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Month: January 2025

OpenAI connected to a rifle

OpenAI connected to a rifle

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OpenAI has cut off a developer who built a device that could respond to ChatGPT queries to aim and fire an automated rifle. The device went viral after a video on Reddit showed its developer reading firing commands aloud, after which a rifle beside him quickly began aiming and firing at nearby walls.

This kind of robotic automation has been possible for some time – and it’s components are easily available to hobbyists around the world. The only novel thing is using voice control; which isn’t even that novel by chatGPT standards. The reality is – as we are seeing in Ukraine – that drones are being used for active warfare and it’s only a small stretch further to imagine soldiers building something like this to defend their positions.

This obviously brings up a lot ethical and philosophical questions. Are these weapons – or defenses like barbed wire/electric fences? Are they illegal? What makes them illegal? What makes them a war crime? These sorts of devices even have their own classification: lethal autonomous weapons – and many of them are not actually illegal in war.

In civil law, there is the famous Katko v. Briney case of a booby trapped shotgun. It isn’t the automated, unattended, or indiscriminate nature of such a device that makes it illegal. It’s the fact that deadly force can only be used to defend a human life imminently in peril. A robot, or even a homeowner, cannot use deadly force to defend property – even if the person is on the property illegally or performing other illegal acts (theft). But what if the autonomous system could determine when someone was about to kill? What if it’s a mob with weapons approaching you?

We’re entering a brave new world – one in which our ethics and laws are going to have to do a lot to catch up on.

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I like Movies

I like Movies

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“I can’t believe my job is to make you feel good about yourself”

-Lawrence’s boss Alana

I Like Movies is a film about an naive, overly optimistic kid named Lawrence who is absorbed in the world of movies and his own ‘creative’ viewpoints. Unfortunately, he’s socially abrasive, clueless as to how the world/life works, and goes on about creative visions when he hasn’t even held a simple job or seems to make anything anyone wants to see. He shares too much to the point of embarrassing himself and his friends.

I think the movie hits a couple of important themes that are relevant today. First, that when we’re young we often embarrassingly think our thoughts and ideas are unique and amazing – only later to realize how cringe we really were.

Secondly, I think the quote from the boss nails what being a manager is like today – especially for those that grew up in the isolation of covid. Maybe that’s one of the reasons they’re struggling at a much higher rate than other generations – even when rated by their own peers. So the question is, how does one help those that are struggling like Lawrence along?

Epic Photography often is boring looking

Epic Photography often is boring looking

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I used a lot of interesting tricks when I was taking landscape photography. You could use a dirty mud puddle to make amazing shots that looked like you were on the beach or overlooking a lake. It works for shooting people too. Epic shots are often all about lighting and focusing on split second shot. A good reminder in the Instagram era where everyone is posting ‘perfect’ pictures.

Doughnut shop in Indiana is still using Commodore 64’s as their cash register

Doughnut shop in Indiana is still using Commodore 64’s as their cash register

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The Hilligoss Bakery in Brownsburg, IN is a respectable local donut shop. What sets it apart, however, is the fact they are still using Commodore 64’s for their cash registers.

A recent series of photos on X attracted a lot of attention this week, as it showed staff at the Hilligoss Bakery apparently processing orders on a Commodore 64-based register system. Commenters pointed out that the last publicly posted picture of the register was taken in 2021, so Tom’s Hardware decided to give them a call—and staff duly verified that the systems were still in use.

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Portland gets an F in city finances

Portland gets an F in city finances

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A 2024 report on city finances report gave Portland a full on ‘F’ for the state of it’s finances. Primarily due to the incredible debt burden of each resident. This isn’t a surprise considering Portland has the second highest tax rates in the country, and is currently facing a $27 million budget shortfall (especially as it’s tax base flees across the state line to Vancouver and businesses increasingly are leaving as well)

Read more about the state of the cities finances as well as thoughts of your favorite other major US cities.

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More developer attacks

More developer attacks

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A group of Israeli researchers managed to infect over 100 organizations by typosquatting an infected version of a popular theme on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code marketplace. They reported they were able to infect ‘numerous’ high-value targets (billion dollar publicly listed companies, security companies, court networks, etc) within 24 hours of publishing the extension. It was able to collect system information and send it to a remote server via an HTTPS POST request. It didn’t get flagged by endpoint detection.

By using what they learned, they examining other extensions on the VSCode Marketplace. Researchers found the following:

  • 1,283 with known malicious code (229 million installs).
  • 8,161 communicating with hardcoded IP addresses.
  • 1,452 running unknown executables.
  • 2,304 that are using another publisher’s Github repo, indicating they are a copycat.

They found blatantly obvious issues like this code that opens a reverse shell to the cybercriminal’s server

In summary, the lack of controls on the VSCode marketplace allows threat actors to perform rampant abuse. While the researchers reported the extensions they found to Microsoft, the vast majority remain available for download via VSCode Marketplace after they published their report.

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