Tarferret

Okay this one's wild. A federal complaint against an alleged Scattered Spider hacker just outed a Windows tracking ID most people (including me, honestly) had never heard of: the GDID , or Global Device Identifier. Here's the gist. When you sign into Windows with a Microsoft Account, a server assigns your PC a permanent ID number. It's stored locally in your registry, read by background services like Phone Link and cloud clipboard, and stamped onto activity your PC reports back to Microsoft, including update sharing data. It survives Windows updates. Reinstalling gets you a new one, but Microsoft's own filing admits a single account can rack up multiple GDIDs over time, easily linked back together. In this case, the FBI used it to trace a 19-year-old hacker's device across VPNs, proxy servers, and three countries, tying it to logins on his Snapchat, Apple, and gaming accounts over eight months. He got caught, no complaints there. But the case exposed something ...

Okay this one's interesting. Chinese AI company StepFun just unveiled STEPX Neo, which they're calling the first "large-model-native" AI phone. Not just a phone with a chatbot bolted on — the whole OS, called Step AOS, is rebuilt from the ground up so an AI agent (they call it "Amoo") runs the show instead of you tapping around apps. Here's the part that caught my attention as a security person. Step AOS breaks the entire OS down into tiny callable units — comms, apps, files, system — using something they're calling an MCP-standard "atomic capability engine." Basically the agent can reach into almost anything on your phone and act on your behalf. Book a ride, pay a bill, edit a doc, whatever. StepFun says they've thought about the obvious problem here (an AI with root-level access to your whole digital life is a juicy target) and built in a "trusted, visible, controllable, reversible" framework — sandboxed execution, audi...

Texas just dropped a lawsuit on Meta and WhatsApp, and it's getting some attention. The Attorney General's office says the company has been misleading people about how secure their messages really are. According to the suit, WhatsApp markets itself as fully encrypted and private, but Texas claims Meta can still access "virtually all" private communications. That's a pretty big deal if true, especially for an app billions use daily for chats that feel personal. Ken Paxton called it out directly — they promise security but don't fully deliver. Meta pushed back hard, saying the allegations are false and WhatsApp can't access encrypted messages. Classic he-said-she-said at this point. The lawsuit wants to stop Meta from accessing Texans' messages without consent and hit them with penalties. It references news reports and a whistleblower angle too. Honestly, this stuff makes me think twice about default apps. End-to-end encryption sounds great on p...

I'm already locked in on this one. Android has a real problem with vendors and ads pushing excessive RAM usage. There's almost no proper way to stop apps from running in the background, and the old line "free RAM is a waste" just doesn't help when you can't open multiple apps without everything slowing down. On Windows 11 PC, 4GB RAM is still useful and one can open a few apps without hanging or unresponsive UI. But on Android 13 and above, you can basically only use one app at a time comfortably. Some companies try to fix it with lite editions of Android, but those are mostly useful only for web apps designated as lite versions. Old SoCs get recycled into cheap devices, but actual old phones get abandoned fast with poor support. New phones rarely deliver the hardware value they used to. And now Google is adding another layer with Aluminium OS – an Android-based desktop system for laptops and PCs launching in 2026. From the official site, it ...

This morning things got spicy in the Telegram mod scene. The developer of Nekogram basically admitted that the app collects info about which account is linked to which phone number. Someone (Sota) dropped the Extra.java code fragment, and a few hours later the dev himself said in his chat: “If your question is ‘Is it true?’, the answer is yes, numbers were sent to the bot.” He followed up with something like “what kind of explanation do you need? It is exactly what it looks like; it is what it is.” The dev claims no numbers were actually stored or shared with anyone, and that people might find that hard to believe. Honestly, yeah… it is kinda hard to believe without seeing the full picture. There's also mention of the data going to some “breakthrough” bots, but he didn't really address that part. One of those bots even admitted Nekogram is using their TgDB search bot automatically (without their knowledge or partnership), probably to look up usernames. If ...

Turns out those draining people in your life aren't just emotionally tough—they might be literally aging you faster. A new PNAS study dug into "hasslers": folks in your close circle who cause ongoing stress, drama, hostility, or burdens. Using epigenetic clocks on DNA from saliva (DunedinPACE and GrimAge2), they measured how these negative ties affect biological age beyond your birthday. Nearly 30% of people have at least one hassler. Each one links to a 1.5% faster aging pace—about 9 extra months biologically. Family members hit hardest; spouses? Not so much, probably because good parts of the relationship buffer it. Women, smokers, poorer-health folks, and those with adverse childhood experiences report more hasslers too. Beyond faster aging, more hasslers tie to higher inflammation and greater multimorbidity (multiple chronic diseases). It's chronic stress doing its thing—elevating cortisol, messing with immune responses, leaving epigenetic "stains...

AI has zero human physiology. No nervous system, no hormones, no heartbeat that speeds up when "hurt," no dopamine hit from kindness. It's code and statistics. No biotransducers turning social cues into internal states. So logically, "please" and "sorry" should do nothing. Command it bluntly and move on, right? Yet almost everyone slips them in anyway. Even people who know better. Why? Mostly it's not about the AI at all. It's a human reflex. We evolved to lubricate social interactions with politeness signals. Saying "please" is basically a tiny apology in advance for imposing a request. "Sorry" pre-empts any imagined annoyance. Those habits are wired deep. When we talk to anything that answers back even a soulless chatbot the old social software boots up automatically. There's also the small side benefit: polite phrasing sometimes matches training data patterns of helpful human conversations, so outpu...

Been stuck in the Notepad → Notepad++ loop for years. Quick notes in Notepad, anything with code or bigger files in Notepad++. But I recently tried Text Editor Pro and honestly… it’s kinda spoiled me now. This thing is free (optional donations), portable, and loaded. Syntax highlighting for pretty much every language/script you’d touch, multi-caret + synchronized editing, code folding, over 600 customization settings, 100+ skins. They even added an AI Chat inside the editor – feels futuristic for something that still looks and acts like a classic text editor. Other stuff I actually use: spell checker, image/PDF viewer built-in, Markdown/RTF/SVG preview, character map, numerical unit converter, side-by-side text compare, formatters for JSON/SQL/XML, converters, multi-directory support (including SFTP), and search results pane. It’s like someone collected every little tool I ever opened separately and put them in one spot. Latest version is 35.4.0, starts instantly, no nonsense...

Honestly, if you've ever wondered why almost nobody in Nigeria runs Linux on their daily computer, it's pretty straightforward. Most people here touch a PC for the first time with Windows. That first experience sticks. Pretty much every laptop or desktop sold in shops comes pre-loaded with Windows. It's the default. Just like how Android phones got everyone hooked on Google accounts and Gmail, Windows became the standard here. Linux only pops up in school when teachers list "types of operating systems" – it's academic, not practical. Then there's the software side. The tools people actually use and learn – Microsoft Office, Photoshop, even VLC for media – are all built for Windows first. Games too. Trying to run popular stuff on Linux often means extra hassle, compatibility layers, or just giving up. People know Windows inside out: the shortcuts, where settings are, how it looks. It's comfortable. Switching feels like starting over. Companies buy...