A hacker group known as stegan0gram recently tore down a Flock camera, gained access to the hard drive, and stole the data to better understand how the cameras operate. The hackers found that over 21-day period the camera photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. They also discovered that the Flock camera not only captures license plates, but people, bicycles, and bumper stickers. The group shared the information with Wired and 404 Media leading to a joint investigation by the outlets. @DBrozeLiveFree

What happens when you're conscious… but there's almost nothing left to be conscious of? Researchers studying experienced meditators found distinctive patterns of brain activity during reported states of “pure awareness”: when thoughts, sensory perceptions and even awareness of the body, time and space become greatly reduced. Turns out thinking about nothing is surprisingly complicated. The study could give neuroscientists a new way to investigate one of the strangest questions in consciousness research: What is the minimum required for there to still be an experience at all? 🧠 @IsleyResistance

Episode Eleven...  What is the future of Solar? Out NOW only on CiVL... civl.com/watch/title/overrid… @civldotcom @jen_sidorova

Yes, there are PC (public choice!) reasons to doubt that AI execs’ sudden enthusiasm for gov't oversight is driven by a concern for humanity. But does anything in history suggest that gov'ts are uniquely suited (or inclined) to safeguard mankind’s future? Decades of nuclear brinkmanship? Restrictive monopolies on lifesaving drugs & services? Conscription, sending tens of millions to their deaths? “Saving humanity” is a veil draped across an ancient exchange: incumbents get barriers to entry; gov'ts get raw, suppurating power. civl.com/partners/ai-discove…

Correspondent @DBrozeLiveFree reports from NYC during the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to find out if Americans believe they are safer with the rise of the Surveillance and National Security State.

Scientists took LSD apart piece by piece to figure out which parts of the molecule actually make it psychedelic. They created nine simplified LSD-derived compounds and found that one of them produced antipsychotic-like effects (in mice). Apparently LSD is less a drug and more a molecular Lego set, who knows what we’ll build next? @IsleyResistance

Many Americans are aware of the privacy concerns associated with public W-iFi networks, but did you know that Wi-Fi networks can be used to identify a person without the use of cameras? In recent years researchers have shown that Wi-Fi devices and routers can be used to see through walls and create “radio-based” images of people with a nearly 100% accuracy rate. Researchers with UC Santa Barbara have also been able to read the alphabet through walls with Wi-Fi signals. Privacy advocates warn that this could present an unprecedented attack on everyone’s privacy. @DBrozeLiveFree

Apparently fear is an ecosystem service. A new study from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula found that areas with high cougar activity had dramatically fewer deer-vehicle collisions. The reason isn't simply that cougars eat deer. Their presence changes deer behavior, pushing them away from road-heavy developed areas and shifting when they're active. Researchers call it a "landscape of fear." For deer: stressful. For your front bumper: surprisingly helpful. @IsleyResistance

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a plan to eliminate a federal requirement that states allow for public comment on applications for air pollution permits for a range of industrial facilities, including new data centers and the power plants needed to run them. Critics say this would allow the data centers to hide pollution that may result from the power plants being built to power them. Nearly 200 advocacy groups voiced their opposition to the rule change as they believe it will make it easier for data centers to be constructed without public input. @DBrozeLiveFree

Scientists have produced the first comprehensive neuroimaging map of mescaline and the results point toward an unexpected part of the brain: the cerebellum. In rats, mescaline decreased activity in parts of the cerebellum while dramatically increasing its communication with regions involved in memory and sensory processing. Researchers suggest mescaline could be disrupting part of the brain's normal sensory - filtering system. So maybe psychedelics aren't simply making the brain perceive things that aren't there. Maybe they're also changing what the brain decides to filter out. Important caveat: 🐁 @IsleyResistance

Ketamine's mechanism of action just got more complicated. Researchers using cryo-electron microscopy have produced atomic-level images showing S-ketamine directly occupying the binding pockets of mu- and kappa-opioid receptors. Lab experiments found ketamine can act as a partial opioid-receptor agonist, while mouse experiments found opioid blockers could eliminate its pain-relieving effect. That doesn't mean ketamine is simply an opioid, but it provides some of the clearest evidence yet that the opioid system is directly involved in its unusually complicated pharmacology. @IsleyResistance

Now at @CiVLdotcom: "...Iran is not entering its first encounter with economic isolation. Since the 1979 revolution...it has learned to survive on progressively fewer resources, tolerate severe inefficiency, and accept a degree of underdevelopment that would be politically intolerable in most Western nations...[S]anctions do not need to fail at inflicting damage in order to fail strategically. An economy can be miserable without becoming politically compliant. Indeed, a regime willing to accept an increasingly low-productivity equilibrium possesses a kind of grim advantage: it cannot easily be threatened with the loss of prosperity it never delivered." civl.com/partners/the-dubiou…

Over a hundred tech companies have signed an open letter calling for a collective response to defend against incoming AI-related cyber attacks. The letter was signed by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Visa, GoDaddy, and dozens of other companies who warn that AI-enabled cyber attacks will become “far more widespread and sophisticated” in the coming months as AI models become increasingly capable. The letter states that the current status quo security will not be enough to quell attacks, and that a “global response is necessary”. @DBrozeLiveFree

Can the police rifle through your trash without a warrant? What about collecting your DNA from your trash without a warrant? Those were the questions at the heart of a recent appeal by convicted murderer David Dwayne Anderson. In 2022, Anderson was convicted for a 1981 murder after police gathered a DNA sample from a soda can left in his trash and made a match to DNA left at the crime scene. Anderson argued that both acts violated the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. The appeals court ruled against him. @DBrozeLiveFree

America's got some new neighbors. 🌿 The U.S. Register of Introduced and Invasive Species contains 14,700 records of established non-native species across Alaska, Hawaii, and the lower 48. Hawaii is the real standout: despite its small size, it has 5,628 records and an introduced- species density dramatically higher than the mainland. Turns out humans aren't the only species that are really good at accidentally moving things around the planet. @IsleyResistance

My latest at CiVL - @CiVLdotcom. Washington increasingly wants the US dollar to be weaker, universally used, geopolitically weaponized, and unquestionably dominant. All at the same time. civl.com/partners/america-s-…

My latest for @CiVLDispatch Schools Around the World Are Rethinking Computer Based Education

Something as simple as a locust brain is able to detect and recognize 'forever chemicals'. Perhaps biosensing is the way to find, and ultimately remove, these chemicals forever.

"Backpage had been increasingly successful in its First Amendment litigation, and the political pressure to do something, anything, to make Backpage go away." This is not an attempt to deal with the real problems. This is an attempt to demonize someone." Classified: The War on Backpage.com. Now streaming on CiVL.

A recent court case has revealed details of undercover operations by ICE, including those involving the use of facial recognition tools from Clearview AI. As part of Operation Puppet Master and Project Whipple Shield, undercover agents infiltrated community meetings and activist groups, secretly recording conversations, entered private Signal discussions, collected vehicle information and investigated financial relationships. @DBrozeLiveFree