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The disturbing white paper Red Hat is trying to erase from the internet
- 1317 6mo ago"I give permission to IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."
- DonHopkins 6mo agoIn evil mode it indents by mixing tabs and spaces.
- localuser13 6mo agoI chuckled. This is, in fact, actual quote, see[1] for explanation. [1] https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38fe47076 https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38...
- nickdothutton 6mo agoBetter to have smart bombs than dumb ones. Or rather, better to have 1 smart bomb than 1000 dumb ones spread across an entire city in order to pick off the particular building, vehicle, or person you want.
- anigbrowl 6mo agoYou can rationalize anything by only considering the upside relative to alternatives' downsides.
- Qem 6mo agoSpecially AI Hallucination bombs, that hit a park named "Police Park", because it thinks it's killing policemen[1], or a children school with Shahed in the name[2], because it thinks It has something to do with drones. [1] https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in-tehran-hit-irans-foreign-ministry-says https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in...
- eqvinox 6mo agoThere's also a chasm of (non-)accountability. You or your subordinates target an elementary school: that's a war crime. Your "battlefield AI" targets an elementary school: software bug, it happens, can't be helped.
- thayne 6mo agoThis isn't even that new. Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. But AI does bring it to a new level.
- palmotea 6mo ago> Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. Details please. Because I can see the reality being most likely an attempt to avoid conflict by solidifying MAD, by trying to prevent a human from vetoing a second-strike.
- number6 6mo agoAt least it is the plot of a lot of movies of this era: Dr. stragelove, wargames, colossus.
- Uhhrrr 6mo agoThe software is never accountable, so the human running it is always accountable.
- john_strinlai 6mo agothat is how it should be, not how it is.
- mmh0000 6mo ago"War Crimes" only apply to the loser of the war and are prosecuted by the victor. Meaning whatever horrors are done on either side, only the horrors committed by the loser will be "crimes". The inclusion of AI doesn't change that.
- HeavyStorm 6mo agoYou might be right, but that's terrible
- jancsika 6mo agoChanneling my inner Socrates: You want consensus from non-experts for a plan to use 20 smart bombs. Your opponent wants consensus for a plan to live-stream a demo of 1 smart bomb, and then use 19 dumb ones. Your team has more expertise. Your opponent's plan saves enough money to buy a better PR team than yours, and is still more cost effective than your plan. Who wins?
- whoahwio 6mo agoThat “smart” vs “dumb” distinction doesn’t apply here though. What is discussed has nothing to do with the ability to physically land a bomb in a precise location, that problem seems to be solved reasonably well already. “Smart” in this case has more to do with using ML/LLM to select a target.
- DonHopkins 6mo agoSmart bombs are no good if they are directed by a dumb AI targeting system, a dumb alcoholic accelerationist religious fanatic Secretary of War, or a dumb narcissistic genocidal pedophile President.
- lostlogin 6mo agoThere is one more layer - America voted for this.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- shwaj 6mo agoIn fact, it didn’t. Trump continued to make “no new wars” a plank of his platform. Some of his base will follow wherever he goes, but he would not have been elected without those who supported him on the basis of this (broken) promise.
- lostlogin 6mo agoTrump said this wasn’t a war. Americans voted for this confrontational, disrespectful, and chaotic way of governing.
- whattheheckheck 6mo agoAnd the 36% that sat out for reasons also contributed. Use vote.gov to find out if youre registered Use 5calls.org to find out about top issues to call your reps about. Use govtrack.us to find out about what's going on. If there was a github.com view of the govt agenda it'd be easy for more people to comment on things. At all scales of governance
- Gibbon1 6mo agoI had a thought about that. Using weapons that don't give the opponent an opportunity to surrender feels like a war crime.
- xg15 6mo agoThe reality looks more like the worst of both worlds to me. If you genuinely needed only a handful of "surgical strikes", thete would be no need to "compress the kill cycle". What we see in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran looks more like "smart carpet bombing": Some AI system generates a continuous stream of "targets" from sensor and intelligence data, according to whatever criteria political leadership defines and according to a given level of allowed "collateral damage", then those targets are immediately fed to drones or warplanes to destroy - essentially a continuous "pipeline" that probably "ideally" (in the dreams of those people) should become fully automated. For THAT kind of vision, "efficiency" in destroying any particular target and checking all legally required boxes as quickly as possible is probably paramount. (And in addition to that, there are probably still enough "dumb bombs" if no one is looking)
- whattheheckheck 6mo agoIts the plot of Captain American 2 with those 3 aircraft carriers at the end
- Qem 6mo ago> With that in mind, it seems Red Hat, owned by IBM, is desperately trying to scrub a certain white paper from the internet. Titled “Compress the kill cycle with Red Hat Device Edge”, the 2024 white paper details how Red Hat’s products and technologies can make it easier and faster to, well, kill people. It appears IBM learned no lessons after WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust That book will need a sequel soon.
- Modified3019 6mo agoAh, now I see where they got the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcap
- ThrowawayR2 6mo agoIBM suffered no consequences for any of that so there were no lessons to learn. IBM dominated the computer industry from the 1960s-1980s ("Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM") and was a more brutal monopolist than any of the FANGAM corporations.
- gillesjacobs 6mo agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20260402155236/https://www.redhat.com/rhdc/managed-files/ve-compress-the-kill-cycle-detail-693397pr-202402-en_3.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20260402155236/https://www.redha... Archive URL to original paper
- nailer 6mo agoIt’s low latency for realtime. Discussion of these things have been public for twenty years since Red hat released MRG, and this is a conspiracy theory website.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- bpavuk 6mo agowho let the Streisand effect out of its cage!?
- SoftTalker 6mo ago> I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with working together with your nation’s military or defense companies, but that all hinges on what, exactly, said military is doing and how those defense companies’ products are being used. The focus should be on national defense, aid during disasters, and responding to the legitimate requests of sovereign, democratic nations to come to their defense The core purpose of a military is to destroy things and kill people, and the world is controlled by the people who can do that better than others. You can put all the "defense" and "disaster aid" lipstick on that you like but that doesn't change what they train for and what their real purpose is.
- tjwebbnorfolk 6mo ago> and the world is controlled by the people who can do that better than others Yes, welcome to Earth. There's absolutely no morality in deciding to be weaker than you have to be. If you are eaten by a predator when you had the option not to be eaten, you're not some high-minded righteous peace-lover, you're simply dead.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- tastyface 6mo agoThis directly contradicts most religions, which the people with the biggest weapons somehow claim to follow.
- tjwebbnorfolk 6mo agoI must be missing your point. You're talking about a thought / belief framework. I'm talking about how the world actually works. In any fight between theory and practice, practice always wins.
- tastyface 6mo agoThe world largely moves forward through cooperarion, then regularly regresses through violence. I have no desire whatsoever to undermine and bludgeon my neighbors in order to come out on top. Anyone who feels this way should probably be institutionalized for the safety of society at large.
- philipwhiuk 6mo agoI dunno that 'removes from their website' is sufficient for 'trying to erase from the Internet' Can we rename this "RedHat removes paper from website on using their software to 'shrink the kill-chain'"
- HumanOstrich 6mo agoThey still might pull an Anthropic move and send a C&D or DMCA to archive.org.
- gameofliferetro 6mo agoWas this written by an Iranian propaganda machine?
- anigbrowl 6mo agoHow could it be? The US has won the war against them many times over, to the point that they no longer exist.
- neilv 6mo agoBesides external PR, does anyone know how this affects internal morale? Some of the earlier Red Hat people I knew would not be OK with working on weapons systems even under the most legitimate circumstances. And they'd be much more opposed to collaborating with fascist regimes. And I think horrified by the idea of shoveling AI slop and grifter hype into life&death decisions. Of course the tech industry makeup has changed (overall culture transitioning from hacker idealists, to finance bros), and some IBM-ification of Red Hat has has also happened. But I'd like to think Red Hat still attracts a more principled pool of talent than FAANG.
- RickJWagner 6mo agoFormer Red Hatter here. People who use terms like ‘fascist regime’ don’t get consideration. That’s like someone on the other side referring to ‘unprincipled savages’. Name calling just doesn’t win. Maybe it makes the name caller feel better, but it loses the audience.
- tastyface 6mo ago[flagged]
- Sabinus 6mo agoIndeed. Despite their many glaring flaws neither the Israeli nor American governments are fascist so the former Redhatter is right in that you should discount the associated opinion when encountering that phrase.
- tastyface 6mo agoGiven that a number of professors on authoritarian politics staunchly disagree with that assessment, I will trust them and their years of research experience over the unwarranted confidence of some HN anon.
- neilv 6mo agoI was characterizing the objections I think some people would've had, from their perspective. Not trying to make a persuasive argument to people not already onboard with those perspectives. But to one of your points: in some cases, it's not name-calling, but an objective assessment. And "fascist regime" and "collaboration" have historical meaning. I suggest that people of integrity would do well to consider the connotations. Especially at IBM, which infamously was a collaborator with one of the worst fascist regimes. "Never again" should still be in the minds of every executive and board member.
- yomismoaqui 6mo agoSo the hat is red because of all that blood?
- homeslice69 6mo ago>The focus should be on national defense, aid during disasters, and responding to the legitimate requests of sovereign, democratic nations to come to their defense (e.g. helping Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion). Carving out the particular military engagements your company deems less than justified sounds nice but isn't workable in practice. You have to swallow the whole pill if you want to sell to the DoD.
- frumplestlatz 6mo ago> With things like the genocide in Gaza ... Population: ~2,050,000 Density: 15,455.8/sq mi Words have meaning, and their emotional force derives from that meaning. The knowing misuse of a term like “genocide” for its emotional force is manipulative sophistry.
- creatonez 6mo agoNice genocide denial you got there. The Gaza Genocide is a verified fact. It has been recognized by a United Nations special committee and a commission of inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, International Federation for Human Rights, and almost all genocide scholars. What has happened? Mass killings, deliberate starvation, prevention of births, blockading, destroying healthcare facilities and killing healthcare and aid workers, blocking medical evacuations, systematically killing journalists, destroying civilian infrastructure, intentionally causing mass displacement, mass torture and death camps, the use of crying drones to inflict psychological anguish, the use of mass surveillance that far exceeds what any other population experiences, tracking militants to their home to intentionally bomb their entire family, sexual violence, destruction of agriculture, ecocide, and the intentional destruction of educational, religious, and cultural sites. It's likely that more than 150,000 people have been killed by the IDF in Gaza. All of it has been confirmed countless times, and the perpetrators have admitted to it countless times.
- tosti 6mo agoThe jihad is strong in this one.
- frumplestlatz 6mo agoYes, the knowing misuse of a term like “genocide” for its emotional force is manipulative sophistry, and that's what's occurring in those examples.
- phillipcarter 6mo ago
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- mmh0000 6mo agoIt's weird to me that this is "suddenly" an issue. It has been known for decades that Red Hat Inc's largest customer is the U.S. Army[1]. It's a very large part of the reason why Red Hat took over development of SELinux and made it on by default in their distros. And the Army isn't exactly known for handing out cupcakes... [1] https://unixdigest.com/includes/files/Army-RedHat-Whitepaper-February-2014.pdf#:~:text=Red%20Hat%20and,customers%20by%20volume. https://unixdigest.com/includes/files/Army-RedHat-Whitepaper... [1] "Red Hat’s partnership with the U.S. Army spans 10 years starting with the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in 2002 and, to this day, the U.S. Army remains one of Red Hat’s largest customers by volume."
- greazy 6mo agoOptics. One can argue that Red Hat was working with DoD on just security. But after this white paper on how to better kill people, that facade has fallen over. Before it was a maybe, now it's certainty. Ambiguity is quiet comforting.
- scotty79 6mo agoSuddenly war and associated killings stopped being theoretical. Bunch of people that used to be as dangerous (in practice) to civilization as paintballers started actually using real weapons on real people. Military in peacetime is cosplaying (larping?) war. So there's little resistance to aiding them in their silliness. When they actually start to bomb people, it's another story. They deal was, we aid you in your pretend-wars, but you don't start actual ones. This deal has been violated and people don't abide by that.
- BoneShard 6mo agohaha, larping, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
- scotty79 6mo agoonly a tiny fraction of US military is engaged it this kinetic stupidity for only tiny fraction of time, the rest is larping US military is first and foremost a welfare program for people who chose to not perform any useful economic activity.
- vzqx 6mo agoAs someone who works for the DoD, the so called "disturbing" language in the paper is very commonplace in this industry. Idk if or why Red Hat is trying to redact the paper, but I'm sure it's not because they're embarrassed their software is killing people. That's par for the course for defense contractors.
- neilv 6mo agoThis post looks artificially buried on page 3 now, and the topic is one of the most important things that tech company workers should be thinking about right now. 75. Team from ETH Zurich make high quality quantum swap gate using a geometric phase (ethz.ch) 231 points by joko42 1 day ago | flag | hide | 54 comments 76. The disturbing white paper Red Hat is trying to erase from the internet (osnews.com) 153 points by choult 6 hours ago | flag | hide | 51 comments 77. Code is run more than read (2023) (olano.dev) 137 points by facundo_olano 1 day ago | flag | hide | 102 comments
- jnwatson 6mo agoWe all have to face the reality that people are going to use our software in ways we don't like. Any productivity improvement software in the wrong hands could make doing bad things more efficient.
- razingeden 6mo agoThey don’t like it so much they wrote a gushing press release bragging about it!