I make computers do things...
Australia
Joined February 2009
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We have to update everything because of zero-day vulnerabilities, but we can’t update anything because of supply chain attacks.
Schrödinger’s update: your software is vulnerable until you update it, at which point it might also be vulnerable.
An old reminder that not everyones priorities match your own
jcroucher.com/blog/the-sump-…
We announced a server migration, aborted it halfway through, and changed absolutely nothing. The next morning the whole office reported chaos. A lesson in expectation, perception, and why we stopped telling people about maintenance.
jcroucher.com/blog/the-migra…
I went looking for details on AI destroying junior jobs in Australia but it didn't turn out that way jcroucher.com/blog/the-junio…
John Croucher retweeted
BREAKING: OpenAI might have stolen another major proof.
In a detailed Mastodon post, which I report in full in the comments, Andreas Thom presents several pieces of evidence suggesting that OpenAI may have trained Astra on conversations in which he and Gábor Kun were working on Gromov’s soficity conjecture, one of the ten problems OpenAI later announced Astra had solved.
I know Andreas. We met several times early in our careers. He is an exceptional mathematician, a leading expert on sofic and hyperlinear groups, and one of the most respected scholars in the field. He has spent two decades working on this problem.
If his account is correct, this is not a minor dispute over attribution. It would mean that unpublished human work was absorbed into a model and then presented to the world as a breakthrough by the model itself.
And if the allegations raised by Levent Alpöge, Tristan Buckmaster, and now Andreas Thom are all substantiated, we are no longer looking at isolated incidents.
We may be looking at one of the greatest intellectual scandals in the history of science.
AI is not discovering new mathematics.
AI is stealing human discovery.
I finally got around to fixing some code from 1996, 30 years ago. jcroucher.com/blog/my-first-…
John Croucher retweeted
🚨 CRITICAL: Active supply chain attack on axios -- one of npm's most depended-on packages.
The latest [email protected] now pulls in [email protected], a package that did not exist before today. This is a live compromise.
This is textbook supply chain installer malware. axios has 100M+ weekly downloads. Every npm install pulling the latest version is potentially compromised right now.
Socket AI analysis confirms this is malware. plain-crypto-js is an obfuscated dropper/loader that:
• Deobfuscates embedded payloads and operational strings at runtime
• Dynamically loads fs, os, and execSync to evade static analysis
• Executes decoded shell commands
• Stages and copies payload files into OS temp and Windows ProgramData directories
• Deletes and renames artifacts post-execution to destroy forensic evidence
If you use axios, pin your version immediately and audit your lockfiles. Do not upgrade.
jcroucher.com/blog/the-forkl… The Forklift Incident.
Q: 你是什么模型 - What kind of model are you?
A: 我是由**DeepSeek**开发的AI助手，基于**DeepSeek**模型。\n\n有什么我可以帮助你的吗？😊
I am an AI assistant developed by **DeepSeek**, based on the **DeepSeek** model. How can I help you? 😊
Love this new era where you don’t need to hack systems anymore you just email them nicely with some prompt injection. Can't wait for my Optimus robot to finish folding the laundry, read a dodgy email, and politely mail my wallet off to a hacker.
John Croucher retweeted
We're excited to announce that #LaraconAU 2024 will be held at QUT Gardens Theatre on November 7-8 in Brisbane, Queensland
Tix will be on sale next Tuesday 14th May.
Blind and early bird pricing is available in limited quantities.
John Croucher retweeted
Thank you to everyone who brought this article to our attention. We agree that customers should not have to pay for unauthorized requests that they did not initiate. We’ll have more to share on exactly how we’ll help prevent these charges shortly.
#AWS #S3
How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode - medium.com/@maciej.pocwierz/…