- Unsupervised Learning
- Posts
- Unsupervised Learning Newsletter NO. 319
STANDARD EDITION | EP. 319 | FEB 22 2022
SECURITY NEWS
$1.7 million in NFTs were stolen in a phishing attack against OpenSea users. 254 tokens were stolen over a period of three hours, including some from Bored Ape Yatch Club. 32 users were targeted using a flaw in the Wyvern protocol which essentially worked like a blank check. So the check was signed, but the details were left to be filled in by the attacker. More
Coinbase paid out a $250,000 bounty for a "market-nuking" security bug. The flaw was in their Retail Brokerage API and it allowed manual modification of the source account for a transaction. More
Dan Petro, a researcher at Bishop Fox, demonstrated that he could completely recover text that was redacted using pixelation. He hasn't fully revealed how he did it yet, but in the meantime he recommends using full opaque bars rather than pixelation to hide text you don't want people to see. More
SPONSOR
Semgrep: Fast Code Scanning to Find Bugs and Enforce Code Standards
Semgrep is a fast, open-source, static analysis tool for finding bugs and enforcing code standards at editor, commit, and CI time. Its rules look like the code you already write; no abstract syntax trees, regex wrestling, or painful domain-specific languages.
Semgrep supports over 20 languages and is powered by 1,500+ rules, many written by the community. It analyzes code locally on your computer or in your build environment: code is never sent elsewhere. And with Semgrep App you can deploy, manage, and monitor Semgrep at scale to enforce security across your organization.
Millions of WordPress sites got forcefully updated to patch a critical flaw in the UpdraftPlus plugin. The plugin was used to created database backups, and the flaw allowed unauthorized users to download full backup files. More
Clearview AI has a pitch deck in which they're looking to get to 100 billion photos, which would make almost every human identifiable. They said they've already gone from 3 billion images to 10 billion, and with a $50 million investment they could get to 100 billion within a year. More
A New York Times reporter used Apple AirTags, Tiles, and a GPS Tracker to (with permission) watch her husband's every move as he moved around New York City. She describes the different tech she used, how easy it was to set up, and her thoughts on the results. More
The US is doing something really interesting in the conflict with Ukraine and Russia: it's regularly releasing nearly real-time intelligence on alleged Russian false flag operations that they might have used to invade Ukraine over false pretenses. This is a unique use of intelligence assets for the purpose of stopping, or at least postponing, an invasion by removing potential ways Russia could claim an attack was justified.
Vulnerabilities:
Apache Cassandra | 8.4 | High | Non-default Configurations More
Companies:
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
DeepMind has built an AI that can control superheated plasma inside of a fusion reactor. More
DeepMind also built an AI that it entered into a web-based coding competition for humans, and it scored at the median level against humans. More
New York is using cameras with microphones to identify and ticket loud cars. We need this in the Bay. Area. More
TikTok is testing a change to the maximum length of its videos from 3 to 5 minutes to increase revenue potential. More
HUMAN NEWS
There has been a surge in pedestrian deaths during Covid. New Jersey's had the highest number of pedestrian deaths in 30 years, and last year in Utah the number rose by 22%. The causes aren't perfectly clear, but some theories include going from no traffic to heavy traffic, and a fraying of social norms due to increased stress. More
Netflix is getting 4 new Dave Chapelle comedy specials, all produced and hosted by the comedian. All four feature and highlight a comic that's been in the game for more than 30 years, and these specials will give them a chance to be seen by a large audience. More
CONTENT, IDEAS & ANALYSIS
Candles, Crypto, and Electricity — The new analogy I'm using to describe optimism and caution in the world of Crypto, NFTs, and Web3. More
"We had more privacy back in the 1980s when everyone printed their name, address, and phone number in a book and gave it out to everyone. It was like a PII newsletter, for the entire city, and everyone was subscribed." Tweet This
NOTES
Super excited that my friends @STÖK and @JasonHaddix are going to be co-hosting STÖK's Bounty Thursday's soon! It'll be so great to see them producing content together, and in an awesome call-in-style format as well. Can't wait to listen in! More | More
DISCOVERY
Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? More
Welcome to 2030. I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy, and Life Has Never Been Better More
We Are Experiencing Definitional Collapse More
My Favorite Essays of Life Advice More
The end of every American podcast. More
How Long Covid Exhausts the Body More
[ UTILITIES ] OpenVi — A portable version of vi that you can run on multiple types of Linux and UNIX. More
RECOMMENDATION
Don't confuse being busy with being effective. Many people are stressed and busy as hell and don't have much to show for it. Periodically step back and ask yourself what success looks like, and ask yourself if you're taking a direct enough path to get there.
APHORISM
“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
— Honore de Balzac