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owl writes:

https://omar.yt/posts/wayland-set-the-linux-desktop-back-by-10-years

Wayland has been a broad misdirection and misallocation of time and developer resources at the expense of users. With more migration from other operating systems, the pressure to fix fundamental problems has become more prominent. After 17 years of development, now is a good time to reflect on some of the larger promises that have been made around the development of Wayland as a replacement for the X11 display protocol.

If you're not in this space, hopefully it will still be interesting as an engineering post-mortem on taking on new greenfield projects. Namely: What are the issues with what exists, why can they not be fixed, what do we hope to achieve with a new project, and how long do we expect it to take?

Original Submission

spiraldancing writes:

Report shows how minerals critical to defense readiness have seen a 'near total' disruption in seaborne trade:

The closure of the strait of Hormuz is causing a "paralyzing, real-time problem" for any prospective manufacturing surge in the US defense industrial base, and even for the repair of defense equipment damaged by Iranian attacks, according to analysis published by West Point's Modern War Institute.

In particular sulphur, a vital upstream input in the extraction of critical minerals including copper and cobalt, has seen a "near total" disruption of seaborne trade in the straits, which makes up half the world's total shipments, and prices have spiked nearly 25% since the war began, and seen a 165% rise year on year, the report said.

According to the analysis, these minerals – used in everything from microprocessors to jet engines to drone batteries – "dictate how fast things can be built and scaled under the pressure of an ongoing war", and the effects of a sudden supply shock on US defense readiness have never been modeled.

One of the authors of that analysis, USAF lieutenant colonel and nonresident fellow at the US Naval War College Jahara "Franky" Matisek, told the Guardian in a telephone conversation that its "a cascading issue" raising the possibility that a "knock-on effect of this war is that it may cost double or more than double to replace all these weapons because all the mineral demand is going to go way up".

Matisek warned of another possibility: "Markets are not going to be able to provide the amount of minerals that are needed to replace all these radars that have been destroyed and all these munitions that have to be replaced. It's a really precarious spot to be in right now."

[...] The authors offer specific estimates for materials damaged in the early days of the war, writing that "it will take over thirty thousand kilograms of copper just to replace the two major US radars destroyed in Bahrain and Qatar" and "thousands of kilograms of additional copper to fix or replace other damaged US communication equipment, sensors, and radars in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE".

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Fungi are truly weird and impressive—they can live anywhere, be poisonous or medicinal, and, reportedly, transform plastic waste into edible ingredients. And in more fungal news, some groups of fungi can literally foster the formation of ice.

In a recent Science Advances paper, researchers describe a newly identified fungal protein that triggers ice formation at temperatures as high as 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 degrees Celsius). That’s obviously below the freezing point of water, but in nature, freezing isn’t that simple. Forming the first tiny seed of ice—an ice nucleator—takes energy, and ice forms very slowly at temperatures above -50 degrees F (-46 degrees C), according to the paper.

Yet, we still get things like clouds—microscopic water droplets and ice crystals—thanks to ice nucleators. For the new study, the team tracked the fungal gene associated with the ice-triggering protein to a distant bacterial ancestor from millions of years ago, according to a Virginia Tech statement. Importantly, the fungal protein molecule offers a non-toxic, more efficient alternative to current approaches to weather engineering, food production, or the preservation of cells and organs.

[...] For the new study, the researchers studied a common soil fungus from the Mortierellaceae family, which they extracted from water and lichen samples collected during previous polar expeditions. DNA sequencing pointed the team to certain genes that closely resembled those inside known bacterial ice nucleators—not unheard of, but rare nonetheless. To check that they were on the right path, the researchers planted these proteins onto other yeast and bacteria, which indeed manifested previously non-existent ice-making abilities.

Even more remarkable was the fact that, upon further analysis, the fungus wasn’t simply copying a bacterial ancestor. Instead, it had “adopted a highly effective trait of the bacteria and adapted it to their own physiological requirements,” the team noted in the statement.

“It’s a bit the same and yet different,” explained Rosemary Eufemio, the study’s lead author and a biochemist at Boise State University. “Fungi use the same repetitive sequence architecture as bacteria for their ice-forming sites but have made them more soluble and stable, which probably benefits their ecological function.”

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/tech-hobbyist-makes-shoulder-mounted-guided-missile-prototype-with-usd96-in-parts-and-a-3d-printer-diy-manpads-includes-wi-fi-guidance-ballistics-calculations-optional-camera-for-tracking

In a five-minute YouTube video [not viewed], Alisher Khojayev goes over the basics of this Stinger-like creation, comprising the launcher, the actual missile, and even an optional camera node tracking system for added tracking capabilities. Most of the missile's major parts are 3D printed, while the electronics bits are cheap, widely available microprocessors and sensors. All the gear is tied down and wired with off-the-shelf hardware store parts, too.

Once the second switch is hit, the connection extends to the rocket itself, and at that moment, orientation angles start being calculated for the missile's canards to use (the movable wings that jut out of the missile to orient it).

The launcher contains an ESP32 microprocessor along with a GPS, barometer, and compass. The missile itself contains another ESP32, coupled with an MPU6050 inertial measurement unit for calculating orientation and velocity, and move the canards as mentioned.

Khojayev points out that although the 'MANPADS' ought to function well enough on its own, he proposes that it'd be at its best as part of a camera-and-GPS mesh node, for which he conveniently also made a prototype with commonly available parts.

As points of comparison, Ynetnews points out that the well-known Stinger MANPADS goes for up to a cool $480,000, and that even the U.S. Air Force's CAMP low-cost missile program is currently targeting half a million per launch. While these are literally military-grade units with high reliability, and Khojayev's just-launched prototype has no effectiveness track record, at $96, it is roughly 5,000 times cheaper to make.

Some may see this latest development as predictable in the grand scheme of things. The effectiveness of improvised explosives in Middle Eastern war theaters and the ingenuity of Ukrainian drone engineers have adeptly proven that necessity is the mother of invention. Couple that with 3D printers being ever more capable of producing strong, weapons-grade parts, and it's clearly displayed that the proverbial "three guys in a shed" can be far more effective than the military procurement machine.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

More than 4 in 10 adults in the UK are happy to use ChatGPT for their mental health support, new research suggests:

The study, led by Bournemouth University surveyed nearly 31,000 adults in 35 countries about their use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language models such as ChatGPT. The research also discovered that:

• One quarter of UK adults would be happy to delegate the role of teaching their children to AI.
• Globally, 45% of people would trust AI models to take on the role of their doctor.
• Three quarters of people surveyed said they would use an AI chat tool as a companion and a friend.

AI for mental health support

41% of participants from the UK, and 61% globally, said that they would be happy to using AI for counselling services. The researchers suggest that for the UK, this could be the result of the waiting times many people face to access the mental health services that they need.

"If someone is experiencing depression, they do not want to wait months for an appointment, so instead they can turn to AI," Dr Yankouskaya said. "However, when I tested some of the tools myself, I found the language used very vague and confusing because the developers are careful not to jump into providing diagnoses. So, it is no substitute for speaking to a health professional."

[...]

AI as a teacher

A quarter of people in the UK and half of everyone surveyed globally said that they would trust AI to carry out the role of a teacher, which the research team found particularly concerning.

"It really knocked me down when I saw how many people would be willing to delegate AI to the role of teaching their children," Dr Yankouskaya explained. "We still do not know the long-term effects that using these tools for education could have on children's memory and cognitive functions. We could be heading to the stage where we are developing children who are good at putting prompts into AI tools but not as good at taking the information in," she continued.

[...]

AI as a doctor

45% of all respondents and 25% in the UK said that they would trust AI to carry out the role of their doctor. The numbers were particularly higher in countries where healthcare is more expensive and harder to access.

[...]

AI as a companion

The highest amount of trust participants were willing to place in AI came in the role of friendship. Over three quarters of people globally and over half of people in the UK said they would talk to ChatGPT as a companion.

The researchers think this is explained by a perceived sense of empathy from generative language tools because they are designed to adapt the tone of their responses to the suit the user's.

"AI tools come across as a friend who knows you well and understands you," Dr Yankouskayaexplained. "ChatGPT can remember every chat it has had with a user and it feels like a private conversation between them. Nowadays people can be very sensitive to being judged and AI tools are designed to be non-judgemental. This means they can provide the sense of security people need," she continued.

Journal Reference: Yankouskaya, A., Almourad, M., Liebherr, M. et al. Who lets AI take over? Cross-national variation in willingness to delegate socially important roles to artificial intelligence. AI & Soc (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-02858-5

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on March 17 that the company is in the process of resuming production of its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips due to demand from customers in China:

"We've been licensed for many customers in China for H200. We have received purchase orders from many customers, and we're in the process of restarting our manufacturing," Huang said during a press conference.

Exports of the H200 chips had previously been restricted by Washington as it sought to maintain the United States' lead in AI and curb China's military advancement.

In December 2025, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he would allow the sale of H200 chips to approved customers in China and other countries "under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security," and that a 25 percent fee would go to the United States.

[...] The H200 chip is more advanced than anything that China can currently manufacture domestically, especially given export controls that block Chinese companies from purchasing the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Nvidia stated on its website that the H200 chip "supercharges generative AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads with game-changing performance and memory capabilities," allowing energy efficiency to reach new levels.

Also at FT and Yahoo! Finance.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

You've done it too, haven't you? Or maybe you know someone who has? Stuck their tongue to a piece of frozen metal in the winter, even though they know it's cold? But is it dangerous?

Touching your tongue to frozen metal must be a rite of passage if you're a five-year-old boy from a cold place. It's possibly more irresistible than hopping in mud puddles or sampling a newly frosted cake. But it is dangerous?

Anders Hagen Jarmund knows all about this particular temptation. Yes, he's gotten his tongue stuck.

[...] "This was an experience that my friends had also had, actually, and then we were wondering if it was actually dangerous, getting your tongue stuck to a lamppost or railing," he said.

In fact, in Norway, at least, the government was concerned enough about the problem to pass regulations in 1998 prohibiting bare metal in playground equipment.

So he and a group of friends who were also researchers decided to find the answer to their question: is getting your tongue frozen to cold metal dangerous?

The short answer is that most of the time, licking a piece of frozen metal is probably not going to result in serious harm.

You'll want to warm the metal where the tongue is stuck to loosen it, maybe by breathing on the metal or using a little warm water.

Whatever you do, however, do not yank the tongue off, Jarmund says.

[...] This is not just idyll speculation. Jarmund and his friends have recently published two academic articles about the problem in peer-reviewed medical journals. And one way they found their answers involved pig tongues.

[...] As best they could tell, there was nothing in the medical literature that assessed the true danger of actually freezing your tongue to frigidly cold metal.

So, in the spirit of true scientific explorers, they decided to fill this particular knowledge gap. Their quest would involve two important tools, one conventional, one less so: a literature review, and the aforementioned pig tongues.

First, Jarmund and his colleagues conducted a thorough review of Scandinavian newspapers since 1748 for stories of people freezing their tongues to cold metal. They found the first report in 1845.

[...] And they found a scientific study that gave the experience a name: Tundra tongue.

[...] In the end, what the researchers found was that most cases of tundra tongue had no or mild consequences.

But fully 18 per cent of the cases they found resulted in visits to a doctor or hospital to deal with problems like avulsion. That's the clinical way to describe a piece of your tongue getting torn off, such as when yanking it off a frozen piece of metal.

[...] They found, not surprisingly, if you apply pig tongues to a frozen section of a metal lamppost, they will stick, and quite well.

In fact, in 54 per cent of the experiments, parts of the tongue were torn. The harder they pulled, the greater the likelihood that a piece of the tongue would get torn off.

The greatest risk of having a piece of your tongue torn off, their experiments showed, was when temperatures were between -5 and -15 °C.

There was a surprise, however: when they tested the pig tongues on very cold metal, there was less chance of avulsion.

They don't know exactly why, but they think it's because the tongue freezes hard enough so it can resist being torn when yanked free from the icy grip of frozen metal.

Journal References:
    • Jarmund, Anders Hagen; Tollefsen, Sofie Eline; Sakshaug, Baard Cristoffer; et al. (2026) Demography and outcomes of frozen tongue: a scoping review of Scandinavian tundra tongue cases. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2026.112740
    • Jarmund, Anders Hagen; Jarmund, Ståle Hagen; Tollefsen, Sofie Eline et al. (2026) The trauma of the tundra tongue: an experimental and computational study of lingual tissue damage following adhesion to a cold metal lamp post. Head & Face Medicine https://doi.org/10.1186/s13005-025-00581-y

Original Submission

Afroman Wins 'Lemon Pound Cake' Lawsuit Over Raid-Turned-Music-Video

canopic jug writes:

Rollingstone and Techdirt are covering the court decision regarding Joseph Foreman, whose stage name is Afroman, over his rights to free speech and musical expression. The background was a botched raid on his home in 2022 which happened while he was out. Among other things the deputies destroyed his gate and front door and "miscounted" $400 of his cash and, almost, a lemon pound cake.

The trial in Adams County this week raised questions about the limits of First Amendment protections and the freedom of artistic criticism. In 2023, the ACLU of Ohio wrote an amicus brief in support of the rapper. “This case is a classic entry into the SLAPP suit genre: a meritless effort to use a lawsuit to silence criticism,” the ACLU wrote in the brief. “Plaintiffs are a group of law enforcement officers who executed what appears to have been a highly destructive and ultimately fruitless search of a popular musician’s home. Now they find themselves at the receiving end of his mockery and outrage, expressed through a series of music videos about the search, as well as spinoff merchandise and social media commentary.”

— Afroman Triumphs in Wild 'Lemon Pound Cake' Lawsuit Filed by Cops, Rollingstone

and

What the deputies did manage to accomplish was breaking Afroman’s door and gate, apparently pocketing $400 in cash (later explained away as a “miscount”), and getting captured on Afroman’s home security cameras doing a series of things that made them look absolutely ridiculous — including, famously, cautiously approaching a lemon cake sitting in a glass container on the kitchen counter.

The deputies, naturally, tried to cut power and unplug the security cameras during the raid — because surely that’s what the good guys do. But they didn’t get to them fast enough. Afroman took that footage and did exactly what you’d hope a musician would do: he turned it into a pair of songs — “Lemon Pound Cake” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door” — complete with music videos featuring the actual raid footage. The videos went massively viral. In fact, here, watch them again:

[...] Though I suppose we should thank the Adams County Sheriff's Office for one thing: If they hadn't filed this lawsuit, we wouldn't have gotten to watch Afroman testify in an American flag suit while a deputy complains about being called Lemon Pound Cake. Sometimes the legal system truly delivers amazing moments.

— Afroman's Defamation Trial Is Going About As Well For The Deputies As Their Original Raid Did, Techdirt

Some footage of the actual raid, captured by his own cameras, featured in some of his videos and was part of the contention with the sheriff's department.

Afroman Found Not Liable in Bizarre Defamation Case Brought by Ohio Police

owl writes:

https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/us-news/afroman-found-not-liable-in-bizarre-ohio-defamation-case/

The verdict was the icing on the cake.

Afroman did not defame Ohio cops in a satirical music video that featured footage of them fruitlessly raiding the rapper's house, a jury found on Wednesday.

The 51-year-old "Because I Got High" rapper, whose real name is Joseph Foreman, held up his hands in triumph and hugged people in the courtroom after he was found not liable for defamation, or invasion of privacy false light publicity.

Foreman was sued by the Adams County Sheriff's Office over a drug search at his home in August 2022 that resulted in no criminal charges.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

hubie writes:

Is mathematical beauty real? Or is it just a subjective, human 'wow' that is becoming redundant in an AI age?

It is a hot July day in London and I take the bus to Bloomsbury. I often come here for the British Library, the British Museum or the London Review Bookshop. More than a location, Bloomsbury feels like stepping into a work of art – maybe one of Virginia Woolf's stories, or Duncan Grant's paintings.

This time, I am here for mathematics: the Hardy Lecture at the London Mathematical Society (LMS), named after G H Hardy, a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Bloomsbury Group, and a president of the LMS. You may know him from the film The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015), in which he's played by Jeremy Irons.

[...] A few seats to my left, I recognise Kevin Buzzard, wearing the multi-coloured, patterned trousers he's known for among mathematicians. Based at Imperial College London, Buzzard is working on a computer proof assistant called Lean. His interest is personal: after long disputes with a colleague over a flawed proof, he lost trust, as he often puts it, in 'human mathematicians'. His mission now is to convince all mathematicians to write their proofs in Lean. In the Q&A after one of his talks, he said of the debate between truth and beauty in mathematics: 'I reject beauty, I want rigour' – though his vibrant sense of fashion suggests otherwise.

Interest in an AI-driven approach to mathematics has been exponential, and many mathematicians have left traditional academic research to explore its potential. Recently, one group of distinguished mathematicians designed 10 active, research-level questions for AI to tackle. At the time of writing, various AI companies and researchers had claimed to find solutions, which were under evaluation by the community.

Sitting in the room in Bloomsbury, I stared at the Hardy plaque and wondered: would Hardy find proofs generated by AI beautiful? I wasn't sure. He believed there should be a strong aesthetic judgment in mathematics, drawing parallels with poetry, and argued that beauty is the first test of good mathematics. He went as far as to say that there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

If asked, many mathematicians today still talk about the aesthetic appeal of one approach over another.

Yet we live in a different century to Hardy and his Bloomsbury peers, with different technologies and techniques, so perhaps we need a clearer definition of what mathematical beauty actually is. Over the history of mathematics, we can find examples where both rigour and the pursuit of beauty have shaped mathematics itself. So, if we're completely replacing this with a computer-assisted quest for truth and rigour, we ought to know what we'd be abandoning, if anything. Is mathematical beauty like the beauty in literature and art – or is it something else?

[...] But is an AI-assisted proof simple or surprising? How do we define vitality in a machine? On these questions, the jury is out. Myself, I am torn. Maybe models just need more training to match our creativity. But I also wonder whether our limbic system is required. Can we write proofs without emotional kicks? I am also unsure if perfectly efficient brains can come up with novel revolutionary ideas.

Ultimately, this debate is about more than aesthetics; it is closely tied to the development of AI-assisted mathematics. If AI models can produce novel mathematical structures, how should we direct them? Is it a search for beautiful or truthful structures? A question that possibly guides the years to come.

Some mathematicians say they prefer the 'truth' and only the 'truth'. However, my recent discussions with mathematicians showed me that most immediately recognise, enjoy and even wholeheartedly smile at a beautiful piece of maths. In fact, they spend their whole lives in search of one.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/malicious-packages-using-invisible-unicode-found-in-151-github-repos-and-vs-code

Aikido suggests that the 151 repos identified are likely a fraction of the total, since many had already been deleted before the research was published. Among the notable targets are repositories from Wasmer, Reworm, and anomalyco, the organization behind OpenCode and SST. The same decoder pattern also appeared in at least two npm packages and one VS Code extension uploaded on March 12.

Unfortunately, this most recent Glassworm campaign is harder to counter than previous iterations due to the sophistication of the malicious injections. Instead of showing up as obviously suspicious commits, they’re taking the form of version bumps and small refactors that are “stylistically consistent with each target project.” Aikido says it suspects the attackers are using large language models to generate this cover, since manually creating 151 bespoke code changes across different codebases wouldn’t be feasible otherwise.

Glassworm has been active since at least March 2025, when Aikido first found the invisible Unicode technique in malicious npm packages. By October, the same actor had moved into the Open VSX extension registry and GitHub repositories. An earlier investigation by Koi Security found the group used stolen npm, GitHub, and Git credentials to propagate the worm further, with decoded payloads deploying hidden VNC servers and SOCKS proxies for remote access. The Solana-based infrastructure makes takedown difficult, since blockchain transactions cannot be modified or deleted.

Aikido recommends scrutinizing package names and dependencies before incorporating them into projects, and using automated tooling that scans specifically for invisible Unicode characters, since visual code review doesn’t protect this class of injection.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Researchers played music to cells – aggressiveness of laryngeal cancer decreased:

The continuous movement of the vocal cords weakens and eventually stops as laryngeal cancer progresses. Researchers have, for the first time, discovered that restoring cellular vibration reduces the aggressiveness of advanced vocal cord cancer. When cancer cells were exposed to sound-wave vibration, a protein that promotes cancer growth and severity decreased.

"What music should we play to our cells?" This question sparked a groundbreaking study on laryngeal cancer that revealed a previously unknown sensitivity of this cancer type to a targeted drug currently under development.

Laryngeal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumours of the head and neck region. The most common early symptom is hoarseness, as the cancer typically appears in the vocal cords, and their movement gradually becomes impaired as the disease develops. Movement decreases because the vocal cord tissue stiffens and the cancer invades surrounding tissue.

[...] Researchers have long known that increased tissue stiffness promotes cancer malignancy in non-moving tissues such as breast, liver, and pancreatic cancers, because cells sense and respond to the physical properties of their environment. The sensitivity of cells to external forces led researchers to take an interest in laryngeal cancer, which develops in constantly moving tissue.

"We wondered whether 'movement could be medicine' and whether tissue stiffening and immobilisation contribute to cancer development," says Academy Professor Johanna Ivaska, Director of the BarrierForce Centre of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Finland.

"We developed this idea together with BarrierForce Vice Director Professor Sara Wickström and her research group. With their help, we used a bioreactor in which cells were grown on a vibrating membrane placed on top of a loudspeaker," explains Ivaska.

[...] The researchers' predictions proved correct: exposing cancer cells to vibration-mimicking vocal cord movement reduced their malignancy. One of the observed changes was a decrease in a protein called YAP in the cells.

Jasmin Kaivola notes that the study is entirely groundbreaking because the biomechanics of developing cancers have not previously been studied in moving tissues. She says it would be interesting to investigate whether the mechanism they identified has prognostic value in other cancers of moving tissues, such as lung cancer.

"We are excited about the results and believe that our findings may encourage developers of these drugs to explore their suitability for this difficult-to-treat cancer with a poor prognosis," says Kaivola.

Journal Reference: Kaivola, J., Punovuori, K., Chastney, M.R. et al. Restoring the tumour mechanophenotype of vocal fold cancer reverts its malignant properties. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02473-7

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

On Saturday, March 21? What about a cheeseburger?

Elon Musk spent quite some time last fall complaining that existing foundries cannot meet his company's demand for high-performance AI processors and proposed an idea to build his own chipmaking venture. Apparently, this was not just a brag but rather an announcement of a long-term project. Now the project has gotten its launch date: March 21, 2026.

"Terafab Project launches in 7 days," Elon Musk wrote in an X post.

Speaking in an interview with Moonshots, Elon Musk argued that the semiconductor industry may be approaching cleanroom design incorrectly. Instead of keeping entire buildings ultra-clean, Musk suggested that fabs should focus on isolating silicon wafers themselves throughout the manufacturing flow, keeping them sealed from the surrounding environment at all times. He surmised that would allow him to eat cheesburgers in the cleanroom while chips were being made.

Rebuilding the whole supply chain for such fabs would take the industry a couple of decades, to say the least. For this, Musk argued that his planning horizon is closer to one to two years, and he rarely looks beyond three years, which makes the traditional semiconductor buildout cycle incompatible with his projected demand.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Almost 100 people were arrested, and thousands of servers taken down in a multi-month, international law enforcement operation, Interpol announced.

In a press release shared late last week, the international police force said that it coordinated Operation Synergia III, which started in mid-July last year, and concluded in late January this year. During that time, police forces from 72 countries raided key locations, seized electronic devices, and arrested people.

In total, 94 people were arrested, with another 110 individuals “under investigation”. More than 45,000 malicious IP addresses and servers were taken down, and 212 electronic devices were seized.

“Cybercrime in 2026 is more sophisticated and destructive than ever before, but Operation Synergia III stands as a powerful testament to what global cooperation can achieve. INTERPOL remains at the forefront of this fight, uniting law enforcement agencies and private sector experts to dismantle criminal networks, disrupt emerging threats and protect victims around the world,” commented Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of the Cybercrime Directorate.

[...] It’s been a tough couple of weeks for cybercriminals, as Tycoon 2FA, one of the largest phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platforms in the world, was also taken down after a global coordinated law enforcement operation. This operation was led by Europol, and included police forces from Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

It successfully dismantled a phishing operation that was active since at least August 2023, and enabled thousands of cybercriminals to access email and cloud-based service accounts.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

If you can't make the chips and you can't run the turbines, you can't run an industry:

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockaded as part of the ongoing U.S.-Iran war, a number of shortages beyond gasoline are brewing: Helium, aluminum, and liquid natural gas (LNG) are all in increasingly short supply. This bottleneck could hit a wide range of industries, including chip manufacturing and data centers, as they are key components of day-to-day operation.

And with Iran now confirmed to have released sea mines into the Strait, its closure looks set to continue for a few more weeks, posing a grave threat to many global industries and the global economy in turn.

But the Strait isn't just a transit route for oil tankers; some 11% of global seaborne trade by volume passes through it each year. Ships that transit the waterway are responsible for 20% of the global LNG market - the same gas that powers much of the world's energy infrastructure.

The Middle East is one of the world's largest exporters of refined aluminum, importing the unwrought material before processing and shipping it out. The Middle East is responsible for around 9% of global aluminum smelting capacity, states Reuters. And some regional suppliers have announced incoming shortages. Others have simply shut down refineries while the conflict is ongoing, but they will be hard to start back up again.

canopic jug writes:

Over 15 years ago software engineer, Vincent Driessen, had published a mighty fine, illustrated explanation of Git branching only to find that recently Microsoft used its AI to not just plagiarize it but misrepresent it.

In 2010, I wrote A successful Git branching model and created a diagram to go with it. I designed that diagram in Apple Keynote, at the time obsessing over the colors, the curves, and the layout until it clearly communicated how branches relate to each other over time. I also published the source file so others could build on it. That diagram has since spread everywhere: in books, talks, blog posts, team wikis, and YouTube videos. I never minded. That was the whole point: sharing knowledge and letting the internet take it by storm!

What I did not expect was for Microsoft, a trillion-dollar company, some 15+ years later, to apparently run it through an AI image generator and publish the result on their official Learn portal, without any credit or link back to the original.

The AI rip-off was not just ugly. It was careless, blatantly amateuristic, and lacking any ambition, to put it gently. Microsoft unworthy. The carefully crafted visual language and layout of the original, the branch colors, the lane design, the dot and bubble alignment that made the original so readable—all of it had been muddled into a laughable form. Proper AI slop.

Previously:
(2025) The Drunken Plagiarists: Working with Co-pilots
(2024) Blocking AI Bots From Microsoft, Others Has Been "Pain in the a**": Reddit CEO

Original Submission