That leak of Claude Code's source code "revealed "all kinds of juicy details," writes PC World.
The more than 500,000 lines of code included:
- An 'undercover mode' for Claude that allows it to make 'stealth' contributions to public code bases
- An 'always-on' agent for Claude Code
- A Tamagotchi-style 'Buddy' for Claude

"But one of the stranger bits discovered in the leak is that Claude Code is actively watching our chat messages for words and phrases — including f-bombs and other curses — that serve as signs of user frustration."
Specifically, Claude Code includes a file called "userPromptKeywords.ts" with a simple pattern-matching tool called regex, which sweeps each and every message submitted to Claude for certain text matches. In this particular case, the regex pattern is watching for "wtf," "wth," "omfg," "dumbass," "horrible," "awful," "piece of — -" (insert your favorite four-letter word for that one), "f — you," "screw this," "this sucks," and several other colorful metaphors... While the Claude Code leak revealed the existence of the "frustration words" regex, it doesn't give any indication of why Claude Code is scouring messages for these words or what it's doing with them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hundreds of theatres are now showing a new documentary called The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist. Variety calls it "playful and heady,"edited "with a spirit of ADHD alertness." The New York Times suggests it "tries to cover so much that it ends up being more confusing than clarifying, but parts are fascinating."

But the Los Angeles Times calls it an "aggravating soup of information and opinion that wants to move at the speed of machine thought." So while co-director Daniel Roher asks whether he should bring a child into a world with AI, "Perhaps more urgently, should Roher have made an AI doc that treats us like children?"
First, he parades all the safety doomers, seeming to believe their warnings that an unfeeling superintelligence is upon us and we can't trust it. Then, sufficiently disturbed, he hauls in the AI cheerleaders, a suspiciously positive gang who can envision only medical miracles and grindless lives in which we're all full-time artists. Only then, after this simplistic setup where platitudes reign, do we get the section in which the subject is treated like the brave (and grave) new world it is: geopolitically fraught, economically tenuous and a playground for billionaires.
Why couldn't the complexity have been the dialogue from the beginning, instead of the play-dumb cartoon "The AI Doc" feels like for so long? Maybe Roher believes this is what our increasingly gullible, truth-challenged citizenry needs from an explanatory doc: a flashy, kindhearted reminder that we're the change we need to be.

Read more reactions here and here. Mashable warns the documentary's director "will ultimately craft a journey that feels like a panic attack in real time. In the end, you may not feel better about mankind's chances against the rise of AI. But you'll likely feel less helpless in the future before us all."

They also point out that the film "shares some ways its audience can more actively be apart of the conversation, and provides a link to the film's website for engagement," where 6,948 people have now signed up for its newsletter. ("Demand a seat at the table," urges its signup button, under a warning that "Government and AI companies are designing our future without us. We need to reclaim our voice in shaping the future of AI...")

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meet the "journalist" who "uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly," according to the Wall Street Journal.

"AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune's web traffic in the second half of 2025." And most were written by 42-year-old Nick Lichtenberg, who has now written over 600 AI-assisted stories, producing "more stories in six months than any of his colleagues at Fortune delivered in a year."

One Wednesday in February, he cranked out seven. "I'm a bit of a freak," Lichtenberg said... A story by Lichtenberg sometimes starts with a prompt entered into Perplexity or Google's NotebookLM, asking it to write something based on a headline he comes up with. He moves the AI tools' initial drafts into a content-management system and edits the stories before publishing them for Fortune's readers... A piece from earlier that morning about Josh D'Amaro being named Disney CEO took 10 minutes to get online, he said...
Like other journalists, Lichtenberg vets his stories. He refers back to the original documents to confirm the information he's reporting is correct. He reaches out to companies for comment. But he admits his process isn't as thorough as that of magazine fact-checkers.

While Lichtenberg started out saying his stories were co-authored with "Fortune Intelligence", he now typically signs his own name, according to the article, "because he feels the work is mostly his own." (Though his stories "sometimes" disclose generative AI was used as a research tool...) The article asks with he could be "a bellwether for where much of the media business is headed..."



"Much of the content people now consume online is generated by artificial intelligence, with some 9% of newly published newspaper articles either partially or fully AI-generated, according to a 2025 study led by the University of Maryland. The number of AI-generated articles on the web surpassed human-written ones in late 2024, according to research and marketing agency Graphite."

Some executives have made full-throated declarations about the threat posed by AI. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said AI "is almost certainly going to usher in an unprecedented torrent of crap," referencing deepfakes as an example. The NewsGuild of New York, the union representing Fortune employees and journalists at other media outlets, said the people are what makes journalism so powerful. "You simply can't replicate lived experiences, human judgment and expertise," said president Susan DeCarava.

For Chris Quinn, the editor of local publications Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer, AI tools have helped tame other torrents facing the industry. AI has allowed the outlets to cover counties in Ohio that otherwise might go ignored by scraping information from local websites and sending "tips" to reporters, he said. It has also edited stories and written first drafts so the newsrooms' journalists can focus on the calls, research and reporting needed for their stories.... Newsrooms from the New York Times to The Wall Street Journal are deploying AI in various ways to help reporters and editors work more efficiently....

Not all newsrooms disclose their use of AI, and in some cases have rolled out new tools that resulted in errors or PR gaffes. An October study from the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC, which relied on professional journalists to evaluate the news integrity of more than 3,000 AI responses, found that almost half of all AI responses had at least one significant issue.

Last week the New York Times even issued a correction when a freelance book reviewer using an AI tool unknowingly included "language and details similar to those in a review of the same book published in The Guardian." But it was actually "the second time in a few days that the Times was called out for potential AI plagiarism," according to the American journalist writing The Handbasket newsletter.
We must stem the idea being pushed by tech companies and their billionaire funders who've sunk too much into their products to admit defeat that the infiltration of AI into journalism is inevitable; because from my perch as an independent journalist, it simply is not...

Some AI-loving journalists appear to believe that if they're clear enough with the AI program they're using, it will truly understand what they're seeking and not just do what it's made to do: steal shit... If you want to work with machines, get a job that requires it. There are a whole lot more of those than there are writing jobs, so free up space for people who actually want to do the work. You're not doing the world a favor by gifting it your human/AI hybrid. Journalism will not miss you if you leave...


But meanwhile, USA Today recently tried hiring for a new position: AI-Assisted reporter. (The lucky reporter will "support the launch and scaling of AI-assisted local journalism in a major U.S. metro," working with tools including Copilot and Perplexity, pioneering possible future expansions and "AI-enabled newsroom operations that support and augment human-led journalism.") And Google is already sponsoring a "publishing innovation award"...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One crime ring scammed 2,000 elderly people of more than $27 million between 2021 and 2023 using tech support/bank impersonation/refund scams. "Victims were in their 70s and 80s," reports the U.S. Attorney's office for California's southern district. Victims were first told they'd received a refund (either online or via phone), but then told they'd been "over-refunded" a massive amount, and asked to return that amount.

But 42-year-old Jiandong Chen just admitted Thursday in a U.S. federal court that he was involved in the fraud and money laundering via cryptocurrency — pleading guilty to two charges with maximum penalties of 40 years in prison and a $1 million fine, plus 20 years in prison with a maximum fine of $500,000 or twice the amount laundered. "Chen, a Chinese national, is the second defendant charged in a five-defendant indictment." And what tripped him up seems to be that "Certain members of the conspiracy also did in-person pickups of money directly from victims..."

And so YouTube enters the story — when the scammers called pranksters with 1,790,000 subscribers to their "Trilogy Media" channel. In an elaborate three-hour video, the team of pranksters lured the scammer to a rented Airbnb where they're staging a fake funeral with a nun. (One of the men acting in the video remembers "we start doing a prayer... I'm holding the scammer's hand in my nun outfit...")

They convince the scammer to collect the cash from a dead man — "Is there anything you'd like to say to him?" Then there's demon voices. The scammer's victim resurrects from the dead. Did the cash mule bring holy water?

The end result was a video titled "CONFRONTING SCAMMERS WITH A FAKE FUNERAL (EPIC REACTIONS)". But two and a half years later, their "cash mule sting house" video has racked up over 1.3 million views, 22,000 likes, and 2,979 comments. ("This video is longer than Oppenheimer. Thanks for the laughs fellas.")

And the scammer is facing 60 years in prison.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pay no attention to that code behind the curtain, says Anthropic as it scrambles to defend its IPO

Kettle  When it comes to circling up for this week's Kettle, what is there to discuss but Anthropic's accidental release of Claude Code's source code?…

Lesley A Butler has added a photo to the pool:

Royal Botanic Garden, Melbourne

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide, March 1969

BertvB posted a photo:

Mr Mikage (ミスター御影） posted a photo:

STUTTGART (ANP) - Twee Duitse mannen die zondag naar paaseieren aan het zoeken waren, stuitten op een flacon met de opdruk 'Polonium 210'. Dat is een zeer radioactieve stof.

De vondst leidde tot een grote brandweer- en politieoperatie in het stadje Vaihingen an der Enz, ten noordwesten van Stuttgart. Onderzoek moet nog uitwijzen of het daadwerkelijk gaat om de gevaarlijke stof. Volgens de brandweercommandant van het district gaan de autoriteiten ervan uit dat het inderdaad om polonium-210 gaat. De flacon had een officieel label en ook het gewicht, ongeveer 200 gram voor een flesje van 50 milliliter, ligt volgens de commandant in lijn met de dichtheid van de stof.

Er werd in de omgeving geen radioactiviteit gemeten, en de twee mannen die de flacon vonden zijn ongedeerd gebleven.

OBDAM (ANP) - De brand in een bedrijfsverzamelpand in het Noord-Hollandse Obdam is onder controle. Dat heeft de brandweer om 23.00 uur gemeld. Het gebouw is door het vuur en de bluswerkzaamheden verwoest. Voor zover bekend zijn er geen slachtoffers.

Op de locatie waren zonnepanelen aanwezig, in de directe omgeving zijn volgens de veiligheidsregio geen deeltjes daarvan aangetroffen. Die kunnen wel verder in de omgeving zijn verspreid. Advies is om de scherven altijd met handschoenen op te pakken en in de grijze container te deponeren.

De brand aan de Vaart brak aan het begin van de avond door nog onbekende oorzaak uit. Er kwam veel rook vrij en het vuur trok veel bekijks. Met een NL-Alert werden omwonenden gewaarschuwd om ramen en deuren te sluiten. De brandweer zette onder meer een sloopkraan in om het pand uit elkaar te halen om beter te kunnen blussen.

TEL AVIV (ANP/AFP) - Volgens de Israëlische legerchef Eyal Zamir heeft het Israëlische leger alle gebieden ten zuiden van de Litani-rivier in Libanon omgevormd tot een "operationele zone", naar eigen zeggen om Hezbollah te bestrijden. Israël voert in Zuid-Libanon een grondoffensief uit dat het almaar uitbreidt.

Volgens een verklaring van het leger heeft Zamir eerder op zondag een ontmoeting gehad met troepen die zijn gestationeerd in het gebied Ras al-Bayada in Zuid-Libanon.

Zamir verklaarde dat de Israëlische strijdkrachten zich inzetten om "indirect vuur vanuit Libanon te onderdrukken en te verminderen", wat "tijd vergt", aldus de verklaring.

1,1 miljoen ontheemd

In Libanon zijn ruim 1,1 miljoen mensen ontheemd geraakt te midden van de geïntensiveerde Israëlische aanvallen op het land en de grondinvasie in het zuiden.

Mensenrechtenorganisaties en VN-functionarissen waarschuwen dat Israël civiele infrastructuur vernietigt in strijd met het internationaal recht en zich voorbereidt op een langdurige bezetting van Zuid-Libanees grondgebied.

The incomparable Sam Kriss reckons with his affinity for ooze. It's true that I do, occasionally, use the word gloop. I have described vegan milk as 'a colloid of oat gloop and vegetable oils,' ink as 'the magic gloop of bureaucracy,' and the outside stereotype of India as 'a land of unsanitary gloops.' I have described the British as 'bog mutants' and 'bog-dwelling savages.' Among other uses, I have invented a fictional literary magazine called Red Gunk and a fictional US Congressman called Gunk Sclugmond. Sometimes my slimes are literal: I will write about things that genuinely happen to be a bit wet, like zombies, bog bodies, or the British. Other times they seem to ooze out for no obvious reason. In a piece on Nietzsche, who tended to keep himself reasonably dry, I managed to refer to both 'the mystical gunk that had accumulated in my brain' and 'the black slime of your own self-regard.'

I mentioned last year about the mixtapes my brother used to make. Well, just the other week, my mom mentioned that she still had a bunch of her tapes and that my brother’s mixtapes might be in amongst them and sure enough, I found the very tape that I remember most. Named aptly, A Whole Bunch of Good Songs Vol 2.

I wasn’t entirely sure when my brother put together this tape but given that no song seems to have been made after 1982, I’d say I have my answer. I would’ve listened to this tape probably throughout the ‘80s and it’s interesting to be reminded of songs that I had long forgotten like Snowman (XTC) and Homosapien (Pete Shelley). The lyrics came back to me rather quickly.

I made an Apple playlist and have documented the list of songs here for historical purposes.

Song	Artist
Hear That Guitar Ring	The Powder Blues Band
Doin It Right	The Powder Blues Band
Armageddon	Prism
Tainted Love	Soft Cell
I Got You	Split Enz
Another Nail In My Heart	Squeeze
Behind Blue Eyes	The Who
A Matter of Pride	The Tubes
Power Tools	The Tubes
Life Begins at the Hop	XTC
Love at First Sight	XTC
Respectable Street	XTC
Senses Working Overtime	XTC
Snowman	XTC
Roundabout	Yes
Vacation	The Go-Go’s
Should I Stay or Should I Go	The Clash
Sean Flynn	The Clash
Homosapien	Pete Shelley
Yesterday’s Not Here	Pete Shelley
Can’t Stand Losing You	The Police
Message In a Bottle	The Police

Alas, I didn't find any other mixtapes that my brother had put together.

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