Might be useful…
https://www.bespacific.com/find-the-citations-that-need-a-second-look-before-you-file/
Find the citations that need a second look before you file.
CiteProof checks every citation in your brief against public court records — including AI-fabricated citations — and quoted passages in paid checks. You get a report that shows what verified, what needs your attention, and what we could not check.
A firm grasp of the obvious?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/america-now-ally-russia/689066/
America Is Now an Ally of Russia
In the past week, the president of the United States has conclusively turned America into an ally of the Russian Federation.
Donald Trump has now abandoned pretense and is openly aiding the Kremlin in its war against a friend and partner of the U.S. The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful—and powerful—security arrangement in human history. To judge from the available evidence, he has not done so out of a cold calculation of the national interest. Instead, he has based his decisions on his own interests; his open admiration for Russia’s dictator; his resentment of Ukraine’s democratically elected president; and quite possibly other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public.
Interesting article.
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ai-and-the-knowledge-problem-in-higher-ed/
AI and the Knowledge Problem in Higher Ed
A familiar bit of bureaucratic reasoning, described as “politician’s logic” in the British comedy Yes, Prime Minister, goes something like this: Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.
I suspect some of the rush to create AI courses at colleges and universities reflects this sort of thinking. Universities recognize that artificial intelligence is changing the workplace. They want graduates to be prepared for those changes. Creating a course, or perhaps a sequence of courses, seems like an obvious response.
But it isn’t clear that creating an AI course will actually address the problem.
AI is already changing accounting, marketing, finance, nursing, engineering, economics, and dozens of other fields. Universities are understandably concerned about preparing students to use these tools. But what does it mean to promise graduates a working knowledge of AI? And who is qualified to teach it?
Good news and bad news.
https://www.bespacific.com/uneven-intelligence-of-ai-in-comparative-constitutional-law/
The (Currently) Uneven Intelligence of AI in Comparative Constitutional Law
Chilton, Adam, Langlois, Arthur, Dittmer, Jan-Ulrich; Versteeg, Mila: The (Currently) Uneven Intelligence of AI in Comparative Constitutional Law: From Years of Research to a Single Prompt?, VerfBlog, 2026/10/14, https://verfassungsblog.de/the-currently-uneven-intelligence-of-ai-in-comparative-constitutional-law/, DOI: 10.59704/a3baf260ef374567.
This potential has inspired numerous projects exploring how AI could help scholarship on constitutional law. For example, there is research using AI to interpret constitutions, apply constitutional principles, and predict court rulings. Even the question of whether AI could improve the process of constitution-making has been studied. AI’s potential is particularly significant for comparative constitutional research. Systematically comparing legal systems requires locating sources from different jurisdictions, which are often difficult to access and only available in local languages. The creation of comparative legal datasets has thus involved considerable personnel, time, and financial resources. AI can overcome many of these obstacles. AI models can search for and translate foreign-language sources, filter them, and convert the filtered information into a dataset. In doing so, AI offers the prospect of datasets — which previously required years of research and the efforts of numerous experts and research assistants to compile — being just a prompt away. However, whether AI models can generate comparative law datasets that are qualitatively comparable to human-coded datasets has not yet been addressed (although Guha et al provide an example for a broader legal benchmarking exercise).5) We therefore conducted our own benchmarking study.6) We found evidence suggesting that recent AI models may be able to code simple factual data, but they are likely unreliable substitutes for expert human coders when conceptual or interpretive judgment is required.
Attacks on Ukrainian logistics in other countries.
Attempted arson at Lithuanian firm storing Starlink equipment, PM blames Russia
“Just after midnight last night, there was another incident – an attempt was made to set fire to a Lithuanian company where Starlink communications equipment is stored. The authorities had warned the company about possible attacks, security had been stepped up, and the attempt failed,” Sinkevičius said in a post on Facebook.
If I refuse to pay the price they want, will that impact future offers? How do they know I refused, increased surveillance? (Privacy Foundation https://law.du.edu/content/the-privacy-foundation seminar on this topic Friday Oct 23rd. Details soon?)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/retail/2026/10/15/surveillance-shopping-prices/92124063007/
Are you paying more than other shoppers? How to protect your wallet
At a time when American shoppers are seeing price hikes from tariffs, the war with Iran and inflation, there's another reason some shoppers are paying different prices, some consumer advocates and lawmakers say.
It's surveillance pricing, which uses personalized information about you to potentially change the price. That is different than dynamic pricing, which is often called surge pricing, and changes with supply and demand.
"Pricing has changed in our economy and in our country,'' said Lindsay Owens, author of "Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet." "It used to be simple. How much does it cost to make the item, what's the profit margin and put a sticker on it. Now it is a highly engineered science. Companies hire physicists, they hire AI specialists. They build algorithms that can change prices in a nanosecond at retail locations across this country."
(Related)
https://digital.sandiego.edu/mcnair-summer/42/
What, Exactly, Is Surveillance Pricing?
(Related)
https://epic.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/explaining-surveillance-pricing-2026.pdf
EXPLAINING SURVEILLANCE PRICING AND OTHER DATADRIVEN PRICING PRACTICES
Moscow law?
https://criminaljustice.jurisocial.org/index.php/jjccj/article/view/6
Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Legal Decision-Making
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to support legal and public decision-making, including legal research, document review, risk assessment, administrative processing, and other forms of decision support. Its use can improve speed, consistency, and institutional capacity, but it can also create risks concerning opacity, discriminatory effects, automation bias, procedural fairness, privacy, and the allocation of responsibility. This article examines those risks through qualitative doctrinal analysis and focused comparative policy analysis. It considers the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Loomis, the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act, Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making, Council of Europe guidance on AI and judicial systems, and selected interdisciplinary scholarship. The article argues that the central legal problem is not simply whether an AI system is accurate, but whether its use can be reconciled with requirements of lawful authority, reasoned decision-making, equality, contestability, institutional accountability, and effective remedy. The article further distinguishes decision-support systems from systems that materially automate or determine legal outcomes and argues that the required safeguards should be proportionate to the legal stakes and degree of automation. The analysis also considers Pakistan, where constitutional fair-trial, equality, dignity, and due-process principles provide an existing legal vocabulary for evaluating public-sector AI, while the National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2025 provides a policy framework rather than a substitute for legislation. The article concludes that responsible public-sector AI requires layered governance: lawful authority, impact assessment, procurement controls, validation and monitoring, meaningful human review, reasons and notice, auditability, access to remedy, and institutional technical capacity.
For nerds and doomers alike…
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/10/ai-neuron-blog-post/689058/
The Blog Post That Set the AI World on Fire
For the past 24 hours, Silicon Valley has been obsessed with a 26,000-word blog post by the AI researcher Nick Cammarata. The document has been called the “the most important essay,” “the most important result,” and “the single best piece of news” of the year, or in the history of AI research—or, perhaps, ever. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman lauded it. Cammarata makes a series of bold, almost astonishing claims about the nature of AI that, if true, would upend some of his industry’s basic assumptions about the very thing it is building. And after months of AI-hacking sprees and mounting public backlash against the industry, many people see Cammarata as offering a glimmer of hope when it comes to not just understanding but also controlling the technology being unleashed on the world.
Will the report reflect real reality or Trump reality?
Trump's AI Task Force To Commission Report On Technology's Risks
President Donald Trump's artificial intelligence task force in its first meeting agreed on Thursday to address risks related to cybersecurity, biosecurity and "model control and accountability" as fears rise over the potential dangers posed by the technology.
The panel known as the Super Intelligence Force - using the president's preferred term for artificial intelligence - will commission a report from the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology to evaluate those and other concerns, according to a White House account of the meeting.
The task force will also "develop protocols and mechanisms for labs to provide early warnings and systemized notifications to the government of breaches, hacks, jailbreaks, and other issues," it said.
In addition, the group, led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, plans to "establish a law enforcement and consumer protection coordination committee including the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, and various agencies," the White House said.
AI for fun and profit?
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/openai-ai-deepfake-evidence-courts-1826007
OpenAI Warns Courts May Have No Reliable Way to Spot AI Deepfake Evidence
AI-generated deepfakes could make it harder for US courts to establish whether audio and video evidence is genuine, creating a growing challenge for judges who must decide what material can be trusted in a trial.
Representatives from OpenAI and Meta raised the concern at a 15 October meeting of the US Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules in Boston. Their warning comes as the judiciary considers whether existing authentication standards can cope with increasingly convincing fabricated recordings.
However, the immediate scale of the problem remains unclear. A Federal Judicial Center survey found that only 15 of the 931 judges who responded had encountered a case in which a party challenged evidence on the grounds that it was a deepfake.
That gap between predicted risks and reported cases puts the judiciary in a difficult position: changing evidence rules too soon could create unnecessary burdens, while waiting too long could leave courts struggling to assess sophisticated fabrications.
Another infrastructure target…
Attack on BAE-managed system disrupts US bankruptcy courts
The US' bankruptcy courts are currently down owing to what officials are calling a “cybersecurity incident.”
The Administrative Office of the US Courts said the websites and systems that support the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC), which manages electronic comms related to bankruptcy cases, were pulled offline while the vendor investigates.
It just gets worser and worser.
https://www.cfr.org/articles/trumps-diesel-deal-with-russia-was-just-the-start
Trump’s “Diesel Deal” With Russia Was Just the Start
When U.S. President Donald Trump announced his diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of last week, after the two of them had a long phone chat, it was easy to shrug off the move as a feeble effort to limit energy prices in advance of the midterms. Sure, the decision to buy more diesel by relaxing sanctions on Moscow was probably illegal. And yes, it was made without any consultation of U.S. allies. Worst of all, it came just as Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities were ramping up—a bad look, to say the very least. Yet if all the diesel deal showed was that Trump was a bad negotiator (we knew that, right?), that he cared little for alliance solidarity (ditto), and that he was willing to let Putin have a few billion dollars in additional export earnings, the real-world impact of what the president had done might be relatively limited.
A week later, the story looks disturbingly different; the possible consequences, much more serious, and likely to last well beyond the midterms. A day after announcing new diesel imports from Russia, Trump began calling for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s removal from office. He followed this up by claiming that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to suspend attacks on each other’s main energy targets (for the Ukrainians, that meant oil refineries in Russia; for the Russians, the Ukrainian electric grid). This, it quickly became clear, was pure invention. Reports suggested what had actually happened was that U.S. negotiators were pressing the Ukrainian government to do something far more radical than a mutual ceasefire—to cease its attacks unilaterally, whether Russia complied or not.
On another front, we find there is no clearly defined “front.”
https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/10/iran-b1-bomber-drones-new-era-military-diffusion
Why the Pentagon Was So Spooked About the B–1 Bombers in England
Since March, the United States had stationed a dozen B-1 Lancer long-range bombers at RAF Fairford in southern England to support its air war against Iran. These aircraft are especially valuable because they can fly at supersonic speeds while carrying massive payloads of guided and unguided weapons. The bombers that were stationed at Fairford are worth an estimated $3.8 billion and account for one-quarter of Washington’s B-1 arsenal.
Over the weekend of October 3, military commanders abruptly evacuated the entire B-1 fleet from Fairford amid fears of an imminent Iranian attack. The removal order was so sudden that the Pentagon reportedly lacked aerial refueling planes for the bombers even as they were taking off.
… What had spooked the Pentagon? Sensitive intelligence suggested that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was planning a complex multistage drone attack against the base. Reportedly, they intended to use unmarked vans parked a quarter-mile from the fence line of Fairford to launch armed drones against the B-1s, which were sitting out in the open, as well as to target the several hundred U.S. military personnel stationed there.
The Iranian operation bore a striking resemblance to a similar effort, known as Operation Spider’s Web, carried out by Ukraine last year against Russia.
Trump lifts sanctions and buys diesel fuel from Russia, then stops notifying Ukraine of incoming missiles and drones, then slows the phones… Perhaps Russia has made him a better offer?
Ukraine says new Starlink restrictions disrupt military as it reels from intel gaps and Trump clash
Ukraine has accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of undermining its ability to defend itself by limiting Starlink internet services as it reeled from intense Russian ballistic missile attacks that it said came without the usual warning from allies.
Musk put the responsibility for the restrictions on President Donald Trump’s shoulders on social media, saying the military version of Starlink, called Starshield, is owned and controlled by the U.S. government.
“Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” Musk said.
Could this actually work? I’m interested in learning how spammers will bypass this.
https://thehackernews.com/2026/10/india-mandates-registered-caller-name.html
India Mandates Registered Caller Name Display on 4G and Newer Networks From November 1
The Indian government has directed telecom service providers (TSPs) in the country to mandatorily display callers' registered names along with their numbers for incoming calls starting November 1, 2026, in an effort to help people identify calls from unknown numbers and tackle spam or fraudulent calls.
Suspicions confirmed.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6149753-trump-montana-rally-iran-war/
Trump on Iran talks: ‘I don’t know who the hell we’re negotiating with’
President Trump said Wednesday night at a rally in Montana that he wasn’t sure who U.S. officials were negotiating with in their efforts to bring an end to the Iran war.
“They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. Their army is decimated. Their leaders are gone,” the president said, referencing the state of the Iranian military while discussing the conflict. “I should have probably left their leaders because I don’t know who the hell we’re negotiating with.”
Demonstration of an attack vector.
Grocery store hack could have broader implications, national security expert says
Customers attempting to shop online with Giant, Stop & Shop and Food Lion on Wednesday found some websites and mobile apps unavailable as parent company Ahold Delhaize responded to a cybersecurity incident affecting its network.
The company said it is working to restore affected systems after taking some services offline. Stores remain open, and Ahold Delhaize says it has found no evidence that customer data was stolen.
For some shoppers, the most visible impact was the temporary loss of digital tools such as coupons and online ordering.
"Two things that struck me here: there has been no kind of demand for ransom, no PII, no personal information of customers has been spilled out or stolen, so what's the reason for doing this?" said national security expert Jack Tomarchio.
The fight goes on…
As Federal Court Rules ALPRs are Mass Surveillance, EFF Gets Disappointing Ruling
In an extremely disappointing ruling, a California trial court dismissed SIREN v. San Jose, our case challenging the city of San Jose’s warrantless searches of its vast stores of automated license plate reader (ALPR) data. EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent SIREN and CAIR California, two non-profits that serve San Jose residents, in this case.
Make no mistake: We believe this ruling is wrong on the law, and we will appeal. The ruling ignores the importance of landmark rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the invasiveness of aggregating collected data on an individual over time, including one issued just months ago. It also severely underestimates the harm that ALPRs cause, in San Jose and around the country.
San Jose’s ALPR surveillance system is inescapable. It blankets the city’s streets in nearly five hundred cameras that continuously photograph every car that passes by and retains the collected data for a month or longer. In our briefs, we argued that law enforcement officers who warrantlessly search the resulting ALPR database are violating the California Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and its guarantee of privacy. The court disagreed, explaining that based on one California appeals court case involving individual streetlight cameras, people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when driving on a public road. This is wrong. Networked ALPRs are not individual streetlight cameras. Their net effect of tracking and mapping cars as they travel reveals patterns of life, intimate relationships, and much more.
(Related)
https://www.bespacific.com/video-cameras-are-everywhere-and-now-they-are-being-hacked-for-war/
Video Cameras Are Everywhere and Now They Are Being Hacked for War
Wall Street Journal – no paywall: “As U.S. and Israeli forces bombed Iran early this year, a poultry farmer in northern Israel decided to check on his chickens. When he launched the app on his phone for the webcam outside his coop, he was alarmed to see that its language had been switched to Arabic. He contacted Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, which found that hackers had taken control of the Chinese-made camera. They weren’t interested in chickens. The camera’s orientation on the coop offered it a line of sight to the movements of Israeli security forces along the nearby border with Lebanon. The cyber directorate said it helped the farmer harden the camera’s security and adjust its viewing angle to stop capturing military operations. The farmer’s webcam was one of an estimated 1.2 billion internet-connected cameras worldwide, according to cybersecurity consultants S-RM. The devices have become a background fixture of daily life in the form of security systems, doorbells, traffic controls and even baby monitors—and potentially any of them are vulnerable to snooping, say cybersecurity experts and hackers. “We are now seeing the conversion of civilian surveillance into wartime intelligence collection,” said Alexander Leslie, a national-security expert at threat-intelligence consultants Recorded Future, who sees a global “soft underbelly” in omnipresent digital eyeballs. The Wall Street Journal spoke with intelligence agencies, cybersecurity experts, military officials and hackers to scope out the extent and impact of the invasive surveillance. The Journal also reviewed dozens of hours of footage and hundreds of images, much of it made public by hackers, and independently verified their authenticity, by geolocating their locations and checking for any signs of digital manipulations. Intelligence agencies scour the internet for vulnerable cameras and robotically tap in to them by testing millions of passwords. Now, AI has made it even easier to hack into them and analyze their data at scale, transforming cameras that were designed to boost safety into tools for combatants to track, surveil and attack the enemy—often surpassing the abilities of human intelligence analysts. Algorithms digest endless reams of footage to find hidden gems and patterns for agents to monitor. “AI changed everything,” said Kristopher Kortright, leader of Team OneFist, an international hacker group supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia…”
