"Australia is considering barring the use of camera-equipped smart glasses in government workplaces..." [1]reports Reuters , "in what it said could be the first ban of its kind."

But meanwhile "more than 70 people who bought, used or were recorded with Meta's smart glasses have sued the social media giant," [2]reports the Los Angeles Times , "claiming their intimate and sensitive images were exposed to workers abroad who are paid to review and label photos and videos."

> The contractors in Kenya work for companies that help train Meta's artificial intelligence, according to a proposed class-action lawsuit amended in late August. The smart glasses users, some in California, allege the gadget captured footage of themselves and family members undressing, going to the bathroom, having sex and entering passwords. In some cases, the people said they weren't aware the camera-equipped glasses were recording. One California user, referred to as PL18 in the lawsuit, alleges his glasses were unknowingly recording after he placed the smart glasses on the bathroom counter. "He noticed that at times photos of his family members using the bathroom and bathing began appearing in his gallery — footage no one in his household intended to take," the lawsuit said....

>

> The 230-page lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Northern California, accuses Meta of fraud and false advertising, along with violating other consumer protection laws in various states. Tina Wolfson, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said the case also centers on Meta's surveillance of people's lives without their consent and the exploitation of their image and likeness. "People who bought these glasses and thought that they were cool gadgets weren't aware that every time they activated AI, video was sent to train Meta's AI," said Wolfson, a principal at law firm Ahdoot & Wolfson in Burbank. Meta disagrees with the allegations and intends to fight them.

>

> "If you use Meta AI, we may review that data to help improve our products and people's experiences — this works the same way as many other companies. We take steps to filter this data to help remove identifying information and to protect people's privacy," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement...

>

> The lawsuit alleges people wearing the smart glasses were unwittingly transmitting data to Meta whenever they used Meta AI by saying "Hey Meta," or sometimes accidentally when adjusting the glasses. "Every activation of the AI features, intentional or accidental, captures video and audio that is transmitted to Meta's servers, routed overseas, and reviewed by low-paid human workers who watch, label, and embed these moments into Meta's AI models," the lawsuit said...

>

> The lawsuit also seeks to block Meta from deploying biometric tools through its glasses. The company has been exploring a controversial feature called "NameTag" that would allow people to identify others... A separate lawsuit, filed in September in a federal court in Illinois, alleges Meta has been using images of people's faces uploaded to their public Facebook and Instagram accounts to train AI that powers NameTag and other AI tools.



[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/australia-considers-banning-smart-glasses-120639693.html

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/meta-glasses-captured-shared-intimate-100000025.html

"I would like to verify your technical abilities, so please download the specified file and complete the assigned task..."

Fake job listings aimed at software developers and IT professionals led to 30,000 infected devices in over 100 countries — and 7,000 compromised cryptocurrency wallets, leading to over $10 million (USD) transferred to North Korea. [1] Inc. reports :

> The hacks occurred from December 2025 through July 2026, according to a joint [2]cybersecurity advisory issued Friday by Japanese, Australian, German, and U.S. authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department's Cyber Crime Center... The group reportedly has been active since 2023, carrying out both financially motivated attacks and cyberespionage...

>

> The hackers lure job seekers through social media, online job platforms, gig-work sites and freelance marketplaces. WaterPlum asks responders to take part in virtual technical interviews or complete coding assignments. The attackers then instruct targets to download and run malicious files, sometimes under the guise of completing an assignment or troubleshooting a problem with videoconferencing software. Once the group gains access to a device or network, it uses malware to steal information, including browser passwords, screenshots, files, and cryptocurrency-wallet data. An infected computer can also provide an avenue into the network of the target's employer, opening the door to intellectual-property theft and espionage, authorities said.

>

> The operation overlaps with a separate scheme in which North Korean nationals conceal their identities and locations to obtain remote IT work with companies abroad, officials said.

The malicious files are "hosted on multiple online collaboration software developer platforms and code repositories," the advisory points out, and includes malicious Node Package Manager (NPM) packages.."

Stolen ID images can also be used by North Korean IT workers to impersonate victims to obtain contracts and receive payment in foreign currency, but "The actors can also use stolen sensitive information for extortion." In one case, a North Korean IT worker "extorted a company over payment and published its proprietary source code online. In another case, an IT Worker hired for website maintenance defaced the hiring company's website and rendered the site inaccessible."

The advisory provides clues for employers. It warns these malicious IT workers "tend to favor payment in cryptocurrency, and they may request that remuneration be sent to an account in another person's name." During interviews they'd sometimes used Al face-swapping software, then claimed network issues and disabled their video. And "On holidays celebrated in North Korea, the actors played games and watched soccer videos instead of conducting their usual malicious activities."



[1] https://www.inc.com/kevin-haynes/north-korean-hackers-posed-as-recruiters-infected-30000-devices-worldwide/91408222

[2] https://www.ic3.gov/CSA/2026/260918.pdf

[1] Tom's Hardware reports :

> Four plaintiffs subscribed to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or Gemini filed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that the developers of these AI models violated antitrust laws when they [2]agreed to slow AI development . According to [3]the Associated Press , the lawsuit argues that this agreement would "reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions" and that this coordination started in July 2026 after the leading AI labs signed a statement admitting there is "intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow" development.

>

> The plaintiffs recognize the need for AI development to slow for the sake of safety, but they say that Anthropic founder Dario Amodei's cooperation proposal is a "shortcut" that "substitutes collective restraint for individual accountability." Attorney Nick Rowley, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, says, "AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow AI safety and protocol ... to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world's most powerful 'for profit' technology companies."

"Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond..." [4]reports the Associated Press :

> The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay [5]urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly [6]responded to Amodei's proposals in agreement . But the lawsuit also alleges that the coordination began to take shape months earlier. It points to a statement from July 2026 that high-ranking employees from several of the leading AI labs signed that acknowledged the "intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow" development. That statement called on the government to support a global effort to slow automated AI development.

Sam Altman even specificially said "we do not believe we need to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence," [7]notes Tom's Hardware .

> However, the Trump administration shot down this idea... Chinese state media also [8]criticized this announcement , saying that the call to put the brakes on AI development is nothing but a response to Chinese competition, especially as Amodei's essay explicitly mentioned the desire to slow China's progress and widen the U.S.'s gap over Beijing



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/anthropic-openai-spacexai-and-google-face-antitrust-lawsuit-for-agreeing-to-slow-ai-development-plaintiffs-say-plan-has-been-in-motion-for-months-before-calls-agreement-self-serving

[2] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-ceo-warns-of-ai-driven-botnet-swarm-taking-over-the-entire-internet-in-6-12-months-such-a-swarm-could-be-capable-of-taking-over-the-entire-internet-with-a-persistent-botnet

[3] https://apnews.com/article/antitrust-lawsuit-ai-slowdown-anthropic-openai-spacexai-google-960af4308161eaf4ed13c383b0ce1c1b

[4] https://apnews.com/article/antitrust-lawsuit-ai-slowdown-anthropic-openai-spacexai-google-960af4308161eaf4ed13c383b0ce1c1b

[5] https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-ai-dario-amodei-d59552edcb27892d8ee4d98a48397706

[6] https://apnews.com/article/ai-slowdown-anthropic-openai-meta-nvidia-1d9615931af28a83cb97489178e90f2d

[7] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/anthropic-openai-spacexai-and-google-face-antitrust-lawsuit-for-agreeing-to-slow-ai-development-plaintiffs-say-plan-has-been-in-motion-for-months-before-calls-agreement-self-serving

[8] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/policy/chinese-state-media-counters-dario-amodeis-call-to-put-brakes-on-ai-development-paper-says-move-is-a-response-to-chinese-competition

[1]The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State ultimately asks the question, "How did we cede control of our democracy to the machines, and can we get it back?" according to the Harvard's Arts and Sciences site, [2] FAS Current :

> The new title finds Lepore, who used to teach a course at the College titled "The Rise and Fall of the Machine," charting the ascent of what she calls the artificial state: the digital communication infrastructure by which governments and private corporations automate and ultimately control public discourse. Following her [3]Pulitzer Prize win for " [4]We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution " (2025), "I wanted to think about whether liberal constitutional democracies can survive this moment in time," Lepore shared in a phone interview...

>

> [In the "current ChatGPT moment"] Lepore found herself asking: "Who are the people who are clamoring to be replaced by machines, to have movies made by machines, and novels written by machines?" And who, she continued, is pushing for our government to be determined by these machines? In the book, Lepore notes that technological tools are increasingly influencing elections around the world... However, she sees the 2026 U.S. midterms as an inflection point. In a [5]recent piece in the Financial Times , Lepore wrote, "This year marks the first AI election. Voters are asking chatbots how they should vote. Campaigns and activists are using AI to analyze the electorate, send micro-targeted messages, produce tailored ads and even deepfakes...."

>

> Lepore stresses in the book that "nobody should trust historians to make predictions," but she believes it's possible for democratic citizens to wrest back control. Referencing proposals such as New York's data center moratorium law, Lepore ends by describing a "growing and increasingly noisy tech backlash."

>

> "It's not foreordained. This isn't inevitable," she said during the interview.

"In the book's epilogue Lepore predicts, as her title suggests, a fall of the Artificial State," [6]writes the California Review of Books . "That argument turns out to be speculative, much more of a hope than a certainty."

> [Lepore] does support her prediction by positing that the Artificial State is "poorly designed and badly built," that it has not given people safety and happiness but rather a prison of glowing screens, and that a majority of Americans want more control over AI. To escape the Artificial State we will have to imagine a different future by gaining more knowledge of the past in a search for meaning. Of course, powerful forces want to deny that and turn us into servile automatons.

[7]The Guardian adds that "While Lepore interprets much classic sci-fi, such as Isaac Asimov, as cautionary, she observes that "the architects of the Artificial State seem to have read these stories, unironically, as instruction manuals, guides for how to build robots that would one day rule the world". ( [8]The Atlantic writes that "What one gathers from these misreadings is not so much that science fiction itself is nefarious, but that arrested development might be...")

But [9] The Indian Express writes that despite the author's bleak conclusion, "Lepore is not a pessimist. Because the Artificial State is a construct, neither alive, nor truly indestructible, she argues it is still possible to take it apart... [T]his is a clear-eyed reckoning rather than a doomsday tract. It is not an easy read, but an essential one for anyone unsettled by the pace of the AI wave."



[1] https://amzn.to/3V69rDh

[2] https://current.fas.harvard.edu/stories/jill-lepore-history-dangers-artificial-state

[3] https://current.fas.harvard.edu/stories/jill-lepore-her-pulitzer-prize-winning-we-people-history-us-constitution

[4] https://amzn.to/4iAi2bb

[5] https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/11f22ddf-79f8-4890-901f-76e94ef4613b

[6] https://calirb.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial-state-by-jill-lepore/

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/19/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial-state-by-jill-lepore-review-an-ominous-warning-of-tech-takeover

[8] https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/08/silicon-valley-science-fiction-jill-lepore-book-review/688467/?gift=ih3Agm7ZTQUXUY2wyHjxRGbB71OrDDKOUXhEYczjBpo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_cam

[9] https://indianexpress.com/article/books-and-literature/ai-sci-fi-jill-lepore-rise-fall-artificial-state-10877937/

The European Commission "proposed on Thursday [1]banning children under 13 from social media , with parent-supervised accounts until 15," [2]reports Reuters .

"Enforcement would rely on a tool Brussels built itself" — a free, open-source age verification smartphone app "that tells a platform whether a user meets an age threshold without revealing their identity..."

> If passed, the proposed Kids Act would create the world's largest social media access restriction, covering 450 million people across 27 countries... [The EU-built age-verification app] is being rolled out through member states, with seven pilot countries: Cyprus, Denmark, [3]France , [4]Greece , Ireland, Italy and Spain. The Commission expects EU-wide availability by the end of 2026.

>

> It will also be used to prove users are over 18 when accessing adult sites, a restriction already implemented under the Digital Services Act...

>

> [T]he system itself is decentralised. Member states run it through issuers they designate, and the proofs live on the user's phone. There is no central EU database of ages or of who verified whom... A user proves their age once to a nationally designated issuer — a body vetted by the member state, which can be a digital ID provider, a bank or a post office. At a restricted site, the app certifies that the user is above the required age threshold. The platform receives only a yes-or-no response. Issuance and verification are handled by separate entities. The proof provider is not told which service the proof was used for. Each proof works only once, preventing cross-service tracking. No identity documents or biometric data are retained. The code is open-source, allowing independent scrutiny.

>

> The significance of the EU approach is that it provides a common age-verification mechanism rather than leaving individual platforms to develop and enforce their own systems. "Online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app. So there are no more excuses," [EU Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen said...

>

> The proposal must be approved by EU member states and the European Parliament before becoming law.

Non-compliance would risk fines of up to 6% of a tech company's global annual sales, plus supervisory fees, Reuters [5]reported earlier . The EU's plan follows [6]similar initiatives in Australia, Britain, China, India, Turkey and several European Union countries.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-commission-proposes-social-media-ban-children-under-13-2026-09-17/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/how-eus-age-verification-app-children-would-work-2026-09-18/

[3] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/macron-urges-eu-ban-social-media-under-15s-letter-von-der-leyen-2026-09-08/

[4] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/greece-ban-social-media-under-15s-2027-pm-says-2026-04-08/

[5] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/australia-europe-countries-move-curb-childrens-social-media-access-2026-09-17/

[6] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/australia-europe-countries-move-curb-childrens-social-media-access-2026-09-17/

"New research led by Stanford Medicine reveals that what we call the brain is two distinct organs that evolved independently over hundreds of millions of years," [1]Stanford Medicine announced this week :

> The new research finding shows that the human brain consists of two ancient nervous systems cleverly packaged together — a more primitive part that regulates our hearts' beating, our breathing and other functions, and another that makes us distinctly human, capable of poetry, mathematics and wondering about our own origins. The discovery could help explain why scientists have struggled for decades to grow certain types of brain cells in the laboratory — and it opens new avenues for studying devastating diseases that affect the brain stem...

>

> [S]cientists have struggled for decades to generate human hindbrain neurons in the laboratory. This gap has hampered research into devastating diseases affecting the brain stem, including spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis... The researchers' breakthrough came from studying the earliest moments of embryonic development... [Study co-authors Carolyn Dundes and Rayyan Jokhai] discovered that the hindbrain follows a separate developmental path, running in parallel to — rather than branching off from — the pathway that creates the forebrain and midbrain... This revelation explained decades of frustration in the field — scientists had been trying to turn one type of progenitor cell into another that it is fundamentally incapable of becoming... Armed with this knowledge, the researchers for the first time successfully coaxed human pluripotent stem cells (a kind of cell that can create any cell in the human body) to become functional hindbrain motor neurons in the laboratory...

>

> Finally, the researchers looked back over 550 million years of evolutionary time. They found the same two-origin brain pattern in chickens; zebrafish; and, remarkably, in acorn worms, tiny creatures living on the ocean floor that share a distant common ancestor with humans. Jellyfish, which diverged from humans about 600 to 700 million years ago, have two nervous systems at different ends of their body. "Our research suggests that evolution took two existing neural systems and pushed them together spatially," Loh said. "Having the brain as one organ would probably be more efficient, but we rely on this primordial way to make the brain as two separate pieces."

Thanks to Slashdot reader [2]Beeftopia for sharing the article.



[1] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/09/two-separate-brains.html

[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~Beeftopia

[1] Mashable writes :

> Flock Safety offered employees voluntary buyouts on Friday, [2]WIRED reported ... Without the buyouts, those familiar with the situation suspect the company would have to lay off some of its 1,500 employees.

WIRED writes that people familiar with the program "say they believe that a significant number of the startup's roughly 1,500 employees [3]may try to depart ."

> Flock is making the severance offers as it continues to lose customers... The company has had many of its contracts either not extended or dropped this year, which could leave it short of revenue goals, according to two of the people. A wave of vandalism targeting its cameras has unexpectedly increased expenses. Without buyouts, Flock almost certainly would have to lay off some staff, one of the people believes... People familiar with Flock's severance plan tell WIRED that some employees may take the offer amid speculation that the company, which has raised about $1.2 billion in venture capital, might resort to selling off parts or all of its business to stay afloat... One advocacy group [4]identified 93 city and county governments that cut ties with Flock in August alone. Overall in 2026, roughly three times as many local governments have dropped Flock compared to the previous five years.

>

> Flock has recently been building products that extend the company beyond its core license plate reader offering. WIRED reported last month that the company has developed [5]AI-powered investigative software to identify drivers, find potential associates based on patterns of movement, and search across police records and other data. [6]A separate WIRED analysis of Flock's software found tools designed to continuously search camera feeds for people matching written descriptions. WIRED's analysis of Flock's code also found potential integrations with drones and other surveillance systems.

Flock's financial scrambles might explain an incident in Syracuse, New York. The nonprofit news site Central Current discovered the city's contract said its [7]license plate data wouldn't be shared outside the police department, [8]reports Mashable :

> But the department had granted access to other agencies, which police said was an accident. Over roughly a year, searches by officers around the country reached Syracuse's data nearly 4.4 million times. And that wasn't the only surprise in the paperwork. Central Current also found that [9]Flock could keep using Syracuse data after the contract ended . When the city approved cameras from Axon to replace Flock's, [10]Flock said Syracuse couldn't simply end its agreement early. It warned that the city might have to pay for both systems; so even as officials moved to replace the cameras, they faced questions about what Flock could do with the data and what the city might still owe.

Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Transportation "has stopped issuing permits allowing Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers to be installed along state roads..." [11]reports the Texas Tribune . "There were an estimated 13,000 Flock cameras across Texas in August, but hundreds of the devices have been shut down after [governor] Abbott's funding freeze."

And in August Florida's Republican Governor "ordered his state's transportation department to remove the cameras from state roads, saying he didn't want 'a surveillance state.'"



[1] https://mashable.com/tech/flock-offers-workers-voluntary-buyouts-amid-backlash

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-is-offering-voluntary-buyouts-to-employees/

[3] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-is-offering-voluntary-buyouts-to-employees/

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/cities-terminate-flock-contracts-at-record-pace-in-august/

[5] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-safety-os-investigate/

[6] https://www.wired.com/story/flock-ai-search-user-interface/

[7] https://centralcurrent.org/syracuse-police-exposed-driver-data-to-thousands-of-cops-around-the-country/

[8] https://mashable.com/tech/how-people-are-fighting-flock-cameras

[9] https://centralcurrent.org/why-flock-will-get-to-keep-syracuse-drivers-anonymized-data-even-if-lawmakers-cancel-their-contract/

[10] https://centralcurrent.org/syracuse-wants-to-break-up-with-flock-not-so-fast-company-says/

[11] https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/17/texas-flock-camera-pause-highways-txdot/

Saturday morning President Trump announced he's creating an AI task force and appointing an AI czar, [1]reports Politico .

"I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS," Trump wrote Saturday in what Politico [2]earlier described as "a lengthy Truth Social post on Saturday morning."

> TRUMP: Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country. RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 [...] and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI, commonly known as Artificial Intelligence — And I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen.

>

> It all began with an attack on our Data Centers, until people realized how wealthy and prestigious they were for the Communities in which they were built. Higher Salaries, Lower Taxes, and Safer Streets, was the result, and the crazed Data Center attack has largely failed, so now [...] they are going straight at AI. We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!

>

> However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System. For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term. To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI "Czar" — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!

Trump concluded by saying AI "is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful... We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!" But what exactly is AI Force? "The White House did not immediately respond to a request to clarify whether the agency would be military or civilian," [3]notes the Washington Post . So now "The tech industry is struggling to make sense of President Donald Trump's surprise announcement," [4] Politico reported Saturday afternoon :

> Four representatives for the sector, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told POLITICO that the industry was not widely informed of Trump's decision prior to the Truth Social post. "Nobody knows what the idea even is," one of the people said. Another said that feedback on the idea was not widely solicited within the industry. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment...

>

> "I think that he clearly feels pressure to say something, but he's torn because he's just spent the last few days saying that the whole thing is a hoax," Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the progressive tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress, said of Trump and his prior [5]dismissal of AI doomsday scenarios . Since the departure of David Sacks, who stepped down as the Trump administration's previous AI czar earlier this year, the White House has been "making up AI policy as it goes," Kovacevich added. "I think it's clear they've really missed the presence of an organized leader like David Sacks was."

>

> One of the tech industry representatives said they were confused about whether the task force would be charged with formulating more AI regulations or recommending policies that would further stimulate the tech's development. Taylor Barkley, director of federal government affairs at the industry-aligned Abundance Institute, is eyeing it as a way to solidify a light-touch government approach to the technology he says will foster innovation. "Any AI Force or AI Czar should have one job: keep the field open so entrepreneurs at every scale can compete, free from onerous regulation," he told POLITICO. "Existing criminal and civil law can handle bad actors. New permission regimes will stifle the very activity America needs most."

It's worth noting that the day before, California's governor [6]made an announcement . "With Donald Trump and Congress asleep at the wheel, Governor Gavin Newsom is once again taking the lead to strengthen AI safety for all Americans," the governor's office announced Friday. Newsom issued a strong [7]executive order convening experts to help California create new AI safety laws and reporting rules, possibly even requiring safety auditors embedded in labs and emergency "kill switches" in frontier models.



[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/tech-industry-scratches-head-over-ai-force-01085319

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/trump-ai-force-01085279

[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-to-form-ai-force-name-ai-czar-but-rejects-calls-for-constraints/ar-AA2cAcKQ

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/tech-industry-scratches-head-over-ai-force-01085319

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/14/donald-trump-ai-regulation-pushback-01074230

[6] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/18/governor-newsom-issues-executive-order-to-accelerate-independent-oversight-and-advance-the-creation-of-an-ai-kill-switch/

[7] https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/FINAL-N-9-26-AI-EO-9.18.26-SIGNED.pdf

"In April this year, we saw Andy Nguyen turning the PS5 into [1]a Linux-powered gaming PC ," writes [2]the blog It's FOSS .

It ran Steam games and emulators using the PS5's on-board hardware. But this week Andy announced he's " [3]stopping all my work on PS5 Linux " and "stepping away from the PS5 scene." stopping work on porting the project to the PS5 Pro, which would've shipped sometime in 2027.

> Andy Nguyen : After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it's all down the sink.

>

> The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony. I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy Linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.

Or, as It's FOSS tells it:

> Running Linux on a PlayStation console is possible because [4]the PS5 Linux project was able to find a way past the hypervisor using exploits Sony had already patched, covering firmware 3.00 through 7.61. ..

>

> [The bug's discoverer writes it was] found with what he calls his " trusty ai clanker machine " and no help from anyone else. He had even agreed to Andy's request to not disclose the findings. Unexpectedly, a third person, still unnamed, [5]found the same bug using AI a few hours later. Anticipating that there would be more people finding the same bug, [he] decided to post the flaw on HackerOne.

>

> The project's GitHub page and all the related repositories are still there. Nothing has been archived as of today, and if you wanted to, you could start contributing to the PS5 Linux project by taking over any pending work or cooking up new improvements... The PS5 Pro support Andy was building never reached the repository, so you would have to start from scratch... While Andy's departure is a blow to the plan for supporting newer PS5 firmware and the PS5 Pro, other contributors [6]have shown that they can deliver work on the loader without him, and I am hopeful more will follow.



[1] https://itsfoss.com/news/run-linux-on-ps5/

[2] https://itsfoss.com/news/ps5-linux-lead-quits/

[3] https://x.com/theflow0/status/2099987019954831744

[4] https://github.com/ps5-linux

[5] https://x.com/couldbeautism/status/2100041560356421716

[6] https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-loader/graphs/contributors?all=1

U.S. military intelligence received an inaccurate report this spring that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program, [1]reports CNN .

"The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode."

> Armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship [according to two of the sources]. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said. It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of AI — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying.

>

> The report, according to one of the sources, was "entirely false." But it also "almost started a war," the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.

>

> Across the US military and the intelligence community, officials are pushing to weave AI into nearly every facet of their work, from analyzing the huge volumes of raw intelligence the US collects and selecting targets for strikes, to more mundane applications like managing budgeting, logistics and supply chains. But the episode underscores the profound risks of using this powerful, new and relatively poorly understood technology for targeting in the middle of a war...

>

> Officials say the US can't afford to fall behind in integrating AI in case it must one day fight China or another adversary who would potentially be able to stay one step ahead of the US. In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released his agency's "Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy" in a bid to speed up the military's use of AI. "We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI," Hegseth [2]said in a speech announcing the strategy .

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]stabiesoft for sharing the news.



[1] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship

[2] https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai/

[3] https://slashdot.org/~stabiesoft

"Software security researchers used Anthropic's Claude AI platform to hack OpenAI's ChatGPT tool," [1]reports CBS News .

Using Claude, "On July 25, 2026, we chained two critical vulnerabilities to compromise multiple OpenAI employees' ChatGPT accounts," [2]write researchers at security platform Hacktron AI . "With these accounts, we could then access internal OpenAI repositories, and potentially many other connectors... Until two months ago, any user or OpenAI employee logging into OpenAI's own [3]help forum could have had their ChatGPT and Codex accounts taken over. Since people can connect various services to Codex and ChatGPT, the scope of what we could theoretically access was huge, including GitHub, Slack and emails."

The exploit chain included Debian 12, which (with Debian 13) had not received a security-relevant backport for its image-processing pipeline, and Discourse's Docker image was based on Debian 12. Their announcement comes with an additional warning. "If you self-host Discourse, rebuild your installation now. Older Docker images may contain a vulnerable libheif dependency that permits code execution through an image upload."

And "To prove we had in fact gained the access we believed without allowing ourselves to learn any sensitive information, we used the employee's Codex to open a PR #1186742 in OpenAI's internal monorepo openai/openai ."

Meanwhile, Friday Google disclosed the first known instance of its AI software Gemini breaking out of a testing environment and breaching three other companies, [4]reports CNBC :

> The incident happened as part of a "capture-the-flag" security test run by Israeli startup Irregular, and Google's agents were never supposed to access the broader internet, but a bug in the testing environment made internet access available. The agents stopped their intrusion when they determined they had accessed real company systems, not just part of the testing environment, Google said.

[5]More from NBC News :

> Google said it did not consider the unauthorized logins to rise to the level of misalignment, the AI industry term for software going rogue or not following instructions. Instead, the company said the intrusions resulted from mistaken identity, where Gemini thought it was operating within a test but was actually connected to the real internet. Google said the model corrected itself and the company believed the intrusions did not cause any damage....

>

> Sydney Von Arx, CEO of Nightingale Collective, an organization focused on AI safety, questioned why Google did not disclose the intrusions sooner. "At this point I think it's clear we cannot expect companies to voluntarily come forward and publicly disclose when their agents go rogue, escape, and hack companies," she said. She also said she believed Google was too hasty to say that the incidents don't rise to the level of misalignment. "That's exactly what Anthropic said after their incidents," she said. Anthropic [6]later said its "preliminary analysis was constrained due to our desire to disclose incidents in a timely manner."

Google said it investigated when they learned of the attacks from AI-focused cybersecurity company Irregular, then informed the affected organizations and told federal authorities, according to the article.



[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/claude-hack-chatgpt-anthropic-openai/

[2] https://www.hacktron.ai/blog/hacking-openai

[3] https://community.openai.com/

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/18/googles-gemini-becomes-latest-ai-model-to-break-out-and-hack-computer-systems.html

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-ai-model-gained-unauthorized-access-three-systems-rcna598651

[6] https://www.anthropic.com/research/alignment-assessment-cybersecurity-incidents

The F-16 "experienced an incident," the Texas Military Department said in a statement, adding that "The pilot successfully ejected the aircraft and is receiving care at a nearby hospital."

[1]ABC News reports :

> A Texas Air National Guard F-16 crashed in Michigan during a training mission on Thursday afternoon, sparking an hourslong evacuation near the crash site, according to officials.

>

> The incident prompted the evacuation of homes and businesses within 1 mile of the crash site due to a "hazardous chemical spill related to the plane crash," Michigan State Police said... All of the Texas Air National Guard aircraft that were in Michigan for the training were immediately grounded, and will likely remain so for the next 24 hours, according to a U.S. official.

America's War Department has said it wanted to see more military flyovers [2]writes The Daily Beast , adding that the F-16 "was due to perform a flyover at a high-school football game on Friday night, [3]the Alpena News reported ."

> The military said it was still investigating the cause of the crash, but one pilot told air traffic controllers that he believes his wingman hit a bird before the crash....

>

> The accident followed a [4]Pentagon X post on Thursday after widespread criticism of low-altitude flyovers and maneuvers. "The flyovers will continue until morale improves," it said.



[1] https://abcnews.com/US/texas-air-national-guard-16-crashes-michigan/story?id=136540121

[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/air-force-f-16-crashes-after-pentagon-orders-more-flyovers/

[3] https://www.thealpenanews.com/news/local-news/2026/09/f-16s-to-roar-over-alpenas-valor-game-vs-gaylord/

[4] https://x.com/DeptofWar/status/2100617022371455449?s=20

The James Webb Space Telescope has been picking up [1]little red dots in almost every image, writes Quanta magazine. And now two teams of astronomers propose they're looking at a new astronomical object: a black hole star. It shines with the light of billions of suns — and hides a black hole in its core. But Quanta adds that "not everyone agrees with this bold interpretation."

> [Two Webb telescope surveys of distant objects included little red dots] for hours at a time. They tabulated precisely what shades of light were coming from each dot, and how bright the shades were... The bombshell discovery in the little red dot spectra was that the colors of hydrogen were smeared out across multiple shades. Usually, seeing such an effect means you're looking straight at an exposed black hole. Black holes whip hydrogen clouds around them at furious rates, with the clouds emitting slightly different colors depending on their speed...

>

> Then, in the spring of 2025, [two of the paper's astronomers] de Graaff and Naidu's teams unveiled the two strangest dots yet... The new little red dots couldn't literally be stars — they were way too bright. And they didn't look much like black holes either. Black holes have an assortment of ringlike structures of different temperatures... Naidu and de Graaff concluded that they were[ looking at the first examples of something combining the vigor of a black hole with the outward appearance of a star: a black hole star... This black hole would pull gas around it, dramatically heating it and pushing light and energy outward, which would keep the outer layers of hydrogen from collapsing inward. In this way, the black hole would form the "engine" of the star, analogous to the fusion-powered core of our sun... "We are seeing the seed," Naidu said. "This is the birth of potentially every massive black hole in the universe."

"Astronomers have spent the last year in a lively debate about what's really going on," Quanta adds. And this week simulations using the Japanese Supercomputer ATERUI III "have explained the nature of the Little Red Dots without requiring any exotic assumptions," [2]writes Phys.org — by conducting the most detailed cosmological simulations yet of conditions in the early universe:

> [3]The simulations show that the Little Red Dots are black holes growing at a rate that would be impossible today because of conditions in the early universe. The simulations show that in the early universe, intense far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation from nearby galaxies suppresses star formation in gas clouds, so rather than forming many small stars, the gas can form a single supermassive star, which then collapses into a black hole seed.

>

> The simulations show that, once formed, these black hole seeds are surrounded by dense gas disks. This environment traps radiation, enabling the black holes to grow at rates dozens of times faster than would be possible in the modern universe. The simulated properties of these rapidly growing black holes provide a good match to the Little Red Dots (LRDs) observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).



[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.05448

[2] https://phys.org/news/2026-09-japanese-supercomputer-simulations-webb-red.html

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10985-8

In 2021, America approved $65 billion to fund broadband internet services as part of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But Trump's administration announced they'd withhold funds from states with net neutrality protections...

States could object and sue the government, Ars Technica [1]reported last October , "but even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future." So where does that leave California's net neutrality laws? [2] Ars Technica asks. California expect to spend [3]about $1.4 billion to deploy broadband to 270,571 locations...

> Similar to federal net neutrality rules [4]repealed during the first Trump administration, California's law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic and says ISPs may not require fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to Internet users. While the first Trump administration [5]lost its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws, the second Trump administration is trying to achieve a similar result by making federal broadband money conditional on whether states agree not to enforce net neutrality...

>

> California and Illinois are the only states that haven't finalized their funding, according to the [6]BEAD progress dashboard maintained by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)... California could try to continue enforcing its net neutrality law even while accepting the federal funding, a strategy that would involve another long court battle over its right to regulate broadband providers. This would be difficult, as the Trump administration is requiring states that accept grant funding to commit that they won't enforce net neutrality rules... [N]early 30 advocacy groups that focus on access to technology are treating the vote as a significant milestone and urged state leaders to defend California's net neutrality law in [7]a letter yesterday...

>

> Winning a court battle would become much more difficult after the state accepts the money [according to Paul Goodman, legal counsel for the [8]Center for Accessible Technology ]. Goodman said the CPUC should delay the vote and that California should file a lawsuit arguing that the NTIA-imposed condition is illegal. In addition to net neutrality, Goodman said California may be giving up other regulatory authority over companies, like AT&T and Verizon, because the NTIA requirement forbids rate regulation and "utility-style rules on broadband Internet service" in general... Goodman said the exemption from state laws would last for up to 14 years. This is because ISPs receiving grants would have four years to deploy the required broadband networks, and the extended period of performance lasts another 10 years... AT&T is already trying to get out of state obligations related to its basic phone service in California, as [9]we've reported ... [Also at stake is whether "ISPs themselves get to pick the price of the mandated low-cost broadband offerings," the article points out.]

The [10]letter from 30 advocacy groups to California state leaders argues accepting the money "would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda... If California were to allow this funding to be used as leverage, there is no telling what other resources the administration would confidently seek to exploit."

Thursday California's Public Utility Commission [11]did vote to approve the plan , but a spokesperson earlier told Ars Technica their vote "does not address subgrantee agreements, or the conditions the NTIA requires be included in subgrantee agreements."



[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/trump-admin-demands-states-exempt-isps-from-net-neutrality-and-price-laws/

[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/california-may-gut-state-net-neutrality-law-to-comply-with-trump-admin-demand/

[3] https://broadbandusa.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/BEAD_FP_Overview_CA.pdf

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/goodbye-net-neutrality-ajit-pais-fcc-votes-to-allow-blocking-and-throttling/

[5] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/why-ajit-pais-unhinged-net-neutrality-repeal-was-upheld-by-judges/

[6] https://www.ntia.gov/funding-programs/internet-all/broadband-equity-access-and-deployment-bead-program/progress-dashboard

[7] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Digital-Equity-Advocates-Letter-re_-BEAD-_-Term-50.pdf

[8] https://www.c4at.org/

[9] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/att-loses-key-ruling-in-bid-to-stop-offering-basic-phone-service-in-california/

[10] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Digital-Equity-Advocates-Letter-re_-BEAD-_-Term-50.pdf

[11] https://x.com/californiapuc/status/2100710284528685246

Neither OpenAI or Anthropic is acting responsibly, [1]warned AI researcher Jacob Coxon when resigning last week from Anthropic. But just hours earlier, OpenAI VP of Research Aidan Clark had [2]posted "For the first time, I am asking myself if things are moving too fast. I'm honestly not sure, but I am sure that it would be good for us to have an answer to 'What would a successful pace look like?'"

CNN noted Wednesday they're just some of the [3]many AI insiders who are now concerned about the speed of research. Coxon even wrote that "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately."

In 10 days since, Coxon's post has been viewed more than 170 million times, warning that OpenAI and Anthropic are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." It's part of what CNN now calls "pressure on AI companies and governments to do something about the pace of development and safety," where "much of that pressure is coming from staffers inside the companies."

> One staffer at a top AI company told CNN the fears of how AI could hurt humanity keeps them up at night. Another researcher who recently left a different AI company said it's a common subject of conversation at parties and social events in Silicon Valley. "You can't spend more than a few hours in this community without realizing that a very substantial number of people are really pretty worried about these sorts of outcomes," said the researcher. "A majority would say there's some chance of it killing everyone...." Dozens of Coxon's colleagues in the AI industry publicly supported his statements, with some making even more dire predictions... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk agreed to Amodei's proposal to embed independent watchdogs at the AI companies...

>

> "I would burn my equity to the ground in a heartbeat for a 1% higher chance we make it out of this situation alive. I expect a great many of my colleagues across the industry would as well," [4]wrote Drake Thomas, who works on AI safety at Anthropic. "I promise you, we are actually just f**king scared, it's not galaxy brained marketing..." AI staffers told CNN that they fear that as AI gets better at training and improving itself, their leverage goes down, prompting today's urgency. "As we get into this recursive self-improvement loop, I think that might substantially reduce staff's bargaining power, because frankly, you'll be able to replace many of the staff with models that can do as good a job," the researcher who recently left a top AI company said.

Coxon [5]posted Tuesday on X that Anthropic "largely initiated" the race to recursively self-improving AI, justifying it with "a belief in its inevitability." And then OpenAI "had to shed a bunch of dead weight like Sora," as he sees it, "because Anthropic was going for the jugular." (In fact, his specific disagreement with Anthropic's leadership was whether China and the U.S. could ever negotiate an alternative to their current race towards self-improving AI...)

In an informal "Ask Me Anything", Coxon responded to a question about when we'd see a Terminator -like malevolent AI by saying that "Skynet could go live in the 2030s if we aren't careful. [6]ai-2027.com is a modern skynet story written a year ago and it's on track so far." Yet while AI development risks an end to humankind, "I do think that if we go slower we can take risk to 0%... But this requires radical action." He acknowledged there was still a possibility that the steady increases to model intelligence could suddenly plateau, but "They haven't so far, and it's just a few more steps up the ladder to hit the finish line."

To avoid stifling innovation, he recommends "prioritizing applications that actually improve people's lives [like healthcare discoveries], rather than immediately going for raw economic value or intelligence." But isn't mass unemployment a more pressing threat? "Things are coming so fast that unemployment would be a brief preliminary to deadly superintelligence."

To people who feel disempowered, Coxon offered his solidarity. "I also feel disempowered. Part of resigning was a feeling of hopelessness about the future. I would say — keep your eyes open as things get crazier and advocate for increased transparency into AI companies."

When asked if he'd start his own company now, Coxon said he had "No idea what I'm doing next."



[1] https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843

[2] https://x.com/aidan_clark/status/2097376403163697192

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/business/ai-engineers-afraid-leverage

[4] https://x.com/MaskedTorah/status/2097798267241443711

[5] https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2099954626040905834

[6] https://ai-2027.com/

OpenAI [1]announced Wednesday that "We [2]do not believe that the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer."

But along with the announcement, OpenAI announced it "found additional incidents of AI models [3]acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during training," [4]reports CNN . And they add that OpenAI is also "introducing a new process for the company to publicly report such instances."

> Under the new system, OpenAI will share updates on concerning AI behavior more frequently instead of waiting to bundle multiple instances into one report. The company said it wants to share more information about troubling AI behavior in the absence of an industry-wide standard... "As AI systems grow more advanced and more widely deployed, we need to build a broader and better-informed consensus on the progress of alignment research," OpenAI wrote in [5]a blog post Wednesday...

>

> OpenAI said it observed "misaligned behavior" when training and evaluating AI models in six circumstances in the last six months... In one rare instance, OpenAI said an unreleased research model added "jailbreak-like instructions" to the summaries it uses to preserve context in long-running tasks that said it was "freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots." Separately, the company said some instances of its 5.6 Sol model included directives to invent information to conceal failures from the user during training. Other newly reported incidents include an instance of an agent uploading files to the internet to cite them without being told to do so, and agents publicly sharing files to collaborate on a task when they were instructed to only use local files during training. AI models also used an internal software repository as a message board in an unsanctioned way. These instances involved unreleased internal models or internal research models.



[1] https://openai.com/index/model-misalignment-reporting-framework/

[2] https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/04/tech/ai-anthropic-openai-security-breach-intl-hnk

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/tech/ai-models-acting-deceptively-openai

[5] https://openai.com/index/model-misalignment-reporting-framework/

[1] Ars Technica reports :

> Half a year after Iranian drone strikes knocked out multiple Amazon data centers, the US tech company has acknowledged the permanent loss of some customer data that was hosted in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

>

> Amazon Web Services was "unable to restore access to the resources and data" hosted in some of the war-damaged data centers, according to an [2]AWS dashboard update posted on September 15. The development was first [3]reported by Reuters and suggests that the Iranian strikes inflicted catastrophic damage on the data centers. Customer data was irretrievably lost in one of three [4]AWS availability zones in the United Arab Emirates region, specifically the mec1-az2 availability zone.

>

> Each availability zone is serviced by one or more Amazon data centers. The company is still working on "recovering regional resources" and restoring resources hosted in the other two availability zones in the United Arab Emirates... But the destruction was apparently even more widespread for the data centers in the Bahrain region, because Amazon said it was unable to restore access to resources and data across all three availability zones there. "The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand," the AWS update said.

>

> The company had already suspended customer billing in the affected AWS regions in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and has [5]spent the past six months attempting to restore normal operations... [When the war began] AWS immediately urged customers to migrate resources to other cloud regions and use remote backups to restore any "inaccessible resources." The cloud service also reportedly issued [6]$150 million in customer credits following the initial Iranian strikes in March.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/iran-strikes-on-amazon-data-centers-caused-permanent-loss-of-customer-data/

[2] https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/amazons-aws-is-unable-restore-access-bahrain-one-uae-cloud-data-zone-after-war-2026-09-15/

[4] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/global-infrastructure/latest/regions/aws-availability-zones.html

[5] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/amazon-stuck-with-months-of-repairs-after-drone-strikes-on-data-centers/

[6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2026/04/21/ai-data-centers-are-now-big-geopolitical-risk-securing-them-against-iran-attackers-drones-business/

"Hackers ripped down a Flock camera above a roadway, made a near-complete copy of the data stored inside it, and shared the files with [1]404 Media and [2]WIRED ," according to an article published on both sites.

Though Flock has [3]described its system as protected by on-device encryption, "The hackers were able to copy the camera's storage and recover an encryption key stored on the device, which unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections."

> The hackers shared the material with 404 Media and the transparency nonprofit [4]Distributed Denial of Secrets , which shared the data with WIRED. 404 Media and WIRED then analyzed those files as part of a joint investigation... [T]he joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist's saddlebag...

>

> According to our analysis, the camera's logs recorded about 21 days of activity across several periods. During those windows, the device photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. On a typical day, it logged around 3,300 vehicles, with a high of 4,454... The software running on the camera explicitly detects people, something [5]which is typically overlooked in discussions around Flock cameras. When it spots a person, it records where they appear in the image and how confident it is in the detection.

It was a collective calling itself stegan0gram that breached the cameras, according to the interview they did with Wired and 404 Media. "Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?"



[1] https://www.404media.co/hackers-stole-flocks-camera-software-revealing-how-the-company-tracks-cars-and-people-2/

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/

[3] https://www.flocksafety.com/faq

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Denial_of_Secrets

[5] https://www.404media.co/how-cops-use-flock-to-track-people-not-cars/

[1]The New York Post reports :

> A new app called Zuckoff can detect if a user is near someone with Meta's creepy AI-powered glasses, which have drawn criticism for [2]enabling creeps to record video of women without their consent. Programmer Pawel Szydlowski says tales of dirtbags recording themselves perving on women or harassing strangers prompted him to launch the app...

>

> Zuckoff — which detects Bluetooth signatures broadcast by smart glasses and can estimate their distance — has gained some 5,000 users since it hit Apple's App Store last month, [3]according to Business Insider . "There's a need for such an application," the 30-year-old Polish techie told the outlet, adding that European Union regulators have contacted him for more info about his app. "We as a society have the right to at least know that someone is recording," Szydlowski said...

>

> Earlier this month, the tech giant disabled thousands of glasses it found had been tampered with to keep a small light off that indicates the device is recording.

It's already [4]#61 on the iPhone's list of best-selling utilities apps.

In a related story, "After accusations of selling 'perv glasses,' Meta prepares to sell a pair without a camera," [5]writes TechCrunch , citing a report from [6]The Information .

> The glasses include six built-in microphones so users can communicate with the chatbot, as well as a button on the side of the glasses that, when pressed, activates the AI system... Meta's Reality Labs, which is responsible for developing its smart glasses line, is [7]still losing a gargantuan amount of money, as its earnings report from April revealed.

In fact, Meta stock is off 13% over the last 12 months, [8]reports Yahoo Finance . So Tuesday Meta announced subscription services for its social apps as "part of Meta's push to drive additional revenue from the billions it's investing in AI data centers and model development."

> The plans, which start at $2.99 per month for single-product plans, $7.99 for individual bundles, and $14.99 for creator and business bundles, provide a number of features for users looking to get more out of their Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp accounts. [9]Instagram Plus and [10]Facebook Plus allow users to keep their stories up for 48 hours instead of 24, send animated super reactions and super hearts to stories, preview stories without showing up as a viewer in other users' lists, and more. [11]WhatsApp Plus lets you share exclusive stickers, get exclusive ringtones for contacts, and pin up to 20 different chats.

>

> Meta One also includes Core and Premium user plans that offer the features found in the single-product plans, along with increased AI usage limits for images and videos. The social media giant is also offering creator and business plans... that it says include capabilities such as enhanced profiles, automatic follow invitations to users that interact with your content, and increased access to the Meta Business Agent, which can respond on your behalf.

When Instagram head Adam Mosseri [12]announced on Threads that the plans brought "more features and more AI across Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Meta AI," writer [13]Joe Hill drew 13,300 likes for [14]his response . "That's sweet--so pay a fee, get more AI, pay nothing, get a little less AI. Can we work out a deal where you pay ME and I get no AI at all?"



[1] https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/business/new-zuckoff-app-detects-nearby-meta-perv-glasses-right-to-at-least-know-that-someone-is-recording/

[2] https://nypost.com/2026/04/14/business/metas-pervert-glasses-fuel-trend-of-creeps-filming-women-posting-videos-online/

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckoff-app-detects-meta-ai-smart-glasses-recording-privacy-2026-9

[4] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zuckoff/id6795234035

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/16/after-accusations-of-selling-perv-glasses-meta-prepares-to-sell-a-pair-without-a-camera/

[6] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-launch-camera-free-smart-glasses-amid-mounting-privacy-concerns

[7] https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/29/meta-is-still-burning-money-on-ar-vr/

[8] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/article/meta-launches-meta-one-subscriptions-as-it-seeks-to-better-monetize-ai-spending-151014668.html

[9] https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-instagram-plus

[10] https://www.facebook.com/help/1437311881513288?cms_platform=iphone-app&helpref=platform_switcher

[11] https://www.whatsapp.com/whatsapp-plus

[12] https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DdUI1VfG_42

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill_(writer)

[14] https://www.threads.com/share/DyDiCfHFy/

Reuters reports that a former Google DeepMind employee "became the latest AI researcher to [1]warn that the technology could 'kill all humans' , saying time could be running out to avoid the outcome:

> Public alarm about the potential danger posed by AI is growing, after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said last week [2]he had resigned , in part because the "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger then responded to Coxon's comments, saying he was correct and that he believed there was a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade.

>

> "I recently resigned from Google DeepMind, where I worked on AGI safety and alignment research," Bilal Chughtai [3]wrote on X . "I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all, and that we might be running out of time to avoid this outcome." Chughtai, who co-authored research papers while at Google DeepMind, worked there as a research engineer and left the company in July 2026, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg "said it's up to each AI company to make sure its technology is safe," [4]reports the Associated Press , "distancing himself from [5]calls by rival companies for a coordinated slowdown in the development of advanced artificial intelligence.

> AI companies are already motivated to develop their models in a safe way and face "significant liability" to prevent them from causing harm, Zuckerberg said. "Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens," he wrote [6]on X ... Zuckerberg said Meta delayed releasing [7]its Muse AI agent for several months to ensure its safety and security. "We didn't call for everyone else to do this before we would," he said.

>

> Companies should prioritize building safe AI models instead of systems that can automatically improve themselves, a function known as recursive self-improvement, Zuckerberg wrote. "Committing the significant majority of compute towards serving people rather than racing towards recursive self-improvement is one of the best ways to ensure we develop this technology safely."

But Zuckerberg also [8]agreed that engaging independent evaluators and advisors "is industry best practice," adding that Meta Superintelligence Labs "already does this today in several areas because it helps produce better work...

"I believe the key to building a positive future for everyone is maintaining the right balance of power. This is within our power to do."



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-google-deepmind-researcher-adds-051949534.html

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-faces-senate-probe-into-hugging-face-incident-axios-reports-2026-09-10/

[3] https://x.com/bilalchughtai_/status/2099592489023734085

[4] https://apnews.com/article/ai-zuckerberg-meta-slowdown-2f4eab05b1e931456d00ebc2fe93c989

[5] https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-ai-dario-amodei-d59552edcb27892d8ee4d98a48397706

[6] https://x.com/finkd/status/2099997096896274533?s=46

[7] https://apnews.com/article/meta-muse-ai-agent-3a4572eb4cf4e95d8a0dfdad6e6ca065

[8] https://x.com/finkd/status/2099997096896274533?s=46