Author | Lightnews

Microsoft earnings suggest $11.5B OpenAI quarterly loss

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 23h

I took an college accounting night class while in high school and one things the teacher told us was to always look at the footnotes when reading corporate reports because that's where accountants like to bury the good stuff. Sometimes you don't need to go that far.
#openai #loss #microsoft #ai

: Satya has also delivered Sam most of the cash he promised

Nvidia hits record $5 trillion mark as CEO dismisses AI bubble concerns

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 1d

There is going to be a crash and it is going to be bad. Has anyone ever heard of the CEO of a company telling people their market is going to crash? Does that mean the market magically doesn't crash? #ai #bubble #crash #nvidia

“I don’t believe we’re in an AI bubble,” says Huang after announcing $500B in orders.

9 in 10 Exchange servers in Germany are out of support

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 1d

Upgrading systems is challenging. Planned and unplanned downtime, unexpected issues, crashes, etc are all likely during a major migration. But not migrating and running servers that lack support is even worse. @Microsoft.com should offer #security #patches longer but orgs should #upgrade as well.

: Cybersecurity agency urges organizations to upgrade or risk total network compromise

Ransomware profits drop as victims stop paying hackers

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 3d

Some good news on the #ransomware front. Turns out if you don't pay breaching companies becomes less profitable. No indication if this will translate to less ransomware attacks (or perhaps more) but it is a step in the right direction.
#cybersecurity #security

The number of victims paying ransomware threat actors has reached a new low, with just 23% of the breached companies giving in to attackers' demands.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 3d

I've read a good marketing technique is to pick a fight with a competitor. I've seen examples where it sort of worked but rarely do I see examples where it works spectacularly. Then there is the approach of picking a fight with a critic. #badidea #youtube #locks #lockpick #shimming #oops

10M people watched a YouTuber shim a lock; the lock company sued him. Bad idea.

It’s still legal to pick locks, even when you swing your legs.

Lawsuit: Reddit caught Perplexity “red-handed” stealing data from Google results

2 1

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 4d

Hey look, a new #phishing warning! While using death in a phishing attach is nothing new it is still sad to see how far bad actors will go to attempt to gain access to other people's credentials and #passkeys, for all their good, is going to make it worse. #lastpass #security #passwords

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 6d

So, it's okay for an AI to scrape someone else's website but if they start scraping my website then it's an issue I guess? #Google and #Reddit are accusing #Perplexity of scraping their results. Interesting.

Scraper accused of stealing Reddit content “shocked” by lawsuit.

New Linux patch lets you cancel the hibernation process

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 7d

I miss the ability to hibernate my laptop. Suspend-to-RAM is fine for short periods but being able to travel across country without shutting down would be great. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work most of the time but maybe there will be renewed interest. #linux #hibernate #suspend #fail

: RFC proposes power-button interrupt – and highlights wider problems with sleep states

Why You Should Swap Passwords for Passphrases

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 7d

I'm all in favor of stronger passwords and passphrases are a great option but the idea that they are some revelation in new tech is silly. So yes, swap your short password for a long passphrase (but make sure it fits in the password length requirements). #password #passphrase #security

Passphrases boost security and usability by prioritizing length over complexity, aligning with NIST guidance.

thehackernews.com

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 8d

Curious why there is no #Gartner #MQ, #Forrester #Wave, or #IDC #Marketscape for new and hot markets? WIsh there were? Join Lionfish Tech Advisors upcoming webinar to find out about The #Pyramid!

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: A modern way to rate markets.... After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Forrester has the Wave Gartner has the Magic Quadrant IDC has the Marketscape They are all old school thinking. It’s time for modern market analysis using the power of AI combined with Industry le...

us02web.zoom.us

NSO permanently barred from targeting WhatsApp users with Pegasus spyware

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 8d

I wish I could say I believed this would change things but color me skeptical. If you are doing things that are arguable illegal anyway, why would a court order from one country change your approach elsewhere? Plus #Apple #MIE.
#nso #pegasus #spyware #whatsapp #meta

Ruling holds that defeating end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp harms Meta’s business.

It wasn’t space debris that struck a United Airlines plane—it was a weather balloon

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 8d

I heard about United Airlines flight hit by a UFO recently. Fortunately it looks like it was a weather balloon, specifically from @windbornewx.bsky.social and nothing to worry about. Must have been exciting to be on the plane however.
#ufo #ual #weather #oops #notspace

WindBorne says its balloons are compliant with all applicable airspace regulations.

Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 9d

I use @Signal.com for some of my communications and while I will not claim to understand everything they say in this blog post I do get gist. Good on them for moving security forward another major step. #security #encryption #quantum #signal

We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR). This new ratchet enhances the Signal…

signal.org

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 9d

The fact that it took #AWS so long to fully recover from this #outage is telling. So is this #analysis from Cory Quinn on what may have happened. Having been laid off from or left companies where I had significant institutional knowledge and seeing the results I would not be shocked if he is right.

Today is when Amazon brain drain finally caught up with AWS

column: When your best engineers log off for good, don’t be surprised when the cloud forgets how DNS works

Yes, everything online sucks now—but it doesn’t have to

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 10d

#Enshitification sucks and while things get better I'm not that optimistic. It's much cheaper to put out a crappy product than a good one especially once you have everyone locked in.

Ars chats with Cory Doctorow about his new book Enshittification.

Reddit Mod Warns 'Do Not Trust' AI-Powered 'Reddit Answers' After It Posts Dangerous Health Advice - Slashdot

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 10d

Looks like #Reddit is embracing #AI but not in a good way. Forcing your AI chatbot onto people is bad enough but having it provide inaccurate information in subs focused on stuff like medicine is really, really bad. Looks like Reddit is continuing down the #enshitification path. #fail #dangerous

In Reddit's "Family Medicine" subreddit, a moderator noticed earlier this week that the AI-powered "Reddit Answers" was automatically responding to posters, typically with "something related to what…

tech.slashdot.org

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 10d

I don't see how this could possibly go wrong. I think #AI has some really amazing uses (if anyone can ever figure out how to make it profitable) but I'm not sure this is one of them.
#chatgpt #erotica #whatcouldgowrong

ChatGPT erotica coming soon with age verification, CEO says

Sam Altman claims new tools can detect mental distress while relaxing limits for adults.

LinkPro Linux Rootkit Uses eBPF to Hide and Activates via Magic TCP Packets

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 11d

I hate #BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) but it's mostly unrelated cousin #eBPF is pretty cool. And now it has a new use - helping hide a #rootkit. Bad that #AWS infrastructure was hacked but silver lining that we discovered a new use for eBPF?

Synacktiv uncovered LinkPro, a Golang rootkit using eBPF hide/knock modules activated by TCP window 54321.

thehackernews.com

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 11d

#AI struggles to make money. Costs are high and it turns out that if you train people to expect things for free they expect things for free. If 95% of your customers don't pay the other 5% is going to have to pay a lot. Guess we will see how valuable AI really is. #openai #llm #genai #costs #free

: If you build it, they will come and expect the service to be free

Roku accused of selling children’s data to advertisers and brokers

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 12d

I've expressed my opinions on Roku in the past and this isn't improving my feelings towards them. While I wish I believed it would make a difference I seriously doubt it. Whatever the punishment it won't be close to enough to stop the actions. #pii #underage #children #data #cutitout

Florida claims Roku ignored clear signs its users were minors, collecting and selling viewing habits, voice recordings and precise locations.

www.malwarebytes.com

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 12d

It seems so rare that bad actors are caught these days that it is heartening when it does happen. PowerSchool hacker Matthew Lane got 4 years in prison for the cyberattack in 2024. While deserved I do wish companies were better punished for their poor security as well. #security #cybersecurity

PowerSchool hacker gets sentenced to four years in prison

19-year-old college student Matthew D. Lane, from Worcester, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for orchestrating a cyberattack on PowerSchool in December 2024 that resulted in a…

www.bleepingcomputer.com

How Attackers Bypass Synced Passkeys

Josh Chessman @beansb.bsky.social · 13d

I dabble with #passkeys a bit but don't use them everywhere. While they offer improved security in many ways it is important to remember that they are not a panacea for security. There are still risks, especially as vendors have to deal with both #passwords and passkeys. #security #cybersecurity

Synced passkeys expose enterprises to cloud takeover, browser hijacks, and downgrade attacks.

thehackernews.com