More amazing minimalist pencil sketches of cats, by Shou Xin (手訫)

#Art #Artwork #Artist #Cats #Caturday

So, I recently saw some quiet discussion about a paper where researchers reverse-engineered and disclosed some attacks against PhotoDNA, the very-super-duper-secret algorithm used by tech megacorps to scan for illegal images.

They didn't make any code public, and so... I did: https://github.com/ArcaneNibble/open-alleged-photodna

A _complete_ reverse-engineering and commented Python reimplementation of the algorithm from publicly-leaked binaries.

This means that studying the algorithm and any potential flaws is now much more accessible.

This took only about two days (once I knew that there even _was_ a leaked binary to compare against), which just goes to again show that security through obscurity never works.

🔁 encouraged

Why Linux is safe from viruses:

Downloaded a virus for Linux lately and unpacked it. Tried to run it as root, didn't work. Googled for 2 hours, found out that instead of /usr/local/bin the virus unpacked to /usr/bin for which the user malware doesn't have any write permissions, therefore the virus couldn't create a process file. Found patched , configure and make files on some Chinese forum, recompiled and rerun it. The virus said it needs the library cmalw-lib-2.0. […]

https://programmerhumor.io/linux-memes/whyislinuxsaferthanotheros/

Gladys West, mathematician whose work paved the way for GPS, dies at 95

She navigated segregation to become an esteemed mathematician — and today, her work helps billions of people navigate the world.

By Bill Chappell

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5685027/gladys-west-gps-mathematician

#science #technology #womeninstem