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canopic jug writes:Web sites are increasingly trying to glean additional personally identifiable information from visitors in the name of authentication. Some nefarious interests actually do have a goal of tracking every minute interaction and communication tied to a real-world identity. However, if the goal is authentication and not just the collection of information, then all that is not necessary. Cryptographer and professor, Matthew Green, has a few thoughts on cryptographic engineering, specifically an illustrated primer on Anonymous credentials. He states the question as being, how do we live in a world with routine age-verification and human identification, without completely abandoning our privacy?

canopic jug writes:Retired programmer Kevin Boone has a guide to the retro-web in which he summarizes as the small web, IndieWeb, Gemini, Gopher, and so on.

upstart writes:LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy:

upstart writes:Medical journal The Lancet blasts RFK Jr.'s health work as a failure:

Anonymous Coward writes:Euro News reports on a growing movement against ChatCGPT after its contract with the Pentagon:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/rising-memory-prices-pile-more-strain-on-consumer-pc-market

hubie writes:Across Cultures, People Combine Reference Frames to Orient Themselves:

canopic jug writes:The Norwegian Consumer Council has published a new report, Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, about countering big tech's growing abuse of its increasingly concentrated power. The 100-page PDF is accompanied by two cover letters, one in English to various EU/EEA/UK and US institutions, and one in Norwegian to Norwegian authorities. The report starts with the problem of platform decay now known colloquially as enshittification. One change is the demand for action to be taken proactively:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2112936/africa-coast-brown-ribbon-scientist-alarm/

AnonTechie writes:An interesting analysis:

hubie writes:Cleaner ship fuel is reducing lightning in key shipping lanes, KU research shows:

MotorTrend reports https://www.motortrend.com/news/kia-plant-solar-power-hail-protection that the Kia assembly plant in Georgia suffered very expensive hail damage to new cars waiting to be shipped, back in a storm in 2023. The fix is a massive raised solar array of 3.2 million square feet (300,000 meters^2) over the car park/storage area.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/whoops-us-military-laser-strike-takes-down-cbp-drone-near-mexican-border/

Trump Bans Anthropic AI From Federal Agencies After Firm Refuses to Unlock CapabilitiesArthur T Knackerbracket writes:Anthropic cites risks of autonomous military applications, mass domestic surveillance:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:There's a silent vulnerability lurking underneath the architecture of Wi-Fi networks:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2107938/removable-battery-phones-making-comeback/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/genomes-chart-the-history-of-neanderthal-modern-human-interactions/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2109851/states-cracking-down-drivers-move-over-laws/5def81c4f1d3d85733888dd4951cd6f1

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Neuron-powered computer chips can now be easily programmed to play a first-person shooter game, bringing biological computers a step closer to useful applications:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/block-lays-off-40-of-workforce-as-it-goes-all-in-on-ai-tools/c16fbef0848a80413fcac6e5598b4dc9

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2105562/us-military-c-17-airlifts-advanced-nuclear-reactor-california-to-utah/

fliptop writes:OpenAI has closed a new funding round that could total $110 billion, valuing the ChatGPT maker at $730 billion pre-money and potentially putting it on course for an IPO in the second half of the year:

owl writes:https://osmand.net/blog/fast-routing/

fliptop writes:https://www.irregular.com/publications/vibe-password-generation

fliptop writes:A single attacker used Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT to compromise nine Mexican government agencies, stealing 195 million taxpayer records and voter data:

upstart writes:Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your Age Verification" Check:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Electronic eyes are watching from above, ready to catch dumpers of smashed up couches in the act:

canopic jug writes:Blogger Ben Werdmuller has discussed an article in Nature about the political impact of the algorithm(s) used by X (formerly known as Twitter). The gist is that the use of the algorithms against X's users tends to shift about 5% of them in a specific direction. That's more than enough to tip an election one way or another especially since the damage seems persistent and lasts even after exposure ceases.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:12-core chiplets coming to Zen 6?

upstart writes:NASA Officially Classifies Boeing Starliner Failure As A Maximum-Level Type A Mishap - Jalopnik:

upstart writes:Hungarian startup Allonic secures $7.2M to transform robot manufacturing with 3D tissue braiding:

upstart writes:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/20/spacex_falcon_europe_breakup_lithium_plume/

jelizondo writes:NPR has a nice summary of an interview with Michael Pollan about AI and consciousness, but it kind of goes beyond that.[Professor Pollan is the author of more than an dozen books, most notably "This is your mind on plants" about using psychedelics .]

owl writes:https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2026/80386_protection/

upstart writes:AI bot seemingly shames developer for rejected pull request:

Dan Anderson writes:Two weeks ago, I set up an AI agent on a Raspberry Pi.A week later, my agent-Figaro-taught itself to play NetHack... and then things got weird (in the best way).Highlights so far:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The galaxy is almost invisible, but its gravity gives it away:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Plus 3 new goon squads targeted critical infrastructure last year:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Modifying firmware or using open-source software would probably become illegal:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Billions of files were left exposed:

HeadlineEditor writes:Forget about Discord - this proposed legislation in Colorado requires each OS user to have an age associated with it. I wonder if they're worried about children pretending to be adults, or adults pretending to be children.-Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date or age of the user of that device to provide a signal regarding the user's age bracket (age signal) to applications available in a covered application store;

AnonTechie writes:

hubie writes:Study by the University of Bonn shows that positive effects are still evident even six weeks later:

An Anonymous Coward writes:

hubie writes:Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars - even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth:

hubie writes:Red Hat's toolkit offers governments and enterprises a way to measure the control they actually have over their data, infrastructure, and operations in this era of geopolitical cloud anxiety:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2102659/mandatory-digital-vehicle-lien-title-illinois/

upstart writes:Concrete "battery" developed at MIT now packs 10 times the power:

canopic jug writes:Privacy is prerequisite for free thought, dissent, experimentation, and innovation, which are in turn prerequisites for democracy.At NBTV, Naomi Brockwell has posted four reasons why limits on privacy are absolutely not a price worth paying for mainstream adoption.