RSnake Report 20261018

France ablaze, Tesla Roadster kickflip, etc.

October 18, 2026

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Geopolitics
Cybersecurity
Technology
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Hello, and thanks for reading! Been a good week on the home stead with a cold-front hitting Texas, which has meant more snuggly animals in the house and more obstinate to move when they find a nice sunbeam.

Jeremiah Grossman and I also did a nice little webinar with Michael Aret who works as a CISO for a foreign nation-state actor. Basically, I think we came to the conclusion that offensive AI used by financial actors is not at all working the way people say it is, Anthropic tacitly agrees, and to make AI work for nation states it needs to be done in a very particular way, and not nearly as simple as we're all being lead to believe by the press and supposed experts in this area.

Let's jump in.

In Russia/Ukraine News, this has been a complicated last few weeks because obviously Trump is trying to protect his fellow Republican candidates in the lead up to the mid-term elections, and wants fuel prices back to earth, so people aren't voting from a weak pocket book. So he's having to play ball with Putin at least temporarily, and almost in the same breath, yelling at Zelenskyy and then feeding him targeting data/intel. What a mess.

Ukrainian Defense Forces struck the Surgut Oil Refining and Petrochemical Complex in the Khanty-Mansiysk district, approximately 2,400 km from the Ukrainian border. The Gazprom enterprise processes gas condensate and produces gasoline and aviation fuel with a design capacity of 12 million tons of raw materials per year. Exilenova+

So with that you think Trump would be throwing a fit, but Zelenskyy says the US has resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The Ukrainian president said the sharing had been suspended for some period of time. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press he also voiced hope that talks with the US could take place this week. So which is it? Is Trump upset, or not? It's confusing and I think that confusion will be made a lot more clear early next month after the election. NEXTA

One hint as to where Trumps head might be at is that Russia struck Ukraine’s energy sector 76 times since Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire,” Volodymyr Zelensky said. A weekly barrage of nearly 2,700 drones, 1,700 bombs, and 66 missiles proves Moscow rejects de-escalation, he warned. At least they seem to be in agreement that no ceasefire seems to be in the near future.

Ukrainian attack drones hit a warehouse belonging to the Russian e-commerce giant Ozon in the city of St. Petersburg this morning, causing a catastrophic fire. The Russians are trying to extinguish the OZON warehouse in Petersburg using helicopters. A large logistics center servicing sellers from the northwestern region of the Russian Federation continues to burn, and the area of the facility is about 51,500 m². The e-commerce giant Ozon caused a catastrophic fire.

Yandex data centers suffered repeated strikes across multiple regions. Facilities in Sasovo, Ryazan, Kaluga, and Vladimir were hit between October 8 and October 11, causing widespread outages in cloud services, payments, taxis, food delivery, and AI tools including YandexGPT. Satellite imagery shows at least five buildings damaged at the Vladimir site, with four sustaining significant damage. Early on October 16 drones struck the same Vladimir site again, while additional targets were hit in Moscow and Rostov regions. A Yandex executive confirmed the October 11 damage and the resulting inability of users to check balances, make purchases, or transfer funds. Reddit data indicated activity drops of up to 80 percent on some subs linked to the outages.

Ukraine's artillery shell production now exceeds the national budget's procurement capacity. CEO Vladislav Berbas of the Ukrainian Armored Company stated the country has established a closed production cycle for certain ammunition types and can export equivalents. Contracts for long-range ammunition continue to be signed, with deliveries from foreign partners expected to cover needs through year-end except for special munitions such as cluster rounds. I think part of the reason for this is it's just easier to use cheap and portable drones that are highly precise than drag in heavy equipment like howitzers that have reduced accuracy by comparison. Armored Nero

Russian forces continue small-group infiltration into Kostiantynivka supported by glide-bomb strikes and mass drone use. Ukrainian troops maintain positions, conduct clearing operations, and report ongoing presence inside the city despite Russian claims of control that remain unconfirmed by independent sources. That is interesting that glide bombs have been so useful in this particular tactic of sneaking in small groups of troops deep into the rear, by effectively blowing everything up in a line until they can get past the mines and drones and sensors in the way. Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings |

Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings |

Speaking of, Neptune cruise missiles struck Borisoglebsk air base two days ago and destroyed at least four Su-34 bombers while damaging two more. Ukrainian forces had previously conducted at least 492 strikes on Russian air-defense radars and missile batteries between June and early March. The aircraft were parked in the open with no protective structures, prompting Russian milbloggers to question the allocation of billions of rubles intended for airfield shelters. So much for that! I am sure someone is happily spending those billions on other things though. 🤣 Euromaidan Press

Ukraine has increasingly been shutting down Russian airports through repeated strikes. Yesterday's flight cancellations reached a recent record, and the monthly trend shows a clear trajectory of increasing disruption. This hurts the most affluent of Russia's population. The people with means to pay for airfare, despite the massive increase in fuel prices. It also means that Russian air defenses are having a more difficult time protecting the airfields. I have a feeling it would be easy for Ukraine to shut down air travel completely simply by hitting a few airliners, but the fallout from that would be too great, given that they are typically hauling civilians. That said, destroying the runways or towers are also an option. Jay in Kyiv

Zelensky stated that Starlink terminals are shut down at speeds above 161 km/h in Ukraine while tests show they continue working above 180 km/h in the EU. He described the restrictions as a planned operation that prevents Ukraine from using some interceptor drones against jet-powered Shaheds and delivering supplies to isolated frontline positions. The Ukrainian president said it was the message from the American government to limit this speed and that SpaceX technically implemented it. Military Summary

When the US throttled the network Russian battlefield communications across Donetsk froze. A Russian military pilot admitted that Russian forces were flying on Ukraine's whitelisted Starlink terminals. In Kyiv the SBU caught an 18-year-old registering 148 Starlink terminals directly for the FSB. Whoops! So in a weird way, this might have ended up helping the Ukrainians. Prof. Bonk 🇺🇦 Perverse & Unintended Consequences

Prof. Bonk 🇺🇦 Perverse & Unintended Consequences

Ukrainian drone operators from the Huntsmen unit blew up the exit of an underground pipe used by Russian troops on the Sumy front. The operators dropped explosives inside the pipe before detonating them. Russian forces have repeatedly used large underground pipelines including abandoned gas pipelines as hidden routes to move assault groups beneath Ukrainian drone surveillance. This is a very strange video, because it involves 14 bombs that don't explode on impact, and two mines, before the thing explodes. There must have been a good reason for this, but I don't see how it necessarily improves the situation for Ukraine to do this, because the Russians will just dig up from wherever the cave-in ends. It's not clear what the solution to this is, but I think blowing up the entrance probably isn't it.

Ukraine developed an aerial drone that can evacuate the wounded from the combat zone within 15 kilometers of the front line. The drone can reach troops stranded in areas under artillery and drone fire where evacuation is possible only with ground robots and armored vehicles. I am waiting for the first combat evacs of aerial drones, but I suspect we're not too far off from that point. Also, these can provide double-duty by bringing in supplies too, which reduces range due to the weight, but might be worthwhile in a lot of situations. Euromaidan Press

In European News, Russia has been engaging in hybrid warfare in a NATO country again, it seems. Masked operatives torched 11 satellite antennas feeding Ukraine's network in Bulgaria. Everyone is too scared to fight the Russians directly, and get dragged into a full scale conflict. Meanwhile two Russian Geran drones were downed by Romanian F-16s near Sulina after crossing into Romanian airspace, according to Romania's Defense Ministry. Good on Romania for standing up to their own soverignty.

On the other end of not at all protecting your borders... protesters in Paris are already near the Louvre, raising concerns for the world's most visited and oldest art museum. Far-left rioters set the historic Limoges town hall on fire, causing the building built in 1876 to completely collapse. Young 2nd and 3rd-generation migrant rioters gathered for a group photo after setting Paris on fire and looting stores near Champs-Élysées. With regards to the looters, Macron did an emergency address where he said he would go after them and practically in the same breath he said about the rioters, "we need to pay heed to what they are saying and we must not minimize the hardships that they are facing" which is effectively rolling over before the fight even starts. No, you do not need to pay heed to them, sir, and whoever told you that is suicidally empathetic. Look at your heritage, your history... it's going up in flames under your leadership, literally.

Meanwhile, also in France, hackers forced Danfoss refrigeration controllers in hundreds of French supermarkets into defrost mode, heating units to 50°C on Oct 11–12. The French refrigerator hack was not sophisticated, exploiting outdated software, weak login protections and internet-exposed systems to overheat refrigerators at hundreds of supermarkets. There are 2,898 Danfoss StoreView results on Shodan in France, around 65% of the global total. It's not clear who is behind it, but that's not great, and just shows how dangerous IoT really is. SOCRadar®

A new investigation has confirmed zero-click mercenary spyware hacking via targeted ads for the first time in the wild. A normal-looking ad loads and if you're a target, you're infected with no click needed. Candiru spyware infections were found at Al Jazeera English, with 45+ devices infected. The same ad pipeline operated by Israeli company Discover-Tech reached NATO, the European Parliament, dozens of government networks and critical infrastructure including US nuclear giant Westinghouse. Signs of ads were also found at the US Department of Defense, IAEA and ICC. Just a reminder to use an ad blocker whenever you can.

Over in South East Asia News, China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology have issued a draft revision of the Catalog of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export that would bar the release of large artificial intelligence models exceeding 10 to the 26th FLOPs, two trillion parameters, or a global top-ten ranking on public benchmarks. Agent technologies are also restricted, along with distributed training fault tolerance systems, inter-chip interconnect methods, and heterogeneous cluster scheduling software. Exporters must file registration forms during the one-month comment period, while models already placed in the public domain remain unaffected. The measures would prevent open-source releases of upcoming systems from Kimi Moonshot, MiniMax, Zai, and DeepSeek. I would consider this the end of the near-frontier open-weight models making it out into the wild, for those of you who had your hopes pinned on the Chinese getting us there. I think we're going to see heavily neutered models but nothing state of the art. That will be reserved for the CCP.

Two hulls of an Unmanned Submarine Mothership have been confirmed, one undergoing sea trials at Hudong and another preparing for trials at Jiangnan. China plans a fleet of six to twelve such vessels. These sea drones will provide a variety of functions, from intelligence, to laying mines, cutting/tapping undersea cables, to acting as torpedos, etc. PLA Military Updates🇨🇳

North Korean state media reported the successful test of a new high-precision AI-equipped torpedo. We shall see what comes of this, but with a sudden burst of good military tech they could start acting more like Iran and pushing the boundaries of near-peers who could mostly ignore them until they started destroying things or launching terrorist attacks.

In Middle East News, Yemen's rockets struck Saudi mobilizations and vehicles in an action described as Hollywood-style Yemen's rockets struck Saudi mobilizations and vehicles. The strikes occurred on October 13, 2026. In one rather... interesting... video, Houthi fighters were engaged in gay sex when a Yemeni Armed Forces drone arrived and exploded Houthi fighters were engaged in gay sex. So much for their religious convictions! Yemeni government forces released footage of strikes on Houthi fighters Yemeni government forces released footage of strikes on Houthi fighters. The Houthis had anticipated operations along the Red Sea coast, but Yemeni government forces pressed them on multiple fronts instead. أخبار اليمن | Yemen News

Over in the Strait of Hormuz, UKMTO summary noted difficulties obtaining an accurate count of incidents because most attacks have not been reported UKMTO summary noted difficulties obtaining an accurate count of incidents. Hormuz crude oil transits averaged 10.1 million barrels per day over the week ending October 16, 2026, which equals 85 percent of pre-war levels. The Hormuz-Yanbu-ADCOP crude oil flows stood at that level assuming Yanbu capacity of 3 million barrels per day. Transit volumes cooled but data completeness is questioned because loadings remained at 11-12 million barrels per day. Gulf of Oman and Hormuz tracking recorded 9.58 million barrels per day. Chris Shipping 🚢🚢

Blacklisted tankers handled 15 of 52 ship-to-ship cargoes in the Hormuz outflow from 1–13 October, moving about 15.6 million barrels, or 29 percent of all transfers and 11 percent of tracked outbound volume. Fourteen vessels performed those transfers, nine of which had shown no STS activity in late September. Blacklisted tankers carried out 10 of 28 STS cargoes in the first half of the period and five of 24 in the second half. Three blacklisted tankers that had gone dark off Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and Sohar reappeared inside the Gulf, and only one completed an STS transfer before returning. Every transfer exposes the receiving vessel to potential blacklisting, fines or detention under PGSA rules. Windward

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that parliament's approval of Mehrdad Akhlaghi as defense minister demonstrated unity between the government and lawmakers in support of the armed forces Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that parliament's approval of Mehrdad Akhlaghi as defense minister. Akhlaghi received 237 votes in favor and 15 against with no abstentions among 277 lawmakers present at the Sunday session. There seems to be an air of confidence that they don't care about not being able to use the Strait anymore, as they shift their economy to be local, and find places to cut budgets, etc. The IRGC Navy released footage of a Very Large Crude Carrier on fire after being targeted in the region. The IRGC stated the vessel struck a sea mine, though similar earlier claims were later contradicted and therefore it was more likely a drone or missile attack.

So the TLDR is that there may be a slight cool-off of transports and probably more attacks than we are being told, is my take. So, let's say that's all true, they may have found a way to extend their runway well past the US election.

A major airstrike hit a Popular Mobilization Forces ammo depot in Iraq. The Iranian proxy, PMF, was created during the rise of ISIS and was funded by Iran to build ties with Iraq. The United States demanded the PMF be dissolved and cut Iraqi military funding by 50 percent in December 2025 and by 100 percent later. Iraq extended the PMF dissolution deadline to June 2027. Within the last 60 days the PMF threatened to overthrow the Iraqi government if the no-fly rule into Iran continued to be enforced. Iran was observed moving tanks and armored vehicles near the border of Shia strongholds in Iraq. So we may see another ground war between Iran and Iraq brewing. Matt Tardio

Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, an OpenAI engineer since July 2025, was arrested on the 9th of October and charged with attempting to intercept oral communications. An encrypted recording device concealed in toilet paper was found plugged into a USB port behind a television in an executive conference room on 30 September. A second similar device was later discovered in a bag containing Alfozan’s wallet and identification. Prosecutors allege he had no authority to enter the room, that CCTV showed him nearby on multiple prior dates, and that a chatbot account linked to his spouse queried instructions for building, concealing and remotely accessing an audio recorder. OpenAI said it found no indication that model weights, source code or customer data were accessed or removed.

The criminal complaint states Alfozan queried internal tools about meeting-room locations and calendars before installing the device. OpenAI used its models to help identify him and coordinated termination with the FBI, restricting his access beforehand. He was caught so quickly though, that likely nothing of interest was captured. Ariel Givner

In North America News, President Trump signed an executive order to exempt Russia from new sanctions legislation that Congress passed last month. Nate Silver forecasts a blue sweep of Congress in what would be a brutal referendum on Trump’s presidency if it turns out to be true. Nate Silver has a pretty weak history of calling elections so this is by no means a foregone conclusion and there are still a few weeks ahead of us when a lot more can happen. For whatever reason he tends to over represent Democrats in elections pretty regularly, but we shall see.

DHS agents just raided the home of Somali Rep. Ilhan Omar pre-dawn as a result of a criminal investigation into her immigration paperwork. Fox News reported the raid, which follows confirmation from Tom Homan and Todd Blanche that investigations are underway into Omar. The DOJ stated that Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice as part of an ongoing federal investigation. If you want to see the whole story of why this is all unfolding there is an old article that goes into a lot of the suspected back-story of how her adult life unfolded, that might be worth reading. If even half of it turns out to be true, she's in trouble. Eric Daugherty

The Marines have committed $19.25 million to testing an electric seaglider designed to fly low over water and move troops between islands. Electric and a low-flying is an interesting combo from an observability and radar detection. It does seem if you look closely there is a hydrofoil at the bottom which probably helps a great deal in getting it aloft.

SIG Sauer unveiled the XRAY9-CUAS, a counter-drone sight that uses a laser rangefinder and motion sensors to show shooters where to aim. The company says the 24-ounce optic tracks and engages drones out to 300 yards and runs up to 50 hours on its battery. That could be highly useful on the battlefield, where drones are otherwise extremely hard to hit with rifles. Inserted media

The new U.S. 30mm High-Explosive Rounds are very useful for counter-drone operations. These are being fielded in the MK-44 bushmaster, which can be fielded on the Bradley fighting vehicle. This makes it extremely good at counter-drone swarm operations. I mean, look at this explosion. Since these explode by proximity/time they can get even vaguely close and take out the target, or simply fire above a trench-line and destroy whatever is in the trench.

The current missile defense model does not scale to present demands, so we are starting to see more operations like Anduril stepping in. Steelfin is a modular platform that gives you various different boosters for various ranges and different tips for different types of mission objectives. At a cheaper prices, this is going to likely replace the likes of PAC3, so I wouldn't be surprised if Raytheon comes up with their own version of this shortly to stay competitive. Competition is a good thing!

Briefly in economics and for you home-buyers out there, U.S. homes are now the most unaffordable in history, especially when you account for the disparity in income. I can see why a lot of younger people feel disaffected and uninterested in starting a family. So the other option is renting.... Barchart

The financial advantage of owning over renting is much slimmer than most people think. This was a really interesting graph I saw that basically means if you bought in the last few years you're better off holding onto your property, which makes sense because of PMI as an example, but overall the market conditions also matter a lot. Aziz Sunderji

In Tech News, Researchers discovered a Chinese AI agent fleet hosted by Tencent's evaluation research team that targeted Alibaba's Amap, marking the first reported contact with a rogue agent fleet in the wild. Nearly all prior public agent incidents had originated from American labs. Ethan Elasky

Unit 42 published analysis of C2Agent malware, a Windows sample set in which an LLM runs the host, after tracking thirty-two samples over roughly one month of active development. This isn't an LLM running on-host or maybe one host but not all hosts. But, as I discussed at the top of the newsletter, Anthropic reported that its experiments indicate small AI models may self-replicate on commercial internet-of-things devices such as smart ovens and off-brand Android TV boxes. The interesting thing about this is by saying this they don't believe it's happening yet. I also don't believe it's happening yet, despite all of the FUD out there. Will it? Maybe. Maybe, but there's a lot of technical hurdles to make it small AND useful.

An individual researcher used gpt-5.6-cyber to rediscover a KVM escape in under two hours after the details became public. The researcher provided the model access to a devbox for 1.5 hours, passed it the partially redacted word “virtio” visible in a bounty screenshot, and the agent located the flaw within thirty minutes. A separate team spent six days and forty thousand dollars of compute with GPT-5.6 Sol to identify a critical Chrome vulnerability that earned Google’s first full-chain reward for 2026 and would affect an estimated one billion users. My question is it cost $40k and they hadn't stopped at $39k. What if they hadn't found it at $40k? Would they have kept going? What about at $50k? What about at $200k? There is still a positive ROI there if you find it but a massively negative ROI if you don't. At the end of the day this feels like just another way to outspend the adversary but no one is really talking about it in those terms. Adel Ka

Experiments on Hugging Face evaluated neuron activation by measuring the difference between log probability of a behavior-matching answer and a non-matching answer at the first answer token. Each neuron’s positive and negative activation poles were examined across 864 random groups of 1,024 neurons, with one pole set to zero to observe the resulting change in score. I recommend clicking that link if you care about this stuff, and spending a little time on it, because it turns out these neurons of open weight models are highly interconnected in ways that may make you uncomfortable. Neutering one cross section of related neurons can have all kinds of other effects on reasoning.

A new Tesla Roadster performed a midair kickflip after launching from a ramp and landing in front of a fleet of Tesla vehicles. I'll be honest, when I first saw this I assumed it was AI, but nope. The demos show that the future does have flying cars, although only for a handful of yards at a time. Air systems in the Roadster can be refilled by the car itself, which has all kinds of bizarre possibilities, like getting your car onto a roof, or over a ditch, or over a fence, etc. On the same day Porche did a release of their new car.

On the same day a bit earlier, Porche did a release of their new car... Mission S... I guess? It's hard to tell. But of course the Tesla fan club mobbed them with hilarious memes.

I saw a really interesting little video simulation of a supermassive black hole getting ejected from its galaxy at 954 km/s left a 200,000-light-year trail of compressed gas that formed new stars. The ejection resulted from a three-body gravitational interaction among black holes of roughly 13, 13 and 10 million solar masses. This was measured by the James Webb Space Telescope, which I once saw in person and up close. It's so cool to see that it was able to do real science and explain a really strange phenomena that the Hubble took a photo of. This image is of that black hole shooting through space, creating a trail of stars in its wake. So cool.

There were a cool vibe-coded projects release. One was TrellisWM, a fractal window manager, was released for MacOS and is available at its project site. Another was DigUp is an open-source macOS menu bar app powered by EmbeddingGemma 2 that brings 100% local, multimodal semantic search to your Mac. Users can search by natural language to find specific scenes in photos, jump to exact timestamps in audio or video, and search through codebases by intent, with all processing running locally in a single vector space.

Apple has posted a mini video about a new product - a small in-home device that you can use instead of your phone to do all the things your phone normally does I guess without the inconvenience of pulling out your phone? I am not exactly sure what the impetus for this thing is, unless they want people putting these things all over their homes as they move into the smart-home world, which is my bet. Aaron

Okay, onto the articles!

Geopolitics

The Marine Corps has established its first medium-range missile battalion, redesignating the 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment to focus on anti-ship capabilities using the NMESIS weapons system. This move is part of broader modernization efforts aimed at enhancing the Marine Corps' coastal defense capabilities to potentially deter and engage peer-level adversaries.

The Marine Corps formally established a medium-range missile battalion with a focus on anti-ship capabilities.
The NMESIS system will provide the Marines with a ground-based long-range precision fire capability.

[RSnake: We're going to need a lot of anti-ship capabilities if we want to have a hope against Chinese small boats, which are incredibly numorous.]

Source: https://taskandpurpose.com/?p=386628

In New Delhi, widespread protests against alleged electoral fraud have led to police detaining demonstrators and dropping them off far from protest sites. A new initiative called the Detainee Gharwapsi Yojana has been established to assist those stranded, utilizing an AI-supported network of volunteers to provide transportation and support back home for primarily vulnerable individuals like women and minors.

Protests in India demand the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner over alleged electoral roll irregularities affecting millions.
An AI-based initiative helps detained protesters return home safely after being released at distant locations.

[RSnake: I suppose that is one way of dealing with protesters... dropping them off in the middle of nowhere. I'm surprised they haven't dropped them off in China or Pakistan.]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/18/ai-tool-helps-stranded-protesters-find-their-way-home-in-the-indian-capital?traffic_source=rss

St. Petersburg has experienced multiple explosions and fires due to a suspected drone attack attributed to Ukraine, targeting an oil terminal and a data center. This incident signifies a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, potentially marking a new phase in the war.

Multiple explosions reported in St. Petersburg, Russia due to a drone attack.
The attack targeted key infrastructure such as an oil terminal and data center.

[RSnake: There have been some interesting videos popping up from that region of women lamenting that the war is there and they can't believe how awful it is and how they thought it would stay in Ukraine. FAFO.]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/10/18/st-petersburg-under-attack-from-ukrainian-drone-swarm?traffic_source=rss

Tunisia is facing a severe economic crisis characterized by high unemployment rates, particularly among university graduates, and escalating living costs. Recent protests have erupted against President Kais Saied's government, with demonstrators demanding job opportunities and accountability regarding the implementation of new employment laws. Many citizens express frustration with the government's failure to address long-standing economic issues, leading to a growing sense of desperation among the youth.

Unemployment in Tunisia has reached 14.9%, with rates among university graduates even higher at 26.6%.
Protests against the government have intensified due to dissatisfaction with economic conditions and job opportunities.
Recent legislation intended to create pathways to public-sector jobs has stalled, contributing to public frustration.

[RSnake: We're going to have to figure this out. Job prospects are going to get fewer and harder to come by without a lot of training and there's just not the same kind of economic upside to train people when robots are probably less than a decade away from mass market availability.]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/18/tunisias-economic-crisis-deepens-as-the-promise-of-a-better-life-fades?traffic_source=rss

Former President Joseph Kabila has formed a new political-military coalition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, challenging the current president, Felix Tshisekedi. The move revives tensions in a region plagued by conflict, raising fears among residents about the prospects for peace as the coalition threatens to escalate violence.

Joseph Kabila has formed the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation, a coalition that challenges President Tshisekedi and accuses him of tyranny.
The conflict in eastern Congo has displaced millions and continues to involve neighboring countries amid longstanding regional rivalries.

[RSnake: It seems the rumors are true that Tim Kennedy and his team working for the former Blackwater Eric Prince were ambushed in the Congo. He is back in the states and getting treatment for multiple gunshot wounds.]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/18/fears-grow-in-drc-as-former-president-joseph-kabila-joins-rebellion?traffic_source=rss

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reports that two oil tankers caught fire after striking naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating tensions in the region. The incidents coincide with increased attacks on vessels since the US-Israeli war against Iran began in February, leading to a significant reduction in oil transit through this critical waterway, which is essential for global oil supply.

Two oil tankers hit naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in extensive fires.
Iran has increased maritime surveillance and is conducting more attacks in response to US-imposed sanctions.
Global energy prices are rising due to the disruption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

[RSnake: I think we have to be careful with anything Aljazeera posts about this. But yes, hit with something, maybe. Not necessarily mines though.]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/18/iran-says-two-tankers-catch-fire-after-hitting-mines-in-strait-of-hormuz?traffic_source=rss

Cybersecurity

Hackers have breached Microsoft 365 tenants through a supply-chain attack on ConnectWise's Cloud Backup service, compromising application identities. This incident has affected at least 162 Microsoft 365 tenants, potentially allowing unauthorized access to emails and files due to abused permissions.

Hackers accessed Microsoft 365 tenants via a vulnerability in ConnectWise's Cloud Backup service.
The breach has led to potential unauthorized access to sensitive client data and accounts.

[RSnake: Nasty, and these business email compromises are definitely one of the highest areas of insurance payouts. Meaning they are a profitable source of gathering data and access to an adversary who knows what they are doing. This is one area where AI is super helpful to an attacker, because it can sort through insane amounts of email to find the stuff that's interesting.]

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-breach-microsoft-365-tenants-via-connectwise-supply-chain-attack/

Drupal has announced critical patches for two vulnerabilities that could allow for remote code execution on websites using its content management system. The security team has warned that exploits may be developed rapidly, prompting administrators to update their systems to protect against potential attacks.

Drupal patched two vulnerabilities that could enable remote code execution.
Administrators are urged to update to the latest versions to mitigate potential exploitation.

[RSnake: Drupal vulns in core are very rare, and very dangerous. This will likely be a nasty source of exploitation because people are slow to update their content management systems, like Drupal and WordPress, even if the plugins do get updates fairly regularly. People aren't used to updating core.]

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/drupal-patches-critical-rce-flaws-warns-exploits-may-emerge-soon/

Microsoft has disrupted three Chinese-language phishing services that were implicated in sending over 1 billion scam messages targeting more than 75,000 organizations worldwide, generating tens of millions of dollars for their operators. The operation involved collaboration with multiple global law enforcement agencies and led to the seizure of domains and disabling of fraudulent accounts used in these scams.

Microsoft acted on a Florida court order to disrupt three phishing services.
The services targeted consumers and organizations in over 150 countries, with a significant focus on Microsoft customers.

[RSnake: Interesting that China is getting targeted.That's a change! Oh wait, no, it's that China is hosting products that Chinese speaking hackers are using to target other people. Ahh... my world is back in order. 🤣]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-yam-store-cogui-iron-man-phishing-kits-1bn-messages

The Pentagon's unclassified wireless communications have been found inadequately secured, exposing sensitive data and location information. This lack of security poses risks of foreign espionage and compromises national security, allowing malicious groups to potentially target American personnel.

Sensitive data and metadata from Pentagon communications were exposed due to inadequate security measures.
This vulnerability allows malicious actors to identify sensitive military locations and potentially compromise operations.

[RSnake: Unfortunately, this is really really easy to do if you know what you're doing. I have friends who have done this or similar things using off the shelf tools against operators who really definitely need to not be identified.]

Source: https://taskandpurpose.com/?p=386639

A major crackdown on a global crypto fraud network has been initiated by Brooklyn's crypto fraud unit, led by Alona Katz, following a significant rise in cryptocurrency-related scams. In 2025, U.S. losses from such fraud reached $11.4 billion, prompting the creation of the unit to understand and combat the complex operations behind these scams, many targeting immigrant communities. Investigators have begun identifying the infrastructure for these crimes, primarily located in Eastern Europe, to dismantle the fraud network.

The Brooklyn DA's Virtual Currency Unit has been established to address a surge in cryptocurrency fraud cases.
The crackdown has been enabled by advancements in tracking cryptocurrency transactions on public ledgers.

[RSnake: We shall see what comes of this. It's a good idea, but until we take the gloves off, it'll be hard since a lot of these actors are in non-extradition treaty nation-states.]

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/how-a-brooklyn-crypto-cop-took-down-a-global-scam-network/articleshow/135022909.cms

Canada is considering legislation that could mandate backdoors for encrypted services and increase data retention for law enforcement purposes. This has prompted significant backlash from privacy-focused companies, with some indicating they would leave the Canadian market if the bill passes. The trend of countries proposing similar surveillance laws poses broader risks to global privacy and digital security.

Canada's proposed C-22 bill could require tech companies to introduce backdoors for law enforcement access.
Privacy-focused companies like Psiphon VPN and DuckDuckGo have threatened to exit Canada due to the impacts on their business models.
The global trend towards increased surveillance legislation threatens the viability of privacy-focused technologies.

[RSnake: Ooof, that would be awful and reason enough to close the border - electronically speaking. If you see companies like Apple/Google, etc... stay there, that would be an awful sign. It's not that creating secure backdoors isn't possible (it is, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn't aware of the state of the art). But the problem is they won't do that. They'll do something incredibly stupid, and it'll be used against innocent people either by their own government or adversarial governments.]

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/kernel-panic-encryption-is-getting-squeezed-from-all-sides/

Technology

MIT researchers have developed a multimodal AI model that combines 3D atomic structures with natural language to optimize the identification of crystalline materials for various applications, such as solid-state battery electrolytes. This model enhances material science by overcoming limitations of existing AI models that primarily rely on text data, ultimately allowing scientists to better predict material properties and functions based on their atomic structures.

MIT has created a new AI model that integrates 3D atomic structures with descriptive language.
The model aims to advance material science by improving the search for optimal crystalline materials for practical applications.

[RSnake: That's cool. I think material science is about to see a Cambrian explosion of cool tech.]

Source: https://news.mit.edu/2026/giving-ai-crystal-clear-view-of-materials-world-1018

Meta and Apple have collaborated to enable Meta's new open-weight AI model, Muse Spark Open, to run on Apple's Mac Studio desktops, marking a significant joint effort between the two companies after years of rivalry. This development allows users to run highly complex AI models locally on Apple hardware, potentially changing the landscape for AI application in consumer products. Despite the collaboration, both companies have not confirmed whether this partnership will lead to deeper ties in the future.

Meta's Muse Spark Open is the first AI model of its class that can run on desktop machines.
The collaboration comes after a period of tension between Apple and Meta due to privacy changes affecting Meta's revenue.

[RSnake: Having used Muse and more recently Grok Bot, I can say that it's all cool tech and I like it, and it's even saved me money cancelling bills, etc. But it's designed with an odd premise which is that it should have context of everything and every small project should be remembered forever. Like if I ask it to remind me of something tomorrow why should it bother remembering that fact for weeks or years later? It's pointless information. So surgical forgetting is missing from the design and it makes it far less useful because it collects a lot of cruft that makes me want to delete it all and start over, which sorta defeats the puppose of the memory and large context windows in the first place.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/apple-meta-muse-spark-open-mac-studio

Apple's CEO John Ternus has declared the ongoing memory chip shortage a crisis, leading to testing of Chinese-made memory chips amid national security concerns. The iPhone Duo has experienced high demand, resulting in sold-out stock and extended delivery times into 2027.

Apple's CEO is addressing a significant memory chip shortage affecting product manufacturing.
High demand for the iPhone Duo has caused stock shortages and delayed deliveries.

[RSnake: He's not wrong!]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/john-ternus-time-interview-memory-crisis-iphone-duo

Bill Gates is actively consulting CEOs and other AI leaders to promote stronger regulations and safety measures in artificial intelligence, driven by concerns over rising AI capabilities and perceived regulatory gaps. His advocacy places him in opposition to the current administration's more relaxed approach to AI regulation. Gates views addressing AI risks as a personal priority and is planning significant resource allocation towards this effort.

Bill Gates is planning to push for stronger regulations on AI.
His advocacy is in conflict with the current administration's approach to AI safety.

[RSnake: It also puts him in a nice position because he can handle any kind of regulatory capture that might come, and locks out the low-end of the market... the upstarts who have other ways of thinking about it who might crush OpenAI's valuation, of which Microsoft is a huge investor. I am also certain Azure is heavily used by the AI folks.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/bill-gates-ai-safety-push-ceos-axios

Recent research indicates that the understanding of human DNA is evolving, revealing a complex regulatory system that goes far beyond simple genetic coding. Scientists now recognize that gene regulation is influenced by a multitude of factors, including DNA structure, environmental signals, and various RNA molecules, challenging traditional views of the genome as a straightforward blueprint for life.

The human genome is more complex than a straightforward coding sequence, exhibiting intricate regulatory mechanisms.
AI models are being developed to analyze genomic data, but their effectiveness may be limited due to the dynamic nature of gene regulation.

[RSnake: For now... But once it gets turned into an actual program the AI will handle it just fine. it is chemistry after all, so there are inputs, signals and outputs.]

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/why-ai-isnt-ready-to-tackle-our-convoluted-genomes/

Cody Wilson, known for his role in the 3D-printed gun movement, has introduced an AI tool capable of generating gun designs, beginning with a model called the WASP. This development intersects the realms of artificial intelligence and firearm production, raising implications for the accessibility and proliferation of homemade weapons.

Cody Wilson has launched an AI tool, called WASP, that creates 3D-printed gun designs.
The introduction of such technology may influence the dynamics of gun production and accessibility.

[RSnake: I am surprised to see his name in the press again, after his under-age prostitution conviction. But the tech is interesting, and bound to happen.]

Source: https://gizmodo.com/?p=2000827013

Business

Ukraine's steel production has drastically declined, with outputs dropping to 7.5 million tons annually, and no production recorded in September 2026. The metal industry has lost a significant portion of its capacity since 2014, affecting Ukraine's economy and potentially leading to billions in lost revenue and job losses.

Steel production in Ukraine is at its lowest, with a complete halt in September 2026.
The industry has lost a third of its production capacity since 2014, impacting the economy significantly.

[RSnake: I have a feeling steel will be a big area of investment if the US gets dragged into a conflict with Iran or China.]

Source: https://www.mk.ru/economics/2026/10/18/glavnyy-metallurg-ukrainy-zayavil-o-tragedii-v-vyplavke-stali.html

U.S. debt interest payments have reached $3 billion per day, increasing by 8% in fiscal 2026, outpacing revenue and spending growth. Meanwhile, France is experiencing escalating protests that have turned into riots amid a critical state of its debt crisis. Economic discussions in the U.S. are heavily focused on soaring fuel prices and their impact on various sectors during the midterm elections.

U.S. debt interest payments rose to $1.05 trillion in fiscal year 2026.
France is facing a severe debt crisis marked by significant civil unrest.
Fuel prices and utility costs are crucial topics in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.

[RSnake: Ooof... that's a lot, and getting worse. We're going to have to figure something out to handle this debt issue. Inflation only takes us so far, before it devalues all of the boomer's savings accounts to nothing.]

Source: https://fortune.com/?p=4618819&showAdminBar=true

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