September 3, 2026

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.”

Posted at 12:29 pm by Stephen Green

GLORIA STEINEM, A POTENT VOICE OF US FEMINISM AND CO-FOUNDER OF MS. MAGAZINE, DIES AT 92:

Steinem began her career as a journalist, notably reporting in 1963 on degrading conditions in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire — an undercover assignment she came to later regret. She credits a meeting six years later, where women spoke out in favor of abortion rights, with changing her career path.

“That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me,” Steinem, who had undergone a secret illegal abortion herself at age 22, told the AP in an email in 2022, reflecting on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. “Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy.”

Those who watched Steinem denounce discrimination for so many years likely never suspected that she’d had to overcome a deep fear of public speaking. She would have simply stuck to writing, she said, if only editors at the time had been willing to let her write about the women’s movement.

But they weren’t interested, she told the AP in 2015. “So I ended up going out and speaking, which was my nightmare,” she said. “I mean, I was terrified. But I’m grateful, even though I still get scared even now.”

Curiously absent from the AP’s obit: CIA Funded Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Dies: “In my experience the Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent, and honorable.”

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

DANA WEIGHS IN ON TUCKER’S LATEST:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green

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.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Posted at 11:27 am by Stephen Green

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS FULLY IN REMISSION:

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

Posted at 10:25 am by Stephen Green

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College admissions, now like “preapproved” credit cards!

Posted at 10:09 am by Glenn Reynolds

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

Posted at 9:54 am by Stephen Green

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.

Posted at 9:39 am by Stephen Green

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Elephant in the Canadian Room: America is surging ahead while Canada stagnates, and that growing asymmetry—not trade alone—is driving the acrimony between two longtime allies. “The tragic irony is that Canada once punched well above its demographic weight, with a formidable military and a dynamic economy. . . . Apparently, Canada believes that opening its economy, insisting upon legal, meritocratic, diverse, and measured immigration, and fully developing its natural wealth would be a bitter medicine worse than even its present maladies.”

Nothing is more central to Canadian politics than not being like the USA.

Posted at 9:35 am by Glenn Reynolds

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.

Posted at 9:08 am by Stephen Green