed. "Get out of the car!"
A writer for the car-news site The Drive describes how "a technological chain linking surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement... led to me and my wife being surrounded by police, hands on their guns, in a Kohl's parking lot in suburban Minnesota."

After dropping off our Amazon returns, we'd just gotten back in the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet out of the spot when four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in... The Plymouth Police Department had been tracking me for days using Flock license plate cameras, waiting for the right moment to strike, because they thought I'd stolen the Range Rover. And the reason I was ID'd as a dangerous car thief was a simple data error made 2,000 miles away in California, creating an edge case within an edge case that Flock's AI camera network was unable to handle... "The plates on this car are stolen," Officer Ganshyn said...

This made absolutely no sense. Car companies keep meticulous track of the fleets they loan out to the media. The vehicles all have special manufacturer or dealer plates that are logged every time one enters or exits... The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock's system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM. Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle...

Flock's AI tech wasn't registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town... I connected the final dot. A lot of vehicles in [Range Rover manufacturer] JLR's media fleet have a New Jersey manufacturer plate with the same alphanumeric structure — 34 ## DTM — and Officer Ganshyn observed that meant it was now a nationwide issue. Anywhere a police department has a partnership with Flock, any other JLR-owned car with the same plate structure is going to get flagged as stolen. In fact, four other 34 ## DTM cars were being tracked around Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn. I was just the first one to get nabbed.

The only way to stop it would be for the LAPD to correct their initial report and update Flock's system, which Jaguar Land Rover was now racing to make happen following the phone call. Still, he warned me to drive straight home, park the Range Rover, and leave it there. If I were to cross into the neighboring town, I'd probably get flagged again and go through this entire ordeal again with a different set of officers. His parting words were ominous: "You're lucky we're in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would've come at you with guns drawn."
Ironically, even the original license plate wasn't stolen either, the article points out. It was reported misplaced during a Los Angeles photo shoot, and "The corporation had to report the plate as lost to law enforcement," according to the police report — and even then, the plate "was reported as NJ 34DTM instead of NJ 3403DTM."
The author's conclusion? "Once these systems have you in their crosshairs, there's pretty much only one way it can go... A simple data-entry error, magnified and broadcast nationwide by a growing surveillance network operated through an opaque partnership between a private company and public agencies, led police to identify me as a car thief and set up a sting to take me down. I mean, they even had a drone flying overhead during the 'bust'...

"Thank God our kids weren't with us."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/11/0556236/how-flock-cameras-wrongly-tracked-a-journalist-for-days-then-sent-police-to-arrest-him?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Раскрыта информация об уязвимости (CVE-2026-43499) в ядре Linux, получившей кодовое имя GhostLock и позволяющая непривилегированному локальному пользователю получить права root в системе, а также выйти из изолированных контейнеров. При использовании в сочетании с другими уязвимостями в браузерах, выявленная проблема может применяться для удалённого выполнения кода с правами root при открытии специально оформленной web-страницы. Проблема проявляется начиная с ядра Linux 2.6.39 (2011 год).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=65880

The FCC has approved (PDF) Reflect Orbital's Earendil-1 test satellite, which will use a 60-by-60-foot mirror to reflect sunlight back to Earth after dark. "The reflected light from the satellite is supposed to span an area about 3 miles wide on the ground," reports PCMag. It comes despite objections from astronomers and environmental groups who are concerned that the satellites will unleash intrusive light pollution. From the report: The approval is only for one satellite, dubbed Earendil-1, which is meant to test Reflect Orbital's technology for shining sunlight back to Earth. The satellite will boast a steerable thin-film reflector measuring about 60 feet by 60 feet, with the goal of powering solar farms at night or illuminating disaster-struck areas after dark to help rescue teams. Reflect Orbital envisions operating over 50,000 satellites by 2035, effectively surrounding the Earth with a fleet of mirrors. The proposal has faced stiff pushback from environmental groups and astronomers who are concerned that the satellites will unleash intrusive light pollution. The opposition has been so strong that the FCC received over 1,800 public comments on the application, many of them objecting to Reflect Orbital's plan for Earendil-1.

[...] [T]he FCC approved the satellite, noting the grant is only "for a single demonstration satellite" to test an innovative technology that could advance American leadership in space. "The Communications Act states that it is the policy of the United States to 'encourage the provision of new technologies and services to the public,' and Reflect Orbital's demonstration satellite is an example of a potentially groundbreaking technology that the Commission has found is in the public interest to support," the order says. But on the most controversial aspect of the satellite, the FCC said the concerns around Reflect Orbital's solar reflector are "unrelated to the Commission's role in authorizing use of radiofrequency spectrum, and even if the Commission had authority to review and condition these operations (which it does not), these harms are unlikely to occur.

In addition, the commission said that U.S. courts have blocked the FCC from using "a generalized public interest requirement beyond its statutory authority in regulating communications. Accordingly, the operations of a solar reflector in space would not be reviewed as part of the Bureau's public interest analysis." The regulator also noted that conducting an environmental review for the satellite went beyond its authority. Even if the FCC did have the power, the commission emphasized that the grant is for a single satellite, not 50,000. "The majority of these comments focus on a hypothetical plan to deploy tens of thousands of satellites, and those who argue the single satellite will harm the human environment do not demonstrate with specificity the potential harm will be caused by the single satellite, but rather rely on the same studies as the commenters objecting to a larger constellation," the FCC adds.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/07/10/2230254/fcc-approves-reflect-orbitals-space-mirror-satellite-that-astronomers-hate?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.