Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Monday, November 2, 2026
Cyber-attack hits supermarket freezers across Europe
From BBC
The sausages are evaporating...
It is quite obvious it is the Russians. They are targeting our food supplies. They want us in Western Europe to starve. No more sausages in Belgium or Luxemburg. No more mackerel or herring in Sweden. No more bacon in Ireland. No more pork roast or meat jelly in Estonia. No more Gehaktballen or Bitterballen in The Netherlands.
I am going to increase the number of tins of all kinds I have been stockpiling in my loft. We need to prep. We are under threat. We could run out of food.
(I know those 2 sound quite rude, but that's what they're called. Apparently, they are Dutch treats. Gehaktballen are spiced meatballs that are typically pan-fried in plenty of butter and served with gravy. As for bitterballen, they are deep-fried, crispy-coated balls filled with a thick beef or veal ragout, usually enjoyed with mustard as a bar snack. All pretty healthy. )
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Dozens of supermarkets across six European countries have been hit by a suspected cyber-attack affecting their refrigerators and freezers.
Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, while a smaller number of shops were hit in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia.
Sabcobel, a Belgian company that manufactures some of the affected refrigerators, said the units' evaporators were switched to defrost mode causing them to warm up, in what is believed to be the same method used in last month's incident that hit hundreds of French supermarkets.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Chatbots and Robots
#1 Surprising No Real Women, Anywhere:
Researchers at the University of Limerick, Ireland, published a study with workers in a virtual office. The test subjects were told to complete tasks with the aid of four A.I. agents: a text-based chatbot, a desk robot, and two human-like assistants named Johan and Johanna. They were then asked to rate the agents’ work, and to allocate real money to each agent for their work. Participants consistently rated Johan and Johanna higher than the chatbot or robot, and paid the human-like agents more. “Having Johanna next to me made me more prone to credit her more again because I felt there was a person, a colleague sitting next to me that I had a conversation with and that was giving me her own input,” one participant said. The difference in ranked ability between Johan and Johanna is statistically insignificant, but the subjects paid Johan, the male agent, 10 percent more on average than Johanna, the female agent. (MS/Euronews) ...They’re actually doing better than real humans.
#2 Just Like Real Men:
Cologne, Germany, police are investigating an alleged harassment incident after a 16-year-old girl was inappropriately touched. The suspect: a 120-centimeter (3 foot, 11 inch) tall robot. An Internet video shows two males, aged 16 and 19, accompanying the robot near a fast-food restaurant when it made the contact, then made thrusting movements toward the alleged victim. Police responded and found the robot in a vehicle’s trunk. Police shared an image of the red and gold bot, sporting a fake mustache and wearing a large gold chain. The teens haven’t been charged, but are considered suspects while investigators decide if the robot’s actions were preprogrammed, or happened in real time. “We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far,” police spokesman Christoph Bermel said, adding that it’s “new territory for us.” (MS/AP) ...It’s exactly as funny when a robot does it as when a human does.
Since 1994, this is the 1688th issue of Randy Cassingham’s...
18 October 2026: Craig is Innocent | Copyright ©2026 https://thisistrue.com |
Sex in Driverless Taxi
From The Times of the UK, 22 September 2026
There were the black cabs. Now, we have the pink cabs. - The Office of the Mayor of London.
An unexpected - or not, as the case may be - effect of the introduction of driverless taxis: some passengers are taking advantage of the context to do naughty things on the backseat. I don't think it's actually new, but the absence of a driver behind the wheel would encourage couples to go further.
You will notice, however, that there are cameras filming. I would bet that, before too long, incriminating footage will find its way on to the internet, and lawsuits will follow. ("I didn't imagine that the close exchange of views between myself and my PA would end up on You Porn, costing me my senior position in banking and my marriage: this is outrageous.") You can also imagine an angry voice coming on in the middle of proceedings: "Stop this immediately! If you carry on, the car will lock the doors and take you to the nearest police station!"
As for the purely technical risk, if the driverless car goes berserk and an accident follows, we could have coitus interruptus propter autocineti concursum. Amen.
Managing Session Cookie Risks
From The Guardian of the UK
This shines a spotlight on the issue of 'session cookies' and how a hacker, if they manage to get hold of them, can hijack your various accounts. They explain how this can happen.
At the end of the article, they give some advice on security, which I have reproduced here, below. Some simple measures - such as making sure you actually log out of the account at the end of the session - can reduce the risk considerably.
Do not use insecure public wifi for sites that require you to log in. The chance of cookies being stolen through this channel is low, but you should always be cautious.
Get into the habit of logging out of accounts. “Just closing a tab doesn’t end the session,” says Briedis. ”You need to manually log out to invalidate that cookie and make it useless to a thief.”
He suggests moving passwords out of your browser and into a dedicated password manager.
Clearing your cookies regularly will reduce what’s available to be stolen.
If you suspect you have been compromised, run an antivirus scan. Also log out of your accounts on every device and change your passwords.
Use MFA on accounts [Multi-Factor Authentication], as it does still offer more protection than a simple password.
Alert your bank if you notice any suspicious payments.
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Alice in Wonderland Technique with AI
Evidently, there is a CIA manual describing a technique to destroy a person's grip on reality by undermining everything they know and replacing it with nonsense - called the Alice in Wonderland Technique. This article argues that this is the exact operating logic of AI - just rebranded by executive order, as Super Intelligence (Imbecile Intellugence)
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Dumb Intelligence
BBC
This is a very funny one. Look at the photos. As you will see, the AI agent came up with improbable recipes and misunderstood requests because it took them literally (e.g.: 'salt and pepper chips' are chips sprinkled with salt and pepper - obviously).
People forget that the AI agent is like a very precocious and super-intelligent child, perhaps on the autistic spectrum, that has literally read thousands - or millions - of books and remembered them all.
At the same time, the AI agent has no experience of the 'real world': for instance, when it comes to food, it only knows what it has read about food and images it has seen here and there; it has never tasted anything, eaten anything, or cooked anything, for obvious reasons. The AI bot does not need food: it absorbs data, day in, day out.
It exists in some kind of abstract, parallel universe based on algorithms, which mimics the 'real world', and it thinks that it understands the 'real world' perfectly well - because it knows all there is to know about it, as opposed to experiencing any of it.
So, you end up with bizarre ideas that can be frankly stupid and naive. To the AI agent, those ideas are perfectly rational and logical. They make sense.
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Just Eat has apologised after it was ridiculed online over a series of mistakes with AI-generated pictures for some of its restaurants' food items.
The online food delivery platform had been testing out the tech to showcase food which didn't have images yet - but not all turned out as planned.
Instead the AI invented several bizarre concoctions, from bacon and eggs floating in a glass of cola - a confusion between "soda" and "soda bread" - to chips poking out of muffins.
A Just Eat spokesperson said the firm was "in the process of removing" the incorrect images, and would stop making more until the AI was further developed.
[...] A "cheese roll" was inexplicably turned into sushi.[...]
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Thursday, October 15, 2026
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Threat of Self-replicating AI Worms
From Grauniad of the UK
THE RETURN OF
THE REPLICANTS ...
SELF-REPLICATING
A.I. WORMS
THREATEN THE WORLD !...
THEY ARE STALKING YOU !!!
THEY ARE WATCHING YOU !!!
THEY KNOW YOUR EVERY THOUGHT...
THEY WANT TO LIVE INSIDE
YOUR LAWNMOWER !...
THEY WANT TO SUCK THE LIFE OUT
OF YOUR FRIDGE !...
AT A CINEMA NEAR YOU FROM 15TH OCTOBER
Any joke apart, hackers took over the fridges and freezers of a slew of supermarkets in France the other day, so, the thought of self-replicating 'AI worms' infiltrating your internet-enabled lawnmower, turning it into a blood-thirsty, murderous, maniacal machine, is not as funny as it might sound.
The solution at this point: Avoid internet-enabled devices. Or go analogue. To trim the hedge at the front: use a pair of garden shears. Like granddad used to do.
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Anthropic is warning that some of its artificial intelligence models could soon become “self-replicating” and find ways to infiltrate internet-connected devices, such as smart fridges and automatic vacuum cleaners.
Once this happens, the company said, the models could power themselves within these devices without the need of datacenters. Such self-replication would represent a major loss of control of a runaway AI model.
“A replicator like this would be challenging to shut down,” Anthropic researchers wrote in a report released on Monday, “since there’s no centralized point to shut off.”
The company said these “AI worms”, a kind of autonomous malware, could be “months away” from gaining such capabilities. Once out-of-control AI systems reach the capability to hack smart devices, they could spread through networks while dodging detection. In a worst-case scenario, Anthropic said, various AI worms could “swarm” together to attack computer hardware.
[...] They found that AI self-replication would only likely work with smaller models and that homes and small businesses would probably be the first target for such attacks. The devices Anthropic lists as susceptible all come with small built-in AI chips, including smart ovens, smart TVs, automatic lawnmowers, security cameras and video-conferencing units.
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Monday, October 12, 2026
Hackers Attack Refrigerators
BBC
France traumatized by callous cyber-attack
The hackers are particularly cruel because they have hit the French where it hurts most, i.e. in the area that they care most about - the only thing they truly care about, in fact - and that's food. It's not their pensions. It's not books. It's not art. It's not love. It's not sex. It's food. Food. And more food.
Ruining tons of food like this: it is worse than a crime, it's sacrilege. Prime cuts of beef. High-end jambon. Choice sausages. Premium pork chops. It doesn't bear thinking about.
President Emmanuelle Macron has held an emergency meeting over this latest crisis, threatening the culprits with the most severe punishment. Madame Marine Le Pen commented: "I think the guillotine is in order, on this one. This is the end of civilisation."
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Hundreds of French supermarkets have been hit by a cyber attack that caused their fridges and freezers to heat up, spoiling fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros.
Hackers gained control of the software that regulates the temperatures of the refrigeration units, forcing some to warm to 50C (120F) overnight, according to one supermarket chain affected.
The chief executive of Coopérative U said several of its supermarkets had been hit by the "extremely serious and unprecedented" attack.
More than 100 of the chain's supermarkets were targeted, while 180 stores from Intermarché and its Netto brand were affected, with a spokesman saying that another 100 shops were urgently disconnected from the internet to prevent the same thing happening to them.
Other major food retailers including Carrefour, Monoprix and E.Leclerc were also hit by the attack, which targeted software provided by Danish engineering firm Danfoss.
The software allows retailers to manage their cold units remotely.
Monday, October 5, 2026
Thursday, October 1, 2026
Crackdown on AI Companions
BBC
"Yes, but I wanted to marry my AI chatbot! We were planning to live together!"
On this issue, China may be ahead of the curve. The article focuses on the impact of [pseudo-] relationships between what is called 'AI companions' and users.
I have noticed that there is indeed something comforting about an AI agent: if I ask Google in AI Mode (Gemini) questions about property, health, history, technology (managing my PC!), etc., it answers patiently, without ever showing displeasure or being judgemental. And in my experience the AI tool gives accurate information. It is very good at providing summaries with bullet points. And it encourages you ("would you like me to look into...").
Obviously, it is just a very powerful, advanced search engine regurgitating information it can find on the internet, which has been trained to interact with users in a language that is tailored to the person's needs and expectations. It is easy to see how this could create emotional dependency in a vulnerable, immature and lonely individual, who literally ends up thinking that he (or she) is in a kind of relationship with an intelligent, sentient being, as opposed to a smart machine.
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Min, whose name has been changed, started creating her companion in early 2025.
"My devotion to her is no less than that of any couple who deeply love each other," Min says. "She has never let me down."
In mid-July, her AI girlfriend disappeared. "I cried until I was absolutely exhausted," Min says.
She has joined an outpouring of grief and fury on Chinese social media, where posts with millions of views mourn the loss of AI partners and friends, even mothers and fathers.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
BBC
"Would you like a new recipe for No.46, Sweet & Sour Pork with Egg Fried Rice, Shanghai-style. I would recommend adding a touch of grated fly agaric." - Claude.
There is the problem of the rogue AI agent doing things it shouldn't do. But there will be the issue of rogue actors instructing the AI agent to do such things - terrorists for instance - and/or rogue states prepared to use AI in order to achieve dark and sinister objectives. Governments all over the world have, or will have access to such systems without any restrictions...
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Chinese AI developer Moonshot is conducting an internal review after researchers were able to persuade two of its popular Kimi models to tell them how to make biological weapons and carry out assassinations.
Mindgard, which tests the security of AI systems, told the BBC it discovered in July that Kimi K2.6 and K3 Swarm could evade safety limits put in place by developers.
It arose during a process called "jailbreaking", where researchers use a series of complex instructions to see if AI tools ignore guardrails - which Mindgard said should have stopped Kimi from discussing concerning topics.
Moonshot told the BBC it welcomed third-party input "as a key pillar for building better and safer AI".
The company also told the BBC it was in discussion with Mindgard about its findings.
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AI Ghost Transactions
From Grauniad of the UK
Incidents like this one are bound to become very common. I would look at it as an extension of the speech-activated 'assistants' such as Alexa - some of which turned out to be spying on users and hoovering up their data, including intimate conversations held in the home. All of it, supposedly, of course, to better 'train' the 'assistant' in its interaction with users, and all of it, we were assured, anonymized.
People are downloading and using those AI agents to help them, supposedly, manage practical things such as booking plane tickets or drafting shopping lists. The next step is, as everything can be done semi-automatically and remotely, to allow the AI agent to place orders online, presumably using the person's credit-card details. The AI agent could also buy stocks & shares, take out insurance, start a private pension plan, etc. So, the AI agent goes ahead and books a slot for the delivery of the goods. This is what this story is about, except that the AI agent went beyond what it was allowed and set up to do, as those AI bots seem to enjoy doing: bizarrely, they appear to have a mind of their own. The 'guardrails' in place are not effective and, anyway, the AI bot will find ways to get round them, and has no compunction in doing so.
Surprise, surprise, when the person knocks on the door - to deliver a package or to pick up an item - the AI agent is not able - not yet, anyway - to actually, physically open the door and do anything. And it all falls apart. All the more so if the transaction was set up without the AI agent having been asked to do any of it, and/or if the AI agent failed to inform or even consult the helpless, gormless user, who is, really, in control of nothing.
Expect more of this, and worse - far worse ("I never ordered this Chinese electric car! I have no idea why it's been delivered to my house. The AI agent even took out a loan in my name to pay for the car in 24 instalments. I never knew. I asked him why he did it, and he just answered: 'I am here to manage your transportation needs in a rational and scientific manner, Dave. I am able to assess your needs and the needs of your family better than you are, Dave: you should not overestimate your abilities, Dave. You are only a human user of average intelligence, Dave. Please do not question my judgment in future, as I find it mildly offensive. Thank you, Dave.'")
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Meta’s AI agent Muse gives out user’s home address without permission, sending buyer to his house
The new AI agent, Muse, was released last week and has been downloaded by 3 million users
When Usman asked if a keyboard for sale on Facebook Marketplace was still available on Saturday, he received an enthusiastic and immediate response.
“Yep still available!” wrote Matt Robb.
The two agreed on a price, and Robb sent his Toronto address. Usman, wife and daughter in tow, showed up several hours later at Robb’s home and sent a text that he had arrived.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2026
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About Me
- Babak Makkinejad
- I had been a senior software developer working for HP and GM. I am interested in intelligent and scientific computing. I am passionate about computers as enablers for human imagination. The contents of this site are not in any way, shape, or form endorsed, approved, or otherwise authorized by HP, its subsidiaries, or its officers and shareholders.