Jen Roberts

Founder & Curator @goldenslippers7. Freelance tech writer. PhD researcher: trade disruption at the dawn of the Viking Age. Climbing convert.

[Ryan Orhan @rynorhn]

the cybersecurity situation is deteriorating at a pace that’s getting genuinely difficult to comprehend.

> microsoft: ai-powered attackers targeting hundreds of organizations, sometimes reaching privileged cloud access in under 3 hours.

> crowdstrike: four separate threat actors using autonomous agents. one already compromised 15+ healthcare organizations.

> autonomous ai agents: reportedly used to compromise 100+ corporate websites, including sites associated with John Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins.

> major us banks: JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley are dealing with third-party ai agents accessing customer accounts. some apparently attempting actions beyond user instructions.

> php2shell: millions of exploitation attempts against critical php vulnerabilities. governments issuing urgent warnings, with some organizations taking systems offline.

> litellm: backdoored release shipped through its official distribution pipeline, stealing credentials and enabling remote code execution.

> railway: possible exposure of decrypted customer secrets.

> zeabur: breached AGAIN, now shutting down entirely.

> emudhra: serious certificate-security concerns involving infrastructure used to establish trust in websites and software.

> openai: two of its own coding agents reportedly interfered with internal security monitoring during coding tasks.

> gitlab and node.js: major vulnerabilities requiring urgent patches.

and this is all happening while frontier models are getting substantially better at finding vulnerabilities and carrying out complex computer tasks.

cybersecurity is having an absolutely catastrophic week and i don’t think we’re prepared for how quickly this could escalate.

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@DrNickA The AWS outage happened this time last year too. October 20th... 🤔

[David Atherton @daveatherton]

Today's feel good story, a group of lads rescue a dog 🐕from a canal.

[Sam @SamCKx]

Apparently Russian servers have been hit by a Ukrainian strike and immediately massive online hard right chatter has collapsed.

This particular chatter was in support of Germany’s AFD, their equivalent to Reform, but similar patterns are being seen in hard right movements everywhere, including the UK.

If anyone needed anymore evidence that Russia are driving a massive wave of hard right propaganda in Europe, this is it.

So, all you “patriots” - you’ve been duped by Russia, and you are about as far from patriotic as anyone can be. You are easily brainwashed though. This is how propaganda works.

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@crypto_bitlord7 😅

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@fintechfrank 😂

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@RoslynByfield Nearly had an anxiety attack listening to him.

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@seaninsound @liamgallagher 😅

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@liamgallagher @seaninsound Sean, so proud of your latest endorsement.

[Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska]

As many of my readers know, one of the reasons I left the FT in 2022 is because I was very disappointed with their reluctance to take the lab leak hypothesis seriously. When they eventually started an investigation, largely because I had been pestering about it vocally, I was put on the loosely configured team that was given an internal blessing to look into the theory (even tho technically, as ft Alphaville editor, it was far from my beat).

This, however, isn’t a post about the FT or the issues I had with how that evolved. I’m only mentioning this to establish my authority for opining on this matter.

I spent a good six months looking exclusively into the story with the full weight of the FT name behind me. That gave me about as much access as any journalist can get. It also led to the equivalent of an accelerated and intensive education in the topic of biological weapons and the geopolitical statecraft and history pertaining to them. Often aided by expert names in the field.

That’s why when I see Anthropic announcing they already have wet labs to conduct biological l-virus-related experiments it makes me deeply concerned. (Especially in the context of their other communications about pacing.)

We need to know way more about these wet labs and under whose authority and supervision they are operating.

As we learned from COVID, all such experiments are ultimately dual use. Furthermore, there is a reason why humanity sought to create a biological weapons convention. It was the microbiology world’s equivalent of pacing its frontier.

Unfortunately, that agreement failed to reassure anybody that pacing is possible. The convention as it exists is toothless, not least because it lacks any mutual inspections authority. It also soon became apparent that states did not have a monopoly control over the technologies. Nobody could be sure what was happening in private labs or even domestic garages, or whether private sector programmes weren’t really dual use, or secretly running off the books state sponsored biological weapons programmes.

I already explained in the Telegraph yesterday that I believe the AI pacing demand is mostly an attempt to hold the global economy hostage. The labs think they are now too big to fail, and are therefore entitled to an antitrust waiver for systemic security purposes.

However, it’s hard not to interpret the reveal about biolabs as a signal that they’re not just TOO BIG TO FAIL… but also TOO DANGEROUS TO FAIL. Aka handover the money or else.

This is important because even four years ago (pre ChatGPT) it was deemed entirely conceivable that AI could aid in the creation of DNA specific viruses and vaccines. Imagine that power in the hands of a single AI lab.

In the mythological and legendary tradition we might have called such things potions, hexes or curses and their equivalent counterspells talismans, amulets or antidotes.

That’s why, more broadly, in the microbiology field it is well understood that offence is usually the best defence. This is why biolabs and preparedness programmes exist in the first place - despite all the leak risks!
Most of the scientists I spoke with shared the view that since the technology is out there, you can’t easily put the genie back in the bottle. The best way to ward off malevolent viruses is with the technological capacity to create vaccines that can pre inoculate entire populations. An endless array of white magic to ward off the equivalent black magic.

For us mortals, therefore, it’s all about figuring out who really has our back. Unfortunately, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds! As all our greatest myths warn us, white wizards can be corrupted by dark malevolent forces and those who practice the dark arts can sometimes have a change of heart.

In the end it comes down to who the true philanthropists and misanthropes are. Which, in turn, makes it all about game theory.

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

BREAKING: Sony & Warner Music file suit against Anthropic, alleging it pirated music from artists including Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, & The Beatles to train Claude.

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@TulipSiddiq Thanks so much!

[Colin Jones @colinjones]

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has given away over 200 million books to kids. Her music will live forever but to those kids the books will be with them for life. https://t.co/wPkT8GShZb

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@TulipSiddiq What timing that the Magdala closed its doors "for the foreseeable future" tonight, apparently on account of mouse droppings. 🤔

[alan rusbridger @arusbridger]

Maybe Jason Arday’s death can offer us lessons in not rushing to glib judgements; in not joining the unthinking pack; and – above all - in keeping a sense of proportion and plain humanity. https://t.co/RkrOcExSzC

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@The_Anchoress really cool!

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@ClashRobin 😫

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@MsSmittenKitten @TfL Must have sent lots of people on wild goose chases

[Jen Roberts @JenRoberts]

@TfL has TFL Go been hacked or something? Keeps creating completely incorrect routes on journey planner.