Thread

OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says

256 points · 198 comments · rudy6912

fidotron · 1790245854 · focus · HN ↗
The subsection <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvgl73pxgndwt?post=asset%3A5d65dbad-8bab-432d-8a63-0f420744a3b0#post" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvgl73pxgndwt?post=asset%3A5d6... is ridiculous.
"Cyber experts believe these systems were poorly protected - but that's not the point" is the actual subheading.
Yes, it's the point. Lots of people have been rightly saying all this stuff was inadequately secured for many years and this promotion of the idea of perfect security being even possible is a major problem.
The real story here, unsurprisingly, is government website was poorly operated and got hacked.
"This was just the latest case of AI agents ignoring laws around how to safely access online information and perhaps the most serious yet given the information was government controlled."
So who was actually running the agent? Was it sandboxed? These people, and many apparently in these labs, that believe if you just tell the agent in English what the rules are then it should follow them are at best utterly naive, and at worst deliberately dangerous.
But the fact these governments making the noise are the ones promoting mandating everyone giving up their information to be then stored so incompetently, while they point fingers around at everyone else is just beautiful. And then deploying midwit armies to tell people what to think about it . . . the AI takeover can't happen soon enough.
1. nswizzle31 · 1790247270 · focus · HN ↗
  I completely agree. The govt IT vendor is at fault here since it seems the data was just unprotected.
  If you can’t stop openai from accidentally, or at least non-maliciously, accessing my private info.. then you definitely can’t stop the bad guys!
  The point is moot anyways. All info about everyone is out there for the taking now by a half-competent AI prompter. What do we do about that is the real question?
  1. fidotron · 1790247473 · focus · HN ↗
    > The point is moot anyways. All info about everyone is out there for the taking now by a half-competent AI prompter. What do we do about that is the real question?
    It's like filing your gov tax return in a five eyes country: you guys actually know the answer already, just save me the trouble. But we have to act like they haven't been spying the whole time.
    If we actually distributed the benefits of mass surveillance and privacy invasion (and now add wilful copyright infringement) then it would be enormously less objectionable.
  2. PunchyHamster · 1790259215 · focus · HN ↗
    there can be more than one side at fault

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