> GitBook has been the target of a sophisticated, highly targeted attack using AI agents
Serious question: How do you know it was using AI agents? What logs distinguish it from a human?
I see this claim a lot and while I don't doubt AI is being used for this, I have a hard time believing every breach has a smoking gun showing it to be an AI assisted attack.
My guess is the speed of exfiltration/exploration of the environment is probably impossible for a human, or even a small team. But I'm also curious what their evidence is.
Generally the speed of breaking through components of the tech stack. They chain exploits and they move through the system at a rate that's far faster than even a team of humans could pull off
I agree the proposed wealth tax is a bad idea, but raising property taxes is probably not viable. They are incredibly unfavorable to voters. No one who owns a home wants to pay rent, that's why you buy in the first place.
Personally, this is why I am fine with higher income or sales taxes.
Not even the poor. Really everyone working. I would much rather sleep all day and live off of a pile of money than to show up somewhere and do something for money. That's the tax -- 35% of your waking hours are now at the service of someone else. And yet, they charge income tax on that. Stay home and live off a stash of money in your mattress, 0% tax, 0 obligations. Wake up and commute to work, 35% of your week gone, 35% of your "income" gone.
I am not even that mad that I personally have to pay taxes. I enjoy funding government programs! I think I owe society something! But it sure doesn't make sense that already being rich makes you immune to giving back to the society that made you that way.
Which is why the majority of people in California who work for a living shouldn’t be carrying any water for billionaires or hundred millionaires, you could even extend that down to someone who’s worth 10 million, until you get to that level, you don’t realize how many people over that level have it very easy.
In comparison to the majority of the population, you know the other 99%. That’s right, you heard it right. 99% of the population does not have $10 million free and clear without debt. In other words, if you are still paying off your house you are not in that upper bracket.
the rich are an astounding amount of wealthy such that they dont show up and still make a good poor wage in the first couple hours/days of a year by their assets increasing in value
you are poor, even if you are doing plenty well for yourself
The numbers on wealth distribution are shocking, to say the least. I think wealth taxes without loopholes are a really good idea in the current circumstances, infact I believe it may not go far enough. And I think there has to be a global concerted effort to tax wealth.
The working class are starting to choke and drown in financial stress, and this will only get worse. Capital naturally accretes and we've never had this level of capital concentration in human history.
> No one who owns a home wants to pay rent, that's why you buy in the first place.
If this is actually a common attitude, people are... ridiculous. Real property is a limited resource, and allowing people to own property comes with strings attached. This is a pretty normal thing in very many places.
But I do agree that raising property taxes in CA in particular is a politically toxic topic.
They just want continually delivered services from the city funded by taking out increasing amounts of debt or selling off new land in a ponzi scheme to fund existing obligations.
Sales Taxes are the worst ones. Burden on seller, burden on buyer, regressive. Income is more fair but easy to mask-out for the wealthy. Property is meh, Wealth tax is the best one. Assuming all were well designed.
Sales tax and the gasoline tax are use taxes. They are about as fair (democratic) as you’re gonna get because it’s based upon use most the other taxes whether they’re high or low, you can’t escape from particularly if you are the average person in the middle, and once again, if you benefit from capital gains, that is a huge life-changing benefit, which most working people don’t have. Vote yes. on proposition 40 if you are in California the less than .001 and even the 1% will easily survive.
Some items taxable, some are not. Keep track. Some have different rates depending on who's buying, keep track. Buyers in different locations pay different rates, keep track. The rules change frequently, keep track. Collect money for the govt, keep track. Remit quarterly or face penalty.
There complexity and overhead on sales taxes; more than on an income, retained earnings or wealth taxes.
Also, sales taxes take more percent of wealth away from the lower wealth bracket than from the upper wealth bracket.
I got a Costco hot dog the other day, and it looked like the 2023 version. The 2026 one looks comical, like someone took an off the shelf bun and put the dog in it. Maybe that particular Costco ran out of the normal buns?
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how this is enforceable for a company not based in California? Can CA fine a data broker that is based in another state but that is selling CA residents' information?
The company would have to not have any interstate presence at all. If you are a business based in the united states that has customers in California, you are easily reachable under California law.
Look up "long arm statutes". State courts can have jurisdiction over out-of-state entities, subject to limitations established by federal precedent. Doing business with customers who reside in a state generally puts you under that state's jurisdiction, at least for purposes related to that business.
From another California regulation (requiring telemarketers to register and secure a bond):
A seller is deemed to be doing business in the state if the seller solicits prospective purchasers from locations in California or solicits prospective purchasers who are located in this state.'
The DROP act creates a right to California residents. To the extent I've read the statute, it doesn't define what entities are covered (see: <https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...>), which seems to me to suggest that affected entities are defined by their data collection from California residents, not where or how they engage in activities otherwise in California.
Doing business is doing business, money isn't necessary to "do business". If you hold any interest and that person has any relationship with you in a way that can be inferred that a contract is implied, then that's business. That's why travel to get an "agreement" is considered a business expense, even if the agreement never materialize.
I’m not sure the definition matters here. Either you are doing business and this regulation makes certain things now illegal; or you are not doing business and it’s unsolicited and spam.
If you've collected data on a California resident with the intent to profit from its sale then you're doing some type of business with respect to California
Comity iirc is the legal principle of mutually recognizing other states laws (giving them jurisdiction) as in recognizing a marriage contract in other states (and they recognize yours).
This feels like bloviating. You are unlikely to be subject to this law, and even if you were your lawyers probably wouldn't advise you to ignore laws in states where you operate. (If you don't operate in California or on California residents, then you are obviously not subject to this law.) And you're lawyers would definitely not recommend posting publicly that you plan to willfully break this law. Which suggests to me that you are just blowing hot air online.
Agreed. I almost exclusively use the "middle click" autoscroll feature to scroll on websites. It is completely broken on this site because of the scroll-snap.
While there were many zealots that gave SO this reputation, I don't know if that's the reason it died.
As someone who frequently answered questions in the 'New' queue, the sheer amount of rule breaking, low effort, and obvious duplicates was astounding.
I eventually quit answering questions because 99% of them were not worth interacting with. Just vote close and move on.
Ultimately, I think SO is dead because it got too popular and moderation became untenable.
You sound exactly like an enforcer of the cultural problem the GP was talking about. Group think is healthy in small doses, but overdo it and it kills the group.
It's simply not on a new user to understand whatever group interpretation you have made up on top of the written rules. There is no platonic ideal of a good question, the project was doomed from the start if people take that idea seriously. The UX says submit a question about coding while the unwritten rules say submit a flawless peer-reviewed abstract or we close in 3 minutes.
Ironically those 99% asking low effort questions will gain more than everybody who looks at a "high value" question put together. Truly, nobody on SO learned anything writing those questions, they were just regurgitating their phd/previous work. It was grossly performative and I'm glad it's gone.
When I say "low effort", I don't mean "not perfect". I was quite lax actually as I understood how annoying some users were when I asked my own questions.
I'm taking about entirely unreadable posts (not English, or just nonsensical) or posts that were very clearly a copy paste homework question with no code.
I helped hundreds of people of all skill levels for free, simply because I found it enjoyable. I quit when it stopped being enjoyable. It stopped being enjoyable when the quality of question declined to 99% garbage.
Can you imagine ChatGPT terminating a conversation because it thought your question was "low effort?" The behavior wouldn't be viewed as helpful or aligned, and nobody would use it.
StackOverflow was, all too often, not helpful or aligned. It died because the staff were unable to get the moderators to be helpful.
Well there are new users all the time and can’t expect them to now all of the in’s and out’s of the rules while posted there are still hidden rules. It’s become a toxic site.
Serious question: How do you know it was using AI agents? What logs distinguish it from a human?
I see this claim a lot and while I don't doubt AI is being used for this, I have a hard time believing every breach has a smoking gun showing it to be an AI assisted attack.
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