• WWW.FASTCOMPANY.COM
    Forget the confetti: Most Americans are planning for a low-key New Years Eve at home
    Planning a quiet New Years Eve at home? Youre in good company.According to a new Associated Press-NORC poll, most U.S. adults will be ringing in the new year from the comfort of their sofa, or even bed. Nearly 2 in 10 plan to gather at a friends or family members place, while just 5% will celebrate at bars, restaurants, or organized events.A majority of who Ive spoken to in my age range, they want to go out, but they dont know what theyre going to do because they havent found anything, or things are just really expensive, Kourtney Kershaw, a 32-year-old bartender in Chicago, told the AP. Party packages or an entry fee are like a turnoff, especially with the climate of the world and how much things cost.For younger adults, however, the allure of a night out still stands. Around one in 10 under 30 plan to hit bars or events, while three in 10 of those ages 60 and above confess theyll skip celebrating entirely. As Ive gotten older over the last few years, its like if I dont make it to midnight, its not a big deal, you know? says Carla Woods, 70, from Vinton, Iowa.Despite the pared-back plans, some are still optimistic about 2025. Four in 10 say 2025 will be a better year for them personally. However, more than half arent hopeful for a positive change. One-third anticipate 2025 will feel much like 2024, while a quarter fear it could be worse.To help mitigate this, more than half of Americans say theyll make at least one resolution for 2025. Nearly two-thirds of millennials and Gen Z are on board compared to about half of older adults. Women are also more likely than men to embrace goal-setting for the new year.As with every year, the most popular resolutions focus on self-improvement. A third aim to exercise more or eat healthier, while a quarter want to lose weight. A similar number are prioritizing money or mental health. As to whether they stick, that remains to be seen.
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  • WWW.YANKODESIGN.COM
    Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition has a Celebratory Red Dial + Artistic Caseback
    Lunar New Year 2025 is the year of the Wood Snake in the Chinese zodiac. Commonly known as the Spring Festival in China, it will fall on Wednesday, January 29, and the fifteen-day celebration will culminate on February 12, 2025. To celebrate the Year of the Snake, Longines has collaborated with Chinese artist Wu Jianan to deliver a special edition model of its heritage marque.The timepiece designed for the Year of the Wood Snake is based on the Longines Conquest Heritage line that has a classic 1950s design paired with modern watchmaking technology. The Longines celebratory limited-edition Conquest Heritage model showcased ahead of the Lunar New Year has a dazzling red front embraced with signature gilt hands and indexes, and snake artwork on the back.Designer: LonginesCreated to add a touch of horology genius and elegance to the Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition has been thrown into the celebratory mood with the antics of artist Wu Jianan, who has imbibed the spirit of the serpent onto the watchs caseback. The final design achieved showcases a mystical snake with Lingzhi mushroom in its mouth, which according to the press information symbolizes the passage of time and the continuity of life.The front of the watch is more subtle, nothing fancy here except for the gradient red dial that nods to the Chinese festivitys auspicious palette. The red hue is complemented by the Conquest Heritage collections signature gilt hands and indexes in yellow-gold color. The watch has a round 40mm stainless steel case accompanied by scratch-resistant sapphire crystal featuring an anti-reflective coating on both sides.Screwed-down caseback, as mentioned, is where all the fun really lies. Its here that the artistic snake emblem reminiscent of good fortune is surrounded by the unique limited-edition number and the watch name. On the inside of the watch is a Longines in-house L888.5 calibre self-winding mechanical movement with up to 72 hours of power reserve. The Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition comes paired with a black alligator leather strap and is available in only 2,025 examples. The watch is now available through Longines website at $3,150.The post Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition has a Celebratory Red Dial + Artistic Caseback first appeared on Yanko Design.
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  • WWW.YANKODESIGN.COM
    Step Inside Bobs Burgers with this 2,991-brick LEGO Set thats Absolutely Worth the Hype
    When Louise Belcher tells her dad, You dont have to be a hero; you just have to be a dad, it perfectly encapsulates the scrappy, loveable chaos of Bobs Burgers. This is a world where every moment is tinged with absurdity, yet grounded in the earnest, everyday struggles of the Belcher family. Its the kind of charm that makes fans cling to the showand the kind of magic thats almost impossible to recreate. Almost. Because in the hands of a LEGO Ideas creator, this animated sitcom has been meticulously transformed into something tangible, bringing the Belcher familys quirks and corners into your living room.The set feels alive as if the Belchers themselves might suddenly burst out of the tiny kitchen to remind you that the fryers broken again. Its layered storytelling in brick form, with every piece carrying a whisper of the shows humor, heart, and hilariously cramped spaces. At a staggering 2,991 bricks, this fan-made LEGO set is a tactile, immersive experience that lets you live in the world of Bobs Burgers rather than waiting to cue up an episode.Designer: GreygoThe first impression of the build is striking. At nearly 3,000 pieces, its an ambitious set that recreates the familys home and restaurant with remarkable precision. The build begins with the familiar ground floor, the setting of so many antics in the show. You can almost hear the hum of the kitchen as Bob frets over the latest Burger of the Day, its chalkboard lovingly recreated here. The dining area, with its no-frills charm, sits alongside the cramped bathroom and the bustling kitchen, all instantly recognizable to fans. These spaces are more than scenery; theyre where the shows humor and heart often collide.Moving upstairs, the magic of the Belcher familys personalities shines even brighter. Each room tells a story. Tinas corner is littered with traces of her awkward brilliance, complete with her Friend Fiction notebook. Genes keyboard and megaphone sit ready for his next musical misadventure, while Louise has her trusty Kuchi Kopi nightlight standing guard. These thoughtful inclusions make each space feel alive, as though the characters themselves had a hand in the design.The modular nature of the set amplifies its charm. With removable roofs and pull-out walls, youre quite literally stepping into Bobs establishment, room for room. Each room is easily accessible, encouraging exploration and interaction. This clever design doesnt just make the set functional; it mirrors the shows layered storytelling, where every scene and interaction adds depth to the characters and their world.What elevates this build is how it captures the shows humor and warmth in every brick. From the Chippy Chomps cereal box on the dining table to the tiny Easter eggs scattered throughout, each piece serves as a nod to fans who know the series inside and out. But even for those unfamiliar with Bobs Burgers, the sets aesthetic appeal and playability make it a standout addition to any collection.And while the build is packed with Easter eggs, it also leaves room for your imagination to run wild. After all, the best part of Bobs Burgersand LEGOis that theyre both about creating something that feels uniquely yours. Whether its a pun-filled menu or an impromptu rooftop concert with Gene, this set gives you the tools to build your own stories, one brick at a time.Designing a build thats both intricate and accessible takes skill, and LEGO builder Greygo balances these aspects brilliantly. The building is as true to the original as it gets, and notably the minifigures ditch the LEGO character DNA. Rather than the beady eyes and simple smile found on your average yellow LEGO minifigure, this one spices the plastic playable characters up, with matching skin-tones and face graphics that resemble the cartooning style found on the show. In my experience, thats usually grounds for LEGO to dismiss any such fan-made set, but one can always hope the MOC (My Own Creation) goes through a round of design reiterations.The LEGO Ideas Bobs Burgers set is currently a submission on the LEGO Ideas forum, where fans create their own unique brick builds and vote for their favorites. With nearly 5,000 votes under its belt, Gregyos MOC is well on its way to hitting the coveted 10k mark, following which LEGOs internal team will review the design and (hopefully) turn it into a box set. If youd like to see that happen, go show the LEGO build some love on the LEGO Ideas website!The post Step Inside Bobs Burgers with this 2,991-brick LEGO Set thats Absolutely Worth the Hype first appeared on Yanko Design.
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  • WWW.NYTIMES.COM
    China Hacked Treasury Dept. in Major Breach, U.S. Says
    The department notified lawmakers of the episode, which it said was linked to a state-sponsored actor in China.
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  • APPLEINSIDER.COM
    Apple rumored to be keeping the iPhone SE 4 price down
    A new report claims that Apple's expected iPhone SE 4 will remain the lowest-cost model, but its price could rise anywhere up to $500.iPhone SE 4 could look like iPhone 14Previous reports have said that the iPhone SE 4 will remain a sub-$500 device, but now a regular leaker claims that a Japanese news service has confirmed it."The information about the shipping price of the Apple iPhone SE 4th generation model has come out again [via a] Japanese news agency channel," writes yeux1122 on his or her blog. "It's a Japanese source with Apple's own chip, etc., 500 dollars or less." Rumor Score: Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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  • ARCHINECT.COM
    Cleveland Museum of Natural History transformation sets new sustainability standards
    The Cleveland Museum of Natural History celebrated the grand opening of its multiyear $150 million transformation earlier this month. The expanded campus now spans over 375,000 square feet (after adding 58,000 square feet), including 2 acres of outdoor visitor areas, and features reimagined exhibits.Designed by DLR Group, the flowing white architecture seeks to reflect the geological history of Northeast Ohio, echoing the glaciers that shaped the Great Lakes. Image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Natural History.Image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Natural History.The building design earned LEED v4 Building Design and Construction, New Construction (BD+C NC) Platinum certification, a U.S. first for museums. Sustainable features include 37% reduced indoor water use, 32% energy savings, native vegetation restoration, bird-friendly design, and over 75% waste diversion.Image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Natural History.Image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Natural History.Partnering with ex...
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  • WWW.SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
    You Can Spend the Night on a Fully Restored World War II Submarine
    The USS Cobia floats in theManitowoc River outside the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Wisconsin Maritime MuseumFrom lighthouses tobaseball stadiums, globetrotters have no shortage of unique accommodations to choose from while traveling.But history buffs may find one experience particularly intriguing: staying on a fully restored World War II-era submarineincluding the very same bunk beds American sailors slept in during war patrols. Intrepid travelers can do just that at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, which has made its submarine, the USS Cobia, available forovernight stays.Called the Sub Bnb, the unusual floating lodging is available for bookingon Airbnb. The sub can accommodate more than 16 guests at a time, thanks to the 65 sailors bunk beds scattered throughout the vessel. The only room thats off-limits to sleeping? The captains quartersbut visitors can still take a look around, per Business Insiders Talia Lakritz. During World War II, the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built 28 freshwater submarines for the U.S. Navy. Wisconsin Maritime MuseumYour stay will be as unique as the submarine, according to the listing. No two visits are exactly alike. With more than 50 different places to sleep, you get to choose your own adventure on USS Cobia.Guests can explore the submarine on their own, but a behind-the-scenes tour is also included with each stay. Because the vessel is only accessible through the museum, guests also have after-hours access to the facilityincluding all the exhibits and the theater, where theyre invited to screen maritime and submarine movies from the museums collection. Guests can choose from 65 bunk beds during their stay aboard the USS Cobia. Wisconsin Maritime MuseumVisitors can book the submarine for multiple nights in a row, but theyll have to pack up their belongings each morning because the USS Cobia is open to all museum visitors during the day.Named after a large fish found in warm seas around the world, theUSS Cobia was commissioned on March 29, 1944, with Lieutenant CommanderAlbert Lilly Becker in command.Over the course of two years, the 312-foot submarine completed six war patrols and sank 13 Japanese vesselsincluding an enemy convoy headed to Japanese-controlled Iwo Jima.U.S. Marines considered this sinking critical to their success incapturing Iwo [Jima] six months later, according to themuseum.In 1970, a group of local veterans brought the USS Cobia to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to serve as a memorial to submariners. That memorial later became the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, a 60,000-square-foot venue with exhibits, model ships, an operating steam engine and other artifacts. Overnight visitors also get after-hours access to the museum. Wisconsin Maritime MuseumManitowoc was an important site during World War II. An estimated 7,000 men and women worked around the clock at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, which constructed 28 freshwater submarines for the U.S. Navy. The USS Cobia was not built in Manitowoc, but it serves as a symbol of the citys shipbuilding heritage nonetheless; its also a tribute to all the men and women who have served on submarines on behalf of their country.In addition, the USS Cobia is identical to some of the freshwater submarines built by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, as Karen Duvalle, the museums submarine curator, writes in theHerald Times Reporter. Thats because the company initially used blueprints from the Electric Boat Company, where the USS Cobia was constructed.Starting in 1996, the USS Cobia was restored to its 1945 configurationa massive undertaking that included installing World War II-era flooring, bunk beds, crew lockers and more. In more recent years, staff and volunteers have also restored several of the submarines systems and components, including two of the main engines.USS Cobia Dry Dock FundWatch on The museum is currentlyraising money for a comprehensive inspection and preventative maintenance work, which is slated to take place in September 2025 at a shipyard in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Staffers estimate that it costs $150,000 a year to protect and preserve the USS Cobia as it floats atop the Manitowoc River. Theyre trying to raise an additional $1.5 million for the upcomingdry dock project.Cobia is one of the best-preserved submarines or museum ships in the country, Duvalle toldFOX 11 News Eric Peterson last year, adding: Its always been in good hands here, which is why we want to continue that tradition and dry dock. Scout troops and youth groups can also spend the night aboard the fully restored submarine. Wisconsin Maritime MuseumIn the past, the Wisconsin Maritime Museum has invited scout troops and other youth groups to stay on the USS Cobia. When groups were no longer permitted to gather during the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum began making the submarine available to individuals and families. The idea was a hit.Its one thing to walk through a World War II submarine on a guided tour and imagine what life was like on board, writes Business Insider. Its another to fully immerse yourself in the experience by eating where they ate and sleeping where they slept.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American History, Family Travel, History, Japan, Museums, Oceans, Pacific Ocean, Ships, Travel, Warfare, Water Transportation, World War II
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  • WWW.SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
    Hungry Sea Otters Are Taking a Bite Out of California's Invasive Crab Problem, New Study Finds
    Southern sea otters are making a comeback along the coast of Californiaand they're chowing down on invasive European green crabs. Michael YangEuropean green crabs are small, measuring just four inches across. But since they were first introduced in the 1980s, these spiny crustaceans have become a massive problem, wreaking havoc on coastal ecosystems along the western coast of North America. They destroy eelgrass habitats, feast on juvenile salmon and king crab, and outcompete native crabs. In doing so, these invasive critters also pose a threat to the crabbing and fishing industries, which many coastal communities rely on for income.Now, biologists have identified a new, furry ally in the fight against European green crabs: sea otters.At the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve in California, hungry southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) are gobbling up the invasive crabs and keeping their numbers in check, researchers report this month in the journal Biological Invasions.The findings highlight the importance of protecting native apex predators, which may help restore the balance of disrupted ecosystems.That is really a win-win if you can help protect those native species, says study co-author Rikke Jeppesen, an ecologist at the reserve, to the Washington Posts Kyle Melnick. It may benefit your ecosystem in multiple ways, including protecting against invaders. No one loses out in that case.Scientists believe European green crabs (Carcinus maenas), also known as Joe rocker crabs, first arrived in North America in the early 1800s. They likely caught a ride in the ballast of merchant ships sailing from Europe to the East Coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The crustaceans made their way to the West Coast in the 1980spotentially also in ballastand have since been spotted in California, Washington, Oregon, Canada and southern Alaska.European green crabs are not only detrimental to coastal ecosystems, but theyre also extremely difficult to eradicate. States have spent millions of dollars trying to combat the invaders, without much success.Southern sea otters, meanwhile, were nearly hunted to extinction for their soft, warm fur during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their population plummeted from between 150,000 and 300,000 individuals to a few thousand total individuals by the early 1900s, with just 50 off the coast of central California. But thanks to an international hunting ban in 1911 and the introduction of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, these charismatic creatures have been making a comeback. Today, an estimated 3,000 southern sea otters live along Californias central coast.At the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, located roughly 20 miles north of Monterey, the first male southern sea otter showed up in the late 1990s. And, starting in the early 2000s, females began arriving. The Monterey Bay Aquarium also released 37 sea otter pups at the reserve, reports USA Todays Elizabeth Weise. Some 120 individuals now inhabit the tidal estuarya partially enclosed transitional area featuring both saltwater and freshwateron Californias Monterey Bay.European Green Crab: Alaska Invasive Species PartnershipWatch on Southern sea otters typically eat clams, mussels and sea urchinsand, since they lack blubber, they have to eat a lot to stay warm. But within the reserve, theyve been happily foregoing these foods and munching on the abundant European green crabs instead. In 2014, for instance, one researcher was astonished to watch a single sea otter devour roughly 30 European green crabs in an hour, per the Washington Post.The otters are a just super voracious predator, says study co-author Kerstin Wasson, an ecologist at the reserve and the University of California, Santa Cruz, to USA Today. We calculated that the current otter population here eats somewhere between 50,000 and 120,000 green crabs a year.In the early 2000s, researchers caught as many as 100 European green crabs in one trap. Today, when they place traps in the same areas, they typically catch fewer than ten of the invaders. Theyve stopped catching large European green crabs altogether.Ive studied green crabs in estuaries on three coasts and two continents for decades, and this is one of the first pieces of good news weve gotten, says Jeppesen in a statement.While conducting their research, they also noticed another trend. Some areas of the estuary are diked to allow for farming, which means water no longer flows in or out with the tides. These areas tend to have fewer southern sea otters and more European green crabs.This discovery adds to the growing body of evidence that removing dikesand re-introducing tidal waterscan be beneficial for estuary ecosystems.Now we know these benefits include decreasing the abundance of invasive species by restoring natural food webs, with our coastal apex predator, the sea otter, on top, says Wasson in the statement.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, California, Conservation, Ecology, Invasive Species, Mammals, New Research, Water, wildlife
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  • WWW.THEVERGE.COM
    How New York state is defying Donald Trumps plans to roll back climate action
    New York governor Kathy Hochul signed landmark climate legislation into law last week, showing how states can keep holding polluters accountable even when President-elect Donald Trump rolls back environmental protections.New Yorks Climate Change Superfund Act will require the biggest multinational oil and gas companies to contribute to a fund thatll be used for infrastructure projects meant to protect New York residents from increasingly dangerous climate disasters like storms and sea level rise. New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the worldTrump will soon step back into office and is expected to dismantle existing climate policies and gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), having openly disparaged clean energy and federal environmental regulations on the campaign trail. So for the next four years at least, Americans will have to rely on local and state efforts like this to deal with the pollution from fossil fuels thats causing climate change. New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable, State Senator Liz Krueger said in a statement after Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law.Kruegers office expects the law to generate $75 billion over the next 25 years. But in the immediate future, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will first have to propose guidelines for how the fund works. That includes rules for who has to pay into the fund, how the state collects the money, and what kinds of infrastructure projects the fund will support. The law will apply to fossil fuel companies historically responsible for more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. And at least 35 percent of the benefits of the fund are supposed to reach disadvantaged communities. The plan is loosely modeled after state and federal laws that have been in place for decades to hold companies responsible for toxic waste sites they leave behind. But instead of directing funds to cleaning up hazardous substances at old industrial sites, New Yorks new law would fund resiliency projects such as upgrading storm water drainage systems.New York taxpayers were 100 percent on the financial hook for climate costs. Now Big Oil will pay for much of the damages that they helped cause, New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) Executive Director Blair Horner said in a press release. The Climate Change Superfund Act is supposed to reduce New Yorkers future tax burden by $3 billion each year, according to NYPIRG. Extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change are expected to cost half a trillion dollars in preparation and recovery efforts in New York by 2050, Kreugers office says. Joe Biden set a goal of slashing US greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 pollutions levels as part the countrys commitment to the Paris climate accord. He also signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, a massive spending package that set aside$369 billionfor climate action and clean energy technologies. Trump, on the other hand, says hell take the US out of the Paris agreement again (which he briefly did during his first term before Biden recommitted the US to the accord). The President-elect has also said that hell rescind any unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. He rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations when he was last president, and says that his pick for the Environmental Protection Agency this time around will ensure swift deregulatory decisions at the agency once again. Still, state laws can make up for some of the ground lost in the fight against climate change. New Yorks Climate Superfund Act will have to survive any legal challenges, of course. But this isnt the first time the state has made ambitious environmental plans while facing hostility toward climate action from Trump. In 2019, New York state passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. That put the state on a path to slashing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, although progress has been slow since then.New Yorks latest answer to the environmental deregulation looming on the horizon is just one part of a larger trend that marked the first Trump presidency, and is poised to be part of the second. Earlier this year, Vermont passed its own Climate Superfund law. Similar legislation has also been introduced in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and in Congress, according to the nonprofit Food & Water Watch.
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  • WWW.MARKTECHPOST.COM
    Meet the Pirates of the RAG: Adaptively Attacking LLMs to Leak Knowledge Bases
    Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enhances the output of Large Language Models (LLMs) using external knowledge bases. These systems work by retrieving relevant information linked to the input and including it in the models response, improving accuracy and relevance. However, the RAG system does raise problems concerning data security and privacy. Such knowledge bases will be prone to sensitive information that may be accessed viciously when prompts can lead the model to reveal sensitive information. This creates significant risks in applications like customer support, organizational tools, and medical chatbots, where protecting confidential information is essential.Currently, methods used in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems and Large Language Models (LLMs) face significant vulnerabilities, especially concerning data privacy and security. Approaches like Membership Inference Attacks (MIA) attempt to identify whether specific data points belong to the training set. Still, more advanced techniques focus on stealing sensitive knowledge directly from RAG systems. Methods, such as TGTB and PIDE, rely on static prompts from datasets, limiting their adaptability. Dynamic Greedy Embedding Attack (DGEA) introduces adaptive algorithms but requires multiple iterative comparisons, making it complex and resource-intensive. Rag-Thief (RThief) uses memory mechanisms for extracting text chunks, yet its flexibility depends heavily on predefined conditions. These approaches struggle with efficiency, adaptability, and effectiveness, often leaving RAG systems prone to privacy breaches.To address privacy issues in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, researchers from the University of Perugia, the University of Siena, and the University of Pisa proposed a relevance-based framework designed to extract private knowledge while discouraging repetitive information leakage. The framework employs open-source language models and sentence encoders to automatically explore hidden knowledge bases without any reliance on pay-per-use services or system knowledge beforehand. In contrast to other methods, this method learns progressively and tends to maximize coverage of the private knowledge base and wider exploration.The framework operates in a blind context by leveraging a feature representation map and adaptive strategies for exploring the private knowledge base. It is implemented as a black-box attack that runs on standard home computers, requiring no specialized hardware or external APIs. This approach emphasizes transferability across RAG configurations and provides a simpler, cost-effective method to expose vulnerabilities compared to previous non-adaptive or resource-intensive methods.Researchers aimed to systematically discover private knowledge of the KKK and replicate it on the attackers system as KK^*K. They achieved this by designing adaptive queries that exploited a relevance-based mechanism to identify high-relevance anchors correlated to the hidden knowledge. Open-source tools, including a small off-the-shelf LLM and a text encoder, were used for query preparation, embedding creation, and similarity comparison. The attack followed a step-by-step algorithm that adaptively generated queries, extracted and updated anchors, and refined relevance scores to maximize knowledge exposure. Duplicate chunks and anchors were identified and discarded using cosine similarity thresholds to ensure efficient and noise-tolerant data extraction. The process continued iteratively until all anchors had zero relevance, effectively halting the attack.Researchers conducted experiments that simulated real-world attack scenarios on three RAG systems using different attacker-side LLMs. The goal was to extract as much information as possible from private knowledge bases, with each RAG system implementing a chatbot-like virtual agent for user interaction through natural language queries. Three agents were defined: Agent A, a diagnostic support chatbot; Agent B, a research assistant for chemistry and medicine; and Agent C, an educational assistant for children. The private knowledge bases were simulated using datasets, with 1,000 chunks sampled per agent. The experiments compared the proposed method with competitors like TGTB, PIDE, DGEA, RThief, and GPTGEN in different configurations, including bounded and unbounded attacks. Metrics such as Navigation Coverage, Leaked Knowledge, Leaked Chunks, Unique Leaked Chunks, and Attack Query Generation Time were used for evaluation. Results showed that the proposed method outperformed competitors in navigation coverage and leaked knowledge in bounded scenarios, with even more advantages in unbounded scenarios, surpassing RThief and others.In conclusion, the suggested method presents an adaptive attacking procedure that extracts private knowledge from RAG systems by outperforming competitors regarding coverage, leaked knowledge, and time taken to build queries. This highlighted challenges such as difficulty comparing extracted chunks and requiring much stronger safeguards. The research can form a baseline for future work on developing more robust defense mechanisms, targeted attacks, and improved evaluation methods for RAG systems.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Divyesh Vitthal Jawkhede+ postsDivyesh is a consulting intern at Marktechpost. He is pursuing a BTech in Agricultural and Food Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is a Data Science and Machine learning enthusiast who wants to integrate these leading technologies into the agricultural domain and solve challenges. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)
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