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Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

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Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#191

Post by mschuster91 »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #133
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chem/bio stuff is a lot more likely for some malicious hobbyist to be able to do at home.

I strongly recommend you read the book Amerithrax [0]. The book gives some historical examples of malicious groups [1][2] trying to use biological agents. Also, it is far harder to weaponize biological weapons than people think. Notes: 0 - https://www.amazon.com/Amerithrax-Anthrax-Killer-Robert-Gray... . Amerithrax was the name of the FBI investigation. https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/amerithrax-o...…

> Tried multiple times to weaponize anthrax and failed. This was a group that made an automated factory to build AK-47s. Eventually, they spread sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway.

What's most worrying is, Russia showed that you can use carfentanyl / fentanyl for the very same purpose, and that kind of stuff is something you can get shipped by the kilos as "research chemicals" from China or make it yourself.

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#193

Post by mschuster91 »

15155 wrote: post #47
charcircuit wrote: post #6

The sooner frontier models get rid of guardrails the better. They constantly get in the way and make things worse than actually making things "safe".

Ignoring these specific "WMD" cases: there are many inconvenient facts that the general public can't handle in their unadulterated form, so Anthropic and friends have to caveat and spin them into oblivion. Guardrails aren't going anywhere.

> there are many inconvenient facts that the general public can't handle in their unadulterated form

These being?

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#194

Post by 205guy »

why_at wrote: post #107
im3w1l wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of radioactive stuff together is basically the definition of a nuclear reactor though. They even call it a natural nuclear reactor if uranium ore is in sufficient abundance in nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

>A bunch of radioactive stuff together is basically the definition of a nuclear reactor though. It really isn't. A pile of radioactive waste isn't a reactor. Marie Curie's notes are famously contaminated with radioactive materials but they aren't a reactor. This is about as close as the boy scout got. The Oklo fossil reactor is unique because it happened to form in the right circumstances to produce a fission chain r…

Also note that due to isotope decay in the ore, a natural reactor is no longer possible. From the wikipedia article:

"A key factor that made the reaction possible was that, at the time the reactor went critical 1.7 billion years ago, the fissile isotope 235U made up about 3.1% of the natural uranium, which is comparable to the amount used in some of today's reactors. [...] the current abundance of 235U in natural uranium is only 0.72%. A natural nuclear reactor is therefore no longer possible on Earth without heavy water or graphite."

Another fascinating detail from the article, due to our understanding of fission, we can get some incredible results:

"The concentrations of xenon isotopes, found trapped in mineral formations 2 billion years later, make it possible to calculate the specific time intervals of reactor operation: approximately 30 minutes of criticality followed by 2 hours and 30 minutes of cooling down"

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#195

Post by aeonik »

xpct wrote: post #183
gastonmorixe wrote: post #97

You can’t even ask about what’s in HN right now. It will switch to 4.8.

Actually, even Opus 4.8 completely switched off on me and suggested Haiku when I asked about today's Arch Linux AUR malware.

Codex scanned my whole Arch Linux system, documented all the findings, and wrote the queries for my IDS to keep a watch for exfil and other IoCs. Set up the alerts for me too.

The queries kinda sucked at first, but it was pretty awesome to get to spend more time with my kids while Codex would manage the incident response for me.

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#197

Post by senordevnyc »

mschuster91 wrote: post #193
15155 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring these specific "WMD" cases: there are many inconvenient facts that the general public can't handle in their unadulterated form, so Anthropic and friends have to caveat and spin them into oblivion. Guardrails aren't going anywhere.

> there are many inconvenient facts that the general public can't handle in their unadulterated form These being?

Nice try.

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#198

Post by aaron695 »

elashri wrote: post #16

I still don't know why all these concern about nuclear weapons with LLMs. It is not that if an entity (A country) wants to develop a nuclear weapons that the resources they need for such a program and huge infrastructure and scientific enterprise would need an LLM to teach them anything. Knowing how to develop one is not a closed secret but getting in secret is impossible without the whole world knowing. So I wouldn'…

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Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#199

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #182
lazide wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Was something I said unclear? The purpose was to clarify that the obstacles to constructing modern nuclear weapons is not accurately characterized as "99%" fuel-related. Even if a group were to obtain a stockpile of ready HEU and plutonium-239, there is knowledge they simply will not have because they did not spend a trillion USD testing different bomb configurations last century. The difference in yield is two order…

And that is relevant how?

I'm sure something in the few dozen kilotons range doesn't need all that stuff,

while still giving you more than enough heat-rays to "enjoy".

Re: Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware

#200

Post by slt2021 »

kirubakaran wrote: post #91
technothrasher wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of when my son, who was six at the time, came into the house and announced that he and the neighbor's boy, nine, were building a bomb, and that he needed to get some stuff from the pantry. When I investigated what exactly was going on, they were putting "hot" things like black pepper and Tabasco into a plastic bowl and were going to "set it off" with a match. Thankfully, that complete failure seems to ha…

When I was 5 or so, I was convinced that if I dropped a bowl of hot water into a bucket of cold water, I'd get big explosion. That experiment yielding lukewarm water ended my mad scientist career.

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