Leftovers

• Michael Geist ☛ Ignoring the Warning Signs: Why Did the Canadian Government Dismiss the Trade Risks of a Digital Services Tax?

  U.S. President The Insurrectionist announced yesterday that he was suspending trade negotiations with Canada due to the imminent implementation of the digital services tax (DST). The result could be increased tariffs on Canadian products and a stalemate on many of the current trade battles between the two countries. This result should not come as a surprise. Indeed, the prospect of a trade war over the DST has been readily apparent for years.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ On complaining

  I can’t pay you for every minute you have to face something that annoys you—I’m really sorry—but that doesn’t mean you can still pretend I do and see what happens to your mind. You might be surprised.

• The Register UK ☛ A trip through vintage datacenter networking

  Donald Davies and his team at National Physical Laboratory (NPL) came up with packet switching in 1965 (although Paul Baran had independently devised a similar concept a few years earlier as distributed adaptive message block switching).

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Figured Out How to Extract Gold From Old Phones And Laptops

    Don't throw it out.

• Career/Education

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: David Wertheimer

    I love to have people who started blogging in the 90s as guests because I can only assume there are probably not many of them still out there. A lot of things can change in 25+ years and maintaining a constant online presence for more than a quarter of a century is no small feat if you think about it.

  • Seth Godin ☛ Education is free, learning is expensive

    Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.

    The system has called our bluff. If you want to learn, learn.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Ancient SoundBlaster Cards Just Got A Driver Update

    Old hardware tends to get less support as the years go by, from both manufacturers and the open-source community alike. And yet, every now and then, we hear about fresh attention for an ancient device. Consider the ancient SoundBlaster sound card that first hit the market 31 years ago. [Mark] noticed that a recent update squashed a new bug on an old piece of gear.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ A Packard Bell M415 Multimedia bezel!

    Do any of you remember the name Packard Bell? Those familiar with classic radio equipment may speak fondly about a simpler era, long since past, when people talked in old-timey voices and valves glowed. Others may remember the company who purchased the name for cents on the dollar, and sold what could charitably be referred to as computers in the 1990s.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ WHO says all Covid-19 origin theories remain open after inconclusive study

    All hypotheses on how the Covid-19 pandemic began remain open, the World Health Organization said Friday, following an inconclusive four-year investigation that was hamstrung by crucial information being withheld. The global catastrophe killed an estimated 20 million people, according to the WHO, while shredding economies, crippling health systems and turning people’s lives upside-down.

• Proprietary

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft’s sketchy Win 10 vs Win 11 performance claims pit a 9-year-old PC against a modern machine to claim 2.3X gain

    Microsoft claims that backdoored Windows 11 is 2.3 times faster than backdoored Windows 10, but fails to mention that the comparison is based entirely on new hardware versus old.

  • Chris Coyier ☛ USPS! It’s not possible for me to use your Change of Address tool

    I’ve tried over the course of a couple of weeks. I’ve tried in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. I’ve ensured there are no browser extensions at all running. I’ve tried changing little details on the forms in case one of them was tripping it up. I’ve tried on two different networks, neither of which has anything like a firewall or extra blocking technology.

    It’s broken.

  • Privacy International ☛ What the app? What will WhatsApp's pursuit of revenue mean for no-strings encryption | Privacy International

    But private messaging services like WhatsApp are costly to run, and not something people are accustomed to paying for. Securing an income stream for them isn’t obvious. So it made the news recently that WhatsApp is going to start showing ads - in a relatively limited way - as part of a wider push to generate revenue.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ 689 different Brother printer models all use the serial number to create default password — ridiculous security flaw baked in from manufacturing, can't be fully remediated with firmware

    Another reminder to change your devices' default passwords has arrived, thanks to a new critical vulnerability found in Brother printers. 689 different models of Brother printers, plus a handful of other printers from Fujifilm, Toshiba, and Konica Minolta, are susceptible to eight new security vulnerabilities, some of which cannot be patched with firmware updates.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • India Times ☛ AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators

      The world's most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors - lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. Users report that models are "lying to them and making up evidence," according to Apollo Research's co-founder.

    • SBS ☛ 'A crisis': Urgent warning to Australian schools over 'nudify' apps

      It comes as eSafety says reports to its image-based abuse scheme about digitally altered intimate images, including deepfakes, from people aged under 18 have more than doubled in the past 18 months. This is compared to the total number of reports received in the seven years prior.

      Four out of five of these reports involved the targeting of young girls.

  • Social Control Media

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Pakistan: How social media can become a danger to women

      Securing permission from her family to post videos showing her face took time. For many women, freedom on social media, just like in offline spaces, exists on a spectrum.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • 2025-06-23 [Older] McLaren provides written notice to 743,131 patients after ransomware attack in July 2024 (2)

    • 2025-06-24 [Older] MNGI Digestive Health settles class action lawsuit stemming from BlackCat attack

    • 2025-06-24 [Older] Liberty Township in Ohio has recovered its network after a ransomware attack

    • Bleeping Computer ☛ 2025-06-24 [Older] Four REvil ransomware members released after time served on carding charges

    • Gray Media Group ☛ 2025-06-26 NCDPI renews contract with PowerSchool after massive data breach

    • The Register UK ☛ Ex-NATO hacker: In cyber, there’s no such thing a ceasefire

      His final mission with NATO involved red-teaming a critical power grid in Kiev, Ukraine. Most of the facilities' systems were airgapped, isolated from external networks, which made it more difficult to break into.

      "It wasn't easy to target, so I said, 'OK, let me find the suppliers for this organization'," Bolukbas recalled. "I found 20 of them, picked one that would be the easiest to find and target, and used that to access the grid control panel, literally one command away from taking down the grid."

    • India Times ☛ Tech firms warn 'Scattered Spider' hacks are targeting aviation sector

      Google and Palo Alto Networks warn that the hacking group "Scattered Spider" is now targeting the aviation sector. Though specific companies weren’t named, recent cyber incidents at Hawaiian Airlines and WestJet raise concerns. Known for high-profile hacks, the group poses a growing threat to global transport and critical infrastructure.

• Security

  • RiskyBiz ☛ 2025-06-25 [Older] Hackers breach Norwegian dam, open valve at full capacity

  • 2025-06-25 [Older] British national “IntelBroker” charged with causing $25 million in damages; U.S. seeks his extradition from France

  • 2025-06-25 [Older] France issues press statement about arrest of ShinyHunters members

  • New York Times ☛ 2025-06-26 [Older] Potential Cyberattack Scrambles Columbia University Computer Systems

  • 9NEWS ☛ 2025-06-26 [Older] Ex-student charged with wave of cyber attacks on Sydney uni

  • 2025-06-26 [Older] Detaining Hackers Before the Crime? Tamil Nadu’s Supreme Court Approves Preventive Custody for Cyber Offenders

  • 2025-06-26 [Older] 222,000 customer records allegedly from Manhattan Parking Group leaked

  • 2025-06-26 [Older] Kansas City Man Pleads Guilty for Hacking a Non-Profit

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Zimbabwe ☛ Google Wants You to Watch Ads or Take Surveys to Read Articles. Will It Work Here?

      Google has a new plan to help content creators and news sites, what they call publishers, make a bit more money.

    • JURIST ☛ Germany data commissioner orders Fashion Company Apple and Surveillance Giant Google to remove DeepSeek over data concerns

      Germany’s data protection commissioner, Meike Kamp, announced Friday that the country has requested Fashion Company Apple and Surveillance Giant Google to remove DeepSeek, an Hey Hi (AI) chatbot developed by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co. Ltd., from their mobile app stores due to concerns over data security.

    • The Register UK ☛ Supreme Court rules for Texas age verification law

      Texas House Bill 1181 requires any commercial website whose content is more than one-third "sexual material harmful to minors" to verify that Texas-based users are at least 18.

      "As it has been throughout history, pornography is once again the canary in the coal mine of free expression," said Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition.

    • The Verge ☛ What will the Supreme Court’s porn ruling mean for [Internet] privacy?

      Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For roughly the past 20 years the answer has been “yes” — now, as of Friday, it’s an unambiguous “no.”

      Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is relatively straightforward as Supreme Court rulings go. To summarize, its conclusion is that: [...]

    • India Times ☛ What to know about online age verification laws

      The US Supreme Court has upheld a Texas law requiring age verification on pornographic websites to block under-18s. Critics, including digital rights groups, warn it threatens privacy and free speech. Adults must provide ID or facial scans, but enforcement and potential data misuse remain major concerns amid ongoing opposition.

  • Confidentiality

    • Irish Examiner ☛ 2025-06-24 [Older] Dublin ETB fined €125,000 for data protection breaches

    • 2025-06-25 [Older] Patients Allege Home Delivery Pharmacy Failed to Timely Notify Them of Data Breach

    • 2025-06-24 [Older] Marquette County Medical Care Facility discloses data breach

• Defence/Aggression

  • 2025-06-23 [Older] People’s Republic of China cyber threat activity: Cyber Threat Bulletin

  • 2025-06-23 [Older] A militarily degraded Iran may turn to asymmetrical warfare – raising risk of proxy and cyber attacks

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-21 [Older] Beijing Official Overseeing Hong Kong Warns of Persisting National Security Threats

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-21 [Older] Syrian Security Forces Detain Cousin of Toppled Leader Assad

  • 2025-06-23 [Older] Iran-Linked Threat Actors Leak Visitors and Athletes’ Data from Saudi Games

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ "Egregious Behavior:" Alina Habba Confesses She Must Prosecute Donald Trump

    In both the Tweet and the press release, Alina Habba, who represented Donald Trump when he routinely attacked judges in that case and others, presumably Tweeting some of those threats from his property in New Jersey, whose attacks led to phoned-in threats to Judge Juan Merchan and his staffers, talked about how heinous it is threaten judges.

  • India Times ☛ AI is starting to wear down democracy

    Free and easy to use, AI tools have generated a flood of fake photos and videos of candidates or supporters saying things they did not or appearing in places they were not -- all spread with the relative impunity of anonymity online.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Space Force rethinking plans for proliferated satellite communications

    The alternative the service is considering is a largely secretive and little-known program called MILNET, a space data network that could eventually include nearly 500 satellites. SpaceX’s Starshield, a business unit that builds a military version of its Starlink spacecraft, is on contract for the effort, providing satellites, terminals and operations support.

  • IT Wire ☛ Are algorithms erasing pop culture?

    In today's digital landscape, algorithms are the unseen architects of our online experiences, acting as gatekeepers that determine what content users see and, consequently, consume. These complex sets of rules and calculations shape user experiences across various platforms by tailoring content to individual preferences and behaviours. Social media algorithms, for instance, filter, rank, and recommend content, prioritising posts with high levels of interaction to maintain user engagement.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Chicago man convicted in ISIS terror case after trying to recruit members on social media and encourage attacks

    An Iraqi-born Chicago man arrested in 2018 was convicted Friday for using social media to recruit members for ISIS and encourage violent jihad.

    Federal prosecutors revealed that Ashraf Al Safoo, 41, led the Khattab Media Foundation, an online group aligned with ISIS, which spread pro-ISIS propaganda, including videos, articles, and infographics, to incite terror and recruit workers.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Suicide bombing kills 13 Pakistani soldiers near Afghan border, say sources

    Around 10 soldiers were wounded, some critically, and they were being airlifted to a military hospital, the sources said.

  • France24 ☛ Iran’s thorny IAEA relations hit new low after Israeli, US strikes

    Stung by the UN watchdog agency’s perceived failure to condemn Israeli-US strikes, upset by a pre-war IAEA resolution declaring Tehran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations and peeved by Israel’s nuclear arsenal remaining outside an inspections purview, Iran has suspended cooperation with the IAEA. But Tehran could be the biggest loser in its latest diplomatic battle.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-25 [Older] Ever heard of 'Driver Inc.'? Canada's trucking industry is calling it a $1B scam

    • The Guardian UK ☛ Denmark and Sweden’s Øresund bridge turns 25: have the benefits run in both directions?

      Cross-border life is not without problems. Because the two governments are not integrated when it comes to administration, paperwork can get tricky – particularly when it comes to property ownership and tax. Demand for the train is such that it is usually standing-room only at peak times, and services are often delayed.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-25 [Older] Aggressive cougars shut down biking trails in Whistler, B.C., area

  • Overpopulation

    • Truthdig ☛ The Movement Against Overtourism Is Sweeping Southern Europe

      Their slogan “Tourism robs us of our food, shelter and future. Tourist degrowth, now!” gets at the heart of the labor, housing and environmental crisis brewing in one of Europe’s most visited cities. The protest was coordinated via the Southern Europe Against Touristification Network, or SET, with others that took place the same day in a dozen cities in Portugal, Spain and Italy.

    • Wired ☛ The World Is Producing More Food than Ever—but Not for Long

      Under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, six key staple crops will see an 11.2 percent decline by the end of the century compared to a world without warming, even as farmers try to adapt. And the largest drops aren’t occurring in the poorer, more marginal farmlands, but in places that are already major food producers. These are regions like the US Midwest that have been blessed with good soil and ideal weather for raising staples like maize and soy.

    • Nature ☛ Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation | Nature

      Our projections suggest that changes in global yields affect populations around the world unequally. We estimate that total calorie production is generally affected more heavily by climate change in regions that are richer today (Fig. 3c), along with the lowest-income decile owing to its reliance on cassava. We estimate average losses of 28% in the lowest-income decile but more moderated losses of roughly 18% across deciles 2–8. In the highest-income deciles, average losses increase to 29% (ninth) and 41% (top). This result is partially because lower-income populations tend to live in hotter climates, in which present adaptation rates are higher, and in the tropics, in which high average precipitation reduces warming impacts (Fig. 3b). This has important implications for global damages, as high-income regions include many of the world’s breadbaskets. Because relative yield losses are greatest in regions in which modern agriculture is concentrated, they have amplified influence on global caloric production under climate change.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Narrow CZI’s Focus to Science Efforts

    The tech titan and his wife once had sprawling ambitions for their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Now their efforts in politics, education and housing have been cut back to focus on science.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Mark Zuckerberg’s charity backing away from DEI and political spending after Trump criticisms and staff tensions: report

    The initiative, founded in 2015, always invested in a combination of social and scientific causes, but has recently rebranded as “science-first,” and has ended internal diversity programs, housing initiatives, and diversity-focused funding for scientists.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • El País ☛ AI swallows misinformation and spits it back at us: ‘It’s optimized to give useful information, but not for it to be correct’

      ChatGPT and Grok absorb fake news and regurgitate it when asked. Due to their design, these models and their competitors are highly susceptible to disinformation

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Axios ☛ University of Virginia president resigns under pressure from Trump

    Zoom out: The Trump administration is at war with some of America's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • New Yorker ☛ ICE Detains a Respected Immigrant Journalist

    Now Guevara himself has been detained by ICE agents. On June 14th, he was arrested while live-streaming a No Kings protest near Atlanta, and he is currently being held in an immigration-detention center. His case highlights the particularly vulnerable position of immigrant journalists who report on immigration for immigrant communities. As attacks on press freedom mount, including the intimidation of journalists covering protests, reporters are becoming targets of the law-enforcement and immigration agencies that they cover.

  • JURIST ☛ Kyrgyzstan adopts laws weakening media freedom and torture prevention, rights group says

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday said Kyrgyzstan’s parliament passed two bills that allow the authorities to restrict media activities without judicial oversight and merge the country’s main anti-torture body with the ombudsman’s office, threatening media freedom and protection from torture.

  • ANF News ☛ Female journalist threatened after exposing forced prostitution ring in Şırnak

    The threats began after the publication of a detailed report last February in which Durgut reported on a 25-member group that had come under investigation by the authorities in 2013 on suspicion of forced prostitution, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation of minors, among other things. Among those at the center of the investigation is Kenan Tatar, who, according to the indictment, is considered one of the group's leading figures.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Hindu ☛ Gig workers demand minimum wages, legal recognition

    TGPWU members pointed out that the key demands put forward include minimum wage guarantee for all gig workers such as drivers, and delivery partners, as well as their registration and legal recognition to ensure coverage under welfare provisions. The union also called for algorithmic transparency from platform companies and a tripartite board with equal representation from workers, government, and companies.

  • JURIST ☛ Peru juvenile detention in adult prisons concerns UN rights experts

    The UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) expressed concern Friday after visiting Peru, where it observed serious issues such as prison overcrowding, lengthy pretrial detention, and a controversial new law that treats 16- and 17-year-old juveniles as adults within the penal system.

• Unions

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-25 [Older] DHL Express Canada reaches tentative agreement with union

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Register UK ☛ How to get free software from yesteryear's IT crowd

    Their best guess was that "Fabrikam" had pre-installed some software on its PCs, which would then be unlocked when run on those PCs. If a user ran the same software elsewhere, it would switch to a restricted or demo mode.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Possible AI 'Artist' Velvet Sundown Tops 370,000 Spotify Listeners

    Now for more pressing questions: How did the (probably) AI “artist” rack up hundreds of thousands of Spotify monthly listeners and streams in a matter of weeks? And with AI audio becoming increasingly sophisticated, how can we prevent non-human profiles from taking royalties as well as the spotlight away from actual music professionals?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Antitrust defies politics’ law of gravity

  It's money. It's totally, utterly money. When billionaires want something, it literally doesn't matter how much the rest of us hate it, they're gonna get their way. When billionaires hate something, it doesn't matter how popular it is with the rest of us, we're not gonna get it. As Gilens and Page put it: [...]

• Digital Music News ☛ Ticket Scalping Operations Are Using Overseas Buyers, BBC Says

  Enter the aforementioned BBC piece, which describes U.K.-based touts enlisting individuals in Pakistan, India, and elsewhere to seize upon hot tickets.

  Citing direct communications with these alleged overseas operators, the report points to the use of “illegal automated software and multiple identities” as part of the alleged schemes.

• Digital Music News ☛ Apple Debuts Major Changes to App Store in EU

  Developers are also free to overall their design interface for external links and promotions within the app—previously Apple was very strict about where and when the external link could be displayed. Perhaps the most significant change is that Apple’s required ‘scare sheet’ (a warning about external links) will now only appear the first time a user interacts with the link. A setting will also allow users to opt out of seeing it for future interactions within the same app.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Digital Music News ☛ In Denmark You Can Copyright Your Own Features—Here's Why

      The proposed law comes during rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology that has made it easier than ever before to create a convincing fake image, video, or song to mimic the features or style of another person.