SECURITY | AI | MEANING
:: Unsupervised Learning is my continuous stream of original ideas,
analysis, tooling, and mental models designed to help humans thrive in a
world full of AI.
TOC
NOTES
Hey there!
Wow, so much going on. And only a few weeks until Hacker Camp in Vegas.
-
Friend of UL,
Ray Alner, is looking for a new position as a Systems Engineer. He has
experience in DevOps, Cyber, leadership, and a whole bunch of other
stuff. Also, on a personal note, Ray is one of UL’s smartest and kindest
members, and someone should absolutely snatch him up before they miss
out.
REACH OUT TO RAY DIRECTLY -
I’ve brought back the SECURITY, TECH, and HUMANS sections. I love
the idea of just one section, but I found myself wanting to sort
them to make it easier to read. Which means you were probably feeling
that way too. Sorry. Fixed it. -
I added new levels to the AGI definitions (4 and 5) within the RAID AI
Definitions Resource.
MORE -
I feel like Apple Notes is my actual operating system, and macOS is just
the window manager.
Ok, let’s get to it…
MY WORK
?This is the big one!
I’ve been thinking about and writing this one for months. There’s a
high chance that this will be the most impactful project I ever create.
READ THE ANNOUNCEMENT
Would really love for you check it out. And even better—get involved.
Introducing Substrate — An Open-source Framework for Human Understanding,
Meaning, and Progress
Substrate is a crowdsourced project designed to enhance understanding,
communication, and action in order to move humanity forward
danielmiessler.com/p/introducing-substrate
—
My new piece on
Dynamic Content Summaries
and how I think they’re going to be the way we view content in the future.
MORE
Exploring the idea of Personal vs. Business brands, and which is better for
different types of creator.
MORE
SECURITY
Kaspersky Shuts Down U.S. Operations — Kaspersky is shutting down its
business in the U.S. starting July 20, following sanctions and bans from
the U.S. government. | MORE
AT&T says nearly all cellular customers and some landline users
have had their data stolen, but now there’s an interesting twist being
reported by
Kim Zetter at Wired. Evidently AT&T paid a member of the hacking team nearly $300,000 to
delete the only copy of all the data. |
MORE
Russia is using AI-enhanced software called “Meliorator” to create fake
online personas for disinformation campaigns. This tool helps manage these
personas and spread false information through social media. |
MORE
?One of the things I’m most worried about from AI is the disinformation
bots. Both the sheer number of them, but also their sophistication.
The better AI gets (and especially agent frameworks) the more it’s
going to be like our enemies’ intelligence agencies now have millions of
employees.
What used to be tens or hundreds of people creating campaigns—slowly,
with lots of mistakes—will instead be millions of bots. And they’ll be
making far fewer mistakes and adapting very quickly to new narratives and
memes.
I think the internet is going to have to switch from a blocklist to an
allowlist mentality. It’s just going to be too much to filter.
A new Exim vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.1 allows attackers to
bypass attachment extension blocking and deliver executables. Over 1.5M
email servers are affected. | CVSS 9.1 | MORE
Google is now offering passkeys for high-risk users who join its Advanced
Protection Program, replacing the previous requirement for a physical
security key. |
MORE
? Calling All Innovators in AI! ?
? Excited about AI innovation? We are too.
As we gear up for Winter 2024/Spring 2025, we’re opening our sponsorship window to companies innovating in
Artificial Intelligence.
? Join us in reaching over 94,000 of the sharpest minds in security and tech. Don’t miss your chance to showcase your AI project or business to our
specialized readership.
Connect now before this season’s sponsorship calendar fills up!
? Email us at sponsorship@unsupervised-learning.com
to discuss how we can spotlight your AI innovations in upcoming
newsletters!
Get Seen by 94,000 of The Best and Brightest
A new Exim vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.1 allows attackers to
bypass attachment extension blocking and deliver executables. Over 1.5M
email servers are affected. | CVSS 9.1 | MORE
Foreign influence campaign analysis from US Intelligence:
-
Russia is backing Trump (I’m guessing because he’ll pull us out of
Ukraine). -
Iran is acting as a “chaos agent,” in its influence campaigns, focusing
on exploiting U.S. political and social tensions rather than backing a
specific candidate. -
China is mostly staying out of U.S. elections, seeing little benefit in
influencing the outcome. They’re more focused on data collection for
future influence operations.
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the think-tank, Silverado Policy Accelerator. They discuss how IT has
evolved from very slow deliberate patching to faster cycles and how cloud tech improves cybersecurity. Listen now from wherever you get your podcasts.
automox.com/resources/podcasts/ciso-it-e07
GitLab has a critical flaw (CVE-2024-6385) in its CI/CD pipelines that
lets attackers run pipelines as any user. Upgrade now. | CVSS 9.6 | MORE
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AI / TECH
OpenAI’s AGI Levels — OpenAI has published their 5-tier ladder for AI
progress. I’m honestly not a fan, other than Level 5. | MORE
?I don’t see how they’re going from chatbots to human level reasoners, and
then to agents, and then to innovators that can aid in invention. First,
Level 2 and Level 4 are way too close, and both are already possible.
Then you have this really interesting jump at Level 5, to something that
can do the work of an organization.
The problem is they’re mixing criteria. 1 is I don’t know what. Reasoners
is about thinking quality. Agents is just an attribute: “can take action”.
Innovators is just a descriptive output, i.e., “aids invention”.
Huh? Chatbots can aid invention. And that’s Level 1.
Then you have Level 5, which is actually about scale more than thinking
quality.
The scale isn’t super useful, IMHO. I am not even perfectly happy with my own attempt, but at least it compares apples to apples.
AI Startups Raising $100M+ in 2024 — Here’s the full list of 28 US AI
startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024. | MORE
Anthropic has added new features to Claude that help automate prompt
engineering. |
MORE
?I’m seeing a lot of my friends in AI switching to Claude over ChatGPT
right now. Or more specifically, preferring Claude Aritifacts over
ChatGPT, and Sonnet 3.5 over GPT-4o.
But it’s a leapfrog game. Soon we’ll have Opus 3.5, Llama 3.0 300B, and
eventually GPT-5 (or whatever they call it).
2025 is going to be nuts, for multiple reasons.
New Fiber Speeds — A new fiber optic network transmits data at speeds above
400 terabytes per second, breaking the current record by nearly 33%. And
this is on existing fiber, not some special new stuff. |
MORE
YouTube Music Tests AI Playlists — YouTube Music is testing a new feature
that lets you use AI to generate a playlist by describing what you want to
hear. Premium users in the US can use a chat UI to enter descriptions like
“catchy pop choruses” or “upbeat pop anthems.” | by Emma Roth | MORE
There’s a surge in delivery startups like Hailify, which pivoted from
managing Uber and Lyft gigs to delivering thousands of parcels from
China-based companies like Shein and Temu to U.S. shoppers. They see an
opportunity to take market share from FedEx, USPS, and UPS. | by
Ann Gehan |
MORE
HUMANS
Why Women Are Disappearing From Tech — The percentage of venture deals for
companies with female founders has dropped from 6.5% to 5.7% this year.
Companies with at least one female co-founder are also seeing less funding,
down from 27% to 16.6%. | by
Jessica E. Lessin |
MORE
Houston Is on a Path to an All-Out Power Crisis — For the 2.2 million people
in Houston who lost power after Hurricane Beryl, the situation is dire. The
city’s power infrastructure is so fragile that even moderate storms are
causing massive outages. And people are getting very angry. |
MORE
Tour de France Riders Are Inhaling Carbon Monoxide — Multiple Tour de France
teams are using carbon monoxide inhalation to enhance altitude training.
This controversial practice involves inhaling a deadly gas to boost
performance, and while it’s not banned by WADA, it raises serious ethical
and health concerns. |
MORE
130 Million U.S. Adults Have Low Literacy Skills — Over half of Americans
aged 16 to 74 read below a sixth-grade level, impacting their daily lives
and families. | by Dr. Iris Feinberg | MORE
Colorado Poultry Workers Test Positive for Bird Flu — Three poultry workers
in Colorado have tested presumptive positive for bird flu after an outbreak
at a commercial egg facility. This virus has already killed over 6 million
birds and is now infecting dairy cattle across the state. |
MORE
Just 4 in 10k Galaxies May Host Intelligent Aliens — A new study suggests
that intelligent alien life might be incredibly rare because it requires a
planet with plate tectonics, oceans, and continents. Only about 0.003% to
0.2% of exoplanets meet these criteria, making the odds of finding such
civilizations extremely low. | by
Robert Stern
and
Taras Gerya |
MORE
IDEAS
VCs Are Buying Medical Practices
I’ve got an doctor friend who’s
been telling me about how venture capital is moving into medical practices.
They’re coming in and doing what you would expect, which is looking for ways
to make more money. Except they’re largely doing it unethically, i.e., by
having the places sell stuff patients don’t need, request tests that are
unnecessary, etc.
I feel like this is another example of like big investors buying up
single-family homes and then renting them. Or storage spaces.
It’s like—the people with the money collect all the things, and then they
can do whatever they want with them. And the purpose never seems to be to
make things better. It’s always to make more money.
What am I missing? And if I’ve got this right, what are we to do about it?
Capitalism is the best system we have, so this should be legal I think. But
how do we keep the super-rich from just buying everything and making life
worse for everyone else?
—
Most Conspiracies Come From Not Realizing How Often Things Fail |
MORE
Therapy, Rumination, and Untying Knots |
MORE
DISCOVERY
ffuf on Lambda — ffuf running on AWS Lambda and streamed to a web browser. |
by
defparam |
MORE
Bullfrog — A Github Action that secures your workflows by controlling
outbound network connections. You can define allowed IPs and domains or use
audit mode to see all connections without blocking them. | by
BullfrogSec |
MORE
Everything You See Is a Computational Process, If You Know How to Look —
Lance Fortnow argues that computation is everywhere if you know how to see
it. He compares everyday processes like mailing a letter to computational
operations and even describes randomness as a complex computational
process. | by Lance Fortnow | MORE
The “Shaan Puri Emotion Eliciter” prompt lets you input your writing and
get specific suggestions to make it more emotionally engaging. It
maintains the original intent of your writing while enhancing it using
each of the seven emotions. | by Moritz Kremb | MORE
WTF Happened to Blogs | by
Michal Pándy |
MORE
As an Employee, You Are Disposable — The recent tech layoffs have shown
that employees are disposable in the eyes of executives. It doesn’t matter
if a company is profitable or not; layoffs can still happen, and
executives continue to earn huge sums of money amidst these cuts. | by Nelson | MORE
You Never Control the Arc of Your Career — This piece dives into how career
paths are often shaped by forces beyond our control, using Bruce Springsteen
as an example. | by
Michael Eaton
|
MORE
Smoking vs. Lung Cancer Deaths.
MORE
Learning Multiple Concepts from a Single Image — Unsupervised Concept
Extraction (UCE) is a new task that extracts and recreates multiple concepts
from a single image without any human annotations. | by
Shaozhe Hao
et al |
MORE
Change Detection in Satellite Imagery — This study addresses semantic change
detection using satellite image time series (SITS-SCD) by integrating both
change detection and semantic segmentation. | by
Elliot Vincent, Jean Ponce and Mathieu Aubry |
MORE
89 Things I Know About Git Commits — A collection of insights about Git
commits gathered over 12 years of experience in both small teams and large
Open Source projects. | by
Jamie Tanna
|
MORE
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
Check on your friends you haven’t heard from in a while.
Send them a text. It’s free, and they will appreciate being thought of.
APHORISM OF THE WEEK
❝
In the age of infinite leverage, judgment is the most important skill.
Naval
Hey there,
If you’re not already, I’d love for you to become a member. ??
Support My Work and Become a Member
Thank you,
-Daniel
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