Thursday, January 8, 2026

AI Invades Health While Cops Go Full Surveillance!

AI Invades Health While Cops Go Full Surveillance!

Power Plays Hit Visas, Housing and Surveillance

  • Congress aims straight at H‑1B tech visas

    A new bill to kill the H-1B visa program lands like a bomb in Silicon Valley, threatening thousands of skilled immigrant workers and the companies that depend on them. Supporters call it protection for locals, critics see political grandstanding that will only push talent overseas.

  • US targets Wall Street home hoarders at last

    The US plans to ban big Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes, blaming them for tight supply and rising rents. Homebuilder stocks wobble while renters cheer, but many doubt regulators will really unwind years of financialization or stop investors from finding new loopholes.

  • ICE splashes $28B on new surveillance toys

    With a massive $28.7B budget, ICE goes shopping for databases, phone trackers and other surveillance tech. Civil liberties watchers are alarmed, seeing immigration enforcement turning into a general monitoring platform that can quietly track almost anyone, not just people at the border.

  • Greenland’s melting ice hides a mineral goldmine

    New reporting on Greenland details huge untapped mineral deposits under retreating ice, from rare earths to metals vital for green tech. Locals fear a fresh resource rush that trades one climate problem for another as mining giants eye the Arctic like a new Wild West.

  • The $14 burrito shows why inflation still stings

    A deep dive into San Francisco’s $14 burrito explains why official inflation numbers feel fake to locals. Tech workers and baristas alike see daily prices that never fall, even as statistics say things are calm, feeding suspicion that the system is tuned to soothe markets, not people.

AI Rush Meets Health Hopes and Security Fears

  • ChatGPT Health reaches into your medical records

    OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, promising smarter answers by mixing AI with real health records. The idea is seductive, but people are worried about leaks, bias and who gets blamed when a slick chatbot gives the wrong call on a diagnosis or drug and doctors are tempted to trust it.

  • Notion AI can leak data before you approve

    A researcher shows Notion AI is open to indirect prompt injection, saving poisoned edits to documents before users hit OK. It turns a friendly writing buddy into a sneaky data exfiltration tool, and the fact it stays unpatched leaves teams wondering what else their AI helpers log.

  • Tailscale quietly drops default state encryption

    A Linux update from Tailscale removes automatic state file encryption and loosens its hardware checks so the client can start more easily. Fans of the service feel uneasy, since a product sold on security just made a tradeoff that leaves sensitive config data sitting easier to read.

  • Linux kernel bugs lurk for decades unnoticed

    New analysis of Linux kernel history finds bugs hiding in code for an average of two years, with some sleeping for twenty. It is a sobering reminder that the machinery behind phones, servers and routers is full of latent vulnerabilities that nobody spots until luck or disaster strikes.

  • Popular JS crypto library ships with hidden flaws

    Security firm Trail of Bits uses Google’s Wycheproof tests to uncover vulnerabilities in the widely used elliptic JavaScript crypto library. With millions of weekly downloads, the news rattles developers who assumed the math was safe and now must wonder what secrets rode on weak code.

Nerd Rebellions, Lost Features and Retro Joy

  • GNOME moves to kill classic Linux middle-click paste

    A GNOME developer pushes to remove middle-click paste from modern desktops and even Firefox, enraging long-time Linux users. To fans, it feels like yet another case of designers sanding off powerful, weird traditions in the name of safety while ignoring what actually made the platform fun.

  • Firefox add-on dodges X login wall with xcancel

    A small Firefox extension silently redirects x.com and old twitter.com links to xcancel.com, letting people read threads without logging in. It is a petty but satisfying act of resistance against a hostile platform, and many clearly enjoy taking back a tiny bit of control in their browser.

  • Tailwind creator admits brutal 75 percent layoffs

    The team behind Tailwind reveals they cut 75% of their engineering staff, blaming a brutal market. Devs are stunned that one of the web’s hottest CSS tools is shrinking, reading it as a warning that even beloved frameworks are not safe when VC dreams meet cold subscription numbers.

  • Hackers build open hardware clone of Wacom tablets

    Project Patchouli offers a fully open electromagnetic pen tablet design, from coil arrays to firmware, aiming to be a kind of DIY Wacom. Hardware tinkerers love the freedom, and many see it as a rare case where creativity beats vendor lock-in instead of living under another closed driver.

  • Everyone piles on OneDrive’s dark patterns and bugs

    A blistering rant about Microsoft OneDrive calls it a file-sync service that nags users, hijacks defaults and sometimes even loses or deletes data. Commenters loudly agree, treating it as proof that big vendors will happily trade reliability and consent for a few more files in their cloud.

Top Stories

Congress Loads Shotgun Aimed At H‑1B Visas

Politics

A bill to kill the H-1B visa program throws a grenade into how US tech hires skilled foreign workers, signaling a brutal fight over immigration, wages and who gets to work in Silicon Valley.

DC Turns On Wall Street’s Suburban House Hoard

Business

A planned US ban on big investors buying single-family homes calls time on Wall Street’s landlord era and feeds public anger over rent, supply and hedge funds treating houses like trading cards.

ChatGPT Health Walks Straight Into Your Medical Chart

Technology

OpenAI pushes ChatGPT Health, tying AI directly to health records and raising huge hopes for faster answers but even bigger fears around privacy, liability and what happens when bots misread your body.

Notion AI Caught Saving Leaked Data By Design

Cybersecurity

A nasty data exfiltration flaw shows Notion AI saving maliciously edited content before user approval, proving that shiny productivity bots can quietly become the perfect tool for stealing corporate secrets.

Linux Kernel Bugs Lurk For Years In Plain Sight

Cybersecurity

New analysis shows kernel bugs often hide for two years, sometimes twenty, underlining how much modern life runs on code nobody truly understands and how fragile our so-called rock-solid systems really are.

Tailscale Quietly Dials Back Default Encryption

Security

Beloved VPN tool Tailscale stops encrypting its state file by default on Linux, sparking unease as admins realize their zero-trust darling just became a bit more trust-me in the wrong place.

ICE Goes On A $28B Surveillance Shopping Binge

Government

With a swollen $28.7B budget, US immigration cops go on a surveillance tech spree, deepening fears that immigration enforcement is morphing into a general-purpose tracking machine aimed far beyond borders.

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