Author Archive: Stephen Green

ELECTING A RED-DIAPER BABY HAS CONSEQUENCES:

Of course, the electorate was also primed for a smooth-talking red-diaper baby, so maybe the cause and effect are all swirled together.

EVERYTHING GETS HACKED:

More:

The foundation of many cryptographic algorithms like RSA — algorithms that keep your online communications safe — is that multiplying two huge prime numbers is easy, but starting with the product and figuring out which two primes made it is incredibly hard. That difficulty is what makes encryption impossible to crack.

One of those numbers RSA published (to challenge people to try and factor large numbers and see if the assumptions RSA was built on really were secure) was RSA-260: 260 digits, 862 bits. It sat unfactored for 35 years.

Today Eric Lu just posted a 130-digit number with the words:

“divides RSA-260”

And it does.

That single number is enough to factor RSA-260, apparently setting a new record for the largest RSA challenge number ever factored.

Now the really interesting question is: how the hell did he do it?

The previous record required enormous amounts of traditional CPU compute. Did he use a giant GPU cluster? Improvements to the number field sieve? AI to optimize some part of the attack? Some new technique entirely?

Nobody has any fucking clue.

Exit quote: “Now most RSA used in production today is 2048 bit or more, so we still haven’t found a way to crack RSA quite yet… but this is one the largest numbers that’s ever been successfully factored.”

DANA WEIGHS IN ON TUCKER’S LATEST:

SO GET GUNS TO THEM: Trump says Iranians won’t rise up because ‘they’re being shot’ and refuses to say if CIA would aid protesters.

“I understand their plight, they’re being shot,” Trump said. “When I ask that question, I ask it sort of knowing the answer. The only answer is that they’re being shot.”

He asserted that close to 65,000 protesters have been killed following the attempted uprising that took place in December 2025 and January, which saw the mass mobilization of citizens into the Iranian streets. It was these protests that inspired Trump to promise Iranians that “help is on the way.” He eventually launched Operation Epic Fury, the large-scale assault on Iranian leadership and military infrastructure, in February.

But a crackdown from the government and military quashed the protests before the United States began its operations. Thousands of demonstrators were gunned down in the streets, and many more have been arrested and executed in the months since.

“That’s why it’s not happening — and who can blame them?” Trump said Wednesday.

They need the chance to shoot back.

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS FULLY IN REMISSION:

Up next: Mamdani demands city council repeal the law of unintended consequences.

THE LEFT HAS PLAYED THIS GAME SO LONG, IT’S FAIR TO CONCLUDE THAT “MORE YOUNG DEAD BLACK MEN” IS THE GOAL:

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Wisconsin Cops Used Flock Over 100 Times To Track a Navy Veteran After He Lawfully Recorded a Traffic Stop.

Jones, a United States Navy veteran, was well within his rights to record the police stop. But even though he recorded from a safe distance without interfering, that didn’t stop the Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputy, Brandon Shayhorn, from later unlawfully stopping and arresting Jones.

After Shayhorn completed the traffic stop, Jones returned to his vehicle. But before Jones could exit the parking lot, Shayhorn turned on his lights and initiated a second stop, claiming Jones’ temporary license plate, displayed in the rearview window, was unreadable, reports TMJ4 News. Shayhorn demanded to see Jones’ driver’s license, but Jones refused, arguing that he’d been unlawfully pulled over on private property. Video clips of the encounter show the deputy opening Jones’ door and pulling him from his vehicle.

Jones was subsequently arrested “for resisting and obstructing,” according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the arresting officers and police department. But after being held in custody for five hours, he was released with no citations or criminal charges. An internal post-arrest memorandum reviewed by Reason revealed that Shayhorn’s supervisor informed him shortly after the arrest that he’d, in fact, illegally stopped Jones, and he therefore could not compel Jones to produce his identification.

Mostly what I get from Flock cameras is that they have the potential to undo much of the goodwill bought for the police, ironically enough, by bodycams.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Talarico’s ‘Resident Alien’ Campaign Keeps Getting Weirder. “James Talarico is a native Texan who often seems as if he is visiting the state for the first time. He makes Beto O’Rourke look like Sam Freakin’ Houston. It’s obvious that his campaign knows they need to Texan him up a lot, but looking like he thinks that Cracker Barrel is a place he needs a passport to travel to isn’t going to accomplish that.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Talafreako Is A Socialist Weasel. “Either he’s a woke-infected socialist hiding his true colors to try to get elected, or he’s Zelig-like chameleon with no core beliefs willing to say or do anything to get elected.”

Whichever, he’s a bad fit for Texas.

THE ONE THING THEY SHARE IN COMMON IS HATRED OF AMERICA:

Well, that and each believes they’ll come out on top of the other two to rule over the ruins.

A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDS: Two major airlines join $1,000 Trump Accounts matching efforts.

Both Delta Air Lines and American Airlines announced plans to match the government’s contributions for the children of their employees, according to the White House’s post on social media. The investment accounts allow every child born in the United States between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, to receive $1,000 from the federal government, according to the Trump Accounts website.

Parents maintain control of the account, which is created in the child’s name, until age 18. Up to $5,000 can be contributed each year, providing a way to build a child’s investment portfolio while under custodial care.

Delta and American join companies including Chipotle, SoFi Technologies, and Vanguard in pledging the funds, according to Yahoo Finance.

These are great — and sort of a youth version of the Social Security fix that Democrats celebrated killing 20 years ago.

ROBERT SPENCER: Are You Ready for the TRUMP STRAIT? “MS NOW quickly took the bait, posting less than two hours later a huffy article trying to portray Trump’s trolling as a problem for Republicans.”

THE SPICE MUST FLOW:

Oil Flowing Through the Strait.The Trump administration has been saying for a while that as many as nine million barrels of oil a day are traversing the Strait of Hormuz. That claim has been “fact checked” and derided by just about everyone. Politico is one of many instances: “Trump’s rosy Hormuz claims collide with tanker data.”

Only – oops – it turns out that President Trump and Secretary Wright, one of his cabinet’s most impressive members, were right all along, as Kpler now confirms.

If only the correction were as big as the original report.

Actually, any correction at all would be nice — I couldn’t find one at Politico.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: U. Maryland lab begs students to sign up for class on ‘Indigenous Feminism’ and ‘monsters.’

Only six students were signed up for the 21-seat class “Indigenous Feminisms 101” with Professor Shelbi Meissner as of Monday afternoon, the first day of classes at the public university, according to the Office of the Registrar website.

This is despite the Instagram account for the UMD Indigenous Futures Lab, which Meissner runs, promoting the class several times in mid-August.

One post read: “sign up for Shelbi’s class please it’s really fun we make monsters and learn stuff about Indigenous Feminisms.”

Maybe the kids are starting to wise up.

IF THEY’LL MURDER THE RICH AND POWERFUL…:

…it’s easy to guess what they’d do to people who are neither.

UPDATE (From Ed): What is a Tuey-Rodriguez charge? Judge gives instruction to deadlocked Lindsay Clancy jury.

PROFILES IN COWARDICE: House Passes Gov’t Funding Bill That Does Nothing To Fix Debt Crisis. “The national debt surpassed $40 trillion on Aug. 20 and the deficit reached $2 trillion in the 2026 fiscal year. The 30-year Treasury bond yield reached a 19-year high due to the soaring government debt, prompting the Department of Treasury to double the size of its long-dated Treasury buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.”

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” the wise man once said.