Tootfinder

Researcher brutecat finds a vulnerability that revealed the phone number linked to any Google account via brute forcing phone numbers; Google fixed the issue (Joseph Cox/404 Media)
https://www.404media.co/a-researcher-figur

A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account
Phone numbers are a goldmine for SIM swappers. A researcher found how to get this precious piece of information from any Google account.

I’ve been scanning through NUGET, and consulting firms have figured out they can get quality backlinks by publishing some bespoke “dev kit” that no one will use.
It’s exacerbated by the package sprawl and “separation of concerns” style solutions that plague .NET, so their DevKit sprawls over 100 packages.
Keep pushing new versions every few minutes to keep those “recently updated” pages showing your corporate logos.

My favourite way to trick myself into thinking that I'm doing work is to ask questions related to my task in Slack channels.
In my defense - there is currently very limited brain space because a certain funder decided to drop a figurative bomb on our institute and everything revolves around this now...

FedRAG: A Framework for Fine-Tuning Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems
Val Andrei Fajardo, David B. Emerson, Amandeep Singh, Veronica Chatrath, Marcelo Lotif, Ravi Theja, Alex Cheung, Izuki Matsubi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09200

FedRAG: A Framework for Fine-Tuning Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems have been shown to be effective in addressing many of the drawbacks of relying solely on the parametric memory of large language models. Recent work has demonstrated that RAG systems can be improved via fine-tuning of their retriever and generator models. In this work, we introduce FedRAG, a framework for fine-tuning RAG systems across centralized and federated architectures. FedRAG supports state-of-the-art fine-tuning methods, offering a simple and…

A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account https://www.404media.co/a-researcher-figured-out-how-to-reveal-any-phone-number-linked-to-a-google-account/

Years ago, I moved to a place where I didn't speak the language. My initial strategy for dealing with interactions I didn't understand was to simply say "no." I figured this was safe - at least I wouldn't agree to something I didn't want. One day, as I was leaving my apartment with a friend, the guy across the hall asked me a question. "No," I said. He looked like I'd spit in his face then retreated to his apartment. My friend, dumbfounded, asked &quot…

Efficient Uncertainty Propagation with Guarantees in Wasserstein Distance
Eduardo Figueiredo, Steven Adams, Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani, Luca Laurenti
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08689

Efficient Uncertainty Propagation with Guarantees in Wasserstein Distance
In this paper, we consider the problem of propagating an uncertain distribution by a possibly non-linear function and quantifying the resulting uncertainty. We measure the uncertainty using the Wasserstein distance, and for a given input set of distributions close in the Wasserstein distance, we compute a set of distributions centered at a discrete distribution that is guaranteed to contain the pushforward of any distribution in the input set. Our approach is based on approximating a nominal di…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Fazerdaze:
🎵 Dancing Years
#Fazerdaze
https://fazerdaze.bandcamp.com/track/dancing-years
https://open.spotify.com/track/5SodlvQvYlTyvvJCYnskkr

The Dixmier problem for skew PBW extensions and rings
William Fajardo, Oswaldo Lezama
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09285 https://arxiv.…

The Dixmier problem for skew PBW extensions and rings
In this paper we discuss for skew $PBW$ extensions the famous Dixmier problem formulated by Jacques Dixmier in 1968. The skew $PBW$ extensions are noncommutative rings of polynomial type and covers several algebras and rings arising in mathematical physics and noncommutative algebraic geometry. For this purpose, we introduce the Dixmier algebras and we will study the Dixmier problem for algebras over commutative rings, in particular, for $\mathbb{Z}$-algebras, i.e., for arbitrary rings. The res…

I figured out how to use a Windows Server 2022 machine as an endpoint for time machine backups. :)
(Don't worry. I'll document this at some point.)