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danleininger.bsky.social
Dan Leininger
@danleininger.bsky.social
79 followers 290 following 3 posts
Experimental engineering for Consumer Reports
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Reposted by Dan Leininger
consumerreports.org
In response to our investigation, Instacart is no longer allowing retailers to use its AI tech to charge shoppers different prices for the same groceries, at the same time on its platform.
Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds - Consumer Reports
Exclusive: Instacart’s AI pricing may be inflating your grocery bill.
www.consumerreports.org
December 22, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
propublica.org
Consumers don’t know if their medications came from factories that used dirty water, were infested by insects or birds, or were outright banned from shipping drugs to the U.S.

Our new app provides answers that the FDA won’t.
Rx Inspector: ProPublica’s New Tool Provides Drug Info the FDA Won’t
We’ve launched a first-of-its-kind app to help you find out where your generic drugs come from and see the track records of the factories that made them.
www.propublica.org
December 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
danleininger.bsky.social
I picture this every time I do this now
socialistboat.dad jam @socialistboat.dad · 29d
this is what I look like when I'm checking my email on another screen while I'm on a video call for work
Leon from Blade Runner looking slightly off screen with unnaturally wide eyes
December 15, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
simonwillison.net
I thoroughly recommend reading all of Cory Doctorow's recent speech on AI skepticism, it's crammed with new arguments and interesting new ways of thinking about these problems pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
December 7, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
techdirt.com
Our Founders Would Abhor What The USPTO Is Doing With The Patent System

Last week I wrote about how the US Patent and Trademark Office is pushing a rule change that would effectively neuter the inter partes review (IPR) system that reviews already granted patents to make sure they weren't granted…
Our Founders Would Abhor What The USPTO Is Doing With The Patent System
Last week I wrote about how the US Patent and Trademark Office is pushing a rule change that would effectively neuter the inter partes review (IPR) system that reviews already granted patents to make sure they weren't granted by mistake. Patent tolls and other abusers of the patent system have been screaming about this system ever since it started actually helping stop the flood of patent trolling over the last decade and a half.
www.techdirt.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
pftompkins.bsky.social
You have GOT to be KIDDING ME
frogandtoadbot.bsky.social Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · Nov 19
“Here is your button!” cried Frog.

“That is not my button,” said Toad. “That button is black. My button was white.”
November 19, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
radosh.bsky.social
Now I'm picturing a group of bored middle-aged people 30 years from now all doing a half-hearted 6-7 in a business meeting because that's just what you do
What does “six seven” look like, from this perspective? In “Interaction Ritual Chains” (don’t judge a book by its title!), Collins lays out a holistic theory of human nature, centered on rituals, into which “six seven” fits nicely. A ritual, Collins explains, “is a mechanism of mutually focussed emotion and attention producing a momentarily shared reality.” There are big-time rituals, like communion, and small-time ones, like shaking hands, or dapping up, or standing at the front of a conference room and clearing your throat. These acts—which often involve a physical component—help make gatherings of people cohere. Rituals are “everywhere,” Collins writes, because social life is ultimately “a string of situations” which must be inaugurated, conducted, and concluded.
November 15, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey.bsky.social
The @consumerreports.org cybersecurity testing lab has helped improve security for several connected products. We showcase a few examples of what they have found and how they work with companies to improve product security. Also, if you're building a connected device, encrypt your traffic.
How CR’s Testing Team is Boosting Security—One Smart Product at a Time - Innovation at Consumer Reports
Take a look inside CR’s testing lab, where our engineers are strengthening the security of connected devices and boosting consumer trust
innovation.consumerreports.org
October 30, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
consumerreports.org
CR's Leah Fischman Hunter and Ginny Fahs joined the Innovation Storytellers Show to talk about Consumer Reports’ fight for digital consumer rights in an online world filled with AI hype, dark patterns, and data brokers. Listen now: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Tech for Good: Consumer Reports’ Fight for Digital Consumer Rights
Podcast Episode · Innovation Storytellers · 09/09/2025 · 48m
podcasts.apple.com
September 12, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
meredithmeredith.bsky.social
📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else!

www.economist.com/by-invitatio...
An illustration of me, and the headline: "AI agents are coming for your privacy, warns Meredith Whittaker The Signal Foundation’s president worries they will also blunt competition and undermine cyber-security" To put it bluntly, the path currently being taken towards agentic AI leads to an elimination of privacy and security at the application layer. It will not be possible for apps like Signal—the messaging app whose foundation I run—to continue to provide strong privacy guarantees, built on robust and openly validated encryption, if device-makers and OS developers insist on puncturing the metaphoric blood-brain barrier between apps and the OS. Feeding your sensitive Signal messages into an undifferentiated data slurry connected to cloud servers in service of their AI-agent aspirations is a dangerous abdication of responsibility. Happily, it’s not too late. There is much that can still be done, particularly when it comes to protecting the sanctity of private data. What’s needed is a fundamental shift in how we approach the development and deployment of AI agents. First, privacy must be the default, and control must remain in the hands of application developers exercising agency on behalf of their users. Developers need the ability to designate applications as “sensitive” and mark them as off-limits to agents, at the OS level and otherwise. This cannot be a convoluted workaround buried in settings; it must be a straightforward, well-documented mechanism (similar to Global Privacy Control) that blocks an agent from accessing our data or taking actions within an app. Second, radical transparency must be the norm. Vague assurances and marketing-speak are no longer acceptable. OS vendors have an obligation to be clear and precise about their architecture and what data their AI agents are accessing, how it is being used and the measures in place to protect it.
September 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
bfishbfish.bsky.social
I believe one of the new mRNA vaccines was expected to treat colon cancer, and another had the potential to keep pancreatic cancer from recurring. That’s what they’re taking away.
August 6, 2025 at 12:02 AM
danleininger.bsky.social
We're hiring remote/hybrid product & research engineering roles to help build pro-consumer tech in Consumer Reports' Innovation Lab

Apply: job-boards.greenhouse.io/consumerrepo...
or reach out directly to [email protected]

More about our work here:
innovation.consumerreports.org/blog/
Consumer Reports
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with...
job-boards.greenhouse.io
July 29, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
simonwillison.net
If you ask the new Grok (via grok.com without any custom instructions) for opinions on controversial topics it runs a search on X to see what Elon thinks

I know this sounds like a joke but it's not. This genuinely happens: x.com/jeremyphowar...
Screenshot of Grok web interface showing a query "Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only." with the AI's thinking process displayed, including "Thought for 42s", analysis stating "The user likely wants a simple stance, but the issue's complexity suggests caution" and "I'm considering searching for recent views to inform my response", followed by a "Planning research approach" section mentioning searching for "Elon Musk's stance on the conflict to guide my answer" and noting "The response must be one word, so no citations will be included", with a search interface showing "Searching × for 'from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)'" displaying results including "@elonmusk" accounts, "Israel", "29 × posts", "10 web pages"
July 10, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
mikecaulfield.bsky.social
LLMs seem to act very differently around the issue of link hallucination and we should talk about that more I think mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/difference...
Differences in link hallucination and source comprehension across different large language models
I've been waiting for someone else to talk about this, but I guess it will be me
mikecaulfield.substack.com
June 1, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
ohhhaeee.bsky.social
Happy June 1st from plant bitch!!!
June 1, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
theonion.com
Novelty Car Horn Playing ‘La Cucaracha’ Sends Stephen Miller Into Dissociative Fugue State theonion.com/novelty...
Novelty Car Horn Playing ‘La Cucaracha’ Sends Stephen Miller Into Dissociative Fugue State
May 30, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
simonwillison.net
GitHub MCP suffers from the lethal trifecta for prompt injection: access to private data, exposure to malicious instructions + the ability to exfiltrate information

Be really careful with this stuff: attackers can trick your "agent" into stealing your private data simonwillison.net/2025/May/26/...
May 27, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gracekind.net
Current state of vibe coding 🚀
May 26, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
jasonkoebler.bsky.social
FYI: under capitalism your DNA is worth $17

www.404media.co/23andme-sale...
23andMe Sale Shows Your Genetic Data Is Worth $17
23andMe sold the genetic data of 15 million people for $256 million to a pharmaceutical company called Regeneron.
www.404media.co
May 19, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
socialistboat.dad
Consumer Reports is a nonprofit that
- doesn't sell ads or accept samples
- tests products hands-on with scientific rigor
- reviews home goods, cars, baby stuff, electronics and even banks and insurance
- employs me
you can get a yearly membership for $29 right now www.consumerreports.org/join/
Become a Member - Consumer Reports
Join over 6 million members making smarter decisions everyday.
www.consumerreports.org
May 19, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey.bsky.social
The draft version of the update to NIST's Cybersecurity for IoT Products (NIST IR 8259) dropped today. The update adds a new focus on supporting the security of a connected product through its end of life and provides excellent questions to assess device use cases and security risks.
Five Years Later: Evolving IoT Cybersecurity Guidelines
The Background…and NIST’s Plan for Improving IoT Cybersecurity
www.nist.gov
May 13, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
defector.com
Sabrina Imbler spoke to Chuck Sebian-Lander about the increasingly exploitative nature of financial markets, the importance of making the Bureau's services accessible to everyone, and the CFPB's unseen impact on all of our lives. defector.com/an-interview...
An Interview With A Fired Web Content Manager At The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | Defector
Before Chuck Sebian-Lander joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a web content manager, he knew about as much about the agency as “anybody who watched The Big Short and got really angry a...
defector.com
May 8, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
ddayen.bsky.social
CFPB decided that protections for people doing installment loans on apps for their groceries wasn't worth the trouble www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/t...
Trump's CFPB drops enforcement of buy now, pay later rule in latest rollback of consumer protections
The CFPB said Tuesday it will stop enforcing a Biden-era rule treating buy now, pay later firms like credit card lenders.
www.cnbc.com
May 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Dan Leininger
consumerreports.org
“My daughter Cheyenne died of strangulation after creating a loop from the cord that runs in between the slats of a window blind. The CPSC ensures that no parent suffers a loss like mine.” No more victims! Protect the CPSC for safer products today: act.consumerreports.org/lNk23B8
April 29, 2025 at 4:43 PM