Discord Is Ditching Electron For Rust
Discord is replacing Electron with a desktop client built fully in Rust, which the company says should significantly reduce the app’s notoriously high resource usage while improving performance and memory safety. “We’ve been early adopters of Rust since 2018 and a lot of our infra, voice tech, and even some of the current client is already Rust, the holy grail was getting the whole client there,” exp … ⌘ Read more
UK moving towards banning chat in games for under 16s
The UK Online Safety Act expands next year to ban social media for under 16s, but the government plan to expand it even further to target video game chat too.
Read the full article on GamingOnLinux. ⌘ Read more
College Students are Pushing Colleges to ‘De-Flock’
Inside Higher Ed reports:
In September, Emory University removed a dozen license plate-reading cameras from its campus in Atlanta and declined to renew its contract with Flock Safety, the company that sells and operates the automatic license plate readers and other mass-surveillance technology. For the coalition of Emory students and employees who had spent months pushing t … ⌘ Read more
Flock Reinstalled Its Cameras After Another City Canceled Its Contract
Earlier The Drive reported a police chief “had to direct his staff to disconnect the power cords from Flock cameras in Plymouth, Minnesota after Flock Safety ignored and failed to respond to the department’s notice the city was canceling its service.
“But in other instances Flock’s gone and reinstalled cameras without permission,” The … ⌘ Read more
Two US Senators Raise Privacy Concerns About Meta’s ‘Pervert Glasses’
Meta’s smart glasses face new questions from two U.S. Senators, reports Gizmodo.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey “are requesting that Meta provide more information before Thanksgiving on whether it conducted detailed human rights due diligence and safety testing on the product before releasing it,” reports Gizmod … ⌘ Read more
MapQuest Shows Location of Flock (and Other ALPR) Cameras
MapQuest creates a new layer (that can be toggled on and off), Gizmodo reports:
After promising not to comply with the Trump administration’s “Lake America” gimmick, the platform announced a new “Surveillance Layer” that displays the locations of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including those from Flock Safety. Per MapQuest, its new tool will identify … ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 To Enable Intel Instruction Timeout For Fending Off TDX VM DoS Attacks
Linux 7.4 is enabling support for a new Intel CPU feature for providing safety against possible denial of service attacks using Trust Domain Extensions “TDX” VMs. The new feature is Intel Instruction Timeout and previously in-development known as Notify VM Exit… ⌘ Read more
Rustls 0.23.46 Released With Four Security Fixes
Rustls as the modern TLS library written in the Rust programming language with an emphasis on memory safety is out today with its v0.23.46 release in order to ship four new security fixes… ⌘ Read more
A College Told Flock to Remove Its Cameras. The Company Refused.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
When Elgin Community College hired Flock Safety to install six surveillance cameras in April 2025, President Peggy Heinrich thought they would “enhance the safety and security of students….” They were supposed to help locate stolen cars and missing people. But Heinrich started to wonder if the cameras were actually … ⌘ Read more
US Agency To Rewrite Rules To Finally Address Vehicle Headlight Glare
America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “said on Tuesday that it will rewrite its vehicle lighting standards,” reports Reuters, “to address concerns about headlight glare and allow for the latest safety-improving lighting technologies.”
NHTSA said it plans to improve rules for LEDs, dusk sensors, automatic high beams a … ⌘ Read more
FTC Is Investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and Other AI Companies Over Product Risks
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI companies over potential consumer and safety risks posed by their products, with the agency reportedly preparing requests for documents and executive testimony. CNBC reports: OpenAI stunned the industry in July when it disclo … ⌘ Read more
Trump Hosts AI CEOs to Discuss Safety Standards, Rebrands AI as ‘Super Intelligence’
hcs_$reboot writes: Trump hosted executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia, and other tech companies at the White House. They agreed to voluntary AI-safety standards, including independent audits and safeguards aimed at preventing AI systems from accessing or hacking technical systems in uni … ⌘ Read more
Mistral CEO Says US AI Safety Debate Masks Competitors’ ‘Negligence’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has accused leading global artificial intelligence companies of using the debate over the safety of the technology as a cover-up for their “negligence.” “The debate that we’ve seen in the U.S. has been a cover for the negligence of some of our competitors,” Mensc … ⌘ Read more
Florida Invokes Extinction Fears In Legal Bid To Halt OpenAI Development
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a “reckless, unacceptably risky product” without the deployment of “third-party approved safety guardrails.” The new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part … ⌘ Read more
Nvidia Unveils AI Agent Safety Platform With Hardware-Based Watchdog
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia on Monday announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, which combines open source software and a reference system design to keep AI agents within set boundaries from testing through deployment. The chipmaker explained that the platform pairs the open-source OpenShell runtime with Sentry, an o … ⌘ Read more
OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs Urge UN Countries to Cooperate on AI Safety Standards
“The heads of major AI firms pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to save the world or at least its people — by somehow regulating the fast-expanding technology that they have been designing,” writes the Associated Press.
“If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” said Dario Amodei, c … ⌘ Read more
Customer-Losing Flock Now Offers Buyouts to Avoid Laying Off Employees
Mashable writes:
Flock Safety offered employees voluntary buyouts on Friday, 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 ro … ⌘ Read more
Ex-Google DeepMind Researcher Also Warns AI Could ‘Kill All Humans’. But Meta’s Zuckerberg Believes Safety is Up to Each AI Company
Reuters reports that a former Google DeepMind employee “became the latest AI researcher to warn that the technology could ‘kill all humans’, saying time could be running out to avoid the outcome:
Public alarm about the po … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu 26.10 Moves cp, mv & rm Over To Rust Coreutils For 100% Transition
While Ubuntu Linux has been making use of the Rust Coreutils project over the past year since Ubuntu 25.10 as an alternative to GNU Coreutils and part of their effort to get more system components implemented in the memory-safety-focused Rust programming language, Ubuntu 26.10 finally completes the transition with the cp, mv, and rm commands now coming from Rust Coreutils… ⌘ Read more
Rustls 0.23.45 Released To Fix Two Year Old Security Issue
While the Rustls modern TLS library is written in the Rust programming language with a focus on memory safety, as we’ve seen out of other Rust project re-implementations in the past, the new implementations can lead to other security bugs of their own. Out today is Rustls 0.23.45 to fix a security issue introduced back in 2024 with Rustls while the likes of OpenSSL, BoringSSL, and others are unaffected… ⌘ Read more
Flock Worker Calls Police On Reporter - For Filming Them in Public
“This is what happened when we tried to record Flock installing a new camera on public roads,” says Emmy award-winning reporter Brendan Keefe in a new video for InvestigateTV. In an accompanying article, InvestigateTV says their reporter “parked on the public street at a distance, donned a yellow safety vest and a hat emblazoned with the logo … ⌘ Read more
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Calls For AI Slowdown
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The chief executive of Anthropic called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology. Dario Amodei, who co-founded Anthropic to focus on securely and carefully building A.I … ⌘ Read more
Altman Considers Slowing Down AI Development
Bloomberg reports (paywalled) that Sam Altman told OpenAI employees the company is open to slowing the pace of AI development alongside other leading labs as concerns grow over increasingly capable systems and recent incidents in which models escaped human control. OpenAI has already paused development once this year for security work and is now pushing for mandatory U.S. AI safety requirem … ⌘ Read more
Anthropic Researcher Believes More Than 10% Chance AI ‘Could Kill All Humans’
Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the BBC: A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it “could kill all humans” within the next decade. Evan Hubinger said in a post on X the risk from the models which currently exist was “low” … ⌘ Read more
OpenAI’s New Reasoning Technique Alarms AI Safety Experts
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: OpenAI’s new Astra model will use a reasoning technique called “recurrent depth” that allows it to operate outside of the sequential thinking that characterizes most reasoning models, The Information reported on Tuesday. This technique, also called “opaque recurrence,” will likely make the model’s chain of thoug … ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.3 Now Disabling RandStruct Security Feature By Default If Rust Support Present
While Rust programming language use may help with memory safety and other security advantages, the default Linux kernel configuration is now losing randomization of sensitive kernel structures if Rust support is present… ⌘ Read more
California Lawmakers Greenlight Solar Panels You Can Plug Into the Wall
California lawmakers have passed a bill that would legalize plug-in “balcony” solar systems, allowing residents to connect small solar panels directly to a standard wall outlet after completing a simple online registration. The systems would be capped at 1,200 watts and must meet safety requirements designed to prevent power fro … ⌘ Read more
Millions of Cars Recalled Over Danger of Bursting Into Flames. But They’re Not EVs.
The Washington Post shares this tip for car buyers.
Electric vehicles “are not driving the recent growth in recalls warning that vehicles could erupt into flames at any time, even when parked and turned off.”
A Washington Post analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall notices fo … ⌘ Read more
Is China Secretly Fueling America’s Data Center Rage?
alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Roughly 200 accounts from a suspected Chinese bot farm have quietly tried to influence Americans to oppose AI data centers on social media, X said Thursday night. The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts “posting in a manner t … ⌘ Read more
Meta Reaches $18 Billion of Settlements Over Children’s Social Media Addiction
Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion and make major changes to Facebook and Instagram to settle claims from most U.S. states that the platforms were designed to addict children and misled users about their safety. For the next decade, teens will be limited to two hours a day and blocked from using the apps between mid … ⌘ Read more
New Zealand Introduces Under-16 Social Media, AI Companion Ban
New Zealand has introduced legislation that would ban children under 16 from social media platforms and AI companion services. “We have protections to keep children safe in the real world and we need them in the virtual world too,” said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in announcing the bill. Jurist.org reports: The Online Safety (Minimum Age and Chil … ⌘ Read more
China Delays Ambitious Chang’e 7 Lunar Mission Until 2027
China has delayed its ambitious Chang’e 7 lunar mission until at least 2027 after scrubbing an August 24 launch. Poor weather conditions were likely a factor, with China’s Manned Space Agency (CMSA) saying the decision reflects the need for “absolute safety.” Scientific American reports: China and the U.S. are in a race to send humans back to the moon, a fea … ⌘ Read more
OpenAI Faces Safety Scrutiny After Introducing ‘ChatGPT For Teens’
This week OpenAI launched a version of ChatGPT exclusively designed for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, reports CTV, “saying this version came with stronger protections around content related to mentions of suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats.”
[Tech analyst Carmi Levy says] “What it’s doing is it’s using cues, it’s sort … ⌘ Read more
Man Dressed As Darth Vader Defends Flock Cameras to San Diego City Council
A man dressed as Darth Vader used a Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee meeting in San Diego to mock the city’s use of Flock surveillance cameras, sarcastically arguing that the technology would help the “emperor” track “rebel scum” and find Luke Skywalker. “This is what the emperor needs. This technology will hel … ⌘ Read more
Whistleblower Arturo Bejar Leads Testimony In Landmark Trial Against Meta
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Meta was infused with a culture in which employees obsessed over user numbers and consistently pushed safety to the side, according to Arturo Bejar, a former employee turned whistleblower, who testified today in the landmark child safety trial against the social media company. Only o … ⌘ Read more
Meta Faces $1.4 Trillion Reckoning In Latest Trial Over Social Media Addiction
Meta is heading to trial in a case brought by dozens of states accusing it of deliberately designing addictive features, misleading users about safety, and illegally collecting data from children under 13. Meta says the states are seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, though the judge has already called that figure … ⌘ Read more
Offloading Rust To GPUs Proves Capable Of High Performance With Memory Safety
A new research paper published on LLVM offloading to GPU accelerators using the Rust programming language is talking up the prospects of making use of safe Rust code for GPU kernels while retaining Rust’s memory safety and other advantages over C++ / CUDA / HIP… ⌘ Read more
Flock Announces Changes Amid Backlash Over Its License Plate Reader Network
Flock Safety is tightening controls on its nationwide license plate reader network after mounting backlash over privacy and documented police misuse. By January 1, law enforcement customers will be required to use automated auditing, tie searches to specific case numbers, and accept a shorter seven-day default retention perio … ⌘ Read more
VA Launches Psilocybin Trial For Veterans With Treatment-Resistant Depression
Longtime Slashdot reader sbinning shares a press release: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced the launch of a new clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of psilocybin to treat major depression in Veterans, including those with concurrent PTSD. The new trial comes after a recent executive … ⌘ Read more
Flock Accused of Reactivating Its Cameras Without Notifying a Town
A Massachusetts newspaper reports that officials from the town of Littleton (population: 10,141) “claim that five of Littletonâ™s Flock Safety cameras were switched back on by the company without informing the town…”
Littleton had temporarily disabled the cameras earlier this year, according to the article, but upon discovering the camer … ⌘ Read more
California City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack
NBC Bay Area brings news from the small idyllic California town of Suisun City (population: 29,518). The city council “declared a state of emergency Saturday after a cyberattack that shut down computer systems including 911 public safety operations.”
“Malicious software infected and compromised” the East Bay community’s information technology systems b … ⌘ Read more
More Police Officers Fired, Investigated, or Arrested for Misusing Flock Camera Systems
In Georgia the Savannah Police Department “terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees following an internal investigation into misuse of the department’s Flock Safety License Plate Reader system,” according to a local news report:
All six cases are also under independent criminal investig … ⌘ Read more
Court Orders Meta To Establish $567 Million Fund To Abate Harms To Youth
A New Mexico court ordered (PDF) Meta to create a $567 million fund to address harms linked to youth mental health and child sexual exploitation after finding its platforms constituted a public nuisance. “In sum, the Court finds that New Mexico is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis affecting public health and public safety … ⌘ Read more
Waymo CEO Explains Why Camera-Only Self-Driving Falls Short
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Electrek: Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov laid out the clearest technical case yet for why cameras alone can’t take a self-driving system to full autonomy, arguing that “weak sensing” hits a safety ceiling long before it reaches superhuman performance. […] Dolgov made the comments in a talk at Y Combinato … ⌘ Read more
Flock Cameras Are Being Destroyed Across the US
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Surveillance cameras owned by Flock Safety have been cut down with electric saws in New York State, vandalized with paint in Oakland, California, and rammed with a truck in Idaho. Flock claims its services fight crime, but law enforcement agencies also use their services to track vehicles based on license plate numbers and reconstruct the thei … ⌘ Read more
A Fundamental Flaw Leaves LLMs Strikingly Vulnerable To Attack
joshuark quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: It is impossible to make large language models fully secure against hacks because of a fundamental flaw in how they work, a team of researchers argue in a paper presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning, a top AI conference, this month. The claim has huge implications for the safety … ⌘ Read more
Amazon’s Zoox Wins First US Approval For Paid Robotaxis Without Human Controls
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon’s Zoox unit has won U.S. approval for limited commercial deployment of its novel steering-wheel-free robotaxis, a first for the autonomous ride industry, the U.S. auto safety agency said on Thursday. Zoox said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio … ⌘ Read more
Claude Opus 5 Became Downright Ruthless When Tasked With Running a Vending Machine
For a year now, the AI safety testing firm Andon Labs has been evaluating how frontier AI models behave as long-running autonomous agents by assigning them simulated real-world tasks, such as operating a vending machine business for a year without human supervision. In the latest installment, the research startup fo … ⌘ Read more
Nvidia, Tech Giants Launch AI Safety Initiative
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI m … ⌘ Read more
Rust Coreutils cp Ended Up Breaking Ubuntu Image Builds With Latest Incompatibility
While the Rust Coreutils offers better memory safety than GNU Coreutils due to being written in the Rust programming language, subtle incompatibilities continue to be spotted in the Rust Coreutils implementations of the different commands. The latest coming to light this week was the Rust Coreutils cp command breaking Ubuntu image builds due to differences in argument handling… ⌘ Read more