Ambrose Andrews @znalo@librem.one

Looking at Torvalds using generative AI for Linux, Andrew Tridgell using it for rsync, and a bunch of other very bright and techically very capable people using it to assist them with various tasks makes me think again about the time a very, very intelligent friend of mine suddenly fell into Scientology.

It started me thinking about why it is that clever people fall for these scams, and I have a theory.

I think clever people learn to trust their minds. They learn that their mind will give them correct answers without much effort, and that it will also show them flaws in arguments with the same ease. Because it generally does!

But it's also a weakness. If something comes long that doesn't trigger the automatic defences, the clever mind may let it in.

The cleverness needs to be combined with vigilance, and that cannot be left to an automated system. I think clever people tend to become less vigilant, because their mind has always stood them in good stead.

Once the scam is in it combines with the general human unwillingness to admit to error. Or even to re-evaluate things just in case they are not true. We have a whole complicated social construct called "science" designed to work around that, and not even that works all the time.

And here's the kicker: The scam that tells clever people how clever they are will have the greatest chance of success, because they ARE clever. No false modesty. The scam they fall for is wrapped in the truth that they are clever people, and presented as a thing that only clever people can truly appreciate. The scams that clever people fall for are built up of details, layers, interrelated things that appear to explain each other and support each other. That hide and distract from the basic falsehood at the bottom.

To avoid such a scam you must take a step back from the complicated, dazzling, fascinating, alluring detail. Look at the whole thing and ask what it is, why it is, who is it from? Where does it connect to the world? Who does it benefit, who does it harm? Is it too good to be true?

Asking those questions about generative AI gets you pretty obvious answers.

Have you blocked Claude and other AI agents on GitHub? Have you seen the "an user you blocked contributed to this repo" banner? Have you seen the agent among the contributors? But when you try to look, neither you, nor GitHub finds the offending commits?

Chances are, the repo has been force-pushed to remove the attribution. But GitHub remembers! And even provides us an API to list the force pushes, including the previous commit the push overwrote. And, it also helpfully keeps those commits available for a long time!

So I wrote a small tool, affectionately named sloposcope that helps you find these commits. Give it an owner and a repository name on GitHub, and it will fetch the repo, the force pushes (at least the last 100), and will look through each history for AI assistance.

It's a yanky shell script, use at your own risk, yada yada.

'The Zionist movement has a long tradition of seeking out alliances with far right parties...Claims by Israel that it represents Jewish self determination are exposed as utterly hypocritical by its active cooperation with antisemitic far right organisations'

#israel #middleEast #netanyahu #likud

https://rupensavoulian.substack.com/p/bosnian-serb-nationalists-find-a

Harvard researchers studied 718 companies and found AI coding agents increased lines of code by 30%, but no meaningful increase in completed tasks or projects.

Meanwhile, review time rose 49%.

Generating code faster hasn’t translated into completing more work. The bottleneck has moved to code reviews.

The solution the industry is landing on is throwing more AI at the problem. AI writes the code, AI reviews the code and no one knows how it works.

https://fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf

Antarctica’s ice loss is locked in, and extra snowfall won’t save it – that’s bad news for low-lying coastal areas elsewhere https://theconversation.com/antarcticas-ice-loss-is-locked-in-and-extra-snowfall-wont-save-it-thats-bad-news-for-low-lying-coastal-areas-elsewhere-293066?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #ClimateChange

Shouting on the street, heavies being called for, your man in the centre of it all, a meeting following that you've arranged or assisted to be recorded, and you don't remember any details?

I call BS on the failure to recall.

#ICACRadio

A reminder that the "hygiene hypothesis"/"old friends hypothesis" is specifically about exposure to certain microorganisms at low ages to prevent certain allergies.

It is not healthy and does not "boost your immune system" to raw dog viruses, colds, ect... Many viruses are linked to triggering other diseases later in life, such as dementia, parkinson's, and alzheimer's.

I wish this stupid myth would die. Normalizing people catching viruses means people die.

Get your vaccines. Stay home if sick.

Yesterday the president of the Internet Society Italy Chapter wrote to PIR and Internet Society to "express the concern of the Italian chapter of the Internet Society, as well as a large part of the Italian internet community, regarding the decision by the Public Internet Registry (PIR) to disable the autistici.org domain name". The letter can be accessed here: https://www.isoc.it/sites/default/files/2026-09/20260906-isoc-italy-pir-autistici-posizione.pdf

The Autistici/Inventati collective is shutting down and will soon discontinue all of their services:

'In a world where allegations are disconnected from reality, we can only expect repression to be increasingly disproportionate. Under these circumstances, we are no longer able to maintain our original mission - offering secure and non-commercial digital tools.'

#AutisticiInventati #Trump #USA #FreedomOfSpeech #Antifa #fascism

Managing VC funded companies in the US is largely a revolving door sport played by wealthy families.

Even Variety review referred to Billy Evans as "repugnant in his cockiness" so naturally THAT guy is starting Theranos 2.0.

The new company is called Haemanthus and will be using "AI" to build a REAL blood test this time they promise that will be built into a wearable device.

Evans has no background in this area... 😅 🥴

https://fortune.com/2025/05/12/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-billy-evans-haemanthus-blood-testing-startup/

#AI #Haemanthus #BillyEvans #VC

After 37 years, @cathywilcox quits the SMH after war over 7 January 2026 antisemitism critique of the Liberal Party.

The Press Council ruled that Cathy's 'grassroots puppets' trope signs amounted to spreading antisemitism, demonstrating wilful stupidity on how editorial cartoons work. Disingenuous dolts.

Love you dearly Cathy. You were dead right when you told RW attack media to 'fuck right off.'

The W3C Web Authentication Working Group is pleased to publish Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 3 as a W3C Recommendation.

This specification defines an API enabling the creation and use of strong, attested, scoped, public key-based credentials by web applications, for the purpose of strongly authenticating users.

Congratulations and thank you to the Working Group, Chairs, Editors and Contributors. See:
https://www.w3.org/news/2026/web-authentication-an-api-for-accessing-public-key-credentials-level-3-is-now-a-w3c-recommendation/
#WebAuthn #WebStandards

We still remind all users with @autistici.org mailbox find all their emails by logging in at https://accounts.inventati.org
If you need to immediately resume the full use of the email box, you can login and in the appropriate panel section create an alias on another domain of A/I. With aliases you can send and receive. If you have any doubts or had the 2fa (double authentication factor) active then go to read our updated FAQs.
https://www.inventati.org/docs/faq/faq_202608

Help us reach all users with this message. Thank you

#AutisticiInventati #AICrackdown2026 #AIvsUS #autistici #inventati

Tony Greenstein won his case by choosing to tell the jury its context (his barrister could be punished for doing so).

Once given a chance to hear all the facts, the jury accepted his arguments, incl that the UK judiciary were readily conniving in the state's growing authoritarianism.

Tellingly, Greenstein’s victory was almost entirely ignored by the msm.

The speech
https://greghadfield.medium.com/tony-greenstein-the-most-important-half-hour-of-my-life-d03f7877a492

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2026-08-30/britain-rigs-trials-genocide-opponents/

#UKPol #EUPol #GreensteinCase #GazaGenocide #palestine #news #Democracy .

On August 26, the United States designated Autistici/Inventati a terrorist organization and placed the Italian communications collective on its sanctions list.

Since 2001, A/I has provided movements with volunteer-run email, websites, mailing lists, Noblogs and other tools built to resist censorship, surveillance and corporate control.

On September 25, the temporary U.S. wind-down period ends. Banks, hosts, registrars and technology providers may cut services or withdraw relationships. A/I built its infrastructure to survive servers disappearing. This attack is aimed at making the collective economically and technologically untouchable.

A/I has now responded publicly: “We deny all allegations.” The collective says it “will not back down” and declares: “Antifascism and anticapitalism are not terrorism. Protesting is not terrorism.” Read its complete statement at cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076.

Read their history. Share their work. Preserve public archives. Document over-compliance. Organize independently. Defend resistant communication.

U.S. supporters should not improvise donations, reroute funds or promise coordinated services without qualified legal advice. Independent reporting, education, protest, criticism and responsible preservation remain essential.

Read the full article and download the FREE +KAOS BOOK:
SABOT.MEDIA / WEWILLFREEUS.ORG

#AutisticiInventati #DefendAI #ResistantCommunication #Noblogs #DigitalRights #September25 #IndependentMedia #Antifascist