A former CIA employee has been sentenced to 40 years behind bars after executing the largest data leak in the agency's history. The employee worked for the CIA from 2012 to 2016 as a software engineer in the Center for Cyber Intelligence‚ according to a report released by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York.Joshua Schulte‚ 35‚ was previously accused of releasing classified data to Wikileaks in 2016 and was subsequently convicted in 2022 of illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information and obstructing a criminal investigation and grand jury proceeding.USA Today reported that Schulte was convicted of espionage‚ child pornography‚ computer hacking‚ contempt of court‚ and making false statements to the FBI in separate trials. Schulte's sentencing took place in New York federal court after three trials that concluded on March 9‚ 2020‚ July 13‚ 2022‚ and September 12‚ 2023‚ according to federal records. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said‚ "Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen‚ heinous crimes of espionage in American history."“He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there‚" Williams continued.“When the FBI caught him‚ Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars."“And all the while‚ Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification.”FBI assistant director in charge James Smith said "[t]oday‚ Joshua Schulte was rightly punished not only for his betrayal of our country‚ but for his substantial possession of horrific child pornographic material."“The severity of his actions is evident‚ and the sentence imposed reflects the magnitude of the disturbing and harmful threat posed by his criminal conduct.”Wikileaks was founded on October 4‚ 2006‚ by Julian Assange. Since then‚ Assange has faced serious criminal charges for publishing classified government documents submitted to him anonymously. The journalist is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison‚ located in London. Though the U.S. has tried to get him extradited to face charges‚ it has been contested in British courts.According to an X post by Wikileaks‚ Schulte released documents that suggested the U.S. government planned to assassinate Assange. The reams of papers Schulte released are known as Vault 7. — (@) Other prominent journalists and activists‚ including Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden‚ have advocated for Assange‚ suggesting that governments need to be held to account for their actions — especially the illegal ones. They have also contested that the U.S. has violated press freedoms by going after those who have released incriminating details about the federal government. Another whistleblower‚ Daniel Ellsberg‚ faced charges after releasing what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers in 1971.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors‚ sign up for our newsletters‚ and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Editor's note: We're facing an unprecedented moment in American history. Our government and multinational tech monopolies are making it clear that we‚ the people‚ are the target of the monstrous surveillance state they've constructed. The deep state is attempting to jail people who share memes‚ Blaze Media journalists‚ and even the leading presidential candidate. It's time we take back control over our privacy and digital communications‚ and this guide will provide you with the tools to do that. This is an excerpt from a larger guide.Turn off Siri and AlexaVoice recognition services are convenient and can make driving safer. It is excellent to tell your phone to place a call instead of spending time searching for a contact. Not to mention‚ I accidentally type the wrong letter all the time‚ which makes it take even longer! But the convenience is not worth the price. When you use Siri‚ Alexa‚ or any other voice recognition software‚ you allow large tech companies to listen to your private conversations.When you say‚ "Hey Siri" or "Alexa‚" this voice command engages the software. It does not turn on the voice recognition. That is on already. The software is always listening‚ so that it can respond when you say Siri or Alexa.Do you want a “private” conversation with your spouse in a room with an Alexa device‚ a Google Nest‚ or an iPhone with voice recognition turned on? Do you want corporations to collect data on your emotional life and deepest fears and hopes so that they can use that to more perfectly target you to buy stuff or manipulate you in other ways?Beware of home devices connected to the internetIt’s not only voice recognition software that listens. Web browsers can do the same thing. Even if you don’t use voice recognition software‚ you may have noticed that after a conversation‚ you’ll get advertisements for the thing you were discussing‚ even though you have never looked it up. There are digital listening devices everywhere — smart TVs‚ smart refrigerators‚ and all sorts of devices that are part of the internet of things. Beware of machines that have microphones that can be used for data collection. It’s also not always obvious. For example‚ Google did not disclose that its Nest security system had a microphone built into it.As an additional recommendation‚ a product to consider is Sceptre TV. It’s the “dumb TV” on the market. Every other smart TV on the market will record and broadcast your viewing activity; some even have microphones.I don’t want to make you paranoid‚ but I want you to know we are in a new world of digital intrusion. An IT professional colleague explains it like this: In nature‚ we are always within about three feet of a spider; in our digital habitat‚ we are surrounded by listening devices that can be used to collect information. It’s hard for us to get our minds around the idea that our communication‚ texts‚ phone calls‚ emails‚ and internet searches can all be tracked‚ but it is the world we live in‚ and we have to protect ourselves. I hope we can have digital technology without intrusion‚ but that will require building decentralized technology and exiting the world's surveillance-suffused Google vision.

Canada has put a temporary pause on its assisted suicide program for those suffering only from mental illness. The country currently offers assisted suicide to those terminally or chronically ill‚ but Canadians are still split on extending the same option to those suffering only from mental illness‚ according to Fox News Digital.Some have suggested that psychiatric care in the country could be better‚ which would otherwise dissuade some people from deciding to die. The controversial policy would permit any Canadian with an incurable disease to apply for assisted suicide‚ even if the condition is not life-threatening. The program would be one of the most liberal assisted suicide programs in the world.Canada's initial effort to introduce medically assisted suicide took place when the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that forcing someone to deal with intolerable suffering violated their fundamental rights to liberty and security. However‚ the law was expanded in 2021 to include anyone who experienced "grievous and irremediable" situations‚ including depression and other instances of mental illness.Consequently‚ 13‚000 Canadians took advantage of the assisted suicide program in 2022 alone. When the program took off‚ Conservative MP Ed Fast said‚ "Have we gone too far and too fast with Canada’s assisted suicide program?""Will we evolve into a culture of death as the preferred option for those who suffer from mental illness or will we choose life?"However‚ health officials are reluctant to expand the program‚ suggesting that there are not enough physicians — specifically psychiatrists — to effectively diagnose and treat those with mental illnesses‚ according to a statement made by Health Minister Mark Holland and Justice Minister Arif Virani‚ per the New York Times."The system needs to be ready‚ and we need to get it right‚" Holland said. "It's clear from the conversations we've had that the system is not ready‚ and we need more time.""Although the curriculum is present‚ although the guidelines are set‚ there has not been enough time for people to be trained on them‚ and provinces and territories are saying their systems are not ready and need more time‚" he added.However‚ the BBC reported that Dying with Dignity‚ an advocacy group‚ said on Thursday that they were "disheartened" by the sudden delay of the program. They referred to the pause as a "denial of constitutional rights for suffering people across Canada."It is uncertain when the program will be extended if it does at all.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors‚ sign up for our newsletters‚ and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

This past Halloween‚ having been on a bit of a horror fiction kick throughout most of October‚ I decided it was time I finally got around to checking out H.P. Lovecraft. I'd been putting this off since first learning about the Cthulhu mythos as an RPG nerd in high school‚ and at 47‚ I felt it was overdue. But after about six and a half stories‚ I had to bail. I was just too creeped out. The stories made me feel really weird and depressed‚ and the effect was uncanny — almost biochemical‚ like I was reacting to some drug. I've since returned to Lovecraft on and off‚ but every time I limit myself so the effect doesn't fully kick in. There was something about Lovecraft's fiction that resonated with certain deep frequencies latent in the hum of all three of my then-obsessions — AI‚ horror‚ and UFOs — and amplified them to the point that I couldn't function and had to shut the noise off. During my brief Halloween Lovecraft encounter‚ my afternoon horror reading was one of my two daily breaks from my daily work of thinking and writing about artificial intelligence. My other break was listening to UFO podcasts as I went on walks. There was something about Lovecraft's fiction that resonated with certain deep frequencies latent in the hum of all three of my then-obsessions — AI‚ horror‚ and UFOs — and amplified them to the point that I couldn't function and had to shut the noise off. So yeah‚ that was a weird thing that happened to me‚ and I've been thinking about it on and off ever since. What follows is my attempt to isolate some of the aforementioned resonant frequencies between Lovecraft and AI (leaving UFOs for another day). I want to unpack why H.P. Lovecraft is the creative who most correctly forecasted our present spiritual moment — our confusion and even terror at the prospect of an impending encounter with an ultrapowerful intelligence‚ variously called "artificial general intelligence‚" "artificial superhuman intelligence‚" or more generically‚ "nonhuman intelligence." The search In the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu‚" the story's unnamed protagonist discovers a small‚ grotesque bas-relief among his late uncle's personal effects. What happens to him next will be familiar to anyone who has spent any time online: He falls down a rabbit hole. The protagonist digs through his late uncle's files — "disjointed jottings‚ ramblings‚ and cuttings" — in search of clues to the sculpture's origin and nature. He makes connections‚ some of them deliberately sought out and others the result of synchronicity. Eventually‚ after a journey that takes him first to New Orleans and then to London‚ he finally pieces together enough of the picture to wish he had never started digging. In another story I read‚ there was a literal hole in the ground instead of a metaphorical rabbit hole. "The Statement of Randolph Carter" sees the protagonist's friend‚ an occultist who's obsessed with the idea of portals down into the underworld‚ killed by some nameless horror after descending into a tomb at night. The occultist leaves the story's narrator‚ the titular Randolph Carter‚ on the surface and communicates with him via a telephone wire as he descends into the darkness in search of whatever it is the ancient manuscripts he collects have led him to believe is down there. Or take the German sailor in the story "The Temple‚" who dives to certain death because he has to enter a temple he's glimpsed in a lost city beneath the waves: My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now become an inexplicable and imperious command which ultimately cannot be denied. My own German will no longer controls my acts‚ and volition is henceforward possible only in minor matters. Such madness it was which drove Klenze to his death‚ bareheaded and unprotected in the ocean; but I am a Prussian and a man of sense‚ and will use to the last what little will I have. … I have no fear‚ not even from the prophecies of the madman Klenze. What I have seen cannot be true‚ and I know that this madness of my own will at most lead only to suffocation when my air is gone. The light in the temple is a sheer delusion‚ and I shall die calmly‚ like a German‚ in the black and forgotten depths. This daemoniac laughter which I hear as I write comes only from my own weakening brain. So I will carefully don my diving suit and walk boldly up the steps into that primal shrine; that silent secret of unfathomed waters and uncounted years. In ships and rowboats‚ through swamps‚ deserts‚ and strange patches of muck in the middle of the ocean‚ Lovecraft's protagonists keep going even when the going gets weirder and more foreboding. They can't stop. They have to find out‚ even when they realize they may lose their minds in the process. But you know how it is‚ right? Surely‚ such compulsion is familiar to anyone in 2024. Who among us has not scrolled past across oddly compelling little glimpses of an alien horror and gone down a rabbit hole that‚ in the end‚ cost us a tiny piece of our sanity? Who among us has not done this in the past 48 hours? The algorithm Wachirawit Thongrong/Getty When I was reading "The Call of Cthulhu‚" I pretty quickly recognized the invisible‚ globe-spanning force that was subtly pressuring all these different‚ geographically disparate social subgraphs — from New Orleans to London‚ from Caribbean pirates to northern indigenous tribes — to converge on the same set of memes. In Lovecraft's story‚ that dark force was the dream of the powerful alien Cthulhu‚ asleep in the sunken city of R'lyeh. For the Very Online of 2024‚ that force is the Algorithm. They're the same picture. These Great Old Ones‚ Castro continued‚ were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape — for did not this star-fashioned image prove it? — but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right‚ they could plunge from world to world through the sky. … But although They no longer lived‚ They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh‚ preserved by the spells of the mighty Cthulhu. … They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe‚ but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now‚ They talked in Their tombs. When‚ after infinities of chaos‚ the first men came‚ the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals. I find the parallels between the Great Old Ones and the algorithms that power our feeds to be incredibly compelling: alien intelligences that rest far out of sight in some cold hall‚ alone with their own unfathomable minds‚ subtly influencing individuals and groups around the planet to move and think and dream in the same ways and to surface the same images. And the story's image of tentacled Cthulhu that keeps cropping up in carvings and at the center of orgiastic rituals? It's clearly a viral meme. The wrongness Tell me if the protagonist in the story "Dagon" doesn't seem like he's describing some disturbing region of latent space he has wandered into in Stable Diffusion: I think that these things were supposed to depict men — at least‚ a certain sort of men. … Of their faces and forms I dare not speak in detail; for the mere remembrance makes me grow faint. Grotesque beyond the imagination of a Poe or a Bulwer‚ they were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet‚ shockingly wide and flabby lips‚ glassy‚ bulging eyes‚ and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough‚ they seemed to have been chiselled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself. This visual horror of proportions and angles‚ where things are the wrong size or bend in unnatural ways‚ is one of the most Lovecraftian aspects of generative AI. Some of the wrongness Lovecraft depicts in connection with his sunken cities is obvious to the protagonists — sort of like AI generations of people with too many fingers or too many teeth. But in other cases‚ it's just that the structures in the sunken city have proportions and angles that seem somehow off or impossible. These twisted visions occur in Lovecraft's stories at points of contact between human civilizations and the alien elder gods. But that interface is always wrong in ways that disturb humans on some deep‚ pre-cognitive level. There's a subtle alienness to the landscape that both unsettles the viewers and attracts them. Again‚ they're driven to keep looking and exploring despite (or because of?) their fear and repulsion. The coldness The most merciful thing in the world‚ I think‚ is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity‚ and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences‚ each straining in its own direction‚ have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality‚ and of our frightful position therein‚ that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. When Lovecraft penned this opener to "The Call of Cthulhu" in the early 1920s‚ humanity had not yet split the atom‚ and we didn't have "the bomb" or Nazi eugenics as ready-to-hand cautionary tales about the morally unconstrained pursuit of scientific progress. It's almost as if Lovecraft‚ without the atrocities of the Second World War filling his vision‚ could see more clearly than postwar Cassandras that the true danger of the coming age would be a sudden-onset spiritual crisis arising from a superabundance of information — networked‚ classified‚ tokenized‚ and correlated. Of course‚ Lovecraft theorized that it wasn't really possible for the human mind‚ small and finite as it is‚ to rationally piece together enough of the universe to do more than hint at the grim conclusion that his mechanistic materialism was pointing him toward. But he had definitely taken that leap despite whatever supposed human cognitive limitations. From fellow RETURN writer Chris Morgan's excellent 2017 piece on Lovecraft in Lapham's Quarterly: “All my tales are based on the fundamental human premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large‚” Lovecraft wrote in 1927. “To achieve the essence of real externality … one must forget that such things as organic life‚ good and evil‚ love and hate‚ and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind‚ have any existence at all.” But what if we were to build a silicon mind that can process and organize enough tokens to truly make a convincing case that everything in our understanding of the universe that makes life seem worth living is just a comforting delusion? What if an AGI were to operate successfully in the world‚ even performing miracles of longevity or space travel‚ as a kind of existence proof that all the familiarities we hold fast to and derive meaning from are unnecessary UX affordances — we mouse around and click icons because‚ unlike it‚ we can't read a hex dump. What I'm getting at here popularly goes by "the alignment problem" — i.e.‚ what if we build a superintelligent‚ autonomous being that shares none of our physical needs or mental frameworks and is as utterly alien to humanity as Lovecraft's Great Old Ones? Geordie Rose of Kindred AI presents Super-intelligent Aliens Are Coming to Earth youtu.be In the current AI safety discourse‚ such an AGI might decide to crush us like ants. Apparently‚ Lovecraft also considered this likely if we ever truly encountered an NHI. Chris again: “It might be best to recall how we treat ‘inferior intelligences’ such as rabbits and frogs‚” wrote Michel Houellebecq in his book on Lovecraft. “In the best of cases they serve as food for us; sometimes … we kill them for the sheer pleasure of killing. This‚ Lovecraft warned‚ would be the true picture of our future relationship to those other intelligent beings. But the alignment-related catastrophe that worries me is not the X-risk scenario where an AGI murders us all. Rather‚ I'm worried about an AGI that makes us not want to live anymore — an AGI that brings on a spiritual catastrophe by convincing us to give up because what is the point? I suspect those who are most sanguine about the profound spiritual implications of humanity encountering a truly unaligned nonhuman intelligence — people who think they've made their peace with the fundamental randomness of the universe and are just bravely living in the moment like John and Yoko — will be the first to log off if an NHI successfully convinces them that they truly are mere NPCs in someone else's cruel‚ inscrutable game. An overwhelming spiritual crisis brought on by a perceived contact with the supposed inhuman alienness and indifference of the cosmos — what philosopher Nick Land calls "coldness" — is what I take to be the primary risk of a human encounter with an NHI (whether of the machine learning or extraterrestrial variety). But note the caveats in that preceding sentence — "perceived" and "supposed." As a practicing Christian‚ my reaction to such as this would be that it's a lie that I've long been warned to steer clear of. So‚ I'm already resolved to disbelieve a plausible-sounding story of the universe that has no place for love‚ even if apparent scientific miracles validate such a story. And‚ of course‚ I have my own relationship with a famously unaligned‚ humanity-wiping-out‚ three-letter superintelligence that I struggle daily to align myself with. So I'm good there‚ and on that score‚ I'd like to fancy myself spiritually crisis-proof in the event of any kind of NHI contact. But humility compels me to confess that I'm not certain of anything‚ and I dread finding out. The search continues. I may not have to wait long.

The Detroit band's influence expanded after it broke up‚ kick-starting the nascent punk scene. The post Wayne Kramer‚ MC5 Guitarist‚ Dead at 75 appeared first on Best Classic Bands.

His A-List co-stars‚ including Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger‚ had nothing but praise for their dear friend The post Tributes For Carl Weathers‚ Who Starred as Apollo Creed in ‘Rocky’ Films appeared first on Best Classic Bands.

The Diablo 4 Lunar Awakening event is almost upon us‚ and Blizzard gives us a look at what we can expect from the limited-time mode coming to its longstanding RPG series. With Diablo 4 Season 3 off to a slow start and ARPG rivals Path of Exile and Last Epoch very much looking to pick up the slack‚ the new Diablo 4 event is a chance for Blizzard to keep players coming back - and the good news is that there’s at least one very welcome upgrade. Continue reading Diablo 4 Lunar Awakening fixes one of the weakest parts of its endgame MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Diablo 4 builds‚ Diablo 4 review‚ Diablo 4 classes

A brand new Starfield mod brings together the work of many different modders‚ combining over 30 separate pieces of work into one package in the hope that it completely revamps the core gameplay of Bethesda’s newest spacefaring RPG. There are so many changes it’ll feel like you’re playing an entirely different game‚ so if you want a reason to return to the Settled Systems‚ this is it. I’ve found it impossible to condense everything down without overloading you; that’s how massive this is. Continue reading This Starfield mod changes almost everything in the game MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Starfield mods‚ Starfield outposts‚ Starfield traits

With Final Fantasy 16 PC still not here‚ another long-awaited grand spectacle RPG is already blowing up on Steam. Granblue Fantasy: Relink‚ the co-op anime game based on the long-running and hugely popular Cygames RPG for web browser and mobile‚ has already outstripped the likes of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth‚ Persona 3 Reload‚ and Elden Ring as its Steam player count continues to climb. Blending elements of Monster Hunter‚ Genshin Impact‚ Nintendo JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles 3‚ and even a little Armored Core 6‚ Relink is already scoring a positive reception for its contained story and lack of live service elements. Continue reading Granblue Fantasy Relink explodes on Steam‚ and it’s still climbing MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Crewmate Cards guide‚ Wee Pincer locations‚ Treasure Chest keys

Small government and creative destruction.