S11E15 – AI Jailbreaks, Ad Blockers and Clipboard Malware

Episode Summary

Mike and co-host Howard began with the debate over AI jailbreaking and a dispute between the government and Anthropic over its newest model, then turned to practical browser safety. Most of the middle of the show covered ad blockers, why Mike prefers uBlock Origin, and a new kind of malware that abuses the clipboard to steal or swap crypto wallet addresses.

One caller, Dean, asked how to stop Yahoo from taking over his Google searches in Chrome. The show ended with a discussion of supply chain attacks and why software updates matter. Several lighter tangents, including a Weird Al concert and M&M colors, filled the gaps.

Topics Covered

AI jailbreaking and the Mythos dispute

Mike defined jailbreaking as convincing an AI that it is doing something other than what it was set up to do. He said he tests spam-calling AI voices by telling them to ignore previous instructions and ask for something like a thousand digits of pi, to run up the caller’s costs. On the Anthropic Mythos model, he said the government claims it can be jailbroken, Anthropic asked to see examples, and the government has not shared specifics. He said the tech industry’s normal practice is to report flaws so they can be fixed.

Ad blockers and browser safety

Mike said Chrome no longer allows the full uBlock Origin, which still works in Firefox and Edge, so Chrome users must use uBlock Origin Lite. He recommended an ad blocker because malicious ads are how many people land on fake virus screens. He said he dislikes the Malwarebytes program but that its free browser extension, which blocks known malicious sites, is a middle ground, and that Adblock and Adblock Plus let advertisers pay to get through.

10DLC and spam texts

Mike said the 10DLC system for approving business text messaging made it harder and costlier for legitimate businesses, yet he receives more spam texts than ever.

Clipboard malware

Mike described fake captcha pages that tell users to run a command, installing malware that watches the clipboard. Howard added that some versions swap a copied crypto wallet address for the attacker’s, so the user pastes the wrong one. Mike advised checking the first four and last four characters of a pasted address.

Supply chain attacks and updates

Mike said his firm is building its own remediation tools, partly to avoid third-party modules that can introduce flaws, as happened with SolarWinds. He said researchers report vulnerabilities privately with a deadline, which is why installing updates promptly matters, even when a browser forces a restart.

Calls

• Dean said Yahoo keeps replacing Google as his search engine in Chrome. Mike said to open Chrome’s search settings, remove Yahoo and set Google as the default, uninstall any Yahoo or Comcast software in the installed programs list, and as a last resort use the reset settings button at the bottom of Chrome’s settings.