Rahul Rachuri

8 Followers
86 Following
100 Posts
Cryptography and privacy researcher. PhD from Aarhus University 🇩🇰. Views my own.
Websiterahulrachuri.github.io

Apple added a feature called "inactivity reboot" in iOS 18.1. This is implemented in keybagd and the AppleSEPKeyStore kernel extension. It seems to have nothing to do with phone/wireless network state. Keystore is used when unlocking the device. So if you don't unlock your iPhone for a while... it will reboot!

In the news: "Police Freak Out at iPhones Mysteriously Rebooting Themselves, Locking Cops Out"
https://www.404media.co/police-freak-out-at-iphones-mysteriously-rebooting-themselves-locking-cops-out/

iOS version diffs to see yourself:
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ablacktop%2Fipsw-diffs%20inactivity_reboot&type=code

Police Freak Out at iPhones Mysteriously Rebooting Themselves, Locking Cops Out

Law enforcement believe the activity, which makes it harder to then unlock the phones, may be due to a potential update in iOS 18 which tells nearby iPhones to reboot if they have not been in contact with a cellular network for some time, according to a document obtained by 404 Media.

404 Media
Got it

Today's screams brought to you by Omnivore (open source) giving its entire hosted userbase two weeks to get their data out before they exuberantly drown themselves in the service of an Andreessen Horowitz-funded AI voice company co-founded by a Palantir person.

https://blog.omnivore.app/p/omnivore-is-joining-elevenlabs

(The two weeks' notice went to my spam folder, so I'm grateful someone mentioned it here and I happened to see it.)

Omnivore is joining ElevenLabs

a note from our founders

Omnivore Blog
Animals with misleading names
“current LLMs cannot perform genuine logical reasoning; they replicate reasoning steps from their training data. Adding a single clause that seems relevant to the question causes significant performance drops (up to 65%) across all state-of-the-art models, even though the clause doesn't contribute to the reasoning chain needed for the final answer”
https://mastodon.social/@applemlresearch/113290348608357920
UBBI (universal basic bitch income): $500 a month but you have to post "live laugh love" every day

The parade of auto-opted-in services promos and interruptions continues.

Got this sports banner interrupting me last night on my brand new iPhone.

Apparently Sports.app opted itself into Live Activities, despite not having them enabled on the old phone, and having *never even launched the app* on the new one.

LinkedIn is "TikTok" for middle aged people.

You know how older people are always scared of TikTok messing up young people's minds with disinformation and bullshit, of influencers getting kids to do dumb shit for their profit? That's exactly what LinkedIn does for middle aged people: A constant stream of weird influencers selling absolute garbage to people who are unsure about what their job means and what they care about.

LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool -- they just auto opted everyone in (except folks in the EU, it seems)
I recommend opting out now (AND that orgs put an end to auto opt-in, it's not cool)
Opt out steps: Settings and Privacy > Data Privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement (OFF)

We shouldn't have to take a bunch of steps to undo a choice that a company made for us.
Orgs think they can get away with auto opt in because "everyone does it".
If we come together and demand that orgs allow us to CHOOSE to opt in, things will hopefully change one day.

LinkedIn seems to have auto enrolled folks in the US, but hearing from folks in the EU that they are not seeing this listed in their settings (likely due to privacy regulations).
If you're outside of the US, I'm curious if you're seeing this?

Why does opting out of training generative AI models matter? How does it impact folks?

Well, generative AI tools build outputs based on inputs they are trained on. AI tools have a hard time synthesizing new content so allowing AI tools to be trained on your original writing, photos and videos means it’s likely that elements of your writing, photos, or videos will be melted together with other people’s content to build AI outputs (without credit to you).

In short, you may find your original writing, photo, and video content “reused” or “rehashed” by AI, and *sometimes AI plagiarizes writing, photos, and video in their entirety*.

Opting out of participating in AI training is a good idea for anyone who creates original content.

PSA: LinkedIn are training AI models and selling data for training AI models from your posts, and the setting is enabled by default. I suggest you disable it unless Microsoft pay you.