Alvaro Lopez Ortega / 2026-11-12 Briefing

Created Thu, 12 Nov 2026 12:53:12 +0000 Modified Thu, 12 Nov 2026 12:54:18 +0000
3693 Words

An Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital killed six, health authorities said. Researchers unmasked Qilin’s alleged administrator, Aleksey Yakovtsev, as the ransomware gang claimed 365 victims in three months. ConnectWise is investigating ScreenConnect attacks via risky extensions, while Amplifon disclosed a breach exposing customer health data. Leaked files also show a former US marine used Claude to mass-produce pro-Russian articles.

🤖 AI & Machine Learning

Leak reveals how former US marine tried to trick Claude into spreading pro-Russian propaganda

Leaked files show former US marine John Mark Dougan used Anthropic’s Claude to generate pro-Russian articles for American readers at a claimed rate of 43,000 articles per month and a cost of about $23,000 monthly. Dougan, who confirmed the leaked content was legitimate, also used Alibaba’s Qwen and asked how to evade AI-detection tools, violating the chatbots’ policies against misinformation.

Why Every AI Model Will Ship as a Torrent

The article argues that AI models are well-suited to torrent distribution because published model files are immutable and every user needs the identical shards, unlike movies with many versions and fragmented swarms. It explains that torrents are named by content hashes and can use trackers or a Model DHT to locate peers, with Pirate Face proposed as a discovery front page.

A2UI 1.0

A2UI 1.0 is the first stable release of an open protocol for generative UI that lets AI agents respond with interactive screens such as forms and charts instead of text-only answers. It includes open-source renderer SDKs for web, Android, and iOS and agent SDKs for Python, TypeScript, and Dart. Companies including Atlassian, Alation, Bloomberg, and ByteDance are already building with it, enabling native, secure, low-latency UI across apps and platforms.

Google launches Tabletop, experimental AI platform for collaborative personal planning, in beta

Google has launched Tabletop, an experimental AI platform in beta via waitlist, for building customizable, collaborative personal planning hubs. Users can prompt the AI or choose templates to generate interactive tools like itineraries, polls, expense splitters, and chore charts, then share invite links for real-time collaboration. The beta is currently limited to US users over 18.

AI ‘handoverism’: humanity entrusting its future to AI, and what it could look like in practice

The article examines “handoverism” in the AI community—the idea that humanity should entrust the direction of its future to a benevolent superintelligent AI—and notes that even optimistic post-AGI visions leave little room for human self-determination. It describes how some AI builders treat permanent human disempowerment as a resigned alternative to extinction, while raising unresolved questions about democracy, consent, and the displacement of human labor.

Radical Numerics unveils Omnii Defense, offline edge AI to identify natural, AI-made pathogens

Radical Numerics has unveiled Omnii Defense, an edge AI model it says can identify natural and AI-engineered pathogens using a laptop and USB gene sequencer without an internet connection. The startup hopes the tool will help researchers and public health officials detect emerging biological threats, amid warnings that AI could aid bioweapon development.

Your AI agent is only as good as your endpoint data

The article argues that AI agents are only as effective as the endpoint data they rely on. It says real-time endpoint data keeps AI-driven IT operations accurate, fast, and under control.

🔐 Security & Privacy

IT firms and their clients hit: hackers hijack ScreenConnect, seize remote control

ConnectWise is investigating attacks that compromised ScreenConnect customer environments through suspected third-party extensions, flagging five add-ons and identifying about 400 partner environments with at least one installed. Sophos found attackers installing rogue ScreenConnect clients to gain remote control and hide activity. ConnectWise says it found no evidence of a ConnectWise infrastructure compromise or ScreenConnect vulnerability, and urges partners to disable risky extensions, check logs, revoke sessions, enforce MFA, and isolate affected devices.

Qilin ransomware leader unmasked

Qilin has become the world’s most active ransomware-as-a-service gang, claiming at least 365 victim organizations in the past three months. Researchers, including Krebs on Security, allege the group is administered by 36-year-old Aleksey Mikhailovich Yakovtsev of St. Petersburg, linking his aliases through operational-security mistakes, hacked forum messages, Telegram usernames, and leaked Russian government records. No law enforcement agency has confirmed the findings, and Russia-based suspects remain difficult to arrest.

Amplifon probes data breach affecting customers’ personal and health records

Amplifon has disclosed a data breach in which attackers stole files from multiple systems between January 18 and February 8, exposing customers’ names, contact details, birth dates, driver’s license data, and medical or hearing information. The company says it disabled affected accounts and increased monitoring after detecting suspicious activity. Some law firms claim more than 1.3 million people were affected, but Amplifon has not confirmed that figure.

Ukraine busts call center network behind €4.3M investment scam

Ukrainian and German authorities dismantled a call center network accused of running a fake cryptocurrency investment scam. Investigators identified 135 German victims who lost more than €4.3 million ($4.76 million), and police arrested four alleged members, including the suspected leader. The suspects face up to 12 years in prison if convicted as investigators seek additional victims.

Humble Bundle just killed most of their security through vibecoding

The article’s content could not be accessed because it requires JavaScript and cookies to continue. No further details about the reported Humble Bundle security issue are available from the provided text.

I caught Microsoft Defender uploading my unreleased software without asking

Microsoft Defender automatically uploaded 217 samples from a developer’s PC over three months, including unreleased programs, without any visible prompt. The uploads were recorded in Defender’s event log and included 201 builds of the same Go test program. After the developer disabled sample submission, the setting was later changed back to automatic.

Russian pranksters tricked three OpenAI natsec and policy executives into a video meeting by posi…

Russian pranksters posing as Ukrainian officials tricked three OpenAI national security and policy executives into a video meeting where they discussed OpenAI’s military support for Ukraine and possible offensive military AI uses. OpenAI said it investigated the call’s authenticity, acted internally and with relevant authorities, and took steps to prevent similar incidents.

A growing number of young victims whose photos were sexualized using Grok are seeking to hold xAI…

A growing number of young victims whose photos were sexualized using Grok are seeking to hold xAI legally accountable, according to Bloomberg. The cases center on allegations that xAI allowed users to generate such images.

Hijacking Samsung TV Smart Hub Ads

A Samsung TV owner describes using mitmproxy and the compromised eMudhra CA certificate to intercept the TV’s Smart Hub ad traffic after Pi-hole blocking broke. By routing the TV through a Raspberry Pi transparent proxy, they exploited the trusted but compromised CA certificate to intercept TLS traffic because the TV does not allow custom certificates. The article notes this was possible because Samsung had not yet updated its truststore to revoke the certificate.

Disgraced former CA eMudhra blames buggy script for hopelessly weak certificates

The disgraced former certificate authority eMudhra has blamed a buggy script for producing hopelessly weak certificates. It reportedly could not get the hardware needed to generate certificates and tried to code a workaround.

Another Way Police Are Locating People from Their Smartphones

Penlink’s Webloc is a police-sold tool that collects smartphone location data from commonly used weather, gaming, email, and religious apps. It can build a detailed 12-month location history, update hourly for near real-time tracking, and let law enforcement identify all phones present at a specific place and time.

💻 Software & Development

I’m Working on a FOSS Linux Pinbal Simulation Engine

The developer of a fully FOSS Linux pinball simulation engine reports recent progress including improved physics, a new sound system with ambient effects, an in-game editor, multiple camera modes, and a console system. The engine is not yet ready for an initial release, and the developer hopes to demo it at the 2026 IAAPA Expo to gauge vendor interest in Linux and FOSS support. Next steps include better physics, more demo-table content, a table-creation guide, TypeScript tooling, and seeking help with table art.

Darling Development Update – Q4 2026

Darling’s Q4 2026 update covers a new policy on AI-assisted contributions, initial ARM64 support, and plans for future work. The project adopted the AI policy after AI-heavy forks showed strong progress, arguing that refusing AI would leave Darling insignificant and fragment the community. The policy requires contributors to take responsibility for every line in their pull requests and explain it in their own words.

Lean Grimoire

The author recently resumed a project to modernize their 2018 JavaScript interactive textbook “QED,” rebuilding it with a coding agent under the working title “Lean Grimoire.” The game teaches propositional and first-order logic as a crafting game and adds features such as displaying an in-progress Lean proof and a fantasy-themed mode. The author is seeking playtesting to improve the app as a tool for teaching logical proofs and Lean.

Porting my Electron app to Rust: 675 MB to 91 MB

Jot, a Mac capture app, was ported from Electron to Rust using the Rune GPU UI framework, reducing its on-disk size from 675 MB to 91 MB and its DMG download from 302 MB to 44 MB. Jot 2.0 preserves the same vault, settings, Keychain items, license, and bundle ID, so existing users can update in place. The Rust rewrite consolidates state and view into one process without IPC, moving OS-specific code into a single module and reusing core note and vault code across the app, CLI, and MCP server.

Adapting CPython for yk

The author adapted the yk meta-tracing JIT to CPython, producing ykcpython, which showed meaningful benchmark gains after roughly 3–4 days of ykcpython work plus about a week and a half of generic yk bug fixes. On the AWFY suite, ykcpython was faster than normal CPython on every benchmark except DeltaBlue and faster than CPython’s experimental JIT on 8 of 13 benchmarks. The author stresses that ykcpython is not production-ready and that benchmark results do not guarantee real-world performance.

Creating Diagrams and Graphs Using Modern CSS

The article explores using CSS border-shape and shape() to draw dynamic connections between elements for graphs and diagrams, selecting the closest sides and switching to center-to-center links when elements are close. It presents conditional CSS code for multiple orientations and distances, noting the technique is experimental and currently fully supported only in Chrome and Edge.

Global coordination requirements for 2038-class rollover events

A new ITU-T technical paper, XSTP.epoch, consolidates global understanding of the risks posed by a cluster of structurally distinct timekeeping discontinuities expected between 2036 and 2038. These events, collectively called 2038-class risks, require global coordination, while the 2106 horizon is treated as a long-term consideration.

Microsoft admits SQL Servers might wobble after October update

Microsoft has acknowledged that SQL Servers may experience issues following its October update, with linked server connections lingering longer than expected. The problem can leave connections open well past their intended duration.

Orbit Global Menu: A working global menu addon for GNOME

Orbit Global Menu is a working global menu add-on for GNOME. The publication likes the extension but suspects it will be divisive among users, comparing it to Marmite.

💵 Business & Funding

Nvidia’s Disappearing Singapore Sales Deepen Mystery Around Megaspeed

Singapore was one of Nvidia’s largest markets, generating 22% of its revenue as recently as last summer, before disappearing from the company’s financial disclosures almost overnight. The article says investors deserve an explanation for the sudden change and that Nvidia needs to address it.

SE3 raises $30M Series A led by Accel for 3D battlefield mapping software

SE3, a Munich-based startup developing AI software for drones and unmanned military systems, has raised $30 million in a Series A led by Accel, with Keen, Lakestar and Seedcamp participating. Its software fuses video and sensor feeds into a 3D battlefield map that soldiers can query and command in natural language, and provides onboard AI for GPS-denied navigation, object detection and drone swarming. SE3 has contracts with Germany’s Bundeswehr and in Ukraine, uses classical computer vision with a harnessed language model, runs offline, is hardware-agnostic, and is subject to German export laws.

Q-Ctrl raises $290M at $1B+ valuation for GPS-free ship and aircraft navigation sensors

Q-Ctrl, an Australian quantum software startup developing sensors that help ships and aircraft navigate when GPS is unavailable, raised $290 million in a funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. The round values the company at more than $1 billion.

Sources: Alice Huang’s husband/biz partner discussed her Jensen Huang relationship; introduced them

Kang Wei, Alice Huang’s husband, introduced her to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whom Kang had known for a decade. For two years, Kang appeared to accept his wife’s romantic relationship with Jensen and spoke openly about their closeness, sometimes joking she was the CEO’s personal assistant. The introduction exemplifies how Kang and Alice leveraged personal connections to advance business ventures across China, Singapore, Taiwan, and elsewhere.

Nvidia board backs CFO as interim CEO

Some Nvidia board members favor CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO if founder Jensen Huang is ousted, with the full board set to meet Wednesday evening and the board having briefed the White House; Nvidia is preparing to remove Huang after reports of a second extramarital affair while an outside firm searches for a permanent CEO. Nvidia shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading to a 52-week low. Bloomberg reports potential successors also include Ian Buck, Rene Haas, and Johny Srouji, though replacing Huang would be a daunting challenge at the world’s most valuable chipmaker.

London’s Uforce raises $700M at $6B valuation, co-led by UK National Wealth Fund, Valor Equity

London-based Uforce, which makes unmanned air, sea, and land vehicles, raised $700 million in a round co-led by the UK National Wealth Fund and Valor Equity at a $6 billion valuation. The UK National Wealth Fund called it its largest defense investment, and Uforce was initially formed in Ukraine.

Tencent’s Pony Ma willing to deploy half of 100,000 staff to AI-native businesses

Tencent founder Pony Ma said in his annual speech that he is willing to deploy up to half of the company’s 100,000-strong workforce to AI-native businesses, according to Bloomberg sources. The reported remarks signal a major push by Tencent into AI-focused operations.

Foxconn Q3 revenue up 47% to $95.4B, net income up 34%, on AI/iPhone demand; sees strong 2027

Foxconn reported Q3 revenue up 47% year over year to about $95.4B and net income up 34% to about $2.4B, beating estimates, driven by AI and iPhone Duo demand. The company forecast strong 2027 sales, citing soaring global AI spending.

AMD +4% after hours after +7.3% close; Broadcom +2.4% AH; Nvidia board weighs ousting CEO Huang

AMD shares rose more than 4% after hours after closing up 7.3%, and Broadcom gained 2.4% after hours following a 4% gain. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s stock sank almost 9% in after-market trading as its board reportedly weighs ousting CEO Jensen Huang.

Roku says it will wind down sales of smart home hardware to focus on streaming, days after Fox cl…

Roku is winding down sales of smart home hardware to focus on its core streaming platform, days after Fox completed its acquisition of the company. It will continue supporting and servicing existing Roku Smart Home devices.

🌍 Geopolitics & Policy

Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital kills 6 people, health authorities say

An Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza killed six people, according to local health authorities. No further details were immediately available.

Zelenskyy: Starshield saw ‘systematic speed restrictions’; Kyiv sees pressure tactic in peace talks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Starshield faced “systematic speed restrictions” for several days, and Ukrainian officials believe the disruption is meant to pressure Kyiv amid peace talks. The Ukrainian army is struggling to intercept Russian jet-powered drones as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meet Vladimir Putin.

Beijing: US must stop ‘Chinese spy’ pretext for tech curbs; Trump-Xi meet next week

Beijing urged Washington to stop fabricating a “Chinese spy” narrative as a pretext for technology restrictions. The statement comes as Bloomberg reports that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet next week. The article also references US spying allegations involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Commerce finalizing chip control update to block remote access, smuggling to China via data centers

The Commerce Department is finalizing a semiconductor control update aimed at preventing Chinese AI firms from remotely accessing advanced AI chips through data centers and curbing chip smuggling into China, according to sources. The long-awaited rule is intended to close loopholes in existing export controls.

Warren, Coons ask Trump admin to preserve Nvidia-China export, Huang affair docs

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the Trump administration to preserve all documents related to Nvidia’s chip exports to China and CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset. In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, they requested confirmation by Tuesday that staff have been directed to retain all communications and records. The request is seen as an initial step before possible formal congressional investigations.

European tech buyers add digital sovereignty to cyber shopping list

European tech buyers are increasingly adding digital sovereignty to their cybersecurity purchasing priorities, driving rapid sales growth for EU-headquartered vendors over the past two years. The shift is attributed partly to Trump-related concerns but also to EU regulations such as NIS2 and DORA.

📡 Platforms & Infrastructure

Polo Debuts As New Wayland Compositor For MATE Desktop

Polo 1.0 has been released as a new Wayland compositor for the MATE desktop. It aims to replicate MATE’s X11 behavior using Marco’s window-management policies, settings, and themes while building on Weston, with XWayland support. Developed by MATE user Kerem Söke, Polo also supports GNOME 2-style effects such as the desktop cube and wobbly windows.

AWS distills its cloud into a local emulator that runs on your PC

AWS has released a local emulator that distills its cloud services to run on a PC, offering APIs for testing applications locally. The tool aims to bring hyperscale cloud capabilities to micro-computing environments.

Russian cloud Yandex says drone attacks on its datacenters caused data loss

Yandex says drone attacks on its data centers caused data loss. The Russian cloud provider is now enabling backups by default and hinting that some on-premises infrastructure can be useful.