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Jonathan Corbet

They say that LLM-generated security reports have gotten much better, so when I got one for the kernel documentation directory, I naturally gave it my immediate, full attention:

"During an automated topological boundary audit of `linux-master (2)`
using Logic Archaeologist Pro (v8.5),
we identified 44 CRITICAL/HIGH Open Topological Manifold(s) in
`Documentation/.renames.txt` that may warrant review."

...evidently they are so much better that I'm no longer in possession of adequate intellectual resources to even understand them. But it sounds bad...

https://lwn.net/ml/all/fde979b5281d3b85cf7a544ba86baadd@ulshe.ai
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Jonathan Corbet

"Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted"

— Attributed to Winston Churchill, evidently not something he actually said, but feeling appropriate at the moment.
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Christian Brauner 🦊🐺

I have a soft spot for . It was the first Linux company I ever worked at and it was a lot of fun. @cyphar and I met there as well and now we're founding members of @amutable . It's sad that this pointless churn in the name of profit maximizing keeps happening to a great company. So so many good kernel people that work over there that carry a lot of weight upstream.

https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/11/02/suse-to-cut-one-in-ten-employees-because-of-ai/5306950

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Polls are unreliable, moreso recently than ever.

Always vote as if we don’t know the outcome.

Only the votes are real.
🗳️💪

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Jonathan Corbet

There are reports all over the net about free-software projects that are scrambling to keep up with the LLM bug flood. But perhaps we should also spare a moment's thought for the hidden people who must be running hard to keep the enterprise-distribution frankenkernels secure in the face of all this. They cannot be having much fun trying to figure out what to backport and how to do it. That, perhaps, is why certain enterprise distributors have yet to ship a fix for CVE-2026-98432, while Debian patched it almost two weeks ago.

I have long wondered how long the frankenkernel model would be sustainable ... the answer has been "a lot longer than I would have ever thought". Even so, I have to wonder how likely the deluge is to make this whole model fail catastrophically. Those kernels are far from the mainline at a time when it seems clear that one wants to run as close to current mainline kernels as one can get.
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Stewart, when the walls fell. We, our faces wet.

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Jonathan Corbet

I was just recommended this Wired article, "Please let the Internet die":

https://www.wired.com/story/let-the-internet-die/

...but I have not read it. First I get the malicious-compliance "we see your do-not-track setting" popover that must be dismissed. Then there was another one full of "privacy choices". I stopped there; I think that Wired has already made its point quite nicely.
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Edited 17 days ago

Edit: looks like it’s been shuttered.

pyconf dot org is a fake event, a scam.

Notes:

- Domain registered after CFP closed.

- Venue doesn't admit its existence: https://fortmason.org/events/

- AI gen headshots, and speakers who aren't, in 100% of the the companies my network can see into, employees at those companies and never have been. Those people don't exist.

A couple of the listed "sponsors'" corporate legal teams have already been advised and word is they're furious.

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Jonathan Corbet

Scanning the linux-kernel mailing list just now (a bad habit I have), I see patches to add significant features to the Alpha architecture, convert Perl scripts that haven't been touched in decades to Python, and replace user and group IDs with UUIDs.

Not sure how we ever got by without these wonderful new tools.
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Jonathan Corbet

Perhaps never quite getting around to setting up that LWN Facebook account was a good move after all? :)

https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/metas-new-commercial-terms-will-allow-the-scraping-of-news-sites-legal-experts-say/
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Jonathan Corbet

"No text that is AI-generated may be published in our magazine. No AI-generated art may be used as a Current Affairs illustration. When you read Current Affairs, you are going to be reading the thoughts of a human, and seeing the results of human artistry."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-were-banning-ai

Nice to see, even if they partake in the — wait for it — vilification of em-dashes ...
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Jonathan Corbet

The updated version of my plot of first-time contributors per kernel release. It seems this trend is not slowing down anytime soon. I wish I felt better about all of the stuff these folks are putting into the kernel...
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Jonathan Corbet

Debian issued a security advisory stating that "several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1097401/

Here, evidently, "several vulnerabilities" means "1,313 CVE numbers".
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Jonathan Corbet

I conclude that it is a bad sign when your airline sends you a cheery note asking if you have any data from Air Tags and the like that might give them a clue as to where your suitcase is.
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(1/2) The dust has settled, the coffee cups are washed, but the good vibes are here to stay:

All the talk videos are online : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVVgAZOU9P8

The slides, with more landing over the next few days (some speakers are still polishing 😉) - check the schedule to catch it : https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/schedule/

The drawings from our amazing attendees (https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/attendees-sketches/) and speakers (https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/speakers-sketches/)

Tons of photos: https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/2026-speakers-on-stage/ and https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/in-the-room/

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Jonathan Corbet

This, evidently, is what I look like when giving a talk these days.
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Jonathan Corbet

“Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” an internal Microsoft document cited in the case read, adding “almost no one intended for content they created to be used in this fashion, nor are they compensated for its use.”

https://www.404media.co/doom-loop-openai-and-microsoft-admits-llms-are-destroying-the-web-and-built-on-theft/
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Sarah Streza 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/117241250895962141

Ok, genuinely, tech journalists need to investigate why so much money is being laundered into Omarchy. A bunch of slopware from a white supremacist does not deserve $18 million when real Linux projects have gone unfunded for years. There has to be something else going on here.

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