Tim O'Brien
@tmo9d.bsky.social
'Sleepy Pickle' attack lets hackers embed crypto miners and backdoors in ML models via Python's pickle format. One proof silently logged all data while still working perfectly. Every major ML framework is vulnerable.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/todays-news-november-16-2025-aedb076fa85f
https://medium.com/@tobrien/todays-news-november-16-2025-aedb076fa85f
November 17, 2025 at 12:00 AM
'Sleepy Pickle' attack lets hackers embed crypto miners and backdoors in ML models via Python's pickle format. One proof silently logged all data while still working perfectly. Every major ML framework is vulnerable.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/todays-news-november-16-2025-aedb076fa85f
https://medium.com/@tobrien/todays-news-november-16-2025-aedb076fa85f
The Sleepy Pickle attack turns every ML model into a potential trojan horse. Researchers discovered they could embed crypto miners and backdoors inside legitimate model files that execute silently when loaded. Python's pickle format lets attackers run arbitrary code.
November 16, 2025 at 11:58 PM
The Sleepy Pickle attack turns every ML model into a potential trojan horse. Researchers discovered they could embed crypto miners and backdoors inside legitimate model files that execute silently when loaded. Python's pickle format lets attackers run arbitrary code.
A shadowy French org weaponizes European law to censor Archive.today with fabricated legal threats. AWS kills 24 services. And AI models fail at drawing clocks exactly like dementia patients do.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-november-15-2025-82cf8d671a8d
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-november-15-2025-82cf8d671a8d
November 16, 2025 at 3:12 AM
A shadowy French org weaponizes European law to censor Archive.today with fabricated legal threats. AWS kills 24 services. And AI models fail at drawing clocks exactly like dementia patients do.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-november-15-2025-82cf8d671a8d
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-november-15-2025-82cf8d671a8d
A shadowy French organization is weaponizing European law to censor Archive.today through DNS-level blocking. They claim the site hosts illegal content but never notified Archive.today itself. AdGuard DNS investigated and found evidence of lawyer impersonation.
November 16, 2025 at 3:11 AM
A shadowy French organization is weaponizing European law to censor Archive.today through DNS-level blocking. They claim the site hosts illegal content but never notified Archive.today itself. AdGuard DNS investigated and found evidence of lawyer impersonation.
The NYT wants millions of ChatGPT logs preserved while suing OpenAI. We're demanding transparency while creating surveillance archives. Today's roundup: Microsoft's zero-day, Rust 1.91.1, wooden satellites.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-roundup-november-13-2025-44cea4de73a2
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-roundup-november-13-2025-44cea4de73a2
November 13, 2025 at 4:20 PM
The NYT wants millions of ChatGPT logs preserved while suing OpenAI. We're demanding transparency while creating surveillance archives. Today's roundup: Microsoft's zero-day, Rust 1.91.1, wooden satellites.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-roundup-november-13-2025-44cea4de73a2
https://medium.com/@tobrien/tech-news-roundup-november-13-2025-44cea4de73a2
The NYT wants millions of ChatGPT logs from OpenAI. A federal judge ordered preservation. The privacy implications echo 2006's AOL leak, when "anonymized" searches were traced to real people. We're demanding AI transparency while creating surveillance archives.
November 13, 2025 at 4:12 PM
The NYT wants millions of ChatGPT logs from OpenAI. A federal judge ordered preservation. The privacy implications echo 2006's AOL leak, when "anonymized" searches were traced to real people. We're demanding AI transparency while creating surveillance archives.
Stop saying 'you' to your AI tools. They don't understand—they generate patterns. When AI fails, look within: Did you give enough context? Your AI pair programmer isn't a person—treat it like a compiler for instructions.
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/your-ai-pair-programmer-is-not-a-person/
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/your-ai-pair-programmer-is-not-a-person/
November 12, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Stop saying 'you' to your AI tools. They don't understand—they generate patterns. When AI fails, look within: Did you give enough context? Your AI pair programmer isn't a person—treat it like a compiler for instructions.
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/your-ai-pair-programmer-is-not-a-person/
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/your-ai-pair-programmer-is-not-a-person/
Last night's aurora wasn't just pretty lights—it was evidence of a cosmic monster 93 million miles away releasing energy equivalent to 2 billion hydrogen bombs per second. Beauty from civilization-ending forces.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/this-weeks-aurora-04800717100e
https://medium.com/@tobrien/this-weeks-aurora-04800717100e
November 12, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Last night's aurora wasn't just pretty lights—it was evidence of a cosmic monster 93 million miles away releasing energy equivalent to 2 billion hydrogen bombs per second. Beauty from civilization-ending forces.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/this-weeks-aurora-04800717100e
https://medium.com/@tobrien/this-weeks-aurora-04800717100e
When we witness the Northern Lights dancing across the sky, we're seeing the visible aftermath of explosions that release more energy than billions of nuclear bombs. The Sun fuses 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second.
November 12, 2025 at 6:00 PM
When we witness the Northern Lights dancing across the sky, we're seeing the visible aftermath of explosions that release more energy than billions of nuclear bombs. The Sun fuses 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second.
Breaking RSA needs 1M fault-tolerant qubits. Willow has 105 physical qubits. Like claiming your kid's tricycle threatens NASCAR. Tech journalism recycled Google's year-old announcement as breaking news.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/when-quantum-computing-met-the-echo-chamber-b76f35b8f768
https://medium.com/@tobrien/when-quantum-computing-met-the-echo-chamber-b76f35b8f768
November 11, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Breaking RSA needs 1M fault-tolerant qubits. Willow has 105 physical qubits. Like claiming your kid's tricycle threatens NASCAR. Tech journalism recycled Google's year-old announcement as breaking news.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/when-quantum-computing-met-the-echo-chamber-b76f35b8f768
https://medium.com/@tobrien/when-quantum-computing-met-the-echo-chamber-b76f35b8f768
Tech journalism hit peak quantum confusion last week, recycling Google's year-old Willow chip announcement as breaking news. The real story spans 3 years: 2023 Nature paper → 2024 "Willow" → 2025 "Quantum Echoes" → November 2025 confused headlines.
November 11, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Tech journalism hit peak quantum confusion last week, recycling Google's year-old Willow chip announcement as breaking news. The real story spans 3 years: 2023 Nature paper → 2024 "Willow" → 2025 "Quantum Echoes" → November 2025 confused headlines.
The real cost of AI coding tools isn't dollars—it's the gap between feeling productive and actually being productive. Parallel AI agents create a dopamine hit that masks automation bias. You stop checking, miss errors.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/the-hidden-cost-of-feeling-productive-b99ad1244da5
https://medium.com/@tobrien/the-hidden-cost-of-feeling-productive-b99ad1244da5
November 10, 2025 at 4:55 PM
The real cost of AI coding tools isn't dollars—it's the gap between feeling productive and actually being productive. Parallel AI agents create a dopamine hit that masks automation bias. You stop checking, miss errors.
https://medium.com/@tobrien/the-hidden-cost-of-feeling-productive-b99ad1244da5
https://medium.com/@tobrien/the-hidden-cost-of-feeling-productive-b99ad1244da5
The real cost of AI coding tools isn't measured in dollars—it's the gap between feeling productive and actually being productive. When developers kick off multiple AI agents in parallel, watching them work creates a powerful dopamine hit. But this masks automation bias.
November 10, 2025 at 4:13 PM
The real cost of AI coding tools isn't measured in dollars—it's the gap between feeling productive and actually being productive. When developers kick off multiple AI agents in parallel, watching them work creates a powerful dopamine hit. But this masks automation bias.
There's a bankruptcy attorney in Indiana named Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook disables his accounts because algorithms don't believe he exists—personal account disabled five times, business account four times. He gets death threats meant for the billionaire.
November 10, 2025 at 1:28 AM
There's a bankruptcy attorney in Indiana named Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook disables his accounts because algorithms don't believe he exists—personal account disabled five times, business account four times. He gets death threats meant for the billionaire.
Bell Labs' 1968 promotional film "The Incredible Machine" had everything: scientists in full suits, dramatic red lighting, light pens drawing circuits on graphics displays, and that "Daisy Bell" performance that inspired HAL 9000.
November 9, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Bell Labs' 1968 promotional film "The Incredible Machine" had everything: scientists in full suits, dramatic red lighting, light pens drawing circuits on graphics displays, and that "Daisy Bell" performance that inspired HAL 9000.
Found a 1968 Bell Labs film called "The Incredible Machine." Corporate theater at its finest: suits operating computers with nuclear-launch gravitas, dramatic red lighting, spectacularly bad acting. At 10:09, the computer sings "Daisy Bell"—the song HAL 9000 would sing in 2001.
November 9, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Found a 1968 Bell Labs film called "The Incredible Machine." Corporate theater at its finest: suits operating computers with nuclear-launch gravitas, dramatic red lighting, spectacularly bad acting. At 10:09, the computer sings "Daisy Bell"—the song HAL 9000 would sing in 2001.
Today we cover a massive credential find with 2 billion email addresses discovered by Troy Hunt, Meta's new Pyrefly type checker that's 40x faster than existing tools, and the surprising closure of the 200-year-old Farmers' Almanac.
www.podbean.com/ep/pb-m779w-...
www.podbean.com/ep/pb-m779w-...
Today's Tech News: Massive Credential Breach, Meta's Rust-Powered Type Checker, and the End of an Era
Troy Hunt has processed the largest data breach corpus in Have I Been Pwned's history—nearly 2 billion unique email addresses and 1.3 billion passwords, with 625 million passwords never seen before. T...
www.podbean.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Today we cover a massive credential find with 2 billion email addresses discovered by Troy Hunt, Meta's new Pyrefly type checker that's 40x faster than existing tools, and the surprising closure of the 200-year-old Farmers' Almanac.
www.podbean.com/ep/pb-m779w-...
www.podbean.com/ep/pb-m779w-...
My podcast episode about technology and aviation might make you worry less or more. I talk about how Airbus tells pilots "leave the autopilot on," and I also talk about how some airports are starting to experiment with AI in Air Traffic Control.
Also MiserMap!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Also MiserMap!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Trusting the Autopilot: When AI Flies Better Than Humans
Podcast Episode · Discursive Podcast · 11/05/2025 · 41m
podcasts.apple.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:50 AM
My podcast episode about technology and aviation might make you worry less or more. I talk about how Airbus tells pilots "leave the autopilot on," and I also talk about how some airports are starting to experiment with AI in Air Traffic Control.
Also MiserMap!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Also MiserMap!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
If you don't unit test, I don't trust you or your code.
August 8, 2025 at 2:24 PM
If you don't unit test, I don't trust you or your code.
brew install ffmpeg
60 minutes later I'm wondering "what the he'll is going on!"
60 minutes later I'm wondering "what the he'll is going on!"
March 28, 2025 at 6:32 PM
brew install ffmpeg
60 minutes later I'm wondering "what the he'll is going on!"
60 minutes later I'm wondering "what the he'll is going on!"