Leftovers

• [Old] HistoryLink.Org ☛ Allen, Paul (1953-2018)

  Allen had already been negotiating with Seattle Computer Products to license Q-DOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), written by Tim Paterson (b. 1956).

  "It got kind of tense," recalled Gates, "because there was about a 48-hour period after Ballmer and I had officially offered to license Q-DOS to IBM that we didn't really own it. Paul hadn't yet closed the deal with Seattle Computer, and I was really giving him a really hard time."

• Medium ☛ Who Really Invented the Computer? Hint: No, it was not Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs | by Walker Rowe | Medium

  Here we explain that UNIX is what built the modern computer. But who built UNIX?

• James G ☛ Sorting HTML lists with an atoz helper class

  I have a few wiki-like pages on my website. Among the most frequently updated is my movies page, in which I list both the movies I have enjoyed and the movies I plan to watch. The movies page contains several sub-lists, each for a specific genre like comedy and romantic comedy.

• Robert Birming ☛ When blogging feels fake

  The fact that it's a struggle doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. Some things, even when met with resistance, can still be beneficial. But I'm not sure that applies to my blogging.

  I'm Swedish, and I write in English because I have this notion that it opens up more opportunities and is educational. That's true in itself, but is that really why I do it?

• Nico Cartron ☛ Properly qualifying the Tags I'm using on that blog

  There are other tags which are too specific:

  • FreeBSD: while I'm mostly writing on FreeBSD, I'm also using OpenBSD for my mail server, and I'm tinkering with NetBSD these days,

• Brandon ☛ Maybe I Need A Soft Reboot

  When I think back, it depends on when you consider I started blogging. I would say around 2004/2005 is when I started blogging in a traditional sense. I mean, I wrote on various websites before then, but as far as using a blogging platform and just writing, it was around twenty years ago. I began blogging out of frustration.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Lichens Thrive in Harsh Mars-Like Conditions, Groundbreaking Study Finds

    Lichens are bizarre structures in which a fungus and an algae or cyanobacteria partner up to form a colony that can survive conditions they never would on their own.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Ten Exceptional Ancient Elephants, From Small Swimming Creatures to Shovel-Tusked Beasts

    Elephants are incredibly ancient parts of our world. Technically called proboscideans, for the long trunks later forms would evolve, the very first appeared about 60 million years ago, when Earth was a global greenhouse where the very first tropical rainforests began to take root. From small and relatively meek beginnings, proboscideans eventually evolved into herbivorous, elephantine giants with a broad array of different tusk arrangements and shapes. When it comes to prehistoric elephants, mammoths are just the tip of the iceberg. Here we celebrate ten examples from the depths of elephant history to highlight the fantastic forms these beasts have taken throughout the Age of Mammals.

• Career/Education

  • The Atlantic ☛ Quaker Parents Were Ahead of Their Time

    As it turns out, leading with questions is a great way for parents to talk to children. Encouraging kids to come up with their own solutions grants them autonomy. And as Emily Edlynn, a psychologist and the author of Autonomy-Supportive Parenting, told me, kids who feel like they have control over their life experience better emotional health, including less depression and anxiety. Fostering kids’ autonomy has also been tied to children building stronger self-regulation skills, doing better in school, and navigating social situations more effectively. Best of all, once kids get used to the self-discipline that comes with exercising autonomy, it can become habitual. Give your kids agency in one area, and they tend to “develop internal motivation even for things that they do not want to do,” Edlynn said, “because they’re integrating the understanding of the ‘why’ those things are so important.”

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel and TSMC agree to form chipmaking joint venture: Report

    Under the terms of the agreement, TSMC is said to own 20% of the joint venture. It is unclear which companies will own the remaining 80%, but earlier this year TSMc reportedly approached multiple leading fabless chip designers headquartered in the U.S. — including AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm — about investing in the joint venture, which would own multiple fabs in America. Both Nvidia and a TSMC board member later denied the discussions.

  • J Pieper ☛ Rethinking dead time compensation in moteus

    Way back in 2021, I wrote up a post detailing a method for improving the linearity of the relationship between applied voltage and current for moteus, particularly during the calibration phase. At the time, this did solve a real problem — during calibration, moteus applied a fixed voltage to the phase terminals, swept the electrical angle of that voltage, and hoped that the mechanical angle as sensed with the on-axis sense magnet matched well. However, as a result of some new work, I’ve found that the premise behind that approach was flawed and it needs some re-thinking. This describes what I found, and what’s being done to resolve it going forward.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Macworld ☛ I can't wait to make an appointment with Apple's AI doctor

    But the risk is that no matter how well Apple trains its model, it can’t avoid the possibility of bad advice. The non-deterministic nature of an AI language model means you can’t predict exactly what output it will give. And if it’s untrustworthy, just like in the case of a feature that tells you when to leave to pick your mom up at the airport, people simply won’t use it. Health is a place where people don’t want to mess around, and even a one-percent chance of bad advice will likely be too much for a lot of people.

  • Science Alert ☛ Only Exercising on Weekends Still Offers Surprising Mental Health Benefits

    Compared with the inactive group, all other groups demonstrated reduced levels of anxiety. So-called weekend warriors, that last group, presented the biggest contrast, in fact, with a 35 percent difference.

  • The Conversation ☛ Why AI therapists could further isolate vulnerable patients instead of easing suffering

    Chatbots, then, are unsuitable for those with severe mental health issues. The software may provide some support for less severe cases, but they aren’t equipped to deal with severe mental health crises, such as suicidal thoughts or self-harm. Human therapists, however, are trained to recognise and respond to these situations with appropriate interventions.

• Proprietary

  • Thai Stocks Tumble on Microsoft Data Centre Slowdown Fears

    Electronics sector hit by AI adoption concerns, tariff risks add to market volatility

  • Microsoft taps brakes on data center buildout in U.S. and abroad - BBG

    Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has scaled back or delayed a series of data center projects globally, signaling a more measured approach to building the infrastructure that powers its AI and cloud services, according to a Bloomberg report.

  • The Register UK ☛ How Oracle took a security breach claim and made it worse

    Infosec experts Kevin Beaumont and Jake Williams later both claimed that Oracle appears to have used the Internet Wayback Machine's archive exclusion process to remove evidence about the intrusion.

    Denial and potentially deception and destruction. We rarely get all three when it comes to bad breach disclosures, and these can turn what should be a routine comms exercise into a veritable PR disaster.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • EPIC ☛ Update: Tracking of Real Algorithmic Harms in California as Enforcement Continues – EPIC – Electronic Privacy Information Center

      The examples below draw on two taxonomies of AI harms to describe the types of harms done: [...]

    • Futurism ☛ Trump Tariffs Show Signs of Being Written by AI

      "Confirmed, ChatGPT..." Journal of Public Economics editor Wojtek Kopczuk tweeted. "Exactly what the dumbest kid in the class would do, without edits."

      A breakdown of which country got hit hard and which was spared highlights how the new tariff rates largely ignore the greater international trade context.

    • Android Police ☛ The next ad you hear on Spotify might be AI-generated

      Spotify's new AI tool generates ad scripts and voiceovers for segments between songs, in the US and Canada.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Bonfire of the LLMs: Gartner forecasts ‘extinction’ for generative AI vendors

      Lovelock figures there’s a market for three large LLMs — because cloud providers resolved to three large ones. Yeah, that’s literally his reason.

      So there’s way more than three profitable cloud providers. And it’s not “the market” supporting OpenAI — it’s vapor capital money being set on fire.

    • Alex Ward ☛ Big Tech is Wrecking Community

      I'm sure you've noticed the trend, if you're even marginally online. Facebook is flooded with Generative AI bots, vying for views and clicks of the few human users who are still around. Instagram wants you to buy stuff, showing you an ad every five posts and an influencer every three. Twitter was destroyed and now X is masquerading in its corpse, filled with inauthentic content and fascists all arguing with each other all the time. Reddit sold out its moderators and went public, and is now being scraped for AI training data to benefit its owners but not the people who created the content.

      Why is everything getting worse? Well Cory Doctorow talks about this all the time, but it's a combination of capitalistic market forces combined with unchecked impulses of those that control them, and a series of authoritarian interests who want to control the social landscape to benefit themselves. It's the Oligarchs standing atop a massive pile of wealth with an insatiable desire for more.

      In short, everything that made the internet a great place for community is being eroded and devoured in the search of short term profit and autocratic power grabs. And yes, Generative AI is partly to blame.

    • IT Wire ☛ The bot battle: How to Defend Against Scraping Attacks

      In our digital first economy, organisations hold a treasure trove of valuable data, including product catalogs, pricing models, customer reviews, dynamic content and more—all of which helps differentiate them from competitors. Today, this valuable currency is a prime target for malicious bot attacks. What makes the situation particularly concerning is that the easy accessibility to more advanced attack tools and generative AI models has enhanced bot evasion techniques to the extent that traditional security solutions are being rendered ineffective.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Tripwire ☛ HellCat Ransomware: What You Need To Know

      HellCat is the name of a relatively new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group that first came to prominence in the second half of 2024. Like many other ransomware operations, HellCat breaks into organisations, steals sensitive files, and encrypts computer systems - demanding a ransom payment for a decryption key and to prevent the leaking of stolen files.

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Public Housing Is the Only Cure for Europe’s Housing Crisis

    Instead, much of Europe has shifted to a development regime that is overwhelmingly dominated by private finance, private sector investment, and (especially) developers owned by financial players. Understanding this process is critical if we want to disentangle the different aspects of Europe’s housing crisis and find a way to escape from it.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Dhole Moments ☛ The Authenticity Drought

      In information security, we talk a lot about authentication and authorization. Because these words are easily confused, they’re often abbreviated as “AuthN” and “AuthZ”, respectively. This confusion is exacerbated by “authentication” meaning both “signed with an identity you trust” and “integrity protected by Message Authentication Codes (MACs)” in different contexts.

      Even if it’s not a formal security property, I would like to make the case for, at least in online cultures, placing a greater emphasis on valuing Authenticity (“AuthC”, following the above convention).

    • University of Toronto ☛ OIDC/OAuth2 as the current all purpose 'authentication hammer'

      Today, for reasons, I found myself reflecting that OIDC/OAuth2 seems to have become today's all purpose authentication method, rather than just being a web authentication and Single Sign On system. Obviously you can authenticate websites with OIDC, as well as anything that you can reasonably implement using a website as part of things, but it goes beyond this. You can use OIDC/OAuth2 tokens to authenticate IMAP, POP3, and authenticated SMTP (although substantial restrictions apply), you can (probably) authenticate yourself to various VPN software through OIDC, there are several ways of doing SSH authentication with OIDC, and there's likely others. OIDC/OAuth2 is a supported SASL mechanism, so protocols with SASL support can in theory use OIDC tokens for authentication (although your backend has to support this, as I suppose do your clients). And in general you can pass OAuth2 tokens around somehow to validate yourself over some bespoke protocol.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Web 3.0 Requires Data Integrity

      What is data integrity? It’s ensuring that no one can modify data—that’s the security angle—but it’s much more than that. It encompasses accuracy, completeness, and quality of data—all over both time and space. It’s preventing accidental data loss; the “undo” button is a primitive integrity measure. It’s also making sure that data is accurate when it’s collected—that it comes from a trustworthy source, that nothing important is missing, and that it doesn’t change as it moves from format to format. The ability to restart your computer is another integrity measure.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Cyble Inc ☛ ProtectEU: A Bold Move For EU Security

      The European Commission has introduced ProtectEU, a comprehensive European Internal Security Strategy aimed at strengthening the security of EU citizens. The strategy lays out a roadmap for the coming years, enhancing legal frameworks, improving intelligence-sharing, and deepening cooperation among Member States.

      Announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the strategy points out the importance of safety in maintaining open societies and thriving economies. “We are launching an important initiative to better tackle security threats like terrorism, organized crime, surging cybercrime, and attacks against our critical infrastructure. We will strengthen Europol and equip law enforcement with modern tools, but also engage researchers, businesses, and citizens to contribute to security,” she said.

    • Techdirt ☛ Massive Expansion Of Italy’s Piracy Shield Underway Despite Growing Criticism Of Its Flaws

      Walled Culture has been following closely Italy’s poorly designed Piracy Shield system. Back in December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy Shield system to order Italian Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to all of Google Drive for the entire country, and how malicious actors could similarly use that unchecked power to shut down critical national infrastructure. Since then, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an international, not-for-profit association representing computer, communications, and Internet industry firms, has added its voice to the chorus of disapproval. In a letter to the European Commission, it warned about the dangers of the Piracy Shield system to the EU economy: [...]

    • Maclean's ☛ The U.S. Wants Canada to Become A Police State

      Moments after being sworn in as president of the United States, Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders strengthening border security and undertaking a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He authorized the military to assist in border security operations and created task forces in each U.S. state to manage and expedite deportations. As a specialist in digital security and human rights, I received a flood of messages from anxious organizations and individuals on both sides of the border. And there are many reasons to be alarmed.

    • Citizen Lab ☛ The U.S. Wants Canada to Become A Police State - The Citizen Lab

      He cites previous Citizen Lab research which “has raised serious concerns about the widespread use (and abuse) of predictive policing and surveillance technologies by Canada’s security agencies, including those responsible for monitoring the border.”

    • EDRI ☛ What implications for the future of data retention in the EU

      It is doubtful whether this ruling actually clarifies the legal situation for IP address retention and access. The Court allows data retention of IP addresses for combatting minor offences and access to that data without prior authorisation by a court. This is done under conditions that seem tailor-made to the functioning of HADOPI system, and may not realistically exist outside the HADOPI system which has very specific rules for processing personal data.

      In the broader context of law enforcement investigations seeking to identity internet users from their IP address, the judgment says that this access can be a serious or non-serious interference, and that prior authorisation by a court is sometimes needed. This leaves a lot of ambiguity, which the judgment only settles for the HADOPI system.

    • EDRI ☛ How better GDPR enforcement could minimise hate and harm

      Lax enforcement of the GDPR has had far-reaching consequences for many people and collectives in the EU, especially those most vulnerable. Through a story based on real life experiences of people, this blog highlights the gap between the GDPR’s promise of protection and its current reality of weak enforcement, and the opportunity EU lawmakers have with the ongoing GDPR Procedural Regulations to take bold steps to protect our data rights.

    • NYOB ☛ noyb takes Swedish tax authority to court for selling people’s personal data

      In most countries, the government knows when you were born, your social security number, where you live, how much you earn and how much your house is worth. Sweden is a bit different though. There, the tax authority doesn’t just use this information for administrative purposes – but sells it to data brokers who publish it online. This is a violation of EU law. Earlier this year, a Swedish data subject asked the country’s tax authority to stop selling his data. The country’s Supreme Court has recently ruled that freedom of information and privacy rights must be balanced and data must be marked as confidential, if the recipient is likely to process it in conflict with the GDPR. The tax authority rejected the request, claiming it simply follows the Swedish constitutional principle of transparency rather than the ruling by the Supreme Court. noyb now takes the authority to court.

    • Privacy International ☛ Our key achievements from 2024

      It’s important to us at PI that we continue to create real change in the world. We want our work to matter, and we challenge ourselves continuously to verify that it does.

      In 2024 we made substantial progress towards concrete systemic change. We challenged governments and corporations that exploit data and technology, pushed for new national and international policy standards, drove standard-setting action by courts and regulators. We educated and campaigned with others.

      As a result, we produced significant impacts that directly affect people across the world. Here are some of our biggest achievements from last year.

    • The Register UK ☛ EU: These are scary times – let's backdoor encryption!

      The EU has issued its plans to keep the continent's denizens secure and among the pages of bureaucratese are a few worrying sections that indicate the political union wants to backdoor encryption by 2026, or even sooner.

      While the superstate has made noises about backdooring encryption before the ProtectEU plan [PDF], launched on Monday at the European Parliament, says the European Commission wants to develop a roadmap to allow "lawful and effective access to data for law enforcement in 2025" and a technology roadmap to do so by the following year.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Companies are ignoring privacy laws. No one is stopping them.

      Companies aren’t trying very hard to give you control over your personal data. They may not even be complying with the law.

      That’s the conclusion from a Consumer Reports analysis released Tuesday. The nonprofit organization put to the test Americans’ legal rights in about a dozen states to order websites not to sell or share personal information that the sites have collected.

    • Nick Heer ☛ European Commission Takes Aim at End-to-End Encryption Again – Pixel Envy

• Defence/Aggression

  • Vox ☛ Trump’s tariffs: Why the president is destroying the US economy

    That’s at best a partial story. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to see Trump’s tariffs as a symptom of democratic decay — of America transitioning into a kind of strange hybrid system that combines both authoritarian and democratic features.

    Were America’s democracy functioning properly, Trump wouldn’t have the power to impose such broad tariffs unilaterally. Congress, not the presidency, has the constitutional authority to raise taxes — and tariffs are, of course, a tax on imports.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ California, other states sue Trump administration to block order on voting overhaul

    California and a coalition of other states sued President Trump and his administration Thursday over his recent executive order purporting to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship, calling it an illegal attempt by the White House to strip states of their authority to govern elections.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Pentagon watchdog will probe 'Signalgate,' in response to senators

    Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins wrote in a memo announcing the investigation that the Inspector General Act of 1978 “authorizes us to have access to personnel and materials as we determine necessary to perform our oversight in a timely manner.”

  • Court House News ☛ Investors sue ByteDance for $58 billion over ‘rigged’ TikTok acquisition

    The investors claim ByteDance sabotaged their acquisition of the social media giant during the first Trump administration by instead pursuing an Oracle partnership that circumvented national security divestiture requirements.

  • The Walrus ☛ Are a Handful of Wealthy Tech Bros Bringing DOGE to Canada? | The Walrus

    It’s a telling shift. What’s at stake here goes beyond policy influence. The deeper question is whether we’re watching the emergence of a homegrown “broligarchy” treating the country’s future like their next big product launch.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ US Bans Officials in China from Romantic Ties with Locals

    A Cold War throwback Intelligence services across the world have long used attractive men and women to obtain sensitive information, famously during the Cold War. The State Department and other agencies with offices in China have long had stringent reporting requirements on personal relationships for American personnel stationed there, as well as rivals considered high intelligence threats such as Russia or Cuba.

  • The Register UK ☛ One of the last Bletchley Park's heroes Betty Webb dies

    She joined up with the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941 and was assigned to Bletchley almost immediately, she guessed because of her language skills. There she was tasked with putting German messages in order as they came in, some 10,000 of them a day.

  • Nick Heer ☛ FT: TikTok’s U.S. Business To Be Spun Off With ByteDance Retaining Nearly 20% Ownership – Pixel Envy

    A cool thing about this arrangement is how it will make everybody mad. ByteDance is still going to own a fifth of the business and it is possible, according to the Times, the U.S. business will still use its recommendation algorithm. [...]

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Register UK ☛ Defense Sec Hegseth in Signalgate Pentagon watchdog probe

    In a Thursday memorandum, the dept's acting Inspector General (IG) Steven Stebbins wrote [PDF] that a probe will be carried out in response to a letter [PDF] last month from the two ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jack Reed (D-RI).

    The pair of lawmakers asked Trump-appointed Stebbins and his office to look into why Signal was being used by Hegseth, if classified information had been shared by the Defense Secretary using the encrypted chat app, and if Pentagon security guidelines had been broken.

• Environment

  • La Prensa Latina ☛ Trump’s Policy Causes Travel Drop

    The company is experiencing a noticeable slowdown in transatlantic bookings, down sharply from an 18-20 percent decline in the first quarter of the year.

    While individual incidents of traveler detention at U.S. borders are not widespread, they contribute to growing unrest and negative perceptions, affecting booking trends.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • [Repeat] Ruben Schade ☛ Riding the new Mariyung Sydney train

      There are still doors between each carriage like the suburban trains, though I think they make more sense here. Intercity Sydney trains have designated quiet carriages—which the travelling public even respect sometimes—so this keeps the noise from other carriages from leaking across.

    • H2 View ☛ €600m funding window opens for EU hydrogen infrastructure developments

      Hydrogen infrastructure developments already designated as projects of common or mutual interest (PCIs and PMIs) can now bid for a share of €600m ($665m) in funding.

      The EU today (April 3) today opened a funding call for cross-border EU energy infrastructure projects.

    • Michigan News ☛ Miss Manners: Why must car door locks be paired with honking horns? - mlive.com

      There are many examples of technology and bad behavior merging, and I ask for your opinion regarding one that bothers me: people locking their vehicles by pressing the key fob twice, which causes the vehicle to omit [sic] a loud chirp.

    • Futurism ☛ Something's Gone Wrong With Microsoft's Huge AI Data Center Investments

      That's on top of last week's news that Microsoft had walked away from two data center projects in the US and Europe, piling on to a February announcement that it was cancelling data center leases.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ No bike lanes? Transit advocates say Metro ignores L.A. mobility plans

      Transit advocates argue that the exclusion from the Vermont Avenue project ignores voters’ mandate to follow the mobility plan, which calls for improved bike lanes on that street; Metro and city officials have countered that the measure applied only to the city of Los Angeles — not to the countywide transit agency.

  • Overpopulation

    • Omicron Limited ☛ On water recycling, Nevada leads other states, report finds

      Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, combed through often-inaccessible wastewater data to show that Nevada leads the seven states, with a rate of 85% reuse of its wastewater. With no standardized reporting across the country, that often meant calling individual treatment plants and asking for data.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Federal Worker Layoffs Will Affect the Entire US

    The map below shows the share of federal employees in each county by category: less than 1 percent, between 1 and 10 percent, and over 10 percent. Just under half of the counties in the country have at least 1 percent of their workforce employed by the federal government. Counties in the western part of the country are especially likely to have at least 1 percent of their workforce employed by the federal government. Scattered throughout the country are counties with particularly high shares of federal employees.

  • Citizen Lab ☛ How Cyber Espionage Threatens Democracy in the Age of Trump (The Agenda)

    In this interview with TVO The Agenda’s Steve Paikin, Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert discusses his recent trip to the White House, the impact that the Trump administration’s policies will have on cyber security worldwide, and why Canadians should be concerned by a potential bilateral surveillance agreement with the U.S.

  • EDRI ☛ The Security Playbook

    Political agendas, such as Ursula von der Leyen’s guidelines for the European Commission (2024–2028) or the security package proposed by Germany’s outgoing coalition, rely heavily on rhetoric around protection, defence, and deterrence. The 2025 German snap election campaign promised more of the same. But what—and who—is actually being “protected”? It’s curtain call for the German security theatre.

    Security is staged as a vacuum to be filled, a platform where politics performs the narrative of hard power. “We will examine all policy areas through the lens of security,” declare the European Commission’s guidelines. In translation, this means distrust. The worst is always assumed: threats are pre-emptively anticipated, requiring swift, “effective” responses. The stage is set, the scenario scripted. All necessary props are gathered to ensure preparedness—even if it requires unilateral geopolitical moves. The script must never be deviated from. Germany and Europe know their lines. Curtain up.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why Trump Wants to Control Universities

    In this episode, Radio Atlantic host Hanna Rosin talks with the education writer Adam Harris, who believes that Rufo’s essay can help explain the Trump administration’s current attack on universities. Since Donald Trump has taken office, he has threatened to take back hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding from universities, and compiled lists of places that might not be in compliance, for various reasons: They failed to protect Jews on campus. They failed to protect women’s sports. They use “racial preferences and stereotypes” in their programs. The administration’s aim, Harris suggests, is much the same as Orbán’s—not just to dismantle the intellectual elite but also to build a new conservative one that better reflects its cultural values.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New Statesman ☛ The hoax that spawned an age of American conspiracism

      The report was convincing enough to cause a sensation. The New York Times broke the story on its front page; it soon appeared on the paper’s bestseller list. One newspaper called it “The hoax that shook the White House”. The report’s creators kept quiet; this was exactly the impact they’d dreamed of. If such a document was, just possibly, genuine, people asked, what did that say about how state power was being misused? Lewin did not publicly admit that he was the real author of the report until 1972.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CBC ☛ A wave of artists are reconsidering tours over U.S. border detention fears

    A wave of musicians, poets and novelists say they are reconsidering upcoming tours and travel over fears of getting detained at the U.S. border or arrested within the country.

  • RFA ☛ Chinese activist jailed for attending dinner marking inauguration of Taiwan’s leader – Radio Free Asia

    A Chinese court has sentenced rights activist Chen Mingyu to 2 1/2 years in prison for attending a celebratory dinner last year marking the inauguration of Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, according to the Chinese rights advocacy group Weiquanwang.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ This legislation would penalize museums for “obscene” photography, but is it a dangerous idea for the art community? | Digital Camera World

    The proposed bill aims to fine museums for “certain obscene or harmful material.” The Fort Worth Report notes that the bill refers to the Texas Penal Code, which describes the “obscene or harmful” as material that “lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

  • EFF ☛ Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea.

    The Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA), along with at least one other bill still in draft form, would revive this reckless strategy. These new proposals would let rights holders get federal court orders forcing ISPs and DNS providers to block entire websites based on accusations of infringing copyright. Lawmakers claim they’re targeting “pirate” sites—but what they’re really doing is building an [Internet] kill switch.

    These bills are an unequivocal and serious threat to a free and open [Internet]. EFF and our supporters are going to fight back against them.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ EFF Vows to Fight Back Against U.S. Site Blocking Bills

    After a long hiatus, site blocking proposals have resurfaced in the U.S. Congress. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) strongly opposes these plans, condemning site blocking as ineffective against piracy but still a censorship tool that poses a serious threat to the open [Internet]. The group is mobilizing public opposition, while drawing attention to the fierce SOPA battle that took place over a decade ago.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK man jailed for 10 months for sedition, criminal damage

    He wrote slogans in Chinese like “Taiwan independence,” a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, and claims that the Chinese Communist Party had brought “disaster” upon Hong Kong, the prosecution said.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ 17 Mexican journalists smeared by Facebook page allegedly run by gang members

    Two Tapachula journalists who spoke to CPJ by phone on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal, believe Noticias Chiapas al ROJO was created by a criminal gang to spread disinformation against rivals, authorities and journalists.

    Social media profiles posing as legitimate news outlets to spread disinformation is common practice in Mexico, according to numerous journalists and government officials CPJ has spoken with over the past several years.

  • EDRI ☛ Building bridges for digital rights: The Civic Journalism Coalition

    In an era of widespread government surveillance, algorithmic discrimination, and shrinking civic space, the role of investigative journalism in shedding light on these practices and ensuring accountability has never been more critical. Engaged and brave journalism outlets constantly expose human rights violations linked to AI, spyware, and state surveillance, while at the same time being targeted themselves for their watchdog role. Civil society organisations (CSOs) also play a huge role in denouncing democratic backsliding while providing legal expertise, policy insights, and advocacy networks to amplify investigative findings and push for systemic change.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ John Oliver sued for defamation by healthcare boss

    The quote garnered a strong reaction from the “Last Week Tonight” studio audience and led Oliver to say he thought Morley’s comments were taken out of context. He explained that he first thought “there is no way a doctor, a licensed physician, would testify in a hearing that he thinks it’s OK if people have s— on them for days.” Oliver continued his segment stating his team obtained the full hearing and that Morley “said it.”

  • CS Monitor ☛ After 30 years, a tribute to the Monitor’s ‘everything editor’

    There are leaders who encourage their team to be more than the sum of its parts. The Monitor newsroom has benefitted from one such leader for over 30 years.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Perhaps Google is really worth nothing to the news industry

    Now Google have come out and said what we have all seen for decades: the value they put on news is zero. AI mania is starting a new round of robbing news publishers of their traffic as well as their content. This is the end-game for the web we have known.

    Which means it’s time, finally, to face reality.

  • CPJ ☛ Journalists in Turkey arrested, beaten, deported amid government crackdown on opposition

    Authorities have raided the homes of at least nine journalists, detaining them along with at least four other journalists arrested while covering the protests, while hurting numerous others. Media regulators have also imposed suspensions and fines on pro-opposition broadcasters and threatened to cancel the licenses of TV channels covering the protests.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ Tibetan Buddhist leader missing for 8 months has died, sources say

    The sources, who live inside Tibet and spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity because of fears for their own safety, said that Chinese officials on Wednesday summoned seven monks from the Lung Ngon Monastery and informed them about Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s death. The officials provided no information about when or where he had died, nor the cause of his death, the sources said.

  • International Business Times ☛ Irish MP Sorcha Eastwood Sues Tate Brothers After Receiving Rape And Death Threats From Supporters

    An Irish MP says she was subjected to violent threats of rape and murder after being targeted online by Andrew and Tristan Tate's supporters—despite never mentioning them in her original statement. Sorcha Eastwood, MP for Lagan Valley, has consistently used her platform in Parliament and on social media to speak out about the dangers of toxic masculinity and its link to violence against women. But in January, she says she became the subject of a vicious harassment campaign—one she believes is a 'very, very sinister attempt to shut down important voices in public life'.

  • JURIST ☛ Union sues Trump administration over executive order revoking federal departments collective bargaining rights

    The lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employee Union (NTEU) names as defendants President Donald Trump, Office of Personnel Management acting director Charles Ezell, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as 10 additional heads of federal offices. It alleges the executive order targeting the named departments is “baseless and unlawful.”

  • Michigan News ☛ Police can’t search cars solely because they smell marijuana, Michigan’s top court says - mlive.com

    The smell “no longer constitutes probable cause sufficient to support a search for contraband,” Cavanagh wrote.

    Two lower courts had reached the same conclusion.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ ICE admits to ‘administrative error’ in deporting Maryland man to El Salvador mega-prison

    The White House Tuesday defended the deportation of a national from El Salvador to a notorious mega-prison in that country, despite Trump administration officials admitting in court filings that the removal was a mistake.

  • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Joint Letter: Henry VIII powers in Data Use and Access Bill could undermine election integrity

    The new Henry VIII powers would allow any future government to change the rules with minimal parliamentary oversight. Such changes could be timed to advantage the governing party of the day, for example by allowing practices it was ready to deploy, while other parties were not.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Canada’s Inequality Is Driven by Billionaire Wealth

    Canadians can fight for a country that stands up for the rights of all, share the wealth, invest together in homes, schools and health care, and build a stronger society and economy in the process. Doing this requires confronting the wealthy and powerful rather than letting them dominate the policy agenda.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - ACMA to renew most wireless spectrum licenses when they expire

    The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has signalled that it intends to renew the spectrum licenses of mobile operators when they expire between 2028 and 2032.

  • RIPE ☛ SEE 13: Advancing Internet Technologies in South East Europe

    Following up on our series of regional reports, we present developments in routing security and IPv6 uptake in South East Europe (SEE). We look into the changes in RPKI deployment and IPv6 capability for networks in the region ahead of the upcoming SEE 13 meeting that will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Seth Michael Larson ☛ Nintendo Switch 2: DRM, expensive, and GameCube

    All-in-all, this means that when Nintendo shuts down Nintendo Switch online in ~20 years and your Switch console or microSD card are damaged you will lose access to your collection. There is no legal way to produce a backup of your games that incorporate encryption like the Switch cartridges thanks to the DMCA.

  • The Register UK ☛ Gone all in on Windows 365? Microsoft has a box for you

    To use the device, it must be within an organization – for indeed, it is aimed at employees – using Windows 365 with Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Entra ID. Supported editions include Windows 365 Enterprise, Windows 365 Frontline, and Windows 365 Business. Windows 365 Government is currently not supported. The reduced attack surface area will serve to boost security, fingers crossed, and Microsoft also reckons the hardware will simplify management.

  • Andre Franca ☛ Why I Dont Like Streaming Music Services

    The convenience of curated playlists has also led to a passive listening culture - the same works on video streaming platforms. Instead of seeking out new music or diving deep into an artist’s discography, people are content to let the algorithm do the work for them. Music, in my view, should be an immersive experience, something that engages us fully, not something that fades into the background as we go about our daily routines.

    Beyond the loss of artistic engagement, streaming services are notorious for their inadequate compensation of artists. The vast majority of musicians earn a pittance from streams. According to reports, Spotify pays artists approximately $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. This means that even moderately successful musicians struggle to make a living from their music on these platforms. For an artist to earn a sustainable income, their songs need to accumulate millions of streams, a nearly impossible feat for independent or niche artists.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Korea Music Copyright Association Bans AI Musical Works

    Currently, the measure covers all songs with any AI input, but this may change in the future. The organization is still deciding exactly what to do with AI-assisted songs — those in which songwriters used AI tools to assist in the creation process, even for things as small as a topic or title.

  • The Register UK ☛ Blair Institute sides with big tech over AI copyright

    The "we" here is doing some heavy lifting and presumably refers to the report's authors, all from the science and technology community; none representing artists, writers, musicians, or anyone else with an interest in having their rights enforced.

    To rewind, the major LLMs stupefying the popular and political debate on machine learning have been trained on vast amounts of copyrighted material, something publishers have become understandably vexed by. The Blair Institute report authors reply with an argument that is close to the idea of "fair use" as applied in the US.