Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

aftbit•5 minutes ago

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site.

As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it legally.

What would happen if media were offered without DRM? Everything would be on a piracy site? It already is.

jameshart•about 1 hour ago

Slight timeline correction: 25 years ago in 2001 Blowfish was no longer contraband - the crypto export rules had been changed by 2000. As of January 2000 Netscape and IE were both shipping 128bit DES internationally.

Still, the t-shirts with Blowfish source printed on them were a cool bit of retro hacker chic.

tptacek•41 minutes ago

Also, the first OpenBSD hackathon was 1999; it was in fact semicryptographic (they shipped IPSEC) but they've had hackathons in the US since, and for a time developers were coming out to Calgary because that's where Theo was. The dumb export control shipping dance was real though.

MrGilbert•about 1 hour ago

Reminds me of T-Shirts with DeCSS's code printed on it. Wild times.

theturtletalks•31 minutes ago

We need a cypherpunks movement for open weight models

Scoundreller•about 1 hour ago

Time to create some esp32-in-a-lightbulb open weight model dead drops.

Please don’t open-circuit the light for several hours.

inigyou•38 minutes ago

Recently I realised that a solar-powered garden light could easily hide an ESP32 and has its own power source. You could even place them in public without being too suspicious. Might want to disable the light, so the power lasts longer and so it's less likely to annoy someone into removing it.

Someone can do the math on panel and battery size. I'm thinking it'll work as-is, as the ESP with WiFi on will draw similar power to the LED that you disconnected.

But how will you give it even a GB of storage for a tiny model?

codazoda•12 minutes ago

Possibly a simple SD?

IshKebab•43 minutes ago

Yeah this persuaded me more than I thought it would, but there are still some pretty big differences IMO. A frontier AI model is a lot harder and more costly to produce than an encryption algorithm. Especially if we believe Anthropic that the Chinese can only do it by distilling their models (though tbh I would err on the side of not believing that).

mohamedkoubaa•34 minutes ago

Everything is on the shoulders of giants in one way or another

Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

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