Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2025-08.


How Google turned ‘I’m not a robot’ into a massive surveillance system - Boing Boing

Tags: tech, google, surveillance

A good reminder that everything they buy they turn it into a surveillance system indeed… This time under the pretense of security.

https://boingboing.net/2025/02/07/recaptcha-819-million-hours-of-wasted-human-time-and-billions-of-dollars-google-profit.html


Stalkerware apps Cocospy and Spyic are exposing phone data of millions of people

Tags: tech, privacy, security

That’s a lot of stalkerware in the wild. And this exploit is only about two such apps. What’s wrong with people that they install this kind of crap on their loved ones smarphones?

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/20/stalkerware-apps-cocospy-spyic-exposing-phone-data-of-millions-of-people/


How to Backdoor Large Language Models

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, security

The security implications of using LLMs are real. With the high complexity and low explainability of such models it opens the door to hiding attacks in plain sight.

https://blog.sshh.io/p/how-to-backdoor-large-language-models


Groundbreaking BBC research shows issues with over half the answers from Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, reliability, research

Interesting research, looking forward to the follow ups to see how it evolves over time. For sure the number of issues is way to high still to make trustworthy systems around search and news.

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/bbc-research-shows-issues-with-answers-from-artificial-intelligence-assistants


ChatGPT’s Political Views Are Shifting Right, a New Analysis Finds

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, politics

This might be accidental but this highlights the lack of transparency on how those models are produced. It also means we should get ready for future generation of such models to turn into very subtle propaganda machines. Indeed even if for now it’s accidental I doubt it’ll be the case much longer.

https://gizmodo.com/chatgpts-political-views-are-shifting-right-a-new-analysis-finds-2000562328


AI is Stifling Tech Adoption

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, programming, innovation

This is definitely a problem. It’s doomed to influence how tech are chosen on software projects.

https://vale.rocks/posts/ai-is-stifling-tech-adoption


Notes: AI Copilot Code Quality

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, productivity, maintenance

People really need to be careful about the short term productivity boost… If it kills maintainability in the process you’re trading that short term productivity for a crashing long term productivity.

https://kracekumar.com/post/ai_copilot_code_quality_paper/


Can I ethically use LLMs?

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics

I like this paper, it’s well balanced. The conclusion says is all: if you’re not actively working on reducing the harms then you might be doing something unethical. It’s not just a toy to play with, you have to think about the impacts and actively reduce them.

https://ntietz.com/blog/can-i-ethically-use-llms/


exo: Run your own AI cluster at home with everyday devices 📱💻 🖥️⌚

Tags: tech, foss, ai, machine-learning, gpt

Early days but this looks like an interesting solution to democratize the inference of large models.

https://github.com/exo-explore/exo


Meshtastic

Tags: tech, networking, radio

This is definitely a fun and interesting project. Such decentralized mesh network are tempting to play with.

https://meshtastic.org/


The IPv6 transition | APNIC Blog

Tags: tech, networking, internet, ip

Very interesting paper on the IPv6 transition. It shows quite well the stagnation we’re in and provides good arguments about why it is so slow to transition.

https://blog.apnic.net/2024/10/22/the-ipv6-transition/


Taichi Lang: High-performance Parallel Programming in Python

Tags: tech, python, performance, gpu

Looks like an interesting DSL to write high performance Python code.

https://www.taichi-lang.org/


A year of uv: pros, cons, and should you migrate

Tags: tech, python

More feedback about uv use in the wild. This is getting really close to becoming the de facto solution for new projects.

https://www.bitecode.dev/p/a-year-of-uv-pros-cons-and-should


Programming with Math | The Lambda Calculus

Tags: tech, mathematics, logic, science

A neat little introduction to an important field in computer science. Lambda calculus is often too little known but it has very important ramifications in several fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViPNHMSUcog


Your company needs Junior devs

Tags: tech, teaching, learning

Definitely this. It’s important for an organization to create knowledge… and this requires both people willing to learn and to teach.

https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/09/07/your-team-needs-juniors


Don’t call yourself a senior until you’ve worked on a legacy project

Tags: tech, problem-solving, learning

I’m not sure I would phrase it like this but there’s quite some truth to it. It’s important to figure out what we take for granted and to open the black boxes. This is where one finds mastery.

https://www.infobip.com/developers/blog/seniors-working-on-a-legacy-project


Introducing Test-Last Development (TLD)

Tags: tech, tdd, satire

This is a good satire which shows well the excuses people use to not test first.

https://bitfieldconsulting.com/posts/test-last-development



Bye for now!