Exploring the intersection of security, technology, and society—and what might be coming next…
Standard Web Edition | Ep. 365 | January 16, 2023
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SECURITY NEWS
NYC Surveillance
Amnesty International has revealed new research showing that the NYPD has over 15,000 cameras that can do facial recognition, including over 577 cameras in the most surveilled neighborhood of East New York in Brooklyn. The research was powered by thousands of volunteers who tagged the cameras across 3 boroughs. MORE
GitHub Automatic Vuln Scanning
GitHub has enabled an option to automatically scan your code for vulnerabilities. The feature currently supports JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. Settings -> Code Security and Analysis -> Security. MORE
Norton LifeLock
LifeLock’s parent company sent emails to over 6,000 customers saying their accounts had been accessed due to credential stuffing, i.e., someone getting their password from a breach or another source somewhere, and then using those passwords to get into their LifeLock accounts. MORE
Meta Scraping Suit
Meta is suing Voyager Labs for allegedly scraping data from 600,000 Facebook user profiles. It says they scraped posts, likes, friend lists, photos, and comments from profiles, and that they’ve done the same against Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and many other services as well. MORE
Top Risks 2023
Ian Bremmer’s Eurasia Group put out a new report of top risks for 2023, and here are the top themes:
- Rogue Russia
- Maximum Xi
- Weapons of mass disruption
- Inflation shockwaves
- Iran in a corner
- Energy crunch
- Arrested global development
- TikTok boom
- Water stress
- Red herrings
I would have expected to see AI on the list, but the report was probably finalized before the public rise of OpenAI. In a conversation with Scott Galloway, Bremmer put the risks into two main categories: 1) Individual Super-powerful Human Beings Surrounded by Yes-men, and, 2) New growth of extreme poverty after decades of improvement. Great analysis by Bremner and his group here, and I definitely see the danger of the first one with Putin and Xi. READ THE REPORT
Chinese Probe Across Taiwan Strait
The Chinese military sent 28 warplanes across the median line of the Taiwan Straight last Sunday, joining 57 other planes in recent days. MORE
Vulnerabilities
- Cisco is warning about unpatched vulnerabilities in EoL business routers. MORE
- Juniper has patched 200 vulnerabilities in 32 separate advisories. MORE
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
OpenAI Launching Paid Version
OpenAI is about to launch a paid, experimental version of ChatGPT called ChatGPT Professional. They are currently signing people up on a waitlist, and I honestly can’t remember a more enthusiastic example of “take my money” than how people are reacting. Its features will include: reliability, faster responses, and no throttling. We know a tech is hot when it comes out like 6 weeks ago people already miss it in their daily work when it goes down. MORE | TWEET | WAITLIST
Microsoft and OpenAI
Microsoft is about to put $10 billion into OpenAI. Is it just me or is Microsoft kind of killing it right now? Seriously impressed with their leadership in the last few years. I feel like they’ve been outplaying Google and Facebook in so many ways, and if this OpenAI investment pays off they’re going to be crushing it. SEMAFOR ARTICLE | MORE
Tesla Cuts Prices
Tesla just massively cut prices on many of its vehicles to become more competitive. Reasoning for the discounts likely include: 1) the stock has faced recent pressure, 2) a number of their cars were too expensive to qualify for tax write-offs, and 3) general competition in the EV space. MORE
Meta Rescinding Offers
Meta is evidently struggling enough that it’s rescinding full-time offers. MORE
HUMAN NEWS
China Covid Deaths
China has seen at least 60,000 additional deaths in the month since relaxing Covid lockdowns, although it’s difficult to trust any official numbers. The number of deaths is expected to be grow significantly due to 1) the country’s elderly population, and 2) the lack of immunity from previous infections and/or vaccines. MORE
Eating Early is Better?
A new study has confirmed previous research showing that it’s metabolically better to eat big meals in the morning rather than later. The study found late calories resulted in more fat storage and more hunger. MORE | STUDY
Bullying Suicides
New research found teen suicides declined during the pandemic because of a reduction in bullying. MORE
IDEAS & ANALYSIS
The Chip Wars
I’ve not been following politics much, but I do love how Biden is handling the Chip Wars. He’s not known for strength, but his getting the entire world to stop sending China advanced chips was brilliant. And he’s now followed that up with major deals to build chips within US borders. I just feel like he’s making all the right moves with regard to China right now, and especially around securing US access to advanced chips while denying theirs. MORE
Bullish on America, Bearish on China?
In a similar vein to the above, I’m surprised to be seeing and feeling a ton of positivity around America’s prospects in the coming decade. The ideas are that 1) we’re seeing a reverse of globalism, 2) more isolationism, 3) chips become more important, 4) energy becomes more critical, 5) war becomes more disruptive, and 6) a country’s age demographics become increasingly important. A lot of this analysis is captured in the work of Peter Zeihan, who used to work at STRATFOR. I have been reticent to relax my worries about China’s rising trajectory, but I’m becoming cautiously more optimistic based on the analysis of Zeihan and others. My problem with swallowing Zeihan’s analysis whole is that I’ve not seen other China and strategic experts counter his views, and I find his opinions have too much certainty in them. It often sounds more like ideology than analysis to my ear, so I’m looking for smart counter narratives. But even putting his analysis to the side, I’m still happy about America’s demographics, energy and food independence, and our chip manufacturing capabilities vs. China in the next decade. MORE
Mastodon Bankruptcy
I hereby confess to being really bad at Mastodon. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s some combination of the interface and the different conversational flow. I have tried to stop using Twitter and to use Mastodon exclusively, but it hasn’t stuck for even a couple of days at a time. My personal opinion is that Twitter will likely survive and end up being even better than before within a couple of months, but even if I’m wrong I don’t think it’ll be Mastodon that replaces it. I think it’s an interesting tool for small communities, but it doesn’t have the “it factor” required to replace Twitter as a global discussion platform.
NOTES
Our UL Community had an amazing mid-month meetup on Thursday afternoon. The topic was “Everything AI”, and we talked about hype vs. reality, how we’re all using GPT in our daily work, and what we think is going to happen with in 2023. Finally we talked about the implications of businesses getting so efficient that they didn’t need people, and we wondered who was going to buy all the stuff if nobody has a job? Wonderful conversation and we’re already looking forward to the February meetup. JOIN THE COMMUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN FEBRUARY
Currently playing with Raycast as a possible replacement for Alfred as my primary launcher on macOS. Been using Alfred for years so it honestly feels like cheating just talking about it. Any of you using it already? RAYCAST
I’ve just launched the new UL referral program for the newsletter that you can find at the bottom of this issue. You get increasing rewards as you refer more people, going from a new PDF I just created, to UL membership discounts, all the way up to a 30-minute conversation with me about your life, career, and goals (a mini-mentorship!). In addition to that, I’m also giving away a brand new pair of the latest AirPod Pro 2’s at the end of February. Every referral you get is an entry into the raffle for it, so the more referrals the more chances to win them. I always appreciate referrals, and this is just a way of rewarding and gamifying the process. Here’s your referral link: |IF:RH_REFLINK|
The new Pistachio Latte at Starbucks is way better than it should be.
DISCOVERY
⚒️ legitify — Analyze GitHub repos for vulnerabilities. TOOL | DEMO VIDEO | BY LEGIT LABS
🎨 Project Discovery Wallpapers — A collection of cool wallpapers from Project Discovery. REPO
📊 An interactive dashboard of California’s reservoir levels. MORE
🔭 [ Sponsor ] Drata — Are you spending too much time on security compliance? Sign up for a demo to see how you can automate your compliance tasks in 14+ frameworks. BOOK A DEMO
Work Life Balance is Impossible MORE
Consume More, Create Less MORE
🎹 A Music Theory Visual Cheatsheet MORE
The First Draft Self MORE
GPT Phishing Emails MORE
Manage Like an Engineer MORE
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
Consumption vs. Creation
How much are you consuming things vs. making things? Think about Netflix, YouTube, other TV, and even books. All your inputs combined. How much time are you spending on that activity in a given month? Now compare that to how much time you spend doing anything creative. That’s anything from writing articles, to journaling, to gardening, to making progress on a book. There aren’t hard rules around this; just make sure you’re not spending to much time “getting ready to create”, or “training for creation” instead of actually doing it.
APHORISM OF THE WEEK
“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working.”
Henri Matisse