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looorg writes:

Meta: Pirated Adult Film Downloads Were For "Personal Use," Not AI Training.

[...] As the most prolific copyright litigant in the United States, the adult film producer has filed tens of thousands of lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent pirates. This summer it expanded its scope by taking aim at Meta.

[...] The adult producers discovered the alleged infringements after Meta's BitTorrent activity was revealed in a lawsuit filed by several book authors. In that case, Meta admitted that it obtained content from pirate sources.

[...] Meta clearly denies that the adult video downloads were used for AI purposes. Since there is no evidence that Meta directed this activity, it can't be held liable for direct copyright infringement.

The tech company doesn't just deny the allegations; it also offers an alternative explanation. Meta suggests that employees or visitors may have downloaded the pirated videos for personal use.

Meta denies torrenting porn to train AI, says downloads were for "personal use".

This week, Meta asked a US district court to toss a lawsuit alleging that the tech giant illegally torrented pornography to train AI.

The move comes after Strike 3 Holdings discovered illegal downloads of some of its adult films on Meta corporate IP addresses, as well as other downloads that Meta allegedly concealed using a "stealth network" of 2,500 "hidden IP addresses." Accusing Meta of stealing porn to secretly train an unannounced adult version of its AI model powering Movie Gen, Strike 3 sought damages that could have exceeded $350 million, TorrentFreak reported.

Filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Monday, Meta accused Strike 3 of relying on "guesswork and innuendo," while writing that Strike 3 "has been labeled by some as a 'copyright troll' that files extortive lawsuits." Requesting that all copyright claims be dropped, Meta argued that there was no evidence that the tech giant directed any of the downloads of about 2,400 adult movies owned by Strike 3—or was even aware of the illegal activity.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisa-linux-privilege-escalation-flaw-now-exploited-in-ransomware-attacks/

CISA confirmed on Thursday that a high-severity privilege escalation flaw in the Linux kernel is now being exploited in ransomware attacks.

While the vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2024-1086) was disclosed on January 31, 2024, as a use-after-free weakness in the netfilter: nf_tables kernel component and was fixed via a commit submitted in January 2024, it was first introduced by a decade-old commit in February 2014.

Successful exploitation enables attackers with local access to escalate privileges on the target system, potentially resulting in root-level access to compromised devices.

As Immersive Labs explains, potential impact includes system takeover once root access is gained (allowing attackers to disable defenses, modify files, or install malware), lateral movement through the network, and data theft.

In late March 2024, a security researcher using the 'Notselwyn' alias published a detailed write-up and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code targeting CVE-2024-1086 on GitHub, showcasing how to achieve local privilege escalation on Linux kernel versions between 5.14 and 6.6.

The flaw impacts many major Linux distributions, including but not limited to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Red Hat, which use kernel versions from 3.15 to 6.8-rc1

In a Thursday update to its catalog of vulnerabilities exploited in the wild, the U.S. cybersecurity agency said the flaw is now known to be used in ransomware campaigns, but didn't provide more information regarding ongoing exploitation attempts.

CISA added this security flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog in May 2024 and ordered federal agencies to secure their systems by June 20, 2024.

If patching is not possible, IT admins are advised to apply one of the following mitigations:

        Blocklist 'nf_tables' if it's not needed/actively used,
        Restrict access to user namespaces to limit the attack surface,
        Load the Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG) module (however, this can cause system instability).

"These types of vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise," CISA said. "Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable."

Original Submission

quietus writes:

"When the music stops ... but as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance."

(Charles "Chuck" Prince, Citigroup CEO, July 2007, FT interview)

About 85 percent of US GDP. That has been the average total value of all US stocks since 1970. Warren Buffett once described this as "probably the single best measure of where valuations stand at any given moment".

On Tuesday,October 28, that value reached 220% of US GDP.

US stocks are trading at extreme levels, notes the Financial Times. Price to earnings ratios for the S&P500 are at a 25 year high; price-to-sales ratios are higher than before the dotcom bust.

AI companies are almost entirely to blame, with a focus on the Magnificent Seven: Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia and Tesla. Microsoft, for example, took 35 years to reach a dazzling trillion dollar valuation, in 2021. Just 4 years later it trades at 4 trillion dollar. That valuation comes on top of impressive infrastructure investment numbers: Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, for example, plan to spend more than $400bn on data centres in 2026, on top of more than $350bn this year.

Notes the article, wryly:

some investors seem to have discounted the notion that AI might prove anything less than earth-shatteringly revolutionary

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

I recently spun up a .onion mirror of this website.

Why? Because why not. And also because I can. Oh, and free speech and anti-censorship and all that jazz.

I'd like to pretend that it was some grand technological challenge, but if I'm being entirely candid, it was like 3 commands and 4 lines of configuration.

If you, too, would like to become a member of the dark web, here's how I did it:

https://flower.codes/2025/10/23/onion-mirror.html
https://archive.ph/WADPR

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://deadline.com/2025/09/spaceballs-2-cast-photo-anthony-carrigan-george-wyner-1236555748/

Amazon MGM Studios has made official what Deadline previously told you: There is a Spaceballs 2 with Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga reprising their respective roles as Dark Helmet, Lone Star and Princess Vespa. There's also the series additions, which we told you about, including Josh Gad, Keke Palmer and Lewis Pullman.

New cast members who were unannounced are Barry and Superman actor Anthony Carrigan and A Serious Man's George Wyner, who played Colonel Sandurz in the original 1987 movie which grossed over $38M domestic.

  And of course, the sci-fi comedy pic's architect, Mel Brooks, is back, returning to his roles as Zen Yiddish wise guy Yogurt and President Skroob.

The photo, of course, mirrors the famous table read image featuring the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which itself marked a return to a beloved franchise from a galaxy far, far away. Appropriate, given Spaceballs is a parody of that mythos.

Production is underway with Josh Greenbaum directing. Check out the great cast table read shot above, a nod to what JJ Abrams did when he assembled the Star Wars gang new and old for Force Awakens, more than a decade ago. Expected theatrical release is 2027 for the Spaceballs sequel which is currently untitled.

The screenplay logline from scribe duo Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez (Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy; TMNT: Mutant Mayhem), and Gad is under wraps. Amazon MGM Studios aren't making official the roles of Palmer, Gad and Lewis Pullman.

Will it be as good as Spaceballs, or perhaps even better?

Original Submission

FunkyLich writes:

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/china-releases-ubios-standard-to-replace-uefi-huawei-backed-bios-firmware-replacement-charges-chinas-domestic-computing-goals

China has worked for years to further separate its computing progress from the United States and its tech companies. Today [October 23, 2025] heralds a major development to this end, as the Global Computing Consortium has announced the "UBIOS" global standard, a new replacement for UEFI and BIOS. The GCC's new standard is a rebuilding of BIOS firmware from the ground up, bypassing UEFI development entirely.

UBIOS, or "Unified Basic Input/Output System", is a firmware standard to replace BIOS and UEFI, the first and most prolific motherboard firmware architectures, respectively, that bridge the gap between processors and operating systems. The UBIOS standard was drafted by 13 Chinese tech companies, including Huawei, CESI (China Electronics Standardization Institute), Byosoft, and Kunlun Tech.

The working group claims it chose to avoid the UEFI spec due to the development bloat of UEFI and TianoCore EDK II, the Intel-made reference implementation of UEFI used almost universally among UEFI hardware and software developers.

UBIOS's unique features over UEFI include increased support for chiplets and other heterogeneous computing use-cases, such as multi-CPU motherboards with mismatching CPUs, something UEFI struggles with or does not support. It will also better support non-x86 CPU architectures such as ARM, RISC-V, and LoongArch, the first major Chinese operating system.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Nvidia reveals Vera Rubin Superchip for the first time:

At its GTC keynote in DC on Tuesday, Nvidia unveiled its next-generation Vera Rubin Superchip, comprising two Rubin GPUs for AI and HPC as well as its custom 88-core Vera CPU. All three components will be in production this time next year, Nvidia says.

"This is the next generation Rubin," said Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, at GTC. "While we are shipping GB300, we are preparing Rubin to be in production this time next year, maybe slightly earlier. [...] This is just an incredibly beautiful computer. So, this is amazing, this is 100 PetaFLOPS [of FP4 performance for AI]."

Indeed, Nvidia's Superchips tend to look more like a motherboard (on an extremely thick PCB) rather than a 'chip' as they carry a general-purpose custom CPU and two high-performance compute GPUs for AI and HPC workloads. The Vera Rubin Superchip is not an exception, and the board carries Nvidia's next-generation 88-core Vera CPU surrounded by SOCAMM2 memory modules carrying LPDDR memory and two Rubin GPUs covered with two large rectangular aluminum heat spreaders.

Markings on the Rubin GPU say that they were packaged in Taiwan on the 38th week of 2025, which is late September, something that proves that the company has been playing with the new processor for some time now. The size of the heatspreader is about the same size as the heatspreader of Blackwell processors, so we cannot figure out the exact size of GPU packaging or die sizes of compute chiplets. Meanwhile, the Vera CPU does not seem to be monolithic as it has visible internal seams, implying that we are dealing with a multi-chiplet design.

A picture of the board that Nvidia demonstrated once again reveals that each Rubin GPU is comprised of two compute chiplets, eight HBM4 memory stacks, and one or two I/O chiplets. Interestingly, but this time around, Nvidia demonstrated the Vera CPU with a very distinct I/O chiplet located next to it. Also, the image shows green features coming from the I/O pads of the CPU die, the purpose of which is unknown. Perhaps, some of Vera's I/O capabilities are enabled by external chiplets that are located beneath the CPU itself. Of course, we are speculating, but there is definitely an intrigue with the Vera processor.

Interestingly, the Vera Rubin Superchip board no longer has industry-standard slots for cabled connectors. Instead, there are two NVLink backplane connectors on top to connect GPUs to the NVLink switch, enabling scale-up scalability within a rack and three connectors on the bottom edge for power, PCIe, CXL, and so on.

In general, Nvidia's Vera Rubin Superchip board looks quite baked, so expect the unit to ship sometime in late 2026 and get deployed by early 2027.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as "pure dystopian creep."

"You don't got no ID?" a Border Patrol agent in a baseball cap, sunglasses, and neck gaiter asks a kid on a bike. The officer and three others had just stopped the two young men on their bikes during the day in what a video documenting the incident says is Chicago. One of the boys is filming the encounter on his phone. He says in the video he was born here, meaning he would be an American citizen.

When the boy says he doesn't have ID on him, the Border Patrol officer has an alternative. He calls over to one of the other officers, "can you do facial?" The second officer then approaches the boy, gets him to turn around to face the sun, and points his own phone camera directly at him, hovering it over the boy's face for a couple seconds. The officer then looks at his phone's screen and asks for the boy to verify his name. The video stops.

- Extended article:
https://www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-agents-are-scanning-peoples-faces-on-the-street-to-verify-citizenship/
https://archive.ph/HUQwc

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/nearly-90-percent-of-windows-games-now-run-on-linux-latest-data-shows-as-windows-10-dies-gaming-on-linux-is-more-viable-than-ever

The viability of Linux as a gaming platform has come on leaps and bounds in recent years due to the sterling work of WINE and Proton developers, among others, and interest in hardware like the Steam Deck. However, the most recent stats from ProtonDB (via Boiling Steam) highlight that we are edging towards a magnificent milestone. The latest distilled data shows that almost 90% of Windows games now run on Linux.

Having nine in ten Windows games accessible in a new Linux install is quite an achievement. The milestone comes as we see computer users flocking to other platforms during the transition from the Windows 10 to 11 eras. Of course, the underlying data isn't quite so simple as the headline stat. There are different degrees of compatibility gamers must consider when checking if their favorite Windows games work on Linux distros like Mint, Zorin, Bazzite, or even SteamOS.

[...] On the flip side, there are some popular titles that don't look like they will be becoming Linux-friendly anytime soon. The well-known compatibility issues with various anti-cheat technology platforms look set to persist, for now. Moreover, Boiling Steam notes that other devs just seem to be averse to non-Windows gamers. There is quite a bit that can be done with those non-intentionally stubborn games, though. We'd recommend researching community-driven Linux compatibility tips and tweaks for your favorite games.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Quantum Mechanics Trumps the Second Law of Thermodynamics at the Atomic Scale:

Two physicists at the University of Stuttgart have proven that the Carnot principle, a central law of thermodynamics, does not apply to objects on the atomic scale whose physical properties are linked (so-called correlated objects). This discovery could, for example, advance the development of tiny, energy-efficient quantum motors. The derivation has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Internal combustion engines and steam turbines are thermal engines: They convert thermal energy into mechanical motion—or, in other words, heat into motion. In recent years, quantum mechanical experiments have succeeded in reducing the size of heat engines to the microscopic range.

"Tiny motors, no larger than a single atom, could become a reality in the future," says Professor Eric Lutz from the Institute for Theoretical Physics I at the University of Stuttgart. "It is now also evident that these engines can achieve a higher maximum efficiency than larger heat engines."

Scientists break 200-year-old principle to create atomic engines that power future nanobots:

A research team in Germany has achieved a stunning theoretical breakthrough that could reshape one of physics' oldest foundations after demonstrating that the no longer holds true for objects on the atomic scale.

Their findings, made by Eric Lutz, PhD, a physics professor and Milton Aguilar, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Stuttgart, show that quantum systems can exceed efficiency limit defined by the Carnot principle.

The law, which was developed by French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824, is a central law of thermodynamics that has remained unchallenged for two centuries.

It states that all heat engines operating between the same two thermal or heat reservoirs can not have efficiencies greater than a reversible heat engine operating between the same reservoirs.

"Our results provide a unified formalism to determine the efficiency of correlated microscopic quantum machines," the two physicists stated.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Tor Browser 15.0 is also the last major release of the anonymous web browser to support 32-bit Linux systems and older Android versions.

Tor Browser 15.0 has been released today by the Tor project as the latest stable version of this open-source, cross-platform, and free web browser designed to protect yourself against tracking, surveillance, and censorship using the Tor anonymous network.

Based on the Mozilla Firefox 140 ESR (Extended Support Release) series, Tor Browser 15.0 introduces many upstream features that have been implemented in the past year, including support for vertical tabs, support for tab groups, and the new unified search button that lets users easily switch between search engines, search bookmarks or tabs, and access quick actions.

"Note that Tor Browser tabs are still private tabs, and will clear when you close the browser. This enforces a kind of natural tidiness in Tor Browser since each new session starts fresh – however for privacy-conscious power users, project managers, researchers, or anyone else who accumulates tabs frighteningly quickly, we hope these organizational improvements will give you a much needed productivity boost," said the devs.

For Android users, Tor Browser 15.0 introduces a screen lock as an extra layer of security for your browsing sessions and support for clearing your browsing session when Tor Browser is closed (just like on the desktop). Other than that, this release moves the blocking of the WebAssembly (a.k.a. Wasm) technology to NoScript, which is bundled with Tor Browser for managing JavaScript and other security features.

Tor Browser 15.0 is also the last major release of the anonymous web browser to support 32-bit Linux systems and older Android versions like Android 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0. Starting with Tor Browser 16.0, which should arrive in Q2 2026, 32-bit Linux systems will no longer be supported, nor Android devices running an OS prior to Android 8.0.

Check out the release announcement page for more details about the changes included in this new major Tor Browser update, which is available for download right now from the official website.

= Tor .onion announcement (requires Tor):
http://pzhdfe7jraknpj2qgu5cz2u3i4deuyfwmonvzu5i3nyw4t4bmg7o5pad.onion/new-release-tor-browser-150/

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Red-Hat-Distribute-CUDA-RHEL

Following Canonical announcing plans to better support NVIDIA CUDA on Ubuntu Linux and make it easier to install as well as SUSE better supporting CUDA along similar lines, Red Hat today affirmed their plans to do the same. Red Hat will be making it easier to use the NVIDIA CUDA stack across RHEL, Red Hat AI, and OpenShift products.

Red Hat will be distributing the NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit directly within their platforms to streamline the developer experience, provide operational consistency to customers, and make it easier to leverage Red Hat platforms with the latest NVIDIA hardware and software innovations.

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=20084

Red Hat has announced a partnership with NVIDIA to bring GPU computing tools to Red Hat platforms, making it easier for developer to access NVIDIA video card features. A blog post on the Red Hat website states:

"Engineers and data scientists shouldn't have to spend their time managing dependencies, hunting for compatible drivers, or figuring out how to get their workloads running reliably on different systems. Our new agreement with NVIDIA addresses this head-on. By distributing the NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit directly within our platforms, we're removing a major point of friction for developers and IT teams. You will be able to get the essential tools for GPU-accelerated computing from a single, trusted source."

The NVIDIA tools will be available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat AI.

See also:
    • https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-distribute-nvidia-cuda-across-red-hat-ai-rhel-and-openshift
    • https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The structures may help protect eggs from hungry predators:

Antarctic fish have built a sprawling neighborhood of neatly arranged nests in the Weddell Sea — a surprising display of organization in some of the coldest waters on Earth. The discovery suggests that these fish strategically group their nests to better protect their eggs from predators, adding to evidence that the Weddell Sea harbors complex, vulnerable ecosystems worth preserving, researchers report October 29 in Frontiers.

"A lot of Antarctic ecosystems are under pressure from different countries to be released for mining, fishing and basically exploitation of the environment," says Thomas Desvignes, a fish biologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was not involved in the study. "It's one more reason why we should protect the Weddell Sea."

While exploring a recently exposed swatch of open water near the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2019, colleagues of marine biologist Russ Connelly dropped an underwater robot into the ocean. The machine hovered along the bottom more than 350 meters deep and filmed the seafloor below.

After the expedition, Connelly combed through the footage to see if the robot captured anything interesting. He saw bowl-shaped dimples pressed into the soft sediment. As he looked closer, Connelly noticed they formed perfect ovals and curves.

"We weren't actually sure what the videos were showing us at the time," says Connelly, of the University of Essex in Colchester, England. "We thought maybe it was a Weddell seal snout that was going down and bonking down into the seabed, or that it was pockmarks from stones dropping from the ice and making craters."

But the marks were too uniform. Based on the creatures living nearby and the researchers' knowledge of other Antarctic fish, the team deduced that the odd divots were nests of yellowfin notothenioid fish. The footage revealed more than 1,000 of these nests arranged in five repeating patterns: clusters, crescents, U-shapes, lines and ovals. Some nests also stood alone.

upstart writes:

Data centers are water and power hogs, but does putting them in the ocean help?:

Data centers like those used to train and run AI models have this irksome tendency to drain the local water supply for the purpose of cooling through heat exchange, sometimes worsening water scarcity in an area. They also suck down so much energy that they drive up demand, and it appears we may be paying for it with higher bills.

Maybe the solution is right under our noses: submerge the data centers in the ocean, and power them with wind.

In Shanghai's Lin-gang Special Area, a new project that cost the equivalent of $226 million has proven that such a project can at least get through the early phase of construction. In theory, this will be a sort of free lunch for compute once it's completed: water ceases to be an issue, as does the data center's carbon footprint. But is it actually a good idea?

Reports about the project have been published in a few places, including Wired. The facility, Wired's story notes, currently has "a total power capacity of 24 megawatts." That's like a normal, pre-AI data center, according to a report by McKinsey, which notes that data centers "that averaged tens of megawatts before 2020 will be expected to accommodate at the gigawatt scale" in the coming years.

That story also notes that over 95 percent of the center's energy "comes from offshore wind turbines," so it sounds as if the energy comes from wind that is then wired in, rather than having a wind power generating station installed right there at the data center.

But as Wired also pointed out in a story last year about a smaller, but similar, project in the US, this might not be a great idea. In part, that's because while it may sound green, the heat exchange from all those GPUs would at least to some degree heat up the ocean—one of the main things climate hawks are trying to avoid.

The founders of a startup called NetworkOcean said they would "dunk a small capsule filled with GPU servers into San Francisco Bay," but did so "without having sought, much less received, any permits from key regulators," Wired's Paresh Dave and Reece Rogers note. Dave and Rogers sought out commentary from multiple scientists, learning that even minor temperature changes in the bay "could trigger toxic algae blooms and harm wildlife." And a data center doesn't have to be huge to cause problems. "Any increase" in temperature is a potential problem, as it could "incubate harmful algae and attract invasive species."

A 2022 paper on underwater data centers further speculated that unpredictable events like ocean heatwaves near such data centers would result in animals essentially suffocating in de-oxygenated water.

fliptop writes:

Electric vehicle demand is set to crash this month after tax credits vanish and buyers back away:

• J.D. Power predicts a 60% EV sales drop in October from September levels.
• Decline follows expiration of federal tax credits that boosted affordability.
• EVs will make up 5.2% of new sales, down from September's record 12.9%.

[...] The research firm, working with GlobalData, predicts 54,673 EV retail sales for October. If that figure holds, it represents a 43.1 percent decline compared with October 2024, when 96,085 electric vehicles were sold. That would also mean a slide in market share from 8.5 percent to just 5.2 percent.

[...] "The automotive industry is experiencing a significant recalibration in the electric vehicle segment," said J.D. Power data analyst Tyson Jominy. "The recent EV market correction underscores a critical lesson: Consumers prefer having access to a range of powertrain options."

Perhaps the wildest bit of this entire thing is that it could've been even worse for EVs. Many brands, including Hyundai, GM, and Tesla, rolled out different methods to ease the pain of losing the federal tax credit.

Previously:

• GM to Take $1.6 Billion Hit as It Scales Back Electric Vehicle Operations
• Porsche EV Roll-Out Delay Deals $6 Billion Hit to Parent Volkswagen
• Canadian EV Sales Collapse by 35% as Gas Car Purchases Surge

Original Submission