AI
On-PREM #### AMD's Threadripper Halo is a local-AI workstation for researchers with deep pocketsAI workstation promises to put up to 576 GB of HBM3e and 16 TB/s of memory bandwidth on your desk #
ai and ml #### Hugging Face is too important to fall into Nvidia's hands$12.9 billion deal will inevitably cement Nvidia's market dominance and harm competition in the process. Regulators should take note #
ai and ml #### Zuck's Muse to Spark joy with open weights release 'soon'While you wait, Meta says it’s taught the model to stop wasting tokens and ask for help a bit more often #
ai and ml #### With Gemini 3.8 Flash, Google reminds everyone it's still in the raceAI model scores well, runs fast, and doesn't cost too much (yet) #
security #### AI agents carried out every step of this ransomware attack – then left the victim an 80-page security auditAdding insult to injury
Infosec
Security #### Russians are posing as Signal support to launch phishing attacksPLUS: US takes down Iranian propaganda sites; Marketing company asks 'Why Do We Have Your Information?' And more! #
Security #### Microsoft patches failed to fix on-prem SharePoint, which is now under zero-day attackPLUS: China upgrades smartphone surveillance tools; Ring eases anti-snooping stance; and more #
Black Hat and DEF CON #### DEF CON Franklin project enlists hackers to harden critical infrastructureVoting village reports have been so successful, says Jeff Moss, that the whole of DEF CON will now be included #
Security #### EQT buys majority share in Swiss cybersecurity biz AcronisWent at equivalent of $3.5B+ valuation for entire firm, though portion sold not specified #
Malware Month #### Ten years since the first corp ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sightOn the plus side, infosec's a good bet for a long, stable career
FOSS
Canonical shuttering some of its legacy chat channelsThe Ubuntu Pastebin went in June, IRC gets demoted next
Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000sThe FOSS tool for audio editing has a fresh coat of paint, and new features to boot
Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fastA real alternative to running some kind of FOSS Unix clone
Offshoots of cancelled TrueNAS Core upgrade to FreeBSD 15Exeunt zVault stage right; enter FreeCORE and BSDnas
Debian votes to let contributors code with AIDisclosure optional, quality mandatory
LibreOffice 26.8 is out – local first, and with no AIIt looks a bit clunky, but it does the job – and on your own computer
source & further reading
theregister.com — original article
AMD's Threadripper Halo is a local-AI workstation for researchers with deep pockets
ASCII smuggling isn't just an AI security risk
US law firm accuses UK AI software firm of unwanted contract renewal when it tried to leave