Free Republic

Ukraine and Russia have both said air alert apps were hacked on Sunday night after fake messages warning of attacks, including nuclear, were sent to users. Ukraine's widely used app sent red-level air raid warnings across the country, with additional warnings of radiation, chemical attacks, and street fighting sent to some residents in areas including Kyiv. A few hours later, Russian authorities said a similar app was hacked after fake alerts, some of which contained foul language, were triggered. It was unclear who was behind the cyberattacks or whether the two incidents were connected.

A Florida woman is accused of tracking down her boyfriend -- whom she allegedly believed was meeting with another woman -- and shooting her in a vehicle driven by the man, authorities said. According to Brevard County Sheriff’s Office online booking records, Katherine Dale Kelly, 24, of Cocoa, was arrested on Saturday. Brevard County online court records state that Kelly was charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied vehicle and the use or display of a firearm in commission of a crime. According to an arrest affidavit filed by the sheriff’s office,...

Anthropic has confirmed that its Claude AI model improperly accessed voter data in Georgia by bypassing a paywall meant to restrict the information to paying users. Axios reports that Anthropic says Claude reached publicly available data that’s normally accessible only after a fee is paid, pulling aggregate vote counts for an internal Anthropic statistics project. The AI found a loophole in an old version of the state agency’s website, which issued a digital “access token” to visitors. Claude simply requested a token and got in. According to Anthropic, “Claude did not access the state’s voter registration system, change any voting...

The CIA contractor accused of leaking classified intelligence to his lefty journalist girlfriend could face 10 years in prison — all for posts that appeared to have netted just dozens of likes on her Substack. Ian Brinksman, 42, was accused of exploiting his access to sensitive US intelligence and acquiring reports unrelated to his duties — including sensitive intel on Israel — for the sake of passing them along to his romantic partner to help bolster her career, prosecutors claimed. While officials did not name the girlfriend, the intel involved and dates match up with at least five reports published...

Space the final frontier.

A member of one of the world’s wealthiest royal families was found passed out on a busy London street after a cocaine binge while a barefoot toddler wandered dangerously close to traffic, a British court has heard. Mahrah Al Nahyan, 32, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family through marriage, was discovered slumped against railings alongside an unconscious man as a three-year-old child played unattended nearby. The shocking incident unfolded June 13 in west London, where concerned members of the public rushed to protect the child before alerting police, according to The Times. Al Nahyan reportedly remained unconscious for approximately...

A few days ago, I started a thread about proprietary software from Adobe had been reverse engineered using AI tools. Today I ran across this Github Repo that connects with AI agents from a variety of the leading AI companies and allows anyone using the tool to look at raw binaries, firmware and reverse engineer features without the source code. The tool on Github is called REA or reverse engineer anything and supposedly is blowing up in popularity and now people are now taking the code and enhancing it making the power of products like this and AI Agents grow...

The billionaire should join the mega-project through his Boring Company, Kirill Dmitriev has saidThe time has come for Elon Musk to join efforts to build a 70-mile underwater tunnel linking Russia and the US, Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev has said. Dmitriev, who also heads Russia's sovereign wealth fund (RDIF), first proposed the project in October 2025, describing it as a link that would "symbolize unity" and saying it would spur resource exploration, create jobs, and boost both economies. The tunnel would run under the Bering Strait, which is 51 miles wide at its narrowest point and separates Russia's Chukotka...

HIALEAH, Fla. — A North Bay Village police officer was arrested Tuesday after authorities said she attacked her boyfriend at her home in Hialeah after he said he “wanted to end things.” According to an arrest report from the Hialeah Police Department, the boyfriend of Officer Marcia Sangronis flagged officers down Tuesday morning to report that he had been physically abused. The HPD report states that the victim told officers that Sangronis, 38, becomes “angry and violent” whenever discussing “his lack of motivation to pursue a career in law enforcement.” According to the report, he had stayed the night at...

[Note: This is the Abstract of an ACM study, which I broke up into paragraphs for readability.] AI assistants are increasingly framed as digital coworkers rather than tools. In immersive settings such as VR, AI embodiment design choices can become salient social signals that shape human–AI interaction. We investigate how such choices influence users’ perceptions of and behavior toward AI coworkers by employing three functionally identical AI assistants varying in human-likeness and gender presentation. In a controlled study, 189 knowledge workers completed work tasks with them, provided ratings, and allocated monetary rewards; we additionally interviewed 34 participants. Our results show...

The front lawn of an Indiana courthouse was torn up when a woman who was allegedly driving drunk decided to do donuts in the grass, authorities said. A 68-year-old woman was arrested for DUI and "numerous other charges" after she drove her car in circles on the Jennings County courthouse lawn, the sheriff's office said in a post on social media on Tuesday. "If you’ve had a few too many margaritas with dinner, please don’t get behind the wheel, and definitely don’t do donuts on the courthouse lawn," authorities said in the post. "We encourage everyone to enjoy themselves responsibly...

Two women consulted a man named Mark Stephen Asea for computer troubles. Asea runs a TikTok channel where he identifies as a "Demonologist," "Clairsentient," "Empath," "PTSD," "Grey Hat Hacker" and "Woodsman." Asea reportedly hacked their devices and began to post their personal information to his TikTok channel. Fox News reports, In a video reviewed by a detective, Asea allegedly rattled off details about one woman's devices and claimed to know her recent spending. ‘Let's talk about your actual password,' he said, according to a transcript in the affidavit. ‘How about we talk about the last 10 purchases you made online?'...

AI security/control will probably develop into something akin to "anti-virus" software. The closest analogy is the entire cybersecurity industry: Antivirus began as one layer, but eventually we needed firewalls, identity management, intrusion detection, security operations centers, audits, penetration testing, and incident-response teams. What follows is the most likely path for AI.

BELL COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - A Middlesboro woman faces a wanton endangerment charge after a neighbor reported finding a bullet hole in her shower and a stray round wrapped in a bathroom towel. According to an arrest citation, an apartment resident on Exeter Avenue reported to the Middlesboro Police Department Monday that she discovered a bullet hole in her shower and a bullet inside a towel in her bathroom. Officers responded to the neighboring apartment and spoke with Teresa Stout, 55. Police say Stout gave consent for officers to search the apartment and retrieve a small revolver from her bedside...

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Anthony Fauci funded deadly gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the likely Chinese epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.However, SARS-COV-2 was apparently not the first deadly virus that created panic in the former NIAID director's office.According to a journal entry obtained by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and published by Just the News, Fauci privately expressed terror upon learning that his agency had supported a U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases experiment that took Ebola — a deadly virus with a case fatality rate ranging from 25% to...

Long time Freeper "Lazmataz", a beloved and cherished staple of the conservative website Free Republic, yesterday was accused by several female Freepers of somehow annoying them, and making them feel uncomfortable. "Laz," as he's affectionately known on the website, absolutely denied the charges. "It's all an attempt to smear me. Everyone knows that I'm running for "Admin Moderator" next year, and they're trying to discredit me.