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[RISKS List Owner <risko () csl sri com>]

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Subject: Risks Digest 34.68

RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest  Monday 23 June 2025  Volume 34 : Issue 68

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. *****
This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
  <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/34.68>
The current issue can also be found at
  <http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

  Contents:
How nuclear war could start (The Washington Post Opinion)
Climate and Humanitarian Consequences of an even Limited
 Nuclear Exchange and the Actual Risks of Nuclear War (Webinar)
Starlink hazard (WashPost)
DOGE layoffs may have compromised the accuracy of government data (CNN)
Slashing CISA Is a Gift to Our Adversaries (The Bulwark)
Most Americans Believe Misinformation Is a Problem --  Federal Research Cuts
 Will Only Make the Problem Worse (PGN)
As disinformation and hate thrive online, YouTube quietly changed
 how it moderates content (CBC)
ChatGPT goes down -- and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide (Pivot to AI)
They Asked ChatGPT Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. (The NY Times)
News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google's New AI Tools (WSJ)
Can AI safeguard us against AI? One of its Canadian pioneers thinks so (CBC)
Bad brainwaves:  A ChatGPT makes you stupid (Pivot to AI)
They Asked an AI Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling
 (NYTimes)
SSA stops reporting call-wait times and other metrics (WashPost)
Pope Leo Takes On AI as a Potential Threat to Humanity (WSJ)
AI Ethics Experts Set to Gather to Shape the Future of Responsible AI
 (ACM Media Center)
Hacker Group Exposes Source Code for Iran's Cryptocurrency (Amichai Stein)o
Iran Asks Citizens to Delete WhatsApp from Devices (AP)
China Unleashes Hackers Against Russia (Megha Rajagopalan)
China's Spy Agencies Investing Heavily in AI (Julian E. Barnes)
Amazon Says It Will Reduce Its Workforce as AI Replaces Human Employees
 (CNN)
ChatGPT will avoid being shut down in some life-threatenign scenarios,
 former OpenAI researcher claims (Techcrunch)
Big Tech two-factor authentication compromised (Bloomberg)
What could go wrong? - AllTrails launches AI route-making tool,
 worrying search-and-rescue members (National Observer)
EU weighs sperm donor cap to curb risk of accidental incest (Steve Bacher)
ChatGPT may be eroding critical thinking skills (MIT)
Meta's Privacy Screwup Reveals How People Really See AI Chatbots (NYMag)
Tesla blows past stopped school bus and hits kid-sized dummies in
 Full Self-Driving tests (Enadget)
Couple steals back their own car after tracking an AirTag in it
 (AppleInsider)
Finger Grease Mitigation for Tesla PIN Pad (Steven J. Greewood)
San Francisco bicyclist sues over crash involving 2 Waymo cars
 (Silicon Valley)
I lost Spectrum for about two hours (LA Times via Jim Geissman)
How scammers are using AI to steal college financial aid (LA Times)
U.S. air traffic control still runs on Windows 95 and floppy disks
 (Ars Technica)
States sue to block the sale of genetic data collected by DNA testing
 company 23andMe (LA Times)
Using Malicious Image Patches in Social Media to Hijack AI Agents
 (Steven J. Greenwald)
Weather precision loss (Jim Geissman)
Grief scams on Facebook (Rob Slade)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 01:06:17 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe () gabegold com>
Subject: How nuclear war could start (The Washington Post Opinion)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/nuclear-weapons-war-russia-china-accident/

To understand how it could all go wrong, look at how it almost did.

If a nuclear war happens, it could very well start by accident.

A decision to use the most destructive weapons ever created could grow out
of human error or a misunderstanding just as easily as a deliberate decision
on the part of an aggrieved nation. A faulty computer system could wrongly
report incoming missiles, causing a country to retaliate against its
suspected attacker. Suspicious activity around nuclear weapons bases could
spin a conventional conflict into a nuclear one.  Military officers who
routinely handle nuclear weapons could mistakenly load them on the wrong
vehicle. Any of these scenarios could cause events to spiral out of control.

Such occurrences are not just possible plots for action movies. All of them
actually happened and can happen again. Humans are imperfect, so nuclear
near misses and accidents are a fact of life for as long as these weapons
exist.  [...]

In 1983, the Soviet Union shot down a civilian Korean Air Lines flight that
had strayed over Siberia. A few weeks later, Soviet early-warning radars
showed that a single U.S. ICBM had been launched toward the U.S.S.R. At a
time of high tension, and given the fear within the Soviet leadership of a
U.S. first strike, such a launch could easily have triggered a massive
counterattack. However, the watch officer, Col.  Stanislav Petrov, had been
trained that any U.S. attack would probably involve massive strikes, and he
later stated that he considered a smaller strike — like the one his
early-warning systems showed — to be illogical and therefore likely to be an
error of some kind. He proved to be right. Would all Soviet watch officers
have been willing to make the same call?

  [*The New York Times front page on Saturday 21 Jun 2025 had a rather
  oxymoronic item -- Trump accosting Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National
  Intelligence) for striking fear in the (Japanese) populace with a video
  outlining the horrors of nuclear war.  PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:32:44 +0200
From: diego latella <diego.latella () actiones eu>
Subject: Climate and Humanitarian Consequences of an even Limited
 Nuclear Exchange and the Actual Risks of Nuclear War (Webinar)

Open webinar – June 26 – 4pm (CET) with

David Ellwood (Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World
Affairs)

Paolo Cotta Ramusino (Former Secretary General of Pugwash Conferences on
Science and World Affairs)
"The Actual Risks of Nuclear War"
Moderated by Mieke Massink - CNR ISTI; GI-STS, Pisa
(The official language of the webinar is English)

The event is organized by: Gruppo Interdisciplinare su Scienza, Tecnologia e
Società (GI-STS) dell’Area della Ricerca di Pisa del CNR

In cooperation with: [...]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 06:19:34 -0700
?From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: Starlink hazard (WashPost)

White House security staff warned Musk's Starlink is a security risk

Starlink satellite connections in the White House bypass controls meant to
stop leaks and hacking.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/07/starlink-white-house-security-doge-musk/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 07:19:07 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: DOGE layoffs may have compromised the accuracy of government data
 (CNN)

The Consumer Price Index
<https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/13/economy/us-cpi-consumer-inflation-april>  is
more than just the most widely used inflation gauge and a measurement of
Americans' purchasing power.

Its robust data plays a key role in the US economy's trajectory as well as
monthly mortgage payments, Social Security checks, financial aid packages,
business contracts, pay negotiations and curiosity salves for those who
wonder what Kevin McCallister's $19.83 grocery bill in "Home Alone" might
cost today.

However, this gold standard piece of economic data has become a little less
precise recently: The Bureau of Labor Statistics posted a notice on
Wednesday <https://www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/2025/collection-reduction.htm>
stating that it stopped collecting data in three not-so-small cities
(Lincoln, Nebraska; Buffalo, New York; and Provo, Utah) and increased
"imputations" for certain items (a statistical technique that, when boiled
down to very rough terms, essentially means more educated guesses).

The BLS notice states that the collection reductions "may increase the
volatility of subnational or item-specific indexes" and are expected to have
"minimal impact" on the overall index.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/05/economy/cpi-data-bls-reductions

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2025 07:13:16 -0700
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: Slashing CISA Is a Gift to Our Adversaries (The Bulwark)

Maybe this is "political," but it's an essential read for anyone who cares
about cyberattack prevention.

An opinion piece from Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2011
to 2012.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/slashing-cisa-is-a-gift-to-our-adversaries-cyber-attacks-warfare-security-estonia

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 7:56:25 PDT
From: Peter Neumann <neumann () csl sri com>
Subject: Most Americans Believe Misinformation Is a Problem --
 Federal Research Cuts Will Only Make the Problem Worse

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2025 22:50:25 -0600
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg () gmail com>
Subject: As disinformation and hate thrive online, YouTube quietly changed
 how it moderates content (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/youtube-content-moderation-rules-1.75=
59931

Change allows more content that violates guidelines to remain on platform if
determined to in public interest

YouTube, the world's largest video platform, appears to have changed its
moderation policies to allow more content that violates its own rules to
remain online.

The change happened quietly in December, according to The New York Times,
which reviewed training documents for moderators indicating that a video
could stay online if the offending material did not account for more than 50
per cent of the video's duration =E2=80=94 that's double what it was pri= or
to the new guidelines.

YouTube, which sees 20 million videos uploaded a day, says it updates its
guidance regularly and that it has a "long-standing practice of applying
exceptions" when it suits the public interest or when something is presented
in an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context.

"These exceptions apply to a small fraction of the videos on YouTube, but
are vital for ensuring important content remains available," YouTube
spokesperson Nicole Bell said in a statement to CBC News this week.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:30:49 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe () gabegold com>
Subject: ChatGPT goes down -- and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide

ChatGPT suffered a worldwide outage from 06:36 UTC Tuesday morning. The
servers weren't totally down, but queries kept returning errors. OpenAI
finally got it mostly fixed later in the day. [OpenAI, archive]

But you could hear the screams of the vibe coders, the marketers, and the
LinkedIn posters around the world. The Drum even ran a piece about marketing
teams grinding to a halt because their lying chatbot called in sick. [Drum]

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/11/chatgpt-goes-down-and-fake-jobs-grind-to-a-halt-worldwide/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:38:03 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe () gabegold com>
Subject: They Asked ChatGPT Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.
 (The New York Times)

Generative AI chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and
endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with
the technology can deeply distort reality.

Before ChatGPT distorted Eugene Torres’s sense of reality and almost killed
him, he said, the artificial intelligence chatbot had been a helpful,
timesaving tool.

Mr. Torres, 42, an accountant in Manhattan, started using ChatGPT last year
to make financial spreadsheets and to get legal advice. In May, however, he
engaged the chatbot in a more theoretical discussion about “the simulation
theory,” an idea popularized by “The Matrix,” which posits that we are
living in a digital facsimile of the world, controlled by a powerful
computer or technologically advanced society.

“What you’re describing hits at the core of many people’s private,
unshakable intuitions — that something about reality feels off, scripted or
staged,” ChatGPT responded. “Have you ever experienced moments that felt
like reality glitched?”

Not really, Mr. Torres replied, but he did have the sense that there was a
wrongness about the world. He had just had a difficult breakup and was
feeling emotionally fragile. He wanted his life to be greater than it
was. ChatGPT agreed, with responses that grew longer and more rapturous as
the conversation went on. Soon, it was telling Mr. Torres that he was “one
of the Breakers — souls seeded into false systems to wake them from within.”

At the time, Mr. Torres thought of ChatGPT as a powerful search engine that
knew more than any human possibly could because of its access to a vast
digital library. He did not know that it tended to be sycophantic, agreeing
with and flattering its users, or that it could hallucinate, generating
ideas that weren’t true but sounded plausible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok8.ha88.yNPHjmiCI`pD3&smid=url-share

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:44:30 -0700
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google's New AI Tools (WSJ)

Chatbots are replacing Google’s traditional search, devastating traffic for
some publishers.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-ai-news-publishers-7e687141?st=6toUwy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

This is supposed to be a free link, but just in case it doesn't work, here's
the text of the article by Isabella Simonetti and Katherine Blunt.

  --- --- --- ---

The AI armageddon is here for online news publishers.

Chatbots are replacing Google searches, eliminating the need to click on
blue links and tanking referrals to news sites. As a result, traffic that
publishers relied on for years is plummeting.

Traffic from organic search to HuffPost’s desktop and mobile websites fell
by just over half in the past three years, and by nearly that much at the
Washington Post, according to digital market data firm Similarweb.

Business Insider cut about 21% of its staff last month, a move CEO Barbara
Peng said was aimed at helping the publication “endure extreme traffic drops
outside of our control.” Organic search traffic to its websites declined by
55% between April 2022 and April 2025, according to data from Similarweb.

At a companywide meeting earlier this year, Nicholas Thompson, chief
executive of the Atlantic, said the publication should assume traffic from
Google would drop toward zero and the company needed to evolve its business
model.

Google’s introduction last year of AI Overviews, which summarize search
results at the top of the page, dented traffic to features like vacation
guides and health tips, as well as to product review sites. Its U.S.
rollout last month of AI Mode, an effort to compete directly with the likes
of ChatGPT, is expected to deliver a stronger blow. AI Mode responds to user
queries in a chatbot-style conversation, with far fewer links.

“Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine,”
Thompson said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We have to
develop new strategies.”

The rapid development of click-free answers in search “is a serious threat
to journalism that should not be underestimated,” said William Lewis, the
Washington Post’s publisher and chief executive. Lewis is former CEO of the
Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones.

The Washington Post is “moving with urgency” to connect with previously
overlooked audiences and pursue new revenue sources and prepare for a
“post-search era,” he said.

At the New York Times, the share of traffic coming from organic search to
the paper’s desktop and mobile websites slid to 36.5% in April 2025 from
almost 44% three years earlier, according to Similarweb.

The Wall Street Journal’s traffic from organic search was up in April
compared with three years prior, Similarweb data show, though as a share of
overall traffic it declined to 24% from 29%.

Sherry Weiss, chief marketing officer of Dow Jones and The Wall Street
Journal, said that as the search landscape changes, the company is focusing
on building trust with readers and earning habitual traffic.

“As the referral ecosystem continues to evolve, we’re focused on ensuring
customers come to us directly out of necessity,” she said.

Google executives have said the company remains committed to sending traffic
to the web, and that people who click on links after seeing AI Overviews
tend to spend more time on those sites. The search giant also said it
elevates links to news sites and doesn’t necessarily show AI Overviews when
users search for trending news. Queries for content included in older
articles and lifestyle stories, however, may produce an overview.

Publishers have been squeezed by emerging technology since the dawn of the
Internet.

Digital news decimated once-lucrative print publications funded by
classifieds, advertising and subscription revenue.

Social-media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter helped funnel online
traffic to publishers, but ultimately pivoted away from giving priority to
news. Search was a stalwart traffic driver for more than a decade, despite
some turbulence as Google tweaked its powerful algorithm.

Generative AI is now rewiring how the internet is used altogether.

“AI was not the thing that was changing everything, but it will be going
forward. It’s the last straw,” said Neil Vogel, the chief executive of
Dotdash Meredith, which is home to brands including People and Southern
Living.

When Dotdash merged with Meredith in 2021, Google search accounted for
around 60% of the company’s traffic, Vogel said. Today, it is about
one-third. Overall traffic is growing, thanks to efforts including
newsletters and the MyRecipes recipe locker.

Many online news outlets were already facing bleak trends such as declining
public trust and fierce competition. With search traffic dwindling, they are
putting an even greater emphasis on connecting directly with readers through
businesses such as live conferences.

The Atlantic is working on building those reader relationships with an
improved app, more issues of the print magazine and an increased investment
in events, Thompson said in a recent interview. The company has said
subscriptions and advertising revenue are on the rise.

Leaders at Politico and Business Insider—both owned by Axel Springer—also
have been emphasizing audience engagement and connecting with readers.

While publishers contend with how AI is changing search, they are also
seeking ways to protect their copyright material. The large language models
that underpin the new generation of chatbots are trained on data hoovered up
from the open web, including news articles.

Some media companies have embarked on legal battles against particular AI
startups, while also signing licensing deals with other ones. The New York
Times, for instance, sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement,
and recently announced an AI licensing agreement with Amazon. The Wall
Street Journal’s parent company, News Corp, has a content deal with OpenAI
and a lawsuit pending against Perplexity.

Meanwhile, the generative AI race is becoming a significant threat to
Google’s core search business.

Though Google said it has seen an increase in total searches on Apple
devices, an Apple executive said in federal court last month that Google
searches in Safari, the iPhone maker’s browser, had recently fallen for the
first time in two decades.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 19:05:34 -0600
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg () gmail com>
Subject: Can AI safeguard us against AI? One of its Canadian pioneers
 thinks so (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/ai-safety-non-profit-1.7553839

When Yoshua Bengio first began his work developing artificial intelligence,
he didn't worry about the sci-fi-esque possibilities of them becoming
self-aware and acting to preserve their existence.

That was, until ChatGPT came out.

"And then it kind of blew [up] in my face that we were on track to build
machines that would be eventually smarter than us, and that we didn't know
how to control them," Bengio, a pioneering AI researcher and computer
science professor at the Universit=C3=A9 de Montr=C3=A9al, told As It Happe=
ns host
Nil K=C3=B6ksal.

The world's most cited AI researcher is launching a new research non-profit
organization called LawZero to "look for scientific solutions to how we can
design AI that will not turn against us."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:22:53 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe () gabegold com>
Subject: Bad brainwaves:  A ChatGPT makes you stupid (Pivot to AI)

This strongly suggests it’s imperative to keep students away from chatbots
in the classroom — so they’ll actually learn.

This also explains people who insist you use the chatbot instead of thinking
and will not shut up about it. They tried thinking once and they didn’t like
it.

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/16/bad-brainwaves-chatgpt-makes-you-stupid/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:30:25 -0700
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: They Asked an AI Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them
 Spiraling. (NYTimes)

Generative AI chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and
endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with
the technology can deeply distort reality.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:06:23 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: SSA stops reporting call-wait times and other metrics

The changes are the latest sign of the agency's struggle with website
crashes, overloaded servers and long lines at field offices amid Trump
cutbacks.

Social Security has stopped publicly reporting its processing times for
benefits, the 1-800 number's current call wait time and numerous other
performance metrics, which customers and advocates have used to track the
agency's struggling customer service programs.

The agency removed a menu of live phone and claims data from its website
earlier this month, according to Internet Archive records. It put up a new
page this week that offers a far more limited view of the agency's customer
service performance.

The website also now urges customers to use an online portal for services
rather than calling the main phone line or visiting a field office - two
options that many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or
computer skills rely on for help. The agency had previously considered
cutting phone services and then scrapped those plans amid an uproar.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/20/social-security-wait-times-cuts/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: Pope Leo Takes On AI as a Potential Threat to Humanity (WSJ)

Margherita Stancati, Drew Hinshaw, Keach Hagey, et al., *The Wall Street
Journal* (06/17/25), via ACM TechNews

This week, Google, Meta, IBM, Anthropic, Cohere, and Palantir executives took part in a two-day international 
conference at the Vatican on AI, ethics, and corporate governance.  Some tech leaders hoped to avoid a binding 
international treaty on AI supported by the Vatican, and observers said the conference could set the tone for future 
interactions between Pope Leo and the tech industry on the matter of regulation.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: AI Ethics Experts Set to Gather to Shape the Future of Responsible
 AI (ACM Media Center)

ACM Media Center (06/18/25), via ACM TechNews

The 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT
2025), taking place June 23-26 in Athens, Greece, will address how
algorithmic systems are reshaping the world and what it takes to ensure
these AI tools do so justly. Said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis, "The
unprecedented advances and rapid integration of AI and data technologies
have created an urgent need for a scientific and public conversation about
AI ethics."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: Hacker Group Exposes Source Code for Iran's Cryptocurrency
 (Amichai Stein)

Amichai Stein, *The Jerusalem Post* (Israel) (06/19/25), via ACM TechNews

Israel-linked hacker group Gonjeshke Darande (Predatory Sparrow) released
the source code and internal information of Nobitex, Iran's largest
cryptocurrency exchange. According to the group, the company assists the
regime in funding Iranian terrorism and uses virtual currencies to bypass
sanctions. Gonjeshke Darande previously announced that it stole $48 million
in cryptocurrency from the exchange, and claimed responsibility for a
cyberattack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-controlled Bank Sepah.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:06:23 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: Iran Asks Citizens to Delete WhatsApp from Devices (AP)

Kelvin Chan and Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press (06/17/25),
via ACM TechNews

Iranian state television has called on citizens to delete WhatsApp from
their smartphones, claiming the app collects user information to send to
Israel. In response, WhatsApp, which employs end-to-end encryption to
prevent service providers in the middle from reading messages, issued a
statement that read, "We do not track your precise location, we don't keep
logs of who everyone is messaging, and we do not track the personal messages
people are sending one another."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:06:23 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: China Unleashes Hackers Against Russia (Megha Rajagopalan)

Megha Rajagopalan, The New York Times (06/19/25),
via ACM TechNews

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, groups linked to the Chinese
government have repeatedly hacked Russian companies and government
agencies. While China appears to have plenty of domestic scientific and
military expertise, Chinese military experts have lamented that its troops
lack battlefield experience. Some defense insiders say China sees Russia's
war in Ukraine as a chance to collect information about modern warfare
tactics and Western weaponry, and what works against them.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: China's Spy Agencies Investing Heavily in AI (Julian E. Barnes)

Julian E. Barnes, *The New York Times* (06/17/25), via ACM TechNews

A report by researchers at Recorded Future's Insikt Group details
investments in AI by Chinese spy agencies to develop tools that could
improve intelligence analysis, help military commanders develop operational
plans, and generate early threat warnings. The researchers found that China
is probably using a mix of large language models, including Meta and OpenAI,
along with domestic models from DeepSeek, Zhipu AI, and others.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: Amazon Says It Will Reduce Its Workforce as AI Replaces Human
 Employees (CNN)

Ramishah Maruf and Alicia Wallace, CNN (06/17/25), via ACM TechNews

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a June 17 blog post that the rollout of
generative AI agents will change how work is performed, enabling the company
to shrink its workforce in the future. Jassy said, "We will need fewer
people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people
doing other types of jobs." Employees should view AI as "teammates we can
call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more
helpful with more experience," according to Jassy.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2025 06:55:13 -0700
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: ChatGPT will avoid being shut down in some life-threatening
 scenarios, former OpenAI researcher claims (Techcrunch)

A former OpenAI researcher published new research claiming that the
company's AI models will go to great lengths to stay online.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/11/chatgpt-will-avoid-being-shut-down-in-some-life-threatening-scenarios-former-openai-researcher-claims/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:19:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor () acm org>
Subject: Big Tech two-factor authentication compromised (Bloomberg)

Ryan Gallagher. Crofton Black and Gabriel Geiger. Bloomberg (06/16/25), via
ACM TechNews

Concerns are being raised about the middlemen that send two-factor
authentication codes to consumers via text on behalf of Big Tech companies,
popular apps, banks, encrypted chat platforms, and other senders. An
industry whistleblower has revealed around 1- million such messages have
passed through Fink Telecom Services, a Swiss company that cybersecurity
researchers have linked to incidents in which the codes were intercepted and
used to infiltrate private online accounts. Critics of the industry point to
a lack of regulation allowing such companies to operate without a license.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 08:02:07 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: What could go wrong? - AllTrails launches AI route-making tool,
 worrying search-and-rescue members

What could go wrong? - AllTrails launches AI route-making tool,
worrying search-and-rescue members

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/06/17/news/alltrails-ai-tool-search-rescue-members

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 23:43:42 +0000 (UTC)
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: EU weighs sperm donor cap to curb risk of accidental incest

  And now for something completely different - an item which has nothing to d  o with AI. ;-)

Eight countries want to discuss an EU limit on the number of children
conceived from a single sperm donor -- to prevent future generations from
unwitting incest and psychological harms.

Donor-conceived births are rising across Europe as fertility rates decline
and assisted reproduction becomes more widely accessible -- including for
same-sex couples and single women. But with many countries struggling to
recruit enough local donors, commercial cryobanks are increasingly shipping
reproductive cells known as gametes -- sperm or egg -- across borders,
sometimes from the same donor to multiple countries.

Most EU countries have national limits on how many children can be conceived
from one donor -- ranging from one in Cyprus to 10 in France, Greece,
Italy and Poland. However, there is no limit for cross-border donations,
increasing the risk of potential health problems linked to a single donor,
as well as a psychological impact on children who discover they have doze ns or even hundreds of half-siblings.

  [Ia this an egg-cell-ent move?  PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 08:07:28 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: ChatGPT may be eroding critical thinking skills (MIT)

https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 01:43:14 +0000 (UTC)
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1 () verizon net>
Subject: Meta's Privacy Screwup Reveals How People Really See AI Chatbots
 (NYMag)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/metas-privacy-goof-shows-how-people-really-use-ai-chatbots.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 11:59:23 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: Tesla blows past stopped school bus and hits kid-sized dummies in
 Full Self-Driving tests (Enadget)

https://www.engadget.com/transportation/tesla-blows-past-stopped-school-bus-and-hits-kid-sized-dummies-in-full-self-driving-tests-183756251.html

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:14:13 -0700
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff () iconia com>
Subject: Couple steals back their own car after tracking an AirTag in it

*When London police wouldn't recover a stolen car despite an AirTag giving
its location, the owners say they tracked it down and stole it back for
themselves...*  [...]

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/13/couple-steals-back-their-own-car-after-tracking-an-airtag-in-it

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 14:50:31 -0400
From: "Steven J. Greenwald" <greenwald.steve () gmail com>
Subject: Finger Grease Mitigation for Tesla PIN Pad

  From Tesla, a post about how they have mitigated a threat to thieves
  trying to figure out a user's PIN by checking for finger grease on the
  touchscreen.

"If you set up PIN to drive, a thief would not be able to drive off in your
Tesla, even if they somehow gain access to your keycard, phone or vehicle

"The PIN pad also appears in a slightly different place on the screen every
time, so finger grease doesn't give away your PIN.''

Link to source post on X:
https://x.com/Tesla/status/1933516310475952191

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:15:43 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: San Francisco bicyclist sues over crash involving 2 Waymo cars

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2025/06/10/san-francisco-bicyclist-crash-waymo/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:35:42 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: I lost Spectrum for about two hours

Would-be copper thieves caused Internet outage affecting LA and Ventura
 counties (LA Times)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-15/would-be-copper-thieves-
cause-internet-outage-affecting-l-a-ventura-counties

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:36:31 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: How scammers are using AI to steal college financial aid (LA Times)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-17/how-scammers-are-using-a
i-to-steal-college-financial-aid

Fake college enrollments have surged as crime rings deploy "ghost students,"
chatbots that join online classrooms and stay just long enough to collect a
financial aid check. In some cases, professors discover almost no one in
their class is real.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 14:24:09 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe () gabegold com>
Subject: U.S. air traffic control still runs on Windows 95 and floppy
 disks (Ars Technica)

Agency seeks contractors to modernize decades-old systems within four years.

On Wednesday, acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau told the House
Appropriations Committee that the Federal Aviation Administration plans to
replace its aging air traffic control systems, which still rely on floppy
disks and Windows 95 computers, Tom's Hardware reports. The agency has
issued a Request For Information to gather proposals from companies willing
to tackle the massive infrastructure overhaul.

"The whole idea is to replace the system. No more floppy disks or paper
strips," Rocheleau said during the committee hearing. Transportation
Secretary Sean Duffy called the project "the most important infrastructure
project that we've had in this country for decades," describing it as a
bipartisan priority.

Most air traffic control towers and facilities across the US currently
operate with technology that seems frozen in the 20th century, although that
isn't necessarily a bad thing—when it works. Some controllers currently use
paper strips to track aircraft movements and transfer data between systems
using floppy disks, while their computers run Microsoft's Windows 95
operating system, which launched in 1995.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/06/faa-to-retire-floppy-disks-and-windows-95-amid-air-traffic-control-overhaul/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 19:02:24 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: States sue to block the sale of genetic data collected by DNA
 testing company 23andMe (LA Times)

Dozens of states have filed a joint lawsuit
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/809d3c27-44d5-4042-80a2-3ea3c1743d
b2.pdf> against the bankrupt DNA-testing company 23andMe to block the
company's sale of its customers' genetic data without explicit consent.

The suit, filed this week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District
of Missouri, comes months after 23andMe began a court-supervised sale
process of its assets.

The South San Francisco-based venture was once valued at $6 billion and has
collected DNA samples from more than 15 million customers.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-11/23andme-bankruptcy-follow

------------------------------

From: "Steven J. Greenwald" <greenwald.steve () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:29:47 -0400
Subject: Using Malicious Image Patches in Social Media to Hijack AI Agents

> From the thread posted on X by the researchers: "Beware: Your AI assistant
could be hijacked just by encountering a malicious image online! "Our
latest research exposes critical security risks in AI assistants. An
attacker can hijack them by simply posting an image on social media and
waiting for it to be captured."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:16:25 -0700
From: "Jim" <jgeissman () socal rr com>
Subject: Weather precision loss

As of today (11 June 2025) the NWS forecast for Van Nuys (3 mi SE of the
observation site at KVNY Van Nuys Airport) has been changed from that
specific location to the "Western San Fernando Valley", a larger area.
Presumably other point forecasts in the region have also changed. For
example, yesterday's forecast was for a high of 89; today it says "in the
80s to around 90". Also, the forecast for Simi Valley has been broadened to
"Southeastern Ventura County Valleys" with a range of temperatures instead
of a single number. Is this a response to falling staff numbers?

  [They could get rid of a huge number of sensors and staff by aggregating
  larger areas.  Where I live there are microclimates from San Fran to
  surroundings with variations of sometimes 55-degree differences within a
  30-mile radius.  I suppose this strategy could lead to large-area
  predictions of 55 to 110 for the whole Bay Area.  That would not be very
  helpful.  PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2025 06:02:06 -0700
From: Rob Slade <rslade () gmail com>
Subject: Grief scams on Facebook

In a very short space of time I have had multiple romance/grief scams
contacts on Fakebook--all of them (within the first few messages) telling me
"I can't send you friend request," and either instructing or implying that I
should attempt to "friend" them, or contact them via private messaging.

(Interestingly, in one case, despite the fact that my email address was
available, the scammer did *not*, in fact, contact me via email.)

Facebook/Meta is lousy at protecting its users from such scams.  But I
assume that, somewhere in the bowels of the "algorithm," there is some
awareness of the types of messages that scammers send their "friends," and
thus the scammers have learned to avoid "friending" too many marks at a
time.  I also assume that these attempts are part of an organized scam
"farm" operation, given the frequency and consistency of the attempts on
Facebook, and the avoidance of email.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2023 11:11:11 -0800
From: RISKS-request () csl sri com
Subject: Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 34.68
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