e461 — Lawsuits & Swimsuits | Games At Work dot Biz

suits in a clothing store — Photo by Alexander Naglestad on Unsplash

Published 8 April 2024

Michael, Andy and Michael get together to talk tech — focusing on a very healthy dollop of security and open source, with some GenAI art, and an updated set of AR swim goggles thrown in for good measure.

First, a little housekeeping – you may now find the Games at Work podcast on YouTube! If everything worked just right, this very episode will be automagically posted to the YouTube channel, replete with the suits image from Unsplash.

After getting this announcement out of the way, the show focuses on security and open source topics, starting with the xz open source backdoor. Andy posted on this subject on March 30, and gives an overview of the amazing story in this episode. A New York Times article also covers the situation, detailing how close it was to have the code included in major Linux distros. Be sure to check out the XKCD comic “Dependency” from the show notes below.

For those that are intrigued by class action lawsuits, check out the post about the Incognito browser mode action and settlement. Another suit takes aim at preventing the unauthorized reuse of a creative’s name, image, voice and likeness through generative AI. Check out the Ars Technica article in the show notes below for the complete explanation.

Then, sticking with generative AI and the art world, the co-hosts discuss Cody Nash’s post on the output of image generation to create a completely white image.

The team wraps up the episode with the most current version of the FORM Smart Swim 2 goggles. Michael R shares his experience with the earlier version and how much he likes them.

Do you use incognito mode in your web browsing? What would be your prompt to create a blank white image through GenAI? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

New way to listen

YouTube link – https://www.youtube.com/@GamesatWorkdotBiz/podcasts

Security

Catching up on the detailed background to the xz compromise. This is a good summary (with links to the detail) of the long play here. https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor

— Andy Piper (@andypiper) 2024-03-30T12:18:31.069Z

Schneier on Security post: xz Utils Backdoor

New York Times article: Did One Guy Just Stop a Huge Cyberattack?

XKCD comic: Dependency

The Verge article: AT&T confirms data breach and resets millions of customer passcodes

Schneier on Security post: Class-Action Lawsuit against Google’s Incognito Mode