Friday, September 5, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Here’s the Chinese AI model that’s shaking up the tech world

Published 31 January 2025
– By Editorial Staff
While OpenAI's GPT-4 was said to have cost over $100 million to train, DeepSeek claims their model only required $6 million.
3 minute read

The Chinese AI model DeepSeek has very quickly become one of the most downloaded apps and attracted a lot of attention in the tech industry. Its unexpected success has not only surprised investors but also affected the market capitalization of several major tech companies.

DeepSeek is an AI-powered chatbot and language model that works in a similar way to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It is used to generate text, answer questions, and help users with tasks such as coding and mathematical calculations. The model has been compared to OpenAI’s o1 and is considered an advanced reasoning model, allowing it to process complex questions and provide multi-stage answers.

One of the most notable aspects of the chatbot is its low development cost. While OpenAI’s GPT-4 was said to have cost over $100 million to train, DeepSeek claims that their model only required $6 million. This has been made possible by a combination of advanced memory management and the efficient use of less powerful chips, making the model both cheaper and more resource efficient.

DeepSeek is not just a technological innovation, however, but also part of China’s larger strategy to reduce its dependence on Western technology. The company has managed to build a powerful AI model despite an export ban on high-end semiconductor chips from the US.

Major drop for Nvidia

The chatbot’s rapid impact has had immediate effects on the tech market. Among other things, the model has shown that advanced AI solutions can be developed without access to the most powerful chips, which has created uncertainty in the market about the need for expensive semiconductors.

The biggest stock market impact has been seen in Nvidia, the world’s leading chip maker, whose share value fell by $600 billion – the biggest one-day loss in US history. The market has reacted sharply to the realization that cheaper AI models can compete with the most advanced alternatives.

At the same time, DeepSeek, like other AI models, has also raised questions about security and data privacy. Some experts argue that the model, like other AI platforms, may be subject to government censorship and restrictions and that DeepSeek is programmed to provide “helpful and harmless” answers.

Trump: “A wake-up call”

DeepSeek’s success has led to widespread reactions from both businesses and governments. Donald Trump called the launch a “wake-up call” for US companies and said it is now crucial for the US to “compete to win” in AI development. Australia’s science minister, Ed Husic, expressed concerns about DeepSek’s handling of data and security.

In China, the language model is being hailed as proof of the country’s technological progress and independence from Western technology. President Xi Jinping has previously emphasized AI as a national priority, and its success is seen as a step towards establishing China as a global leader in artificial intelligence.

The AI model has also faced technological challenges. On the day of its major breakthrough, the platform was attacked, according to the company, by a “large-scale malicious attacks” that led to temporary outages and restrictions on registrations. Even at the time of writing, DeepSeek is suffering from server issues and disruptions.

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IP addresses are used in Sweden to track unemployed people

Published 1 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The Swedish Public Employment Service has already identified approximately 4,000 people who appear to have logged in from a country other than Sweden.
2 minute read

The Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) has begun tracking the IP addresses of unemployed individuals to verify that they are actually located in Sweden. Approximately 4,000 people who logged in from foreign IP numbers now risk losing their benefits.

To be eligible for unemployment insurance (A-kassa) and other forms of compensation linked to being unemployed, certain requirements must be met. One of these requirements is that individuals must be located in Sweden, in order to be available in case a job opportunity arises.

When job seekers log into the Swedish Public Employment Service’s website, their IP address is now checked. If a person logs in from a foreign IP number, this suggests that they are located in another country.

The Swedish Public Employment Service has been tracking job seekers since the end of June, and the agency has already identified approximately 4,000 people who appear to have logged in from a country other than Sweden.

It’s a way to counteract the risk of incorrect payments. We’re talking about people who are abroad even though they should be in Sweden looking for work or participating in labor market policy programs, says Andreas Malmgren, operations controller at the Swedish Public Employment Service, to the Bonnier publication DN.

None of these individuals have been contacted yet, but the agency plans to make contact during September. These people risk having their benefits withdrawn.

Furthermore, the agency has also established a special tool to check whether job seekers are using VPN services, so that no one ends up among those flagged by mistake.

Wifi signals can identify people with 95 percent accuracy

Mass surveillance

Published 21 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Italian researchers have developed a technique that can track and identify individuals by analyzing how wifi signals reflect off human bodies. The method works even when people change clothes and can be used for surveillance.

Researchers at La Sapienza University in Rome have developed a new method for identifying and tracking people using wifi signals. The technique, which the researchers call “WhoFi”, can recognize people with an accuracy rate of up to 95 percent, reports Sweclockers.

The method is based on the fact that wifi signals reflect and refract in different ways when they hit human bodies. By analyzing these reflection patterns using machine learning and artificial neural networks, researchers can create unique “fingerprints” for each individual.

Works despite clothing changes

Experiments show that these digital fingerprints are stable enough to identify people even when they change clothes or carry backpacks. The average recognition rate is 88 percent, which researchers say is comparable to other automatic identification methods.

The research results were published in mid-July and describe how the technology could be used in surveillance contexts. According to the researchers, WhoFi can solve the problem of re-identifying people who were first observed via a surveillance camera in one location and then need to be found in footage from cameras in other locations.

Can be used for surveillance

The technology opens up new possibilities in security surveillance, but simultaneously raises questions about privacy and personal security. The fact that wifi networks, which are ubiquitous in today’s society, can be used to track people without their knowledge represents a new dimension of digital surveillance.

The researchers present their discovery as a breakthrough in the field of automatic person identification, but do not address the ethical implications that the technology may have for individuals’ privacy.

Danish students build drone that flies and swims

Published 18 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Four students at Aalborg University in Denmark have developed a revolutionary drone that seamlessly transitions between air and water. The prototype uses innovative rotor technology that automatically adapts to different environments.

Four students at Aalborg University in Denmark have created something that sounds like science fiction – a drone that can literally fly down into water, swim around and then jump back up into the air to continue flying, reports Tom’s Hardware.

Students Andrei Copaci, Pawel Kowalczyk, Krzysztof Sierocki and Mikolaj Dzwigalo have developed a prototype as their thesis project that demonstrates how future amphibious drones could function. The project has attracted attention from technology media after a demonstration video showed the drone flying over a pool, crashing down into the water, navigating underwater and then taking off into the air again.

Intelligent rotor technology solves the challenge

The secret behind the impressive performance lies in what the team calls a “variable rotor system”. The individual rotor blades can automatically adjust their pitch angle depending on whether the drone is in air or water.

When the drone flies through the air, the rotor blades work at a higher angle for optimal lift capacity. Underwater, the blade pitch is lowered to reduce resistance and improve efficiency during navigation. The system can also reverse thrust to increase maneuverability when the drone moves through tight passages underwater.

Most components in the prototype have been manufactured by the students themselves using 3D printers, since equivalent parts were not available on the market.

Although the project is still in an early concept stage and exists only as a single prototype, it demonstrates the possibilities for future amphibious vehicles. The technology could have applications in everything from rescue operations to environmental monitoring where vehicles need to move both above and below the water surface.

What I learnt at DEFCON

Why hacker culture is essential if we want to win the privacy war.

Published 16 August 2025
– By Naomi Brockwell
6 minute read

DEFCON is the world’s largest hacker conference. Every year, tens of thousands of people gather in Las Vegas to share research, run workshops, compete in capture-the-flag tournaments, and break things for sport. It’s a subculture. A testing ground. A place where some of the best minds in security and privacy come together not just to learn, but to uncover what’s being hidden from the rest of us. It’s where curiosity runs wild.

But to really get DEFCON, you have to understand the people.

What is a hacker?

I love hacker conferences because of the people. Hackers are notoriously seen as dangerous. The stereotype is that they wear black hoodies and Guy Fawkes masks.

But that’s not why they’re dangerous: They’re dangerous because they ask questions and have relentless curiosity.

Hackers have a deep-seated drive to learn how things work, not just at the surface, but down to their core.

They aren’t content with simply using tech. They want to open it up, examine it, and see the hidden gears turning underneath.

A hacker sees a device and doesn’t just ask, “What does it do?”
They ask, “What else could it do?”
“What isn’t it telling me?”
“What’s under the hood, and why does no one want me to look?”

They’re curious enough to pull back curtains others want to remain closed.

They reject blind compliance and test boundaries.
When society says “Do this,” hackers ask “Why?”

They don’t need a rulebook or external approval.
They trust their own instincts and intelligence.
They’re guided by internal principles, not external prescriptions.
They’re not satisfied with the official version. They challenge it.

Because of this, hackers are often at the fringes of society. They’re comfortable with being misunderstood or even vilified. Hackers are unafraid to reveal truths that powerful entities want buried.

But that position outside the mainstream gives them perspective: They see what others miss.

Today, the word “hack” is everywhere:
Hack your productivity.
Hack your workout.
Hack your life.

What it really means is:
Don’t accept the defaults.
Look under the surface.
Find a better way.

That’s what makes hacker culture powerful.
It produces people who will open the box even when they’re told not to.
People who don’t wait for permission to investigate how the tools we use every day are compromising us.

That insistence on curiosity, noncompliance, and pushing past the surface to see what’s buried underneath is exactly what we need in a world built on hidden systems of control.

We should all aspire to be hackers, especially when it comes to confronting power and surveillance.

Everything is computer

Basically every part of our lives runs on computers now.
Your phone. Your car. Your thermostat. Your TV. Your kid’s toys.
And much of this tech has been quietly and invisibly hijacked for surveillance.

Companies and governments both want your data. And neither want you asking how these data collection systems work.

We’re inside a deeply connected world, built on an opaque infrastructure that is extracting behavioral data at scale.

You have a right to know what’s happening inside the tech you use every day.
Peeking behind the curtain is not a crime. It’s a public service.

In today’s world, the hacker mindset is not just useful. It’s necessary.

Hacker culture in a surveillance world

People who ask questions are a nightmare for those who want to keep you in the dark.
They know how to dig.
They don’t take surveillance claims at face value.
They know how to verify what data is actually being collected.
They don’t trust boilerplate privacy policies or vague legalese.
They reverse-engineer SDKs.
They monitor network traffic.
They intercept outgoing requests and inspect payloads.

And they don’t ask for permission.

That’s what makes hacker culture so important. If we want any hope of reclaiming privacy, we need people with the skills and the willingness to pull apart the systems we’re told not to question.

On top of that, governments and corporations both routinely use outdated and overbroad legislation like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to prosecute public-interest researchers who investigate tech. Not because those researchers cause harm, but because they reveal things that others want kept hidden.

Laws like this pressure people towards compliance, and make them afraid to ask questions. The result is that curiosity feels like a liability, and it becomes harder for the average person to understand how the digital systems around us actually work.

That’s why the hacker mindset matters so much: Because no matter how hard the system pushes back, they keep asking questions.

The researchers I met at DEFCON

This year at DEFCON, I met researchers who are doing exactly that.

People uncovering surveillance code embedded in children’s toys.
People doing analysis on facial recognition SDKs.
People testing whether your photo is really deleted after “verification”.
People capturing packets who discovered that the “local only” systems you’re using aren’t local at all, and are sending your data to third parties.
People analyzing “ephemeral” IDs, and finding that your data was being stored and linked back to real identities.

You’ll be hearing from some of them on our channel in the coming months.
Their work is extraordinary, and helping all of us move towards a world of informed consent instead of blind compliance. Without this kind of research, the average person has no way to know what’s happening behind the scenes. We can’t make good decisions about the tech we use if we don’t know what it’s doing.

Make privacy cool again

Making privacy appealing is not just about education.
It’s about making it cool.

Hacker culture has always been at the forefront of turning fringe ideas into mainstream trends. Films like Hackers and The Matrix made hackers a status symbol. Movements like The Crypto Wars (when the government fought Phil Zimmermann over PGP), and the Clipper Chip fights (when they tried to standardize surveillance backdoors across hardware) made cypherpunks and privacy activists aspirational.

Hackers take the things mainstream culture mocks or fears, and make them edgy and cool.

That’s what we need here. We need a cultural transformation and to push back against the shameful language that demands we justify our desire for privacy.

You shouldn’t have to explain why you don’t want to be watched.
You shouldn’t have to defend your decision to protect your communications.

Make privacy a badge of honor.
Make privacy tools a status symbol.
Make the act of encrypting, self-hosting, and masking your identity a signal that says you’re independent, intelligent, and not easily manipulated.

Show that the people who care about privacy are the same people who invent the future.

Most people don’t like being trailblazers, because it’s scary. But if you’re reading this, you’re one of the early adopters, which means you’re already one of the fearless ones.

When you take a stand visibly, you create a quorum and make it safer for others to join in. That’s how movements grow, and we go from being weirdos in the corner to becoming the majority.

If privacy is stigmatized, reclaiming it will take bold, fearless, visible action.
The hacker community is perfectly positioned to lead that charge, and to make it safe for the rest of the world to follow.

When you show up and say, “I care about this,” you give others permission to care too.

Privacy may be on the fringe right now, but that’s where all great movements begin.

Final Thoughts

What I learnt at DEFCON is that curiosity is powerful.
Refusal to comply is powerful.
The simple act of asking questions can be revolutionary.

There are systems all around us extracting data and consolidating control, and most people don’t know how to fight that, and are too scared to try.

Hacker culture is the secret sauce.

Let’s apply this drive to the systems of surveillance.
Let’s investigate the tools we’ve been told to trust.
Let’s explain what’s actually happening.
Let’s give people the knowledge they need to make better choices.

Let’s build a world where curiosity isn’t criminalized but celebrated.

DEFCON reminded me that we don’t need to wait for permission to start doing that.

We can just do things.

So let’s start now.

 

Yours in privacy,
Naomi

Naomi Brockwell is a privacy advocacy and professional speaker, MC, interviewer, producer, podcaster, specialising in blockchain, cryptocurrency and economics. She runs the NBTV channel on Rumble.

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