UPDATES
I’m in Houston for HouSecCon! So excited to see everyone! 🫂 A bit less writing and more short summaries this week… I do miss the old one liner summaries sometimes!
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This is the 500th episode! Thank you to everyone who has followed along the way since 2015! 🫶🏼
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Dwarkesh Patel brought on Richard Sutton, the inventor of RL, to his podcast, and it was a shitshow of a conversation, in my opinion. Here’s my very emotional reaction to the first few minutes. It’s now blown up into tons of debate across the AI space. It’s kind of like the blue/black dress thing, with people seeing the conversation completely differently based on their perspective on AI.
I’m stunned by the podcast with @dwarkesh_sp and Richard Sutton.
He wins a Turing award for his contributions on AI and comes on and doesn’t even understand the basics of modern LLMs. He’s like another Gary Marcus.
It was very sad to see Dwarkesh trying to be respectful and
— #ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ 🛡️ (#@DanielMiessler)
2:21 AM • Sep 27, 2025
My latest thoughts on the whole thing, explaining why I care so much about all of this stuff.
One thing I'll say about this conversation that I didn't get originally from Richard's comments is that it's not the imitating that produces the learning, it's the trial and error after imitating. So that point and many others in the conversation were people just talking past
— #ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ 🛡️ (#@DanielMiessler)
1:45 PM • Sep 30, 2025
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Massive updates to Anthropic’s Sonnet (4.5), and Claude Code (2.0)! The whole system feels faster now and I can’t wait to dig deeper into it! But I can tell you already that it's much faster and sharper. which is good because OpenAI’s GPT-5 Codex (and Codex) is right on their heels. ANTHROPIC ANNOUNCEMENT
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CYBERSECURITY
Chinese hackers are using BRICKSTORM to steal IP from law firms and tech companies
According to Mandiant, Chinese government hackers are deploying a new backdoor called BRICKSTORM to break into organizations and steal intellectual property, with victims including legal firms, SaaS providers, and technology companies since March 2025. MANDIANT REPORT | NVISO BRICKSTORM ANALYSIS
Cisco ASA zero-days under active attack THE HACKER NEWS ARTICLE
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Volvo staff data stolen in supplier ransomware attack THE REGISTER COVERAGE
Israel hacked phones to stream Netanyahu's speech ISRAELI PM TWITTER POST
Salesforce AI agents could be tricked into stealing data NOMA LABS REPORT
Chinese hacking group RedNovember hammers government and defense networks worldwide
Recorded Future tracked RedNovember exploiting VPN and firewall bugs to break into US defense contractors and agencies across Taiwan, South Korea, and Panama. They're using Pantegana backdoor and Cobalt Strike, jumping on new vulnerabilities within days of public disclosure. RECORDED FUTURE REPORT | SECURITY RISK ADVISORS
Vegas casino hacker released to parents BLEEPING COMPUTER STORY
Chrome AI vulnerability allowed stealing browser sessions HACKERONE REPORT
Passkeys beat passwords but won't replace them yet BLEEPINGCOMPUTER ARTICLE
NATIONAL SECURITY
Love the analysis here, talking about how China has as well as the Fabric 5-sentence summary of the video… 🔥🔥🔥
Jensen Huang thinks China is nanoseconds behind in chips TOM'S HARDWARE ARTICLE
Russian spy ship caught mapping NATO's undersea cables
A Financial Times investigation tracked a Russian military vessel surveilling and mapping undersea cables along Europe's Atlantic coast, raising concerns about potential communications interception or sabotage. FINANCIAL TIMES INVESTIGATION | TOM'S HARDWARE COVERAGE | FINLAND-SWEDEN CABLE INCIDENT | RUSSIAN TANKER CHARGED
Russia trains Chinese forces on airborne tactics for potential Taiwan invasion
Documents reveal Russia's training Chinese battalions on airdropping armored vehicles, giving Beijing new capabilities that military analysts say could be critical for any Taiwan operation. OODALOOP COVERAGE
Pentagon ok’d to label DJI a Chinese Military company THE VERGE ARTICLE
Denmark bans all civilian drones after mystery drones shut down airports
Denmark just banned civilian drones for a week after mystery drones forced Copenhagen Airport to close for four hours and were spotted over military sites. The government's calling it a "hybrid attack" but won't say who's behind it, though the PM says Russia poses the biggest threat to European security. DW NEWS COVERAGE | DENMARK TOPIC PAGE | COPENHAGEN TOPIC PAGE
Germany might build space weapons after Russia starts tracking their satellites ARS TECHNICA ARTICLE
Microsoft blocks Israeli surveillance of Palestinians GUARDIAN INVESTIGATION
AI
Claude Code Custom Tools With the SDK
This is insane stuff. Part of the updates to Claude Code and Sonnet. I think the SDK in CC is one of the most understated pieces of AI kit out there. CLAUDE CODE CUSTOM TOOLS
Chrome now has an official MCP server
Still testing it, but , I think it might be better than Playwright because it’s built by Google. THE BLOG POST | DEMO VIDEO
{
"mcpServers": {
"chrome-devtools": {
"command": "bunx",
"args": ["chrome-devtools-mcp@latest"]
}
}
}
OpenAI launches parental controls for ChatGPT
OpenAI is rolling out parental controls that let parents manage their kids' ChatGPT usage. OPENAI ANNOUNCEMENT
OpenAI releases engineering prompt packs for ChatGPT
OpenAI's new prompt library gives engineers ready-made queries for system architecture, debugging, documentation, and data analysis. We’re putting all of these into Fabric, naturally. OPENAI PROMPT PACKS
Von Neumann architecture bottlenecks AI computing IBM RESEARCH ARTICLE
The economic AI apocalypse is nigh
Cory Doctorow argues AI's real apocalypse isn't machines becoming sentient—it's humans losing economic control as tech platforms use AI to lock in users and extract wealth. CORY'S ECONOMIC AI APOCALYPSE POST | HACKER NEWS DISCUSSION
Humans won't be missed when AGI arrives
Pascual Restrepo theorizes that once AGI handles all economically essential work, human wages will cap at the computational cost to replicate them, labor's share of GDP drops to zero, and the economy keeps growing without us. RESTREPO'S PAPER
Clients want AI magic but need practical solutions TOWARDS DATA SCIENCE ARTICLE
Cloudflare launches stablecoin for AI agent payments CLOUDFLARE PRESS RELEASE
Ollama brings web search to local LLMs OLLAMA BLOG POST
AI makes books obsolete for quick knowledge DAVID'S SUBSTACK POST
LLMs are becoming the new API layer for software
Large language models are starting to replace traditional REST APIs—instead of calling specific endpoints like /users/123/orders, developers can just ask the LLM in plain English and get structured data back. DZONE ARTICLE
TECHNOLOGY
Cloudflare launches email sending from Workers to complete their email platform
Cloudflare announced Email Sending in private beta. Combined with their existing Email Routing, you can now handle both sending and receiving emails entirely within Cloudflare's platform. CLOUDFLARE ANNOUNCEMENT | EMAIL ROUTING DOCS | WORKERS AI | REACT EMAIL | PRIVATE BETA WAITLIST
YouTube Music tests AI hosts for music trivia YOUTUBE BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT
Apple confirms US passports coming to Wallet this year 9TO5MAC ARTICLE
Taiwan weaponizes chip exports against China allies. ARS TECHNICA COVERAGE
Apple boosts iPhone 17 production by 33% MACWORLD ARTICLE
Apple Music gets swipe-to-skip tracks MACWORLD ARTICLE
HUMANS
UK grows rice for the first time BBC ARTICLE
Britain will require digital IDs for all workers REUTERS ARTICLE
Ebola kills 61% in Congo with minimal funding ARSTECHNICA REPORT
Social connections slow biological aging like compound interest CORNELL NEWS ARTICLE
Mountains explain why equatorial countries stay poor PUEYO'S MOUNTAIN THEORY
Americans use PTO for sleep, not vacations
A worse conviction has not been uttered. NEWSWEEK REPORT
Teams that only tackle urgent work never fix bugs or technical debt ADAM'S POST
Arctic sea ice hits its annual minimum, ranking tenth lowest on record CIRES ANNOUNCEMENT
Buffett indicator shows stocks dangerously overvalued CNBC ARTICLE
1 in 5 Americans now regularly get news from TikTok PEW RESEARCH STUDY
YouTube creators pumped £2.2bn into UK economy last year BBC ARTICLE
Starbucks cuts underperforming stores and management layers STARBUCKS ANNOUNCEMENT
Accenture will fire staff who can't adapt to AI FINANCIAL TIMES ARTICLE
YC now lets students graduate before joining TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE
DISCOVERY
cisv processes CSV files 15x faster than traditional parsers SANIX DARKER'S BLOG POST
Dreamtap makes AI outputs more creative DREAMTAP HOMEPAGE
Plan 9 tools now run on Unix PLAN 9 PORT GITHUB
The entire internet is a cargo cult DAVE'S ESSAY
Questions to help decide if you should finish that project CASSIDY'S QUESTIONS POST
Big data is being used to predict Nobel laureates. THE ECONOMIST ARTICLE
Vibe Link adds emotions to shortened URLs VIBE LINK HOMEPAGE
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
I know it’s getting harder to travel, but it’s hard to describe how much seeing old friends fills the cup. Spending a few hours with friends last night was wonderful.
Try to get to one or two conferences / meetups a year if you can, if you will have friends there. There’s still no replacement for face-to-face.
APHORISM OF THE WEEK
You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
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