jwz

Well that's going to go well for everybody.

Reddit says that it has caught AI companies scraping its data from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, so it's going to start blocking the Internet Archive from indexing the vast majority of Reddit. The Wayback Machine will no longer be able to crawl post detail pages, comments, or profiles; instead, it will only be able to index the Reddit.com homepage, which effectively means Internet Archive will only be able to archive insights into which news headlines and posts were most popular on a given day. [...]

"We have a longstanding relationship with Reddit and continue to have ongoing discussions about this matter," Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, says in a statement to The Verge.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Github is now a subsidiary of the MICROS~1 Spicy Autocomplete division, so I guess it's time to re-up my "LOL Github" I-told-you-so post from 2018, since in those intervening 7 years you have all learned nothing.

Anyway, good luck with that! I hope your migrations go really well.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Previously, previously.

I mean WTF, WTAF? The rest of this Internet Web Site has extreme "ALL ARE ONE IN TIME CUBE" energy, but this is a good list of tools:

Sabot in the Age of AI:

The list catalogues strategically offensive methodologies and purposefully orchestrated tactics intended to facilitate (algorithmic) sabotage, including the deliberate disruption of structures and processes, as well as the targeted poisoning and corruption of data within the operational workflows of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Each approach delineated herein has been meticulously designed to systematically subvert the integrity of training pipelines, derail data acquisition procedures, and fundamentally undermine the foundational pillars that uphold the efficacy, reliability, and functionality of AI-driven frameworks.

Table 1: Offensive Methods and Strategic Approaches for Facilitating (Algorithmic) Sabotage, Framework Disruption, and Intentional Data Poisoning

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37 years ago today, Zero Cool hacked all those banks across state lines. From his house. Crashed 1,507 systems in one day. Biggest crash in history. Front page New York Times, August 10, 1988.

Naturally, that means it's time for our latest installment of CYBERDELIA.

Yo, check it. DNA. Fri Sep 5.

This is the THIRTIETH Anniversary of HACKERS, yes really. Thirty years. Join me as I crumble to dust. So, as per tradition, we will have:

• A screening of Hackers at 8pm;
• Hackers costume contest at 11pm;
• Head-to-head Wipeout XL competition throughout the night;
• Skate ramps! Rollerblades welcome!
• Electro / big beat / cyberpunk dance party to follow.

"Hackers penetrate and ravage delicate public and privately owned computer systems, infecting them with viruses, and stealing materials for their own ends. These people, they are terrorists."

You can read a bit about Cyberdelia's history in last year's NEUROBLAST HyperCard DiskZine!

It took a hundred years to create the Bureau as we knew it. And it took one dinner at the White House to destroy it.

The purge comes on the heels of a "strategy session" about how to deal with the Epstein fallout that took place at the White House last Thursday with Trump, Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Vice President JD Vance. [...]

Whatever other shortcomings Hoover had (and he had a lot), it's hard to overestimate the impact of these two features on the culture of the Bureau for the next century. [...] But these were still all choices, which reflected a belief that a national police force should, in fact, be professional and independent. For the last one hundred years, we have trusted the Justice Department and the President to prioritize these values, along with adherence to the rule of law, in lieu of enshrining them into law. Well, we now have a director who doesn't value these things. And we have a President who doesn't either. So guess what, we are going to have a very different agency. And it is probably going to look a lot like the pre-1924 years of the Bureau, when there were not only no rules, but also no standards and no independence. Oh, except fifty times larger and with guns and arrest powers. [...]

In short, what we are witnessing is the FBI morphing, 117 years later, into the kind of nightmare national police force that Congress and the public feared the Bureau could turn into when it was first created in 1908, and which Director Webster and every other director made their mission not to let happen.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

AOL Dial-up Internet to be discontinued:

AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.

This change will not affect any other benefits in your AOL plan, which you can access any time on your AOL plan dashboard. To manage or cancel your account, visit MyAccount.

For more information or if you have questions about your account, call:

U.S. - 1-888-265-5555
Canada - 1-888-265-4357

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The stench of desperation on Feedly is getting positively necrotic.

"Oh yes, please give me a plausible-sounding almost-summary of things I am pretending to be interested in. You know. Technologies. Companies. Fast lane."

But it's a good reminder to download my data before they inevitably self-immolate.

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Hey folks, the Mafia regime in the White House just deleted most of Article I Section 8 and all of Sections 9 and 10 of the US Constitution. I'm sure there's nothing concerning about that. Carry on.

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Some time ago I hypothesized that all Democratic Senators are using the same text-spam contractor, and wondered whether there was some way to block the entire network. This resulted in many, many replies from people incorrecting me and each other with their zero-information theories.

Well, I was right. They are all using the same contractor. But the reality is even more horrible than you probably imagined.

I hesitate to link to someone who doesn't have the good sense to stop holding court in the Nazi Bar (Substack is the Nazi Bar) but here we are:

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine:

To understand Mothership's central role, one must understand its origins. The firm was founded in 2014 by senior alumni of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC): its former digital director, Greg Berlin, and deputy digital director, Charles Starnes. During their tenure at the DCCC, they helped pioneer the fundraising model that now dominates Democratic inboxes -- a high-volume strategy that relies on emotionally charged, often hyperbolic appeals to compel immediate donations. This model, sometimes called "churn and burn," prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term donor relationships. [...]

The core defense of these aggressive fundraising tactics rests on a single claim: they are brutally effective. The FEC data proves this is a fallacy. An examination of the money flowing through the Mothership network reveals a system designed not for political impact, but for enriching the consultants who operate it. [...]

After subtracting these massive operational costs -- the payments to Mothership, the fees for texting services, the cost of digital ads and list rentals -- the final sum delivered to candidates and committees is vanishingly small. My analysis of the network's FEC disbursements reveals that, at most, $11 million of the $678 million raised from individuals has made its way to candidates, campaigns, or the national party committees.

But here's the number that should end all debate:

This represents a fundraising efficiency rate of just 1.6 percent.

Previously, previously, previously.