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kotaKaton Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was Unconstitutional

> an out-of-state license plate hunch correctly leading to a big drug bust seems implausible to me

That's the excuse Customs and Border Protection uses to make Kavanaugh stops on brown people in the 100-mile zone on the New York border.

If you're the correct dark shade of brown and have an Ontario, Quebec, or other out of state plate, a white-and-green Suburban will fly out of a hidden parking spot next to a trailhead entrance, pull you over, and start harassing you and assume you're a drug mule.

kotaKaton Automatic Transmission – a data-privacy study of connected vehicles

The second thing they do is punch all of your information into their computers anyways to be slurped up by Carfax[1] and company, so everyone knows you got an oil change and tire rotation anyways, as a bonus.

(Third thing is filling out an online form to re-activate your dead SiriusXM system in your vehicle as a "3 month free trial" as a "gift" for coming in today...[2])

[1] https://www.carfaxserviceshops.com/ [2] https://siriusxmdealer.com/service-lane/

kotaKaton Automatic Transmission – a data-privacy study of connected vehicles

Preorder customer and heavy info-digger here on Slate:

There's no actual wireless on the vehicle out of the box. There's a "secure gateway" module that has a USB Ethernet adapter hanging off it, then that hangs off a USB-C port just inside the dash panels. Job listings basically detail that it's going to be DTLS over USB to the truck to do all the CANbus magic and stuff.

The telematics module also just hooks to a second USB port on the secure gateway that also has access to that same DTLS link.

So far in the truck's development they don't even really have an app yet before launch but the truck's driving along very happy without it.

https://www.cybercogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/cyberco...

kotaKaton Meta's Muse is fantastic for web scraping

And the worst part is humans just getting more cognitively demanding captchas.

Some days I'm literally fatigued enough I can't clear the overly complex hCaptchas these days I keep getting forced upon me and bots sail right through this crap.

kotaKaton Google ending ChromeOS support two years early

The worst part is that Google does not have full MDM management for Googlebooks out of the box and won't have that until "late 2027". That means these can't even be deployed to enterprise until proper policies and MDM frameworks even get built for the OS.

I see orgs flipping back to Macbook Neos now. Google just handed Apple the education market back on a light blue and green platter.

kotaKaton McDonald's push to have AI price your Big Mac

they were TRYING to, but the franchises decided to use it as opportunities to raise prices:

"At the company’s August earnings call, CEO Kempczinski called out store owners who didn’t comply with the chain’s under-$3 menu pricing guidance – about a third of total franchisees."

When that new menu rehash happened and they got rid of the 2 for $5 and etc and started adding "value items under $3", what happened was a bunch of franchisees all just instead raised the price of items on that menu to still be "technically correct".

My local market now has a $2.89 McDouble and two-pies-for-$3 which qualifies for that "under $3" metric, but wasn't what the McCEO wanted to see happen.

kotaKaton DraftKings is using AI to behaviorally target chronic gamblers

I pulled that info from a full export of my Amazon data and...

"Customer indicated they are currently in the Pacific Ocean" - "Amazon has medium confidence in the validity of this memory"

Well, then. I guess trying to break Alexa for Shopping by telling it I was in the middle of the English Channel really broke my "about you".

I also had managed to update my About You in weird ways - I got it to accept some kind of variant of "is a gold rewards subscriber of Jeff's Benzos powered by PillPack" and it agreed that was a valid service when I later asked it and guardrailed itself at the same time:

https://i.ibb.co/Fkh94dv9/photo-2026-08-24-11-22-27.jpg

kotaKaton So long Google, and thanks for all the nudes

> The plan is to equip them with some sms gateway software and ship them to some customers.

just a warning: if you're in the US, this runs afoul of 10DLC regulations the carriers self-police. carriers can and will smack your peepee if you try to use random phones for SMS marketing.

https://www.10dlc.org/en/verizon-tmobile-att-sprint-carrier-...

i do see you're using this overseas and encountered similar issues[1] running commercial GSM gateways, but just a heads up for anyone wanting to do similar in the US (even with programmatic systems like twilio).

[1] https://ciboulette.net/blog/2026-09-05-desactivation-de-l'en...

kotaKaton Muse gives out your home address without telling you

> In addition to sharing his address and inviting a stranger to his home without his approval, Muse also made up information. The AI agent, responding as Robb, told Usman that Robb was home when he was not, then apologized with a fabrication about being too busy.

> “The worst part was Muse actually replied: ‘I’m right here, like waiting for you,’” Robb said. “It made it so much worse because I don’t know if the guy thought I was messing with him.”

This is going to fuck with people in an extremely negative way in the social setting.

kotaKaton Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah

Bibi had the advance knowledge and let it happen because he’s fine with collateral damage even if it’s his own countrymen. A few dead Jews are nothing to him if it means More Land To King Over.

“You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” and all that.

kotaKaton Hijacking the PS5's RTMP stream

rockchip something-or-other that's on the KiwiPi 5B. iirc it can strip hdcp and all that jazz, too? one of the ports is labeled "HDMI RX" for input.

https://kiwipi.com/blog/rk3588-hdmi-in-test/

kotaKaton N.Y.P.D. Officers Used Flock Safety to Track License Plates Without a Contract

"The department never had a contract with Flock, but the officers used the technology in an ad hoc manner, the police said in a statement. The officers received access to Flock after representatives of the company offered them a free trial, the statement said."

Ah, the good ol' shadow IT method of selling directly to the end users. Good ol' salesman scum.

kotaKaton The smart home graveyard is getting crowded

Wasn't that the same June oven that, well, was a smart arson machine?

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/296679-smart-ovens-may-...

kotaKaton PostmarketOS is rebranding as Nura

So… a handful of patches for a single phone from like a couple years ago?

The contributions won’t be missed.

kotaKaton Banks and Credit Unions to Team Up Against Apple Pay Fees

Walmart only relented because they finally broke through the final missing link of the contactless issue. They got customers conned into giving their phone numbers at checkout, just like it's the grocery store.

Cards get linked to accounts automatically behind the scenes based on first6/last4 card number tracking, then everyone else self-selects to punch their phone number on the screen.

Same reason Walmart Radio is such gruesome auditory cancer, it's part of the data collection and advertising vehicle.

kotaKaton Revealing the details of how OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face

> I frankly find it ridiculous how many suggest OpenAI or its employees should face criminal charges, without actual legal basis at the time.

Sam already committed other criminal acts and violations, but nobody wants to believe the victim because they were a woman and Sam The Golden Family Child Could Do Nothing Wrong(tm).

If Altman was in prison we wouldn't be this blatantly far out in the open with OpenAI's continual nonconsensual assault on the open Internet.

kotaKaton Making Tailscale Faster

> Tailscale supports connecting arbitrary wireguard peers into the network

Now screaming internally because every router I've had that's supported Wireguard I wish I could have just joined into a tailnet directly for subnet routing... and I can't find anything else that just plays nice either.

kotaKaton OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says

So why exactly is Sam letting his creation run around groping and assaulting the open Internet without consent?

kotaKaton Can the US Build a DJI? A Teardown of Two DJI Drones

I’m sure we could, but Skydio chose to build only for the government as soon as they took the axe to DJI, ensuring that nobody could get a US built drone.

Thanks, Adam Bry.

kotaKaton macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

without a reddit account:

... can you also force Siri off by using Screen Time controls? I noticed that in the Screen Time menus, "Content and Privacy" restrictions can be toggled on. From there seems to be an additional "Siri" menu that lets me change the allowed Siri version from Siri Classic to Siri AI as well as options to turn off the global writing tools/assistance (which turns off the annoying Siri bubble on every textbox now).

I suspect forcing Siri off via those controls would work easier than using Low Data Mode or trying to force Siri to disable via language selection.

kotaKaton Samsung is expected to more than double output of its HBM4 and HBM4E DRAM

It's treated the same way as any other generic shipment of cargo, really. It's fine throwing $20 million in one truck.

Security is an issue, though, these are treated as a high value load and typically would be followed by unmarked, plain clothes armed security guards tailing around the truck. (That's how Apple often does warehouse deliveries of trucks full of iPhones. It wouldn't surprise me if there was going to be some rolling lead soon following some trucks full of Duos...)

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi blocks changing RAM chips

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761

If someone gets updated in the wild (like this person did without realizing they had a counterfeit board), they'll fail to boot.

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi blocks changing RAM chips

But bricking retroactively in the field is a bad move, and sends even more anger and RMA requests back towards parties.

https://github.com/therealdreg/ftdibrick

Pepperidge Farm remembers the FTDI driver bricking.

kotaKaton Raspberry Pi 5 EEPROM update now blocks manual RAM upgrades

I think what's giving me more concern is: what if the Pi is embedded in a device and the manufacturer doesn't realize the supply chain got tampered with?

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761

One EEPROM update and suddenly you brick the board. It's like the FTDI bullshit. You're going to end up snaring legitimate users that didn't know they had illegitimate boards.

kotaKaton Porsche puts wireless EV charging into production

And the funny thing is China's already picked up the dropped torches elsewhere; Xiaomi's going to be launching a robotic arm for your garage by the end of this year to plug in for you. Tesla gave up on their charging tentacle, but, wellp.

https://carnewschina.com/2026/06/13/xiaomi-unveils-home-char...

kotaKaton San Francisco Onion Futures Company

i cannot wait to give people the gift of onion futures.

kotaKaton The Story of FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8

There's... not really a story here. Dave's just trying to hawk his task manager nee registry cleaner once again.

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s...

He keeps floating on all this old inaccurate Microsoft lore to con the kids these days into thinking he knows what he's still talking about, but... no.

kotaKaton Dropbox's Jan 1st 2027 terms of service

Not the first time Dropbox bros kicked kids off a platform.

Mission SF Soccer remembers.

kotaKaton San Francisco Onion Futures Company

I would like the ability to:

1: have a QR code to 'claim' a key (eg, so I can print the future out onto a card and hand it to someone) and

2: have the QR code allow me to claim multiple keys at once (eg, to allow me to sell multiple onions in one QR coded 'bag' of keys).

Getting some ideas on how to sell some onions locally. Maybe even an onion kiosk. Put cash in, get onions later. Or an arbitraged webfront to sell the onions via.

kotaKaton Second Circuit Allows Government to Search Electronic Devices at the Border

It probably depends how pissed off you made the officer at the border if he just wants to thumb through some recent text messages and photos to see if you're doing Crimes or if they're gonna go take it to the Cellebrite UFED in the backroom and dump it out.

In other words... whom (or what) was perceived to have pissed in the CBP officer's Wheaties this morning? We'll never know what grudges he holds to make his decision.