Snippings

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Indirect prompt injections, which are considered one of most serious AI security problems, take things up a notch. Instead of being entered by the user, the malicious prompt is inserted by an outside source. That could be a devious set of instructions included in text on a website that an AI summarizes; or text in a white font in a document that a human wouldn’t obviously see but a computer will still read. These kinds of attacks are a key concern as AI agents, which can let an LLM control or access other systems, are being developed and released.

From: Hackers Hijacked Google’s Gemini AI With a Poisoned Calendar Invite to Take Over a Smart Home | WIRED.

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“Everybody has become porous. The light and the message go right through us,” he said during a television appearance. “At this moment, we are on the air, and on the air we do not have any physical body. When you’re on the telephone or on radio or on TV, you don’t have a physical body. … You’re a discarnate being. You have a very different relation to the world around you. … It has deprived people really of their identity.” That’s exactly what it feels like to spend time on TikTok or X—and was said by someone who died in 1980.

If you’re not a boomer or a grad student, you may not have heard of him, but theorist Marshall McLuhan—the coiner of enduring aphorisms “the medium is the message” and “the global village”—warned us about today’s digital descent a long time ago.

From: Peter Thiel Just Accidentally Made a Chilling Admission. Five Decades Ago, One Man Saw It Coming..

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What to know:

China’s Ministry of State Security has issued a warning about the misuse of biometric data by foreign companies, specifically targeting those offering cryptocurrency for iris scans.
The warning appears to reference Worldcoin, a project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which has faced regulatory scrutiny in Germany, France, and Kenya.
Concerns have been raised about the transfer of biometric data abroad, potential privacy violations, and national security risks associated with such practices.

From: WLD News: China Warns Worldcoin-Style Iris Scanning a National Security Threat.

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The Tea platform suffered from two major data leaks. First, an unprotected Firebase database containing users’ personal information was breached and then a second database containing 1.1 million personal messages exchanged by the users was opened up. This meant that torrents of the leaked data (users’ driver’s licenses, selfies, and message attachments) were spewed across the web. Why was the web site storing this personal information? Well, it is because of the sign-up process, which required people to take selfies to prove their identity.

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Age verification to reach ostensibly adult sites also raises serious questions about privacy protections. A database of people who visit pornographic sites, for instance, would be a rich target for scammers and extortionists.

From: Bluesky Made Me Prove I Was An Adult—Here’s How I Did It.

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With banks doing nothing, then, perhaps it will be the crypto world that will rise to meet this challenge by using new technology to bring a new approach to the problem of identity in the new economy. And if they do, the benefits will spread far beyond the worlds of fintech and defi, payments and exchanges, because this new approach to identity is needed across the economy as whole.

From: If The Banks Will Not Deliver Digital Identity, Perhaps Crypto Will.

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For years there has been an argument, sometimes loud, sometimes subdued, on whether Britain needs an ID card system. One big reason given for wanting them is simply to know who is here legally. With illegal and irregular migration never far from the headlines these days and with President Macron, during his recent visit describing the “pull factor” of illegal migrants being able to work in Britain, the debate is being resurrected. So, what is the history of ID cards in the UK, what form might they take if we have a system and would they work? Presenter: David Aaronovitch Guests: Jon Agar, author of The Government Machine Rainer Kattel, Professor of Innovation and Public Governance, UCL Edgar Whitley, Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Management, LSE Rachel Coldicutt, technology specialist and executive director of the research consultancy, Careful Industries.

From: The Briefing Room – Why don’t we have ID cards in the UK? – BBC Sounds.

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An Israeli startup has secured $26m in series A funding to build what it claims is the world’s first one million qubit quantum computer contained within a single cryostat.

From: QuamCore secures $26m to build million-qubit quantum computer.

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If it seems like there’s a satellite launch almost every day, the numbers will back you up.

The US Space Force’s Mission Delta 2 is a unit that reports to Space Operations Command, with the job of sorting out the nearly 50,000 trackable objects humans have launched into orbit.

Dozens of satellites are being launched each week, primarily by SpaceX to continue deploying the Starlink broadband network. The US military has advance notice of these launches—most of them originate from Space Force property—and knows exactly where they’re going and what they’re doing.

That’s usually not the case when China or Russia (and occasionally Iran or North Korea) launches something into orbit. With rare exceptions, like human spaceflight missions, Chinese and Russian officials don’t publish any specifics about what their rockets are carrying or what altitude they’re going to.

From: The military’s squad of satellite trackers is now routinely going on alert – Ars Technica.

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The context. That’s because people have real fears about children being increasingly exposed to harmful content. Research shows that

half of 13 year olds have been exposed to porn, including degrading and violent behaviour, with many stumbling across it accidentally;
a quarter of child suicides have been linked to online content; and
roughly 20 per cent of children aged 10 to 15 years old have been contacted by strangers on the internet.

What’s more… The government is still trying to figure out how to respond to the surge in VPN use. Ministers say they are looking into it “very closely”.

From: Let’s see some ID.

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