My angle grinder begs to differ.

Never have so many people with so little to say, said it so loudly.

No. The absence of evidence is not evidence of presence. There are solid scientific reasons to suspect we might be alone in our local volume of the universe. IMHO, these reasons now outweigh the arguments in favour of alien intelligence. The default scientific position is skepticism. It is an abundance of proof that is required to overcome it, not "belief." Belief in the absence of evidence is not a scientific position.

I do find it to be a curious coincidence that "belief" in aliens visiting earth shares so many characteristics with devout religious belief. Just replace OP's references to aliens with references to the deity of choice and you'll get the idea.

Wait until you find out that's it's not just AI, or even tech. Everywhere you look, you'll find groups, businesses and organizations being run mostly by people who are just winging it and one or two who actually know what they're doing. Ever seen a cashier struggle to calculate change, or had a doctor misdiagnose? Something something Pareto Principle.

My first thought was watermarking. Same for it's affinity for using emojis in bullet lists.

Anecdotally: Many years ago, I spent several months in the hospital and trauma rehabilitation due to a spinal cord injury. Roughly half of the SCI patients were from water-related accidents (ie: diving into shallow water). The other half were from motorcycle accidents. And about 50% of the amputations were from motorcycle accidents (the other half from diabetes).

Granted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.

Last time I checked, hacking was still a crime in most jurisdictions - even if the target is considered a geopolitical adversary. This sort of activity is also against the Proton ToS. Once KrCERT and Proton were alerted to this activity, they would have been legally obligated to act.

That's not to say I feel any sympathy to the target - who by all counts has done a fair bit of damage. But this sort of hacktivism / vigilantism simply isn't helpful. There's a high likelihood that one or more nation states / law enforcement agencies may have had active operations directed against this threat actor derailed by such activity.

tl;dr - If you're going to conduct such activities, practice proper OPSEC. And don't let your desire for attention / recognition take priority over staying on the right side of the law.

Given how blase he and his wife were about stealing from a child, I half-suspect that wasn't the worst thing they did that week.

I kind of already assumed they were. I've got some pretty niche use-cases that I'd like to see the models get better at thinking their way through. I benefit from their training on my interactions. So I'll opt in. But I'll also recognize that others might not feel that way, so the services should provide a way for users to opt out.