Backdoored Robot Dogs, “Slopsquatting” Supply‑Chain Hacks & Stanford’s 2025 AI Index - oh my…
From undisclosed tunnels inside robot dogs to AI‑hallucinated package traps and the freshest data in Stanford’s new AI report—catch the week’s must‑read security and tech insights in five minutes.
Dear Friend –
To celebrate the launch of Charlie Brooker’s seventh season of his cult classic Black Mirror (the proto-dystopian future TV show), we took our lovely, innocent online interpretation of “The Thing from the Future” (originally created as a card game by Stuart Candy and Jeff Watson at the Situation Lab) and created a dark (very dark), dystopian version of it. The game is designed to get players to dream up and describe artifacts from a wide range of possible futures – things like:
“In a future defined by Joy, there is a Magazine Cover related to Citizenship. What is it?”
Now, if you dare, you can explore (sometimes very) dark possible futures…
Trigger Warning: Some of the randomly generated “things” might trigger you and can be quite dark. Please use caution!
Give it a try – and if you prefer positive futures (as we do), here is the original version.
And now, this…
Headlines from the Future
Unitree Go 1- Who Is Speaking to My Dog? ↗
What happens when you create a rather powerful robot dog (the Unitree Go1), which is being used in all kinds of real-world applications – from surveillance and security to disaster recovery and beyond – and put a backdoor for easy corporate access?
Unitree did pre-install a tunnel without notifying its customers. Anybody with access to the API key can freely access all robot dogs on the tunnel network, remotely control them, use the vision cameras to see through their eyes or even hop on the RPI via ssh.
Not concerning at all…
These robot dogs are marketed at a wide spectrum of use-cases, from research in Universities, search and rescue missions from the police to military use cases in active war. Imagining a robot dog in this sensitive areas with an active tunnel to the manufacturer who can remotely control the device at will is concerning.
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The Rise of Slopsquatting: How AI Hallucinations Are Fueling a New Class of Supply Chain Attacks ↗
AI hallucinations can be hilarious in the best of cases, mislead you in others, and now create very real security risks when used in coding assistance (or even better, “vibe coding”).
Welcome to the age of slopsquatting: “[…] It refers to the practice of registering a non-existent package name hallucinated by an LLM, in hopes that someone, guided by an AI assistant, will copy-paste and install it without realizing it’s fake.”
And the problem is pretty darn real: “19.7% of all recommended packages didn’t exist. Open source models hallucinated far more frequently—21.7% on average—compared to commercial models at 5.2%. […] Package confusion attacks, like typosquatting, dependency confusion, and now slopsquatting, continue to be one of the most effective ways to compromise open source ecosystems.”
Better know what you are doing when you code your next app.
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Stanford’s AI Report 2025 ↗
In case you haven’t seen it yet (and are looking for some weekend reading), Stanford’s annual AI Index Report for 2025 just came out.
The report is chockfull of insights about where artificial intelligence is heading.
Perfect timing for those of you wanting to dive deeper into understanding the current state of AI technology. I highly recommend setting aside some time this weekend to explore the findings.
What We Are Reading
🔮 How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025 This updated analysis reveals how people are using generative AI today amid rapid developments, including Custom GPTs, new competitors, voice commands, chain-of-thought reasoning, and significantly reduced costs over the past year. @Jane
📱 The Best Thing About the Masters: No Phones No phones, just vibes. People pay thousands for a ticket to the Masters, where they can’t even post a selfie proving they were there. But that’s part of the attraction, and fans are more than happy to fully disconnect and enjoy the show. @Mafe
🌡️ Trump’s Climate Denial Is a Gift to China The radically diverging climate policies of the US and China might determine the future of the global economy—and more. @Jeffrey
🚀 The Wild Plan to Terraform Mars by Slamming Asteroids Into It Turning Mars into a second Earth? Just hurl some water-rich asteroids at it and wait a few decades. @Kacee
🔍 A Small US City Is Experimenting With AI to Find Out What Residents WantThis case provides a great example of how new tools can be adopted to conduct tasks in a more efficient or entirely new manner. At the same time, the technology or tool itself is rarely the answer to the challenge. As anyone working on customer insights knows, the formulation of desire itself is never the full picture. @Julian
🛍️ Viral Videos, Trade Tensions Drive U.S. Shoppers to Chinese App The Chinese e-commerce app DHgate has rapidly gained popularity in the U.S., becoming the second-most downloaded app on Apple’s App Store, fueled by viral TikTok videos revealing how luxury Western goods are made in the same Chinese factories as unbranded, lower-cost alternatives. @Pedro
👶 The End of Children Rapidly declining birth rates are the norm now around the world, which creates very real problems that we might want to worry about. @Pascal
Rabbit Hole Recommendations
The Evolving AI Landscape
AI in Society: Challenges & Concerns
People are falling in love with AI companions, and it could be dangerous.
I tested the AI that calls your elderly parents if you can’t be bothered.
AI Philosophy & Perspectives
Science & Health
Advancing precision care in pregnancy through a treatable fetal findings list.
Rising temperatures could cancel most outdoor school sports in summer by 2060s.
Society & Economics
Design & Creativity
Happy Distractions
🚢 In 2023, a team of scientists created a high-resolution 3D scan (“digital twin”) of the Titanic. Now, their simulation of the Titanic’s sinking confirms a historical testimony.
🚇 Gorgeous visualization of the London Underground – in 3D and real time.
😺 Garfield minus Garfield makes for a deeply philosophical exploration of the human psyche.
🍊 Questions which require an answer: How much oranger do red orange bags make oranges look?
🌌 Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity - in words of four letters or less.
🙍🏼♂️ Who would have thought? The dark side of the Moomins.
💬 The Ford executive who kept score of colleagues’ verbal flubs.
🚸 Simulated Musk, Zuckerberg voices are speaking from hacked crosswalk buttons.
😜 Darwin’s children drew all over the On the Origin of Species manuscript.