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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: October 26th, 2025

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  • It’s a supercomputer center, so I imagine large data transfer is normal in the environment. They could have piggybacked on existing high-throughput data workflows, or somehow blended into expected large transfers. Data can be exfiltrated over weeks or months, across multiple endpoints or accounts, … and compression could have happened prior to transfer (meaning the transfer may have been smaller than 10PB). Monitoring could have been inadequate or bypassed.

    I imagine the puny change could be indicative of wanting a fast sale. Possibly, if they decided to store the data on cloud drives via a credit line. They might want a sale before the bill comes.

    Edit: yup

    According to the alleged attacker, they gained access through a compromised VPN domain, then deployed a botnet to extract data. Instead of transferring data in bulk, the attacker distributed the exfiltration across multiple systems and moved ‘smaller’ amounts over about six months to avoid detection. Such a method relies more on exploiting system architecture than on advanced hacking techniques, which in part helped the perpetrator to avoid detection.






  • I hope all of this leads to a huge swing in popular opinion that data surveillance has the same potential as home surveillance, meaning that by monitoring the data of the average person across platforms — you can reach the same conclusions as you would by taking tenancy in their home to monitor their livelihoods. Then, I hope we revisit the constitutional amendments and ask ourselves whether a modern interpretation of the 3rd would yield that protection of the house (I.e., “no soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner”) translates to protection of the data. Then I hope that we can interpret Engblom v. Carey to mean “soldier” applies to any executive authority. Finally, I hope we can all start paying a lot more attention to Larry Ellison — the man who is consolidating a whole lot of private healthcare data and top-secret defense contracts right now while the world remains focused on the Iran war.

    I know, I am asking for a lot.


  • I keep dual boot with Windows available for my wife. About a year ago my Fedora install was stuck in a boot loop and I hadn’t used my PC in a good while, nor updated anything the last time I had used it. The only conclusion I can think of is either bitflips corrupted the boot process, or Windows fucked with my Fedora install at some point while — perhaps my wife’s activity allowed a Windows update through, I don’t know. They’re on separate drives though, so… I recovered my data and reinstalled, kept Windows but I am now extremely sensitive to any shenanigans from that drive. Reading this news has me considering to tell my wife she will have to use Windows from a VM on my PC.



  • I’m quite doubtful that you’re aware of the situations nuance, either. Is your best argument “what’s more likely?” Because, actually, I think it’s quite likely that China would have been instructive toward how their citizens should act abroad. I think it’s quite likely that China favors its own sovereignty over an individual’s sovereignty. If you’d try to convince me that there was no intimidation going on, I’d think you’re the one not applying critical thinking. Do you have any reason I should believe you over a much larger consensus between news organizations and reports from Chinese individuals? Anything that would demonstrate the opposite and more benevolent intentions of Chinese state efforts, as you’ve so claimed? Or are you just here to pose baseless claims and talk shit?





  • While I understand your point, deterministic with a billion variables is beyond human ability to process, let alone the multi-billion parameter models in general circulation today.

    Fair enough. There’s a significant difference in complexity between the surface implication of what I said versus reality. Yes, it’s deterministic, but it’s also complex enough that something more should be said… though, we need to be careful here. Our language is not mature enough to scaffold the precise concepts we need here, and attempting to do so regardless carries the risk of smuggling in many concepts we did not intend to smuggle in. Concepts like intent, for example. I agree with you, but cautiously.

    At what point does deterministic descend into random?

    It shouldn’t at any point. Instead, we’re discussing a system that’s similar to the double pendulum or three body problem. It’s deterministic, though computationally irreducible. That’s chaotic, but it is not random. It’s extremely sensitive to initial conditions.