Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. William Shatner Celebrates 95th Birthday, Smokes Cigar, Revisits ‘Rocket Man’ and Tests X Money
  2. A CNN Producer Explores the ‘Magic AI’ Workout Mirror
  3. Google Search Is Now Sometimes Using AI To Replace Headlines
  4. Amazon Plans to Test Four-Legged Robots on Wheels for Deliveries
  5. US Cable TV Industry Faces ‘Dramatic Collapse’ as Local Operators Shut Down - or Become ISPs
  6. Meteor Rumbles Over Houston, as Six-Pound Fragment Crashes Into a Texas Home
  7. Tesla’s Upcoming Electric Big Rig Is Already a Hit with Truckers
  8. Trivy Supply Chain Attack Spreads, Triggers Self-Spreading CanisterWorm Across 47 npm Packages
  9. EFF Tells Publishers: Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase The Historical Record
  10. Millions Face Mobile Internet Outages in Moscow. ‘Digital Crackdown’ Feared
  11. Juicier Steaks Soon? The UK Approves Testing of Gene-Edited Cow Feed
  12. Can Private Space Companies Replace the ISS Before 2030?
  13. Intel, NVIDIA, AMD GPU Drivers Finally Play Nice With ReactOS
  14. 50% of Consumers Prefer Brands That Avoid GenAI Content
  15. Firefox Announces Built-In VPN and Other New Features - and Introduces Its New Mascot

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

William Shatner Celebrates 95th Birthday, Smokes Cigar, Revisits ‘Rocket Man’ and Tests X Money

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
It was 60 years ago when William Shatner — born in 1931 — portrayed Captain Kirk in the TV series Star Trek. Shatner turns 95 today — and celebrated by posting a picture of himself smoking a cigar.

“At 95, I’m still smokin’!” Shatner joked, adding that in life he’d learned two things. “Never waste a good cigar. Never trust anyone who says you should ‘act your age.’"

For more celebrations, Paramount’s free/ad-supported streaming platform Pluto TV announced a “Trek TV takeover birthday celebration” that will run through April 3rd, according to TrekMovie.com, with marathon of Star Trek movies and TV shows — and even that time he was roasted on Comedy Central. (“Freeâ½ My favorite price!” Shatner quipped on X.com.)

Shatner still remains a popular celebrity, even travelling to space five years ago on a Blue Origin flight past the Kármán line. Since then he’s led a cruise to Antarctica — and even performed an alternate take of Captain Kirk’s final scene on the Jimmy Fallon show.

And this week Shatner (along with hundreds of thousands attendees) appeared at Orlando’s MegaCon — and shared stories about his life with Orlando Weekly:
Shatner: Last month, I was on board a cruise ship, and they said the only thing I had to do over the next three days, “before we let you go home,” is sing “Rocket Man.” So I thought, “I’m not going to sing ‘Rocket Man’ the same way that what’s-his-name did. … So, I looked at the song very carefully to see if I could find what actors call a throughline. What is the character signing? What is he signing about? And so I look through all of these weird lyrics, and all of a sudden, the word sticks out to me: “alone.” So I say to the band members, “OK, let’s make this song about being alone in space.” And I work on it with the band and the musicians, and again on a Saturday night, I perform the number, and 4,000 people stand up and applaud “Rocket Man.” And they won’t let me off the stage, again and again. Four times, I get a standing ovation, wild.

And that’s the progression for me, of science fiction for me, as exemplified by this song. The song went from superficial to something of depth and meaning… It touched people enough for them to stand up and applaud, and I realized that is the story of science fiction… Science fiction with all its great technology has evolved into great storytelling that reaches people in a manner that is very difficult for other types of drama to do.
Shatner answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2002 (“My life is my statement…”) and again in 2011. (“I used to try to assemble computers way back when and they came out looking like a skateboard…”)

And judging by his X.com posts, Shatner is now involved in early testing of the site’s upcoming digital payment system X Money.

A CNN Producer Explores the ‘Magic AI’ Workout Mirror

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
CNN looks at “the Magic AI fitness mirror,” a new product “watching you, and giving you feedback automatically,” while sometimes playing footage of a recorded personal trainer.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland describes CNN’s video report:
CNN says the device “tracks form, counts reps, and corrects technique in real-time — and it doesn’t go easy on you.” (Although the company’s CEO/cofounder, Varun Bhanot, says “we’re not trying to completely replace personal trainers. What we are providing is a more accessible alternative.”)

CNN call the company “more a computer-vision firm than a fitness company, building the tech for this mirror from the ground up.” CEO Bhanot tells CNN he’d hired a personal trainer in his 20s to get fit, but “Going through that journey, I realized how old-fashioned personal training was. Dumbbells were still dumb. There was no data or augmentation for the whole process!”

“The AI fitness and wellness market is already huge — and it’s growing,” CNN adds. “In 2025 the global market was worth $11 billion, according to [market research firm] Insightace Analytic. By 2035, this market is expected to reach just shy of $58 billion. And Magic AI is far from alone. Form, Total, Speediance, and Echelon, to name a few, are all brands vying for a slice of this market.
Even the most purely physical of activities — exercising your body — now gets “enhanced” with AI accessories…

In the dirt maggot!

By RitchCraft • Score: 3 Thread

Make R. Lee Ermey the Marine Corps drill instructor avatar that lives within this thing. “You are a disgusting fat body Pyle!” I was amazed at how, in just three months, I went from an average fairly lazy teenager to a physically fit motivated beast during Marine Corps boot camp. As a bonus add “incentives” to do better like letting the mirror shock you when you are not sweating enough to reach your true potential or locking your AI cloud connected Samsung fridge’s door when it deems you are too disgusting and fat. When the avatar notices you have gotten in your car and heading to a fast food joint it shuts down your AI cloud connected car. “Not on my watch maggot!” :) AI and the cloud are your friends.

Google Search Is Now Sometimes Using AI To Replace Headlines

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Google is beginning to replace news headlines in its search results with ones that are AI-generated,” reports the Verge:
After doing something similar in its Google Discover news feed, it’s starting to mess with headlines in the traditional “10 blue links,” too. We’ve found multiple examples where Google replaced headlines we wrote with ones we did not, sometimes changing their meaning in the process. For example, Google reduced our headline "I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything" to just five words: "‘Cheat on everything’ AI tool.” It almost sounds like we’re endorsing a product we do not recommend at all.

What we are seeing is a “small” and “narrow” experiment, one that’s not yet approved for a fuller launch, Google spokespeople Jennifer Kutz, Mallory De Leon, and Ned Adriance tell The Verge. They would not say how “small” that experiment actually is. Over the past few months, multiple Verge staffers have seen examples of headlines that we never wrote appear in Google Search results — headlines that do not follow our editorial style, and without any indication that Google replaced the words we chose. And Google says it’s tweaking how other websites show up in search, too, not just news.

The good news, for now, is that these changed headlines seem to be few and far between, and they’re not yet the kind of tripe we’ve seen in Google Discover. (For example, Google Discover told me this week that the PlayStation Portal was getting a 1080p streaming mode, when it actually got a higher bitrate mode instead.) Compared to that and other lying Google Discover headlines like “US reverses foreign drone ban” — on a story reporting the opposite — the nonsense headlines we’re seeing in Google Search are downright tame.
The article points out that Google “originally told us its AI headlines in Google Discover were an experiment too. A month later, it told us those AI headlines are now a feature…”

“Google confirmed that the test uses generative AI, but claimed that ‘if we were to actually launch something based on this experiment, it would not be using a generative model and we would not be creating headlines with gen AI’…”

of course it does

By Mr. Dollar Ton • Score: 3 Thread

the clickbait factor will be reflected in the advertisement price, naturally.

but who is using search anymore, i hear it is all ai chatting now.

We need to force them to revive Do Not Be Evil.

By bistromath007 • Score: 3 Thread

I am thoroughly sick and tired of the consistency with which Alphabet subsidiaries engage in small, narrow experiments of things that anyone with a spine could tell them they shouldn’t even want to do.

Amazon Plans to Test Four-Legged Robots on Wheels for Deliveries

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
CNBC reports:
Amazon has acquired Rivr, a Swiss robotics company developing machines for “doorstep delivery,” the company confirmed Thursday… It announced the deal in a notice sent to third-party delivery contractors… “We believe this technology, when working alongside your [delivery associates], has the potential to further improve safety outcomes and the overall customer experience, particularly in the last steps of the delivery process....” In its notice to delivery service partner owners, Amazon said Rivr’s technology, which includes a four-legged robot on wheels, will allow it to research and test how the devices can be integrated into delivery operations, including “helping [delivery associates] carry packages from delivery vehicles to customer doorsteps.”

Re: a four-legged robot on wheels

By argoth • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

https://www.rivr.ai/ features it on homepage

third-party delivery aka the DSP takes on all the

By Joe_Dragon • Score: 3 Thread

third-party delivery aka the DSP takes on all the risks and costs of this?
But they have no real control??

I cannot help but think of Daleks

By Alain Williams • Score: 3 Thread
And this cartoon.

US Cable TV Industry Faces ‘Dramatic Collapse’ as Local Operators Shut Down - or Become ISPs

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
America’s cable TV industry “is undergoing its most dramatic collapse in history,” reports Cord Cutters News, “with operators large and small waving the white flag on traditional TV service and pointing their customers toward streaming platforms instead.” Just in 2025 Comcast lost 1.25 million pay-TV subscribers (ending the year with just 11.3 million), while Charter Spectrum also lost hundreds of thousands of customers each quarter.

But “for smaller regional operators, who lack the scale and diversified revenue streams of giants like Comcast, those kinds of losses are simply unsurvivable,” they write. And “the companies that once delivered hundreds of channels through coaxial cables are now either shutting down entirely or reinventing themselves as internet providers.”
Pay-TV subscriptions have plummeted from nearly 90% of U.S. households in the mid-2010s to roughly half by the end of 2025, resulting in billions in lost revenue and forcing many smaller operators to conclude that continuing linear TV services is no longer viable… [This year over U.S. 50 cable TV companies — primarily smaller and midsize providers — are “expected to cease operations entirely or shut down their television services,” Cord Cutters News reported earlier.] YouTube TV’s pricing is so competitive that the platform is projected to have close to 12.6 million subscribers by the end of 2026, positioning it to become the largest paid TV distributor in the United States. Exclusive content deals, such as YouTube TV’s acquisition of NFL Sunday Ticket rights, have further eroded the value proposition of traditional cable at every level of the market… As older cable subscribers age out of the market, there is no new generation of customers waiting to replace them…

[Cable TV] operators like WOW! are betting that their physical infrastructure — now increasingly upgraded to fiber — is more valuable as an internet delivery system than as a cable TV platform. [WOW! serves customers across Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Alabama — but is “phasing out its proprietary streaming live TV service and directing all customers toward YouTube TV,” the article notes.] Industry observers see this as part of a broader trend: operators shedding unprofitable video segments to focus on broadband, where returns and network investments are prioritized.

By the end of 2026, non-pay-TV households are expected to surge to 80.7 million, outnumbering traditional pay-TV subscribers at 54.3 million — a milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just a decade ago. For the cable companies still standing, the math is now inescapable: the era of the cable bundle is ending, and the only real question left is how gracefully each operator manages its exit.

Maybe, just maybe

By burtosis • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
If they didn’t enshittify and overcharge to the moon people would have been satisfied with the service. The duopoly approach where you have zero choice and what are you going to do cut ties completely went to its logical conclusion. Right now for cable I have the choice of Comcast or Xfinity and I’ve had to live with this for two decades but thank god they are finally laying fiber in my neighborhood and I’m counting the minutes until I can rid myself of that filth forever.

Re: Maybe, just maybe

By Z00L00K • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You pay just to get served ads.

I Enjoyed My Cable

By rally2xs • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Cable is easier than streaming. I could find programming 2 weeks in advance thru their catalog of programming, I had their DVR’s in 3 rooms and almost all the premium channels that they offered. I miss the convenience. I hate turning on the TV and having to make the Roku navigate to Sling, then my favorite channel. Turn off the TV while watching my favorite channel on cable, and when turning it on again, my favorite channel is right there on the screen.

With me, it’s just a money thing. Cable was freakin’ expensive. $310 a month. As stated, 3 DVR’s in 3 different rooms, nearly all the premiums. Plus high speed internet service which was actually pretty good, except they were particularly inept at keeping it working. Between having it go down… and up… and down… and up to the point I had to have my Verizon “MiFI” hotspot ready while playing online poker because the cable’s internet dropped out so often, and then an outrageous 10 hour interruption for scheduled maintenance on a Sunday morning - yes, I was using the cable that Sunday morning - I did what I really didn’t want to do, and went streaming.

Again, I miss cable. I just don’t miss $300+ per month, I think I have most of the streaming services I want and fiber internet provided by the power company and all comes in the low $200’s. They haven’t yet had a 10 hour scheduled maintenance interruption. But its harder to use, and I actually tried and failed to find the Coca Cola 600 the evening of the Indy 500 that I did find and watch. I think it was on Paramount+ which I had, and just didn’t know to look there. Or it may have been on Peacock, I get those two mixed up sometimes. But what I didn’t get was the Coca Cola 600. I wouldn’t have missed the Coca Cola 600 on cable.

And cable’s technical changes that nuked Tivo also was a downer. The cable company I had before moving to Texas, in King George County, Virginia was implemented with Tivo provided by the cable company itself. It was a dream of a system with a main receiver and 2 satellites for the 3 rooms I wanted TV’s in. You could be watching a movie, switch rooms, turn on the TV, and continue watching the same movie from the same position in it that you left it where you 1st turned it on. Fabulous system.

Not sure cable can ever come back, it’s just frightfully expensive. Stringing expensive wire on poles you have to pay rent on and with greedy local TV channels charging the cable company for their signal I think just doesn’t work for the average person’s wallet. I _could_ afford it, I just don’t want to while there’s the alternative of streaming. I just wish streaming was as convenient as cable.

Refresh my memory:

By fredrated • Score: 3 Thread

what’s ‘cable’?

Simply Put: Times Change

By Vandil X • Score: 3 Thread
The generation that was enslaved to a Broadcast over-the-air TV turned to Cable for “edgier”, less FCC-moderated content and hundreds more channels.

Then that generation got enslaved by greedy cable prices, especially as things went exclusive like NFL Football on select days and adding 1 channel to watch a hit series was about a quarter of the cost of cable.

People turned to streaming because it was cheaper and in many cases, free. People also rediscovered broadcast over-the-air TV. The pandemic helped with this.

Now that people are already moving on from rising streaming prices and looking for alternatives, Cable is now a relic of the 00’s. The generation that loved it has either moved on or died off. I hope the suits that raised prices have their Golden Parachutes ready if they haven’t used them already..

Meteor Rumbles Over Houston, as Six-Pound Fragment Crashes Into a Texas Home

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“It is the talk of the town today — the loud boom, the flash of light in the sky experienced by a lot of folks across the Houston area this afternoon,” says a local Texas newscaster. “And then there was this — a home in northwest Harris county hit by something that crashed through their roof.”

Travelling at very high speed, the six-pound meteorite crashed through their roof and through their attic, crashing again through the ceiling of the floor below. It then bounced off the floor, hit the ceiling again — and then fell onto the bed.

CBS News reports:
NASA said in a social media post that the meteor became visible at 49 miles above Stagecoach, northwest of Houston, at 4:40 p.m. local time. The meteor moved southeast at 35,000 miles per hour, breaking apart 29 miles above Bammel, just west of Cypress Station, NASA said. “The fragmentation of the meteor — which weighed about a ton with a diameter of 3 feet — created a pressure wave that caused booms heard by some in the area,” NASA said in the post. Across the Houston area, residents described hearing a low, rumbling sound that many compared to thunder, even though the skies were clear, according to CBS affiliate KHOU.

Earlier this week, an asteroid weighing about 7 tons and traveling at 45,000 mph traveled over multiple states. And last June, a bright meteor was seen across the southeastern U.S. and exploded over Georgia, creating similar booms heard by residents in the area.

Seems obvious to me

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3 Thread

God’s trying to kill Ken Paxton.

Missing from the summary

By Alypius • Score: 5, Informative Thread
No one was injured

Meteor shower?

By bradley13 • Score: 3 Thread
There have been several “fireballs” over various parts of the world, just in the past couple of weeks. Some wandering asteroid came apart?

Tesla’s Upcoming Electric Big Rig Is Already a Hit with Truckers

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“After nearly a decade of delays and industry skepticism, Tesla’s electric big rig is finally rolling out of Nevada’s Gigafactory for mass production starting summer 2026,” writes Gadget Review. And some truckers who tested the vehicles already love them (as reported by the Wall Street Journal):
Dakota Shearer and Angel Rodriguez, among other pilot drivers, rave about the centered cab that eliminates blind spots during tight maneuvers. The automatic transmission means no more wrestling with 13-gear diesels, reducing physical stress on long hauls. Most surprisingly, the Semi maintains highway speeds on grades where diesel trucks typically crawl at 30 mph. The 500-mile range enables multiple daily round-trips — think Long Beach to Vegas or Inland Empire runs — without range anxiety…

Sure, the Semi costs under $300,000 — roughly double a diesel equivalent — but the math gets interesting quickly. Energy costs drop to $0.17 per mile compared to $0.50-0.70 for diesel fuel. Maintenance requirements shrink dramatically; one fleet reports needing just one mechanic for their electric trucks versus five for 40 diesels… Tesla offers Standard Range (325 miles) and Long Range (500 miles) versions, both handling 82,000-pound gross combined weight at 1.7 kWh per mile efficiency.

The tri-motor setup delivers 800 kW — over 1,000 horsepower equivalent — enabling loaded 0-60 mph acceleration in 20 seconds versus 45-60 for diesel. Fast charging hits 60% capacity in 30 minutes [which Tesla says is 4x faster than other battery-electric trucks] using the new MCS 3.2 standard, while 25 kW ePTO power runs refrigerated trailers without diesel auxiliaries. Charging networks remain the biggest hurdle for widespread adoption. Public charging stations lack the Semi’s massive power requirements, limiting long-haul routes. Tesla plans dedicated fast-charging corridors starting this summer, but coverage remains spotty. The lack of sleeper cabs also restricts the Semi to regional freight rather than cross-country hauling.

Production scales to 5,000-15,000 units by 2026, then 50,000 annually — assuming charging infrastructure keeps pace with demand.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

multi-day?

By CAIMLAS • Score: 5, Informative Thread

500 miles is not a “multi-day” range. That’s a day (300-600 miles) for local driving, or less than a day for OTR long haul. 12+ hour days are not common, most of it spent driving. Even a local fuel delivery route is going to exceed that in most cases.

I’m guessing these will be for close-to-terminal local delivery only, because they’re not going to have much use beyond that, particularly with lengthy charge requirements and no sleeper.

Re:multi-day?

By Gravis Zero • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

or less than a day for OTR long haul. 12+ hour days are not common, most of it spent driving.

Long hauls need to stop being a thing. There are multiple issues but the biggest is that pollution compared to freight trains is much higher because the energy efficiency is much lower. If reducing the amount of deaths in the “far off” future is too abstract for you then consider the number of collisions with big rigs that kill people annually. If you’re just a jerk, then consider that it will significantly reduce the number of highway repairs needed and thus save a lot of money while reducing traffic.

I’m guessing these will be for close-to-terminal local delivery only

That’s how big rigs should be used. If it has to go a long distance then it should be by train. Freight trains are no utopia but perfect is the enemy of good.

Let’s see how it pans out

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Reminder the Cybertruck was also raved about, a lot of very expensive pre-orders too. Ultimately it ended up being one of the biggest flops in the auto industry and Tesla ended up doing some creative accounting to cover the losses (the Cybertruck’s biggest customer is now SpaceX)

Re:Nice ad.

By Morromist • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Is it “Full self driving” as defined by the meaning of those 3 words put together? No? Ok then. Can you summon your car from anywhere and sleep in it while it drives across the country in difficult weather conditions, like he promised it would be 6 years ago? No? Ok then. Can you understand why people are tired of having this conversation with tesla stans? No? Ok then.

Re:multi-day? sure, with embedded charging

By 2TecTom • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

As opposed to what? Wreck The Planet? It sure doesn’t take much to see which side of the conspiracy you’re on, does it?

The reality is this is what enterprise is, companies build things, markets test them, and no, it’s not a free market and yes, governments will impose standards, that’s what government is, or what ‘our’ government was supposed to be for, isn’t it?

The problem isn’t about save the planet, the problem is ethics, as it always is, is it ethical to act irresponsibly and cook our own planet? OIviously not and it’s not intelligent either, is it?

It sure would not take much to energize an induction system on some heavily travelled routes or develop charging at truck stops. Eventually, the tech will be good enough to operate mostly autonomously so charging stations will just be located as needed, won’t they?

Trivy Supply Chain Attack Spreads, Triggers Self-Spreading CanisterWorm Across 47 npm Packages

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“We have removed all malicious artifacts from the affected registries and channels,” Trivy maintainer Itay Shakury posted today, noting that all the latest Trivy releases “now point to a safe version.” But “On March 19, we observed that a threat actor used a compromised credential…”

And today The Hacker News reported the same attackers are now “suspected to be conducting follow-on attacks that have led to the compromise of a large number of npm packages…” (The attackers apparently leveraged a postinstall hook “to execute a loader, which then drops a Python backdoor that’s responsible for contacting the ICP canister dead drop to retrieve a URL pointing to the next-stage payload.”)
The development marks the first publicly documented abuse of an ICP canister for the explicit purpose of fetching the command-and-control (C2) server, Aikido Security researcher Charlie Eriksen said… Persistence is established by means of a systemd user service, which is configured to automatically start the Python backdoor after a 5-second delay if it gets terminated for some reason by using the "Restart=always" directive. The systemd service masquerades as PostgreSQL tooling (“pgmon”) in an attempt to fly under the radar…

In tandem, the packages come with a “deploy.js” file that the attacker runs manually to spread the malicious payload to every package a stolen npm token provides access to in a programmatic fashion. The worm, assessed to be vibe-coded using an AI tool, makes no attempt to conceal its functionality. “This isn’t triggered by npm install,” Aikido said. “It’s a standalone tool the attacker runs with stolen tokens to maximize blast radius.”

To make matters worse, a subsequent iteration of CanisterWorm detected in "@teale.io/eslint-config” versions 1.8.11 and 1.8.12 has been found to self-propagate on its own without the need for manual intervention… [Aikido Security researcher Charlie Eriksen said] “Every developer or CI pipeline that installs this package and has an npm token accessible becomes an unwitting propagation vector. Their packages get infected, their downstream users install those, and if any of them have tokens, the cycle repeats.”
So far affected packages include 28 in the @EmilGroup scope and 16 packages in the @opengov scope, according to the article, blaming the attack on “a cloud-focused cybercriminal operation known as TeamPCP.”

Ars Technica explains that Trivy had "inadvertently hardcoded authentication secrets in pipelines for developing and deploying software updates,” leading to a situation where attacks “compromised virtually all versions” of the widely used Trivy vulnerability scanner:
Trivy maintainer Itay Shakury confirmed the compromise on Friday, following rumors and a thread, since deleted by the attackers, discussing the incident. The attack began in the early hours of Thursday. When it was done, the threat actor had used stolen credentials to force-push all but one of the trivy-action tags and seven setup-trivy tags to use malicious dependencies… “If you suspect you were running a compromised version, treat all pipeline secrets as compromised and rotate immediately,” Shakury wrote.

Security firms Socket and Wiz said that the malware, triggered in 75 compromised trivy-action tags, causes custom malware to thoroughly scour development pipelines, including developer machines, for GitHub tokens, cloud credentials, SSH keys, Kubernetes tokens, and whatever other secrets may live there. Once found, the malware encrypts the data and sends it to an attacker-controlled server. The end result, Socket said, is that any CI/CD pipeline using software that references compromised version tags executes code as soon as the Trivy scan is run… “In our initial analysis the malicious code exfiltrates secrets with a primary and backup mechanism. If it detects it is on a developer machine it additionally writes a base64 encoded python dropper for persistence....”

Although the mass compromise began Thursday, it stems from a separate compromise last month of the Aqua Trivy VS Code extension for the Trivy scanner, Shakury said. In the incident, the attackers compromised a credential with write access to the Trivy GitHub account. Shakury said maintainers rotated tokens and other secrets in response, but the process wasn’t fully “atomic,” meaning it didn’t thoroughly remove credential artifacts such as API keys, certificates, and passwords to ensure they couldn’t be used maliciously.

“This [failure] allowed the threat actor to perform authenticated operations, including force-updating tags, without needing to exploit GitHub itself,” Socket researchers wrote.
Pushing to a branch or creating a new release would’ve appeared in the commit history and trigger notifications, Socket pointed out, so “Instead, the attacker force-pushed 75 existing version tags to point to new malicious commits.” (Trivy’s maintainer says “we’ve also enabled immutable releases since the last breach.”)

Ars Technica notes Trivy’s vulnerability scanner has 33,200 stars on GitHub, so “the potential fallout could be severe.”

Don’t drink the CI koolaid

By Big Hairy Gorilla • Score: 3 Thread
Trust is broken today.
Freezing code is where it’s at.

EFF Tells Publishers: Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase The Historical Record

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Imagine a newspaper publisher announcing it will no longer allow libraries to keep copies of its paper,” writes EFF senior policy analyst Joe Mullin.

“That’s effectively what’s begun happening online in the last few months.”
The Internet Archive — the world’s largest digital library — has preserved newspapers since it went online in the mid-1990s… But in recent months The New York Times began blocking the Archive from crawling its website, using technical measures that go beyond the web’s traditional robots.txt rules. That risks cutting off a record that historians and journalists have relied on for decades. Other newspapers, including The Guardian, seem to be following suit…

The Times says the move is driven by concerns about AI companies scraping news content. Publishers seek control over how their work is used, and several — including the Times — are now suing AI companies over whether training models on copyrighted material violates the law. There’s a strong case that such training is fair use. Whatever the outcome of those lawsuits, blocking nonprofit archivists is the wrong response.

Organizations like the Internet Archive are not building commercial AI systems. They are preserving a record of our history. Turning off that preservation in an effort to control AI access could essentially torch decades of historical documentation over a fight that libraries like the Archive didn’t start, and didn’t ask for. If publishers shut the Archive out, they aren’t just limiting bots. They’re erasing the historical record…

Even if courts place limits on AI training, the law protecting search and web archiving is already well established… There are real disputes over AI training that must be resolved in courts. But sacrificing the public record to fight those battles would be a profound, and possibly irreversible, mistake.

Re:Could this all be solved

By Local ID10T • Score: 5, Informative Thread

I would expect to find “back issues” of newspapers in a public library, but I would not expect to find today’s paper.

Surprise! The public libraries used to get the paper delivered daily. You could, in fact, go to the library and read that days paper. Libraries would have the local paper, as well as major regional and national papers.

Isn’t the problem

By umopapisdn69 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

that even in the best situation the publishers can’t trust that IA can effectively stop the AIs from just scraping the content from there? The newspapers perhaps can block AIs from their own sites. But once the data is past their hands they have nothing but license statements for control.

Mind you I do think there is a fair use case for the AIs. But it’s abundantly clear they are perfectly happy to play the “forgiveness is easier than permission” game. As well as “Hey the milk is already spilt, so whatcha gonna do about it?”

Re:It Will Erase The Historical Record

By MDMurphy • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
How many times have we seen where someone has captured an original website or news story that shows how “history” was later changed? Erasing the historical record is real. So is changing the historical record and trying to claim it hadn’t been changed.

Millions Face Mobile Internet Outages in Moscow. ‘Digital Crackdown’ Feared

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
13 million people live in Moscow, reports CNN.

But since early March the city “has experienced internet and mobile service outages on a level previously unseen.” (Though Wi-Fi access to the internet is still available…) Russian social media “is flooded with jokes and memes about sending letters by carrier pigeons or using smartphones as ping-pong paddles…”
[Moscow residents] complain they cannot navigate around the center or use their favorite mobile apps. The interruptions appear to have had a knock-on effect of making it more difficult to make voice calls or send an SMS. Some are panic-buying walkie-talkies, paper maps, and even pagers.

The latest shutdown builds on similar efforts around the country. For months, mobile internet service interruptions have hit Russia’s regions, particularly in provinces bordering Ukraine, which has staged incursions and launched strikes inside Russian territory to counter Russia’s full-scale invasion. Some regions have reported not having any mobile internet since summer. But the most recent outages have hit the country’s main centers of wealth and power: Moscow and Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg.

Public officials claim the blackout of mobile internet service in the capital and other regions is part of a security effort to counter “increasingly sophisticated methods” of Ukrainian attack… Speculation centers on whether the authorities are testing their ability to clamp down on public protest in the case there’s an effort to reintroduce unpopular mobilization measures to find fresh manpower for the war in Ukraine; whether mobile internet outages may precede a more sweeping digital blackout; or if the new restrictions reflect an atmosphere of heightened fear and paranoia inside the Kremlin as it watches US-led regime- change efforts unfold against Russian allies such as Venezuela and Iran… On Wednesday, Russian mobile providers sent notifications that there would be “temporary restrictions” on mobile internet in parts of Moscow for security reasons, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. The measures will last “for as long as additional measures are needed to ensure the safety of our citizens,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 11…

As well as banning many social media platforms, Russia blocks calling features on messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator, has introduced a “white list” of approved apps… Russia has also tested what it calls the “sovereign internet,” a network that is effectively firewalled from the rest of the world. The disruptions are fueling broader concerns about tightening state control. In parallel with the internet shutdown, the Kremlin has also been pushing to impose a state-controlled messaging app called Max as the country’s main portal for state services, payments and everyday communication. There has been speculation the Kremlin may be planning to ban Telegram, Russia’s most widely used messaging app, entirely. Roskomnadzor said that it was restricting Telegram for allegedly failing to comply with Russian laws.

“Russia has opened a criminal case against me for ‘aiding terrorism,’" Telegram’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said on X last month. “Each day, the authorities fabricate new pretexts to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram as they seek to suppress the right to privacy and free speech....”
The article includes this quote from Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society and an expert on Russian internet freedom. “In any situation when they (the authorities) perceive some kind of danger for themselves and accept the belief that the internet is dangerous for them, even if it may not be true, they will shut it down,” he said. “Just like in Iran.”

That explains it

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Slashdot is so peaceful and quiet today.

Re:That explains it

By PsychoSlashDot • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Slashdot is so peaceful and quiet today.

+5 Insightfunny.

“Public officials claim the blackout of mobile internet service in the capital and other regions is part of a security effort to counter “increasingly sophisticated methods” of Ukrainian attack…” Know how to fix that? Recall the troops back to the Russian side of the border. Aside from loss-of-face, virtually every aspect of Russian life would improve as a result.

The US is watching

By battingly • Score: 4, Informative Thread

You can bet this US administration is taking careful notes. Where Putin goes, Trump follows.

Re:That explains it

By PPH • Score: 4, Funny Thread

making everyone use state chats he can read.

Just start sending strings of random numbers. Putin’s paranoia will go through the roof.

I miss Russian numbers stations on the shortwave.

Choose your adventure

By WaffleMonster • Score: 3 Thread

1. There is a coup brewing in Moscow with increasingly public discontent.
https://kyivindependent.com/a-…

2. Internet blackout is to protect Mojtaba Khamenei who some think was flown to Moscow.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/…

More likely already dead.

3. Russia is preparing for mobilization and or seizure of private bank accounts and seeks to proactively quash dissent.

4. Ukrainian drones sporting Russian SIMS. Not likely given persistence of outages.

For 1-3 one would think wired Internet would be curtailed as well.

Personally I think in the context of pushing Max and banning popular competitors Russia is experimenting with boiling the frog with ultimate goal of disconnecting from global Internet entirely. There is already some propaganda to that end.

Juicier Steaks Soon? The UK Approves Testing of Gene-Edited Cow Feed

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Juicier steaks could soon be served up after barley was given the go-ahead to become Britain’s first gene-edited crop,” reports the Telegraph:
In an effort to fatten up cows and get them to market faster, scientists have altered the DNA of Golden Promise barley to increase its fat content… [Regulators have approved the feeding of that barley to cows for further studies.] [T]he small increase reduces the time it takes for farmers to raise animals for slaughter and increases the amount of milk and meat they produce to make the industry more profitable.

The gene-edited barley is also able to cut the amount of methane a cow produces, [Rothamsted Research professor/biochemist Peter] Eastmond said… Reducing methane from cattle is a major goal of the industry, and Professor Eastmond estimated his barley could cut the methane output from a single cow by up to 15%.

The two genetic tweaks to the barley are believed to alter the gut bacteria in cows’ stomachs and reduce the amount of methane-generating microbes, cutting the cows’ emissions.... [Eastmond] is also working on applying the same two gene edits to rye grass to create pastures and meadows which are lipid-rich and calorie-dense. This, he said, could lead to entire fields of gene-edited grass which could be grazed by cows, sheep, horses and goats to fatten them up and cut emissions… “It would be better to have this technology in a pasture grass that’s grown to supply the livestock and graze it directly.”
The barley “has been modified to have a single letter of DNA removed from two different genes to switch them off,” the article points out. “No genes have been added to its DNA and it is not considered to be genetically modified.”

The article points out that Britain “has launched a push towards more gene-edited crops as a key post-Brexit freedom since splitting from the European Union,” noting that U.K. scientists and private companies “have created products such as bread with fewer cancer-causing chemicals, longer-lasting strawberries and bananas, sweeter-tasting lettuce and disease-resistant potatoes, although these are yet to be granted permission to land on supermarket shelves…”

But the EU has so far resisted the sale of any gene-edited crops in the EU.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.

In est in lab meat

By GeekWithAKnife • Score: 3 Thread
Ultimately, when we eventually get to good tasting, cheap and rapid lab grown meat we won’t need to flatten cows just to eat them.

…and we will need less things involving managing their lives and transporting them.

It’s not going to make money for years but it is in the public interest. Exactly the sort of project a government should back.

All the right reasons

By LondoMollari • Score: 3 Thread

Ah, yes, because nothing screams “bold post-Brexit innovation” like gene-editing barley so cows can burp less methane while we get juicier steaks faster. Bravo, UK! You’ve finally hopped on the GMO train—not for the boring old reasons like, y’know, feeding starving people or actually solving real agricultural problems—but because an island that contributes roughly 1% of global emissions (look it up, it’s adorable) is dead-set on slashing its own cow farts by a whopping 15%. That’s right, folks: the planet’s fate hangs in the balance of British livestock flatulence, and this single-letter DNA tweak is apparently the heroic fix.

Even Bill Nye—the guy who used to side-eye GMOs like they were radioactive—eventually came around and endorsed them specifically as a tool against world hunger. But nah, why bother with anything as pedestrian as ending famine when you can virtue-signal about climate while the actual heavy emitters (China, India, the US) keep right on trucking? Genius. This isn’t science; it’s eco-therapy for a nation convinced their pasture tweaks will cool the globe.

And the best part? It’s not even “GMO” in the scary EU sense—no foreign genes added, just two switches flipped off. Yet here we are, celebrating it because it makes the meat industry slightly more profitable and the cows slightly less gassy. Truly, the future is moo-ving in the right direction straight into irrelevance. Well played, Britain. Well played.

Can Private Space Companies Replace the ISS Before 2030?

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
China’s orbital outpost Tiangong was completed in 2022 and is hosting up to three astronauts at a time, reports CNN.

But meanwhile U.S. lawmakers are now signaling there’s not time to develop and launch a replacement for the International Space Station — considered the signal most expensive object ever built — before its deorbiting in 2030. A recent Senate bill calls for the U.S. to continue funding it as late as 2032, but that bill still awaits approval from the U.S. Senate and the House.

But some private space companies are already building their alternatives:
Private companies that are in the early design and mockup phase of developing these space stations are still waiting on NASA for guidance — and money… [NASA’s “Requests for Proposals”] were delayed, in part because it took all of 2025 to cinch a confirmation for Trump’s on-again-off-again pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman [confirmed in December]… Similarly, 2025 saw a 45-day government shutdown, the longest in history — adding another hiccup in the space agency’s plans to begin formally soliciting proposals from the private sector. Companies now expect that NASA will issue its Request for Proposals in late March or early April, one CEO told CNN…

Several commercial outfits have recently announced big funding influxes aimed at speeding up the development and launch of new orbiting outposts. Houston-based Axiom Space announced a $350 million funding round last month. Its California-based competitor Vast then notched a $500 million raise in early March. Vast is determined to launch a bare-bones station to orbit as soon as possible, with or without federal input, according to the company. “Our approach is to actually not wait for (NASA) and get going and build a minimum viable product, single-module space station called Haven-1, which we’re launching into orbit next year,” Vast CEO Max Haot told CNN in a phone interview earlier this month. Similarly, Axiom Space is working toward a 2028 launch date for a module that it plans to initially attach to the ISS before breaking off to orbit on its own. A spokesperson told CNN that it the company is “committed” to winning the NASA contract money and may continue pursing such goals even without contract awards.

Still, there’s lingering doubt that any of the companies pursuing space stations will be able to stay afloat without securing a coveted NASA contract or at least cinching significant business from the public sector.
The article includes “Another complicating fact: Russia, the United States’ primary partner on the ISS, has not pledged to keep operating its half of the space station past 2028.” NASA will eventually evaluate proposals for an ISS alternative from Vast, Axiom Space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Max Space and several competitors including Voyager Technologies, CNN notes, ultimately handing out an estimated $1.5 billion in contracts between 2026 and 2031.

And while those companies may wait decades before a return on their investment, the article includes this quotes from the cofounder/general partner of Balerion Space Ventures, which led the fundraising for Vast. " What’s obvious to us is you’re going to have multiple vehicles with myriad companies go into space. You’re going to have vehicles leaving from celestial bodies, like the moon. And we need a habitat.”

Face it …

By PPH • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

And while those companies may wait decades before a return on their investment,

… the ISS isn’t about ROI. It’s job is primarily R&D. That produces little, if any financial reward. If a new zero-g manufacturing process is perfected, it will get its own purpose-built station/platform. The ISS isn’t set up like a business park. Where one can lease a module and start knocking out product. And that process will most likely be robotic. The payback isn’t likely going to cover a human manufacturing staff if the job is to run a gravity-free punch press or something. There will be no space and life support budgeted for meat-sack visitors.

And that R&D belongs to the public. Because it was funded by the public. With the understanding that there probably would never be a financial payback on pure science.

Re:Face it …

By Firethorn • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

ROI for a private space station would be charging governments for access to do the research and such.

once again it’s

By haruchai • Score: 3 Thread

Betteridge’s Law of Headlines

Anything is possible

By rsilvergun • Score: 3 Thread
When you like billionaires skim 20 to 30% off public programs!

It’s already known that they won’t

By Tomahawk • Score: 3 Thread
ISS has been extended to at least 2032, and there’s a caveat that for any commercial station “taking over”, there must be a 6-month overlap (so it could extend further). NASA will have crews on both during those 6 months, I think.

Intel, NVIDIA, AMD GPU Drivers Finally Play Nice With ReactOS

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
ReactOS aims to be compatible with programs and drivers developed for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Microsoft Windows. And Slashdot reader jeditobe reports that the project has now "announced significant progress in achieving compatibility with proprietary graphics drivers.”
ReactOS now supports roughly 90% of GPU drivers for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, thanks to a series of fixes and the implementation of the KMDF (Kernel-Mode Driver Framework) and WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) subsystems. Prior to these changes, many proprietary drivers either failed to launch or exhibited unstable behavior. In the latest nightly builds of the 0.4.16 branch, drivers from a variety of manufacturers — including Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD — are running reliably.

The project demonstrated ReactOS running on real hardware, including booting with installed drivers for graphics cards such as Intel GMA 945, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX 750 Ti, and AMD Radeon HD 7530G. They also highlighted successful operation on mobile GPUs like the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M, with 2D/3D acceleration, audio, and network connectivity all functioning correctly. Further tests confirmed support on less common or older configurations, including a laptop with a Radeon Xpress 1100, as well as high-performance cards like the NVIDIA GTX Titan X.

A key contribution came from a patch merged into the main branch for the memory management subsystem, which improved driver stability and reduced crashes during graphics adapter initialization.

What I wanted was Windows 95b

By HiThere • Score: 3, Interesting Thread

When I switched off MSWindows, what I wanted was Windows 95b compatibility. It never showed up. It still hasn’t. I’ve intentionally avoided later versions because of terms in the licensing.

These days the only things that haven’t showed up on Linux, or had better replacements are a few music programs (more my wife’s field than mine) and a few games…that I may have lost the CDs for.

Re:What I wanted was Windows 95b

By Samantha Wright • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Good news! Someone hacked it into existence.

It’s done wonders for my addiction to Win 3.x games.

Now just as insecure as real Windows

By OrangAsm • Score: 3 Thread
Good job!

At this point....

By unixisc • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I just wish a team would come together, fork ReactOS and work on a fixed target of creating an FOSS version of Windows 7! Not XP, not 8, not 2000.... In fact, make it two projects:

  1. 1. A 32-bit version of NT, which seeks to support the entire win32 API, and maintain compatibility w/ everything from Windows 95 to 10. That one can be x86-only, and would top off its RAM support at 4GB
  2. 2. A 64-bit version of NT, which would support the win64API, but do nothing in terms of backwards 32-bit support. For this OS, make its upper memory limit 2^48, or 64TB of RAM (Microsoft only supports up to 6TB on Windows 10/11). This OS should be done w/ no x86 assembly underpinnings, and should be ported to RISC-V and Arm. If possible, also try to test it on legacy Alphastations and MIPS workstations that previously ran NT

In that project, have full support of NTFS: Microsoft’s patent on that filesystem should be dead, given that it’s way beyond 10 years since NTFS was first devised. If they like, they can have an extension of NTFS that is fully backwards compatible w/ Microsoft’s implementation of it.

50% of Consumers Prefer Brands That Avoid GenAI Content

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes:
According to the research firm Gartner, 50% of U.S. consumers say they would prefer to do business with brands that avoid using GenAI in consumer facing content such as advertising and promotional messaging. The survey of 1,539 Americans, conducted in October 2025, also found growing skepticism about the reliability of online information, with 61% saying they frequently question whether information they use for everyday decisions is trustworthy… Gartner found that 68% of consumers often wonder whether the content they see online is real, while fewer people now rely on intuition alone to judge credibility [only 27%]. Instead, more consumers are actively verifying information and checking sources.
Gartner’s senior principal analyst offered suggests discretion for brands trying to use AI. “The brands that win will be the ones that use AI in ways customers can immediately recognize as helpful, while being transparent about when AI is used, what it’s doing, and giving customers a clear choice to opt out.”

Re:50%

By commodore73 • Score: 4, Funny Thread
> 50% of surveys are wrong. The other 50% are bogus.

And 87% of statistics are made up on the spot.

I suspect they didn’t ask the question properly

By oshkrozz • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
99% of people who fly would like to fly a private plane if it was the same price as economy airfare, so asking this question would have to account for that. (That 1% are people who actually care about things like the environment).
Yes 50% of people would … However, would they if it meant the product was 5% less expensive? suddenly that number drops to 10% …

If the AI is saving the company money, such that they can reduce the price to consumers, most consumers would take the cheaper product. The same is true with child labor, as long as it is done in China, and people can buy their shoes cheaper, sounds good to them. This is why markets will not be regulated based on consumer choice.

Firefox Announces Built-In VPN and Other New Features - and Introduces Its New Mascot

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot
A free built-in VPN is coming to Firefox on Tuesday, Mozilla announced this week:
Free VPNs can sometimes mean sketchy arrangements that end up compromising your privacy, but ours is built from our data principles and commitment to be the world’s most trusted browser. It routes your browser traffic through a proxy to hide your IP address and location while you browse, giving you stronger privacy and protection online with no extra downloads. Users will have 50 gigabytes of data monthly in the U.S., France, Germany and U.K. to start. Available in Firefox 149 starting March 24.

We also recently shared that Firefox is the first browser to ship Sanitizer API, a new web security standard that blocks attacks before they reach you [for untrusted HTML XSS vulnerabilities].
“The roadmap for Firefox this year is the most exciting one we’ve developed in quite a while,” says Firefox head Ajit Varma. “We’re improving the fundamentals like speed and performance. We’re also launching innovative new open standards in Gecko to ensure the future of the web is open, diverse, and not controlled by a single engine.

“At the same time we’re prioritizing features that give users real power, choice and strong privacy protections, built in a way that only Firefox can. And as always, we’ll keep listening, inviting users to help shape what comes next and giving them more reasons to love Firefox.”

Two new features coming next week:

And Firefox also released a video this week introducing their new mascot Kit.


New Mascot

By PPH • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Found it

Re:Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!!

By unixisc • Score: 4, Informative Thread

If you want Brandon Eich, you might as well use Brave. That’s his FireFox fork, ever since he left Mozilla

How soon until sites start blocking the VPN IPs?

By schwit1 • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

I am using Proton VPN going to mlb.com

Error 403 Access Denied
Access Denied

Error 54113
Details: cache-iad-kjyo7100045-IAD 1774116232 69230635

Varnish cache server

Re:Just make a half-decent browser..

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 5, Informative Thread
I’m pretty happy with Firefox and don’t mind a few extra features that I have no current use for.
Firefox has an excellent handling of cookies in the preference page. Take a look if you haven’t done that recently.
Even the default blocking of third-party cookies is much better than Chrome’s.

“Free Tier” Marketing for Mozilla VPN

By CommunityMember • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
50GB of free VPN data is not a lot. Looks to be a way to convince users to upgrade to the Mozilla VPN paid service (“the first 50GB is free”).