Enlarge / An AI-generated image featuring my late father’s handwriting. Benj Edwards / Flux reader comments 14 Growing up, if I wanted to experiment with something technical, my dad made it happen. We shared dozens of tech adventures together, but those adventures were cut short when he died of cancer in 2013. Thanks to a… Read More: My dead father is “writing” me notes again »
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images reader comments 57 It’s not every day that a security researcher acquires the ability to generate counterfeit HTTPS certificates, track email activity, and the position to execute code of his choice on thousands of servers—all in a single blow that cost only $20 and a few minutes to land. But… Read More: Rogue WHOIS server gives researcher superpowers no one should ever… »
sasha85ru | Getty Imates reader comments 114 In 2012, an industry-wide coalition of hardware and software makers adopted Secure Boot to protect against a long-looming security threat. The threat was the specter of malware that could infect the BIOS, the firmware that loaded the operating system each time a computer booted up. From there, it… Read More: Secure Boot is completely broken on 200+ models from 5… »
Enlarge / This is fine. Getty Images reader comments 80 If you use Google regularly, you may have noticed the company’s new AI Overviews providing summarized answers to some of your questions in recent days. If you use social media regularly, you may have come across many examples of those AI Overviews being hilariously or even… Read More: Google’s “AI Overview” can give false, misleading, and dangerous answers »
Enlarge / An AI-generated image from DALL-E 2 created with the prompt “A painting by Grant Wood of an astronaut couple, american gothic style.” reader comments 39 When OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 debuted on April 6, 2022, the idea that a computer could create relatively photorealistic images on demand based on just text descriptions caught a… Read More: OpenAI winds down AI image generator that blew minds and… »
Enlarge / The Framework Laptop 13. Andrew Cunningham reader comments 16 Since Framework showed off its first prototypes in February 2021, we’ve generally been fans of the company’s modular, repairable, upgradeable laptops. Not that the company’s hardware releases to date have been perfect—each Framework Laptop 13 model has had quirks and flaws that range from… Read More: Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s… »
Enlarge / With these tips, you too can prompt people successfully. reader comments 61 In a break from our normal practice, Ars is publishing this helpful guide to knowing how to prompt the “human brain,” should you encounter one during your daily routine. While AI assistants like ChatGPT have taken the world by storm, a… Read More: The fine art of human prompt engineering: How to talk… »
Aurich Lawson | Apple reader comments 140 A newly discovered vulnerability baked into Apple’s M-series of chips allows attackers to extract secret keys from Macs when they perform widely used cryptographic operations, academic researchers have revealed in a paper published Thursday. The flaw—a side channel allowing end-to-end key extractions when Apple chips run implementations of… Read More: Unpatchable vulnerability in Apple chip leaks secret encryption keys »
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images reader comments 45 Previously, on “Weekend Projects for Homelab Admins With Control Issues,” we created our own dynamically updating DNS and DHCP setup with bind and dhcpd. We laughed. We cried. We hurled. Bonds were forged, never to be broken. And I hope we all took a little something special… Read More: Banish OEM self-signed certs forever and roll your own private… »
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images reader comments 22 AI assistants have been widely available for a little more than a year, and they already have access to our most private thoughts and business secrets. People ask them about becoming pregnant or terminating or preventing pregnancy, consult them when considering a divorce, seek information about drug… Read More: Hackers can read private AI assistant chats even though they’re… »