Gaining Entry
13-foot-long python survives five months eating cats in trailer park
Turns out pumps at gas stations are controlled via Bluetooth, and that the connections are insecure.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the alleged crypto criminal who stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history, was considering paying Donald Trump $5 billion not to run for president
Psychedelics plus psychotherapy can trigger rapid changes in the brain
TikTok is reportedly testing a paid, ad-free version of its app
Several Taiwanese technology companies are helping Huawei Technologies Co. build infrastructure for an under-the-radar network of chip plants across southern China, an unusual collaboration
For years, Apple Inc. pondered building a search engine that could replace Google as the preferred option on its devices. […] Right now, Apple gets a cut of Google’s search ad revenue, a commission that has brought in roughly $8 billion annually in recent years. But imagine if Apple could keep more of that money. […] Google may be dominant in search, but the company still needs Apple and its billions of users. […] John Giannandrea, a former Google executive who now oversees machine learning and AI at Apple, has a giant search team under him. Over the past few years, his group developed a next-generation search engine for Apple’s apps codenamed “Pegasus.” That technology, which more accurately surfaces results, is already available in some Apple apps, but will soon be coming to more, including the App Store itself. […] Apple also has its own advertising technology team, which will be helpful if its search ambitions grow. […] One acquisition Apple could have made but didn’t was Bing. I reported this past week that Microsoft tried to spin off Bing and sell it to Apple in order to make it the default search engine on the iPhone and other devices. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, balked at the deal.
Exploiting the iPhone 4, Part 1: Gaining Entry — Step one. Acquire a device. I don’t know anything about writing a jailbreak or about what my approach will look like, so let’s just start somewhere obvious. I pick up an iPhone 4 and a 3GS off eBay. Older devices seem like a good place to start as their security is presumably worse, but you’ve got to find the sweet spot: really old devices are wildly valuable. […] I’ll need to be able to run some code on the device. The imagined path here is that I manage to set up a toolchain that can produce and install applications the way it was done back in 2010. Using that, I would then write an app and poke around from within the sandbox to investigate the attack surface.
Humans inherit artificial intelligence biases
Tech companies have not solved some of the persistent problems with AI language models, such as their propensity to make things up or “hallucinate.” […] Tech companies are putting this deeply flawed tech in the hands of millions of people and allowing AI models access to sensitive information such as their emails, calendars, and private messages. In doing so, they are making us all vulnerable to scams, phishing, and hacks on a massive scale.
How Mexico built a state — Building a state is not a matter of copying first world institutions. It is a tough process of deals and compromises. 19th century Mexico is a good example.
Venice Explained: Its Architecture, Its Streets, Its Canals, and How Best to Experience Them All
A pair of Chinese scam artists wanted to turn a radiation-soaked Pacific atoll into a future metropolis. They ended up in an American jail instead. […] Yan and Zhou went from hawking a miracle water cure to running a sham United Nations organization on Manhattan’s Third Avenue and rubbing shoulders with diplomats and world leaders. The pair managed to gain access to the U.N. thanks to over $1 million in clandestine payments to diplomats.
Gin Drinking in England, 1700–1850 — Gin was one of a wide range of new intoxicants — including chocolate, coffee, opium, sugar, tea, and tobacco — that, in what has been called a “psychoactive revolution”, radically expanded the mind-altering possibilities for European people between 1600 and 1800.
