Leftovers

• Security Week ☛ The Y2K38 Bug Is a Vulnerability, Not Just a Date Problem, Researchers Warn

  In the case of industrial control systems (ICS) and other operational technology (OT) systems used in critical infrastructure, a time-stamping error could lead to a chain reaction of failures, causing systems to crash, data to become corrupted, or safety protocols to fail, potentially leading to physical damage or risk to human life.

• Valtteri Koskivuori ☛ New Website

  You can expect to see posts about programming, vintage computing and electronics. I have 3 new drafts I'm already working on, with many more ideas in the pipeline. My next post, "Tracking down a regression in Mesa 3D", is due to be published within the next week (by October 12th, 2025).

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-01 [Older] How different mushrooms learned the same psychedelic trick

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] The other space race: why the world is obsessed with sending objects into orbit

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Most of your actions are driven by habit, not thought – here’s why that’s not a bad thing

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Could life exist on Mars today? Here’s what the latest evidence says

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Nobel physics prize awarded for pioneering experiments that paved the way for quantum computers

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Children are capable of extreme bravery from a young age – a psychologist explains how

  • Dmitrii Kovanikov ☛ Learn Lambda Calculus in 10 minutes with OCaml

    Lambda Calculus (LC) is a model to describe computations.

    LC describes the syntax and semantics.

  • New York Times ☛ Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded for Work in Quantum Mechanics

    The three scientists were recognized for a series of experiments conducted in 1984 and 1985. They proved the existence of two quantum phenomena on a system visible to the human eye.

• Career/Education

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Wire Still Holds

    This essay traces how we lost the ability to think coherently together—and how we might rebuild that capacity within ourselves.

  • Martin Hähne ☛ How To Figure Out What You're Not Good At

    A blog post[1] that has rolled around in my head ever since it arrived in my feed reader is How to say what you're good at by David R. Maciver. Here's the main reason it has stuck with me: [...]

• Hardware

  • Joel Chrono ☛ When a tool becomes a hobby

    Sometimes I get into collecting something, when usually a single one is enough, this happens with many tools, so I shared some thoughts about why.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ How to Fight Your Health Insurance Denial With an External Appeal

• Proprietary

  • Feld ☛ Thunderbolt on FreeBSD

    TL;DR if you run into Thunderbolt devices not working under FreeBSD, go into the BIOS and find the Thunderbolt settings. You should be able to disable the security model and also allow the Thunderbolt devices to be passed through in a pre-boot environment so they're accessible right when the kernel loads.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft clamping down on Windows 11 local account setup — latest Insider build removes 'local-only commands,' skipping Microsoft account sign-in will crash setup process

    One of the most popular ways to skip a Microsoft account sign-in was to use the start ms cxh:local only command, which is now removed. The Redmont giant already disabled the "bypassnro" method a few months ago, but there are still ways to get around this new barrier. The easiest route you can take is to run a script-based unattended installation, but not everyone will be aware (or comfortable) doing that, not to mention the sheer privacy concerns. Check out our guide for more info.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Amazon Caught Peddling AI Slop Version of Cory Doctorow That’s So Ironic That We Have to Go Outside and Stare at the Sky for a Bit

    • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Thinking of AI as a Social Problem

      Why would OpenAI and Microsoft spend $23 million to give “free training” on how to use AI to teachers? Because they love teachers? No. Because they want to get their products into public schools in an attempt to cultivate the education market. Their value proposition in that market will be, in the long run, to automate the labor that now produces textbooks, education materials, and education itself. To automate teachers, in other words. This, not some esoteric backwards fear of progress, is why it is stupid for a teachers union to welcome these AI companies in with open arms. Don’t be patsies! The destruction of your jobs are their profits.

    • Fabian Beuke ☛ Origins and Development of NNUE in Chess Engines

      The Efficiently Updatable Neural Network (NNUE) originated in the Japanese computer shogi community. It was invented in 2018 by Yu Nasu, who introduced this neural-network-based evaluation approach to shogi as a replacement for traditional handcrafted evaluation functions[1]. The name “NNUE” is a Japanese wordplay on Nue (a mythical chimera), and it is sometimes stylized as “ƎUИИ”. In shogi engines (notably in adaptations of the open-source engine YaneuraOu), NNUE proved remarkably strong - reportedly reaching play on par with DeepMind’s AlphaZero in that domain[2]. The NNUE concept built on earlier ideas like piece-square tables indexed by king location (an idea used in Kunihito Hoki’s shogi engine Bonanza), extending them with a neural network that could learn complex piece interactions[2]. In essence, NNUE provided a way to combine the efficiency of classical evaluation tables with the flexibility of machine-learned patterns.

    • Futurism ☛ Taylor Swift Fans Furious as She's Caught Using Sloppy AI in Video for New Album

      Hot off the heels of her new album, pop superstar Taylor Swift has been accused of using AI slop to promote the record.

    • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post - “Have You Proved You’re Human Today?” Open Content and Web Harvesting in the AI Era

      AI web harvesting bots are emerging as a significant IT management problem for content-rich websites across numerous industries. This is a byproduct of both the exploding market demand, as well as the technical choices and tremendous resource consumption of AI harvesters compared to traditional web crawlers. To train AI models effectively, the human operators need to collect and maintain a massive corpus of digital content. Much of that data is aggregated indiscriminately, without regard for the rights or wishes of the original creators, or of web publishers and platforms that offer the content. This activity is widely known, and a complex legal and ethical topic in and of itself.

  • Social Control Media

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] TikTok prank shows fake burglar, sparks dozens of police call-outs

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Rolex-Loving Daughter Defies Cameroon's Aged Leader on TikTok

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK Party, Says Migrant's TikTok Video 'Chilling'

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] The TikTok star looking to convince women to turn to trades

    • Eliseo Martelli ☛ The Simulation of Connection: Spotify

      It's a form of emotional outsourcing. We no longer engage with music as an act of discovery or empathy; we engage with it as a consumer interface designed to deliver predictable microdoses of sentiment.

      Art becomes data. Connection becomes simulation. Emotion becomes UX.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Self-Propagating Malware Hits WhatsApp Users in Brazil

      A self-propagating malware is making the rounds in Brazil, spreading across WhatsApp desktop sessions in a way that suggests attackers specifically are targeting enterprise users.

    • Abner Coimbre ☛ Exit the Feed: The Best Coders Should Walk Away

      I think our biggest technical talent should abandon for-profit social platforms.

      I’m talking usual suspects here: Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and so on. Not as a moral crusade, but because the platforms are crumbling under heavy regulation and cultural backlash. If you’re investing your peak years shaping public narratives there, you risk reputation and creativity (more on the latter later.) I’m noticing four big forces pushing this shift: [...]

• Security

  • CISA

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] CISA Releases Two Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Delta Electronics DIAScreen

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] CISA Adds Seven Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] CISA Adds Five Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] CISA Releases Two Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Raise3D Pro2 Series 3D Printers

    • CISA ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Hitachi Energy MSM Product

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Krebs On Security ☛ ShinyHunters Wage Broad Corporate Extortion Spree

      In May 2025, a prolific and amorphous English-speaking cybercrime group known as ShinyHunters launched a social engineering campaign that used voice phishing to trick targets into connecting a malicious app to their organization’s Salesforce portal.

    • The Register UK ☛ Red Hat breach escalates as Crimson Collective recruits help

      Red Hat last week confirmed to The Reg that the breach was related to a GitLab instance and said it had isolated the affected environment and launched an investigation. The attack did not target GitLab's own infrastructure, spokesperson Emily James stressed to El Reg, saying: "The incident refers to Red Hat's self-managed instance of GitLab Community Edition... Customers who deploy free, self-managed instances on their own infrastructure are responsible for securing their instances, including applying security patches, configuring access controls, and maintenance."

    • Threat Source ☛ Too salty to handle: Exposing cases of CSS abuse for hidden text salting

      There is widespread use of hidden text salting in malicious emails to bypass detection. Attackers embed hidden salt in the preheader, header, attachments and body — using characters, paragraphs and comments — by manipulating text, visibility and sizing properties. Talos has observed that hidden content is far more often found in spam and other email threats than in legitimate emails, posing a substantial challenge to both basic and advanced email defense solutions that leverage machine learning.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Nebraska secretary of state wants to hand over voter data to feds, but says lawsuit blocks it

      Critics have questioned the safety and potential national security risks of letting any administration consolidate such voter data in one place.

      In a Sept. 29 interview with KFAB, Evnen, after seeking guidance from Attorney General Mike Hilgers, said he was “fine” with handing over the voter data because the state’s maintenance practices are “complete and proper.”

• Defence/Aggression

  • Daniel Holden ☛ Hiroshima

    The first thing that I only understood after visiting: the atomic bomb was not a bomb. When the first bomb exploded on 6th August 1945 it was perhaps the most reality-altering event in all of history.

  • Anil Dash ☛ The Unexpected New Threat to Video Creators

    The key things that have shifted can be summarized with three points:

    1. TikTok Takeover: The cronyism exploited to hand TikTok to Larry Ellison for a fraction of its worth, setting up the danger of its platform amplifying content controlled by the administration, and silencing dissenting voices.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv seeks G7 natural gas imports

    • Truthdig ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Washington Can Still End the War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Analysis-Ukraine's Path to EU Will Be Tough, With or Without Hungarian Hurdle

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Czech President Presses Parties to Keep Aid for Ukraine After Critics Win Election

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Polish Court Extends Custody for Ukrainian Wanted in Nord Stream Case

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says Would Want to Know Ukraine's Plans for Tomahawk Missiles

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Dutch municipalities warn of “lost generation” among Ukrainian youth

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Exclusive-Citing Cuban Fighters in Ukraine, US Urges Allies to Shun Havana at UN

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Putin Says Tomahawk Supply to Ukraine Would Destroy U.S. Relations

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Netherlands commits €55 million to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Czech Support for Ukraine at Stake as Populist Babiš Poised to Return in an Election

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy, Merz attend Denmark summit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Defeat of Ukraine Would Embolden China Towards Taiwan, Taiwanese Officer Says in Poland

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Kremlin Says US Already Gives Ukraine Intelligence on a Regular Basis

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy to Meet European Leaders in Copenhagen on Thursday

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Ukraine: Russia using tankers for sabotage, Kyiv says

    • Marcy Wheeler ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] “Do something, bitch!”* Kristi Noem Dressed Russia’s Useful Idiot Up to Cosplay CBP

    • The Local DK ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Denmark to beef up checks against Russia's 'shadow fleet'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Kremlin Says There Will Be a Response if EU Curbs Russian Diplomats' Travel

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Power Restored in Russian-Held Parts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Region, Officials Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Putin Says Russia Has Captured Nearly 5,000 Square Km in Ukraine This Year

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Russia and India Begin Joint Military Drills in Rajasthan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Russia Hosts Taliban Delegation and Warns Against Foreign Military Presence in Afghanistan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Russia Says It Awaits Clarity on Possible US Supply of Tomahawks to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Russia Says Ukrainian Drone Crashed Into Nuclear Plant, Without Causing Damage

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-07 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Russia Using Tankers for Reconnaissance, Sabotage

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] PM Schoof pledges to keep Dutch parts out of Russian weapons during Ukraine visit

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv says ammo plant hit deep inside Russia

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Blacklisted Russian Cargo Plane Ignites US Fury After Secret Landing in Africa Amid Russia's Shadow Influence

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] US Supreme Court Won't Hear Russian Bank's Appeal Over Malaysia Airlines Crash

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] EU Must Follow Law in Using Frozen Russian Assets to Help Ukraine, Lagarde Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Explainer-Could US and Russia Extend Last Nuclear Weapons Treaty?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] North Korean Leader Kim Tells Russia's Putin That Alliance Will Grow

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Russia Says It Downs 251 Ukrainian Drones, Including 61 Over Black Sea

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Russia's Kirishi Refinery Halts Largest Unit After Drone Attack, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Ukraine Attack on Russia's Belgorod Cuts Power to Thousands, Regional Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Ukraine Claims It Struck Russian Ammo Plant, Oil Terminal and Weapons Depot

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Ukraine Says It Struck Major Russian Explosives Factory, Oil Terminal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Ukrainian Commander Says Russian Sabotage Groups Active Inside Pokrovsk

    • TruthOut ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Ukrainians Find Little Clarity From Cheeto Mussolini About How War With Russia May End

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Five Killed, Energy Infrastructure Damaged in Russian Air Attack on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] At Least 5 Dead in Large-Scale Nighttime Russian Strike on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Germany's Merz: We Assume Russia Is Behind Drone Incursions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-05 [Older] Russia Condemns U.S. Strike on Alleged Drug Vessel Near Venezuela

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Erdogan's balancing act: Can Turkey do without Russian energy?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] The AfD is drawing support from Russia Germans

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia hits passenger train, injures dozens

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Hungary Clings to Russian Oil and Gas as EU and NATO Push to Cut Supplies

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's 'Paper Tiger' Jab at Russia Echoes Mao's Propaganda Against the US

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] China Provides Intelligence to Russia on Ukraine Targets, Ukrainian Intelligence Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-04 [Older] Russian Strike Hits Passenger Train in Ukraine, Injuring Dozens

    • CPJ ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Russian drone kills French journalist Antoni Lallican in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Ukraine: French photojournalist killed by Russian drone

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] US Book Publishers Honor Russian Dissident House Freedom Letters

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] A Russia-Like Crackdown in Georgia Is Targeting Protesters, Rights Activists and the Media

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Denmark Reports Repeated Russian Naval Provocations in Its Straits

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-03 [Older] Russia's Largest Attack on Naftogaz Deals Critical Damage to Ukraine’s Gas Production Sites

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] European Positions on Russia Harden as Drone Incidents, Cyber-Attacks and Sabotage Mount

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Belgium Says EU States Must Share Risk to Use Frozen Russian Assets for Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Captain of Oil Tanker Linked to Russia's Shadow Fleet Will Face Trial in France

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] It's No Cold War - It's a 'Fiery' Conflict Now With the West, Russia Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Russian Boat Seen Close to Polish Gas Pipeline, Border Guard Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Russian Politician Who Called for Ukraine Ceasefire Is Charged With Spreading Lies About the Army

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Russia Says EU Proposal on Loan and Reparations to Ukraine Is Crazy, Will Draw Tough Response

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Russia Says 'Illegal' Sanctions on Iran Deepen Crisis Over Its Nuclear Program

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] France Detains Captain of Tanker Thought to Be Part of Russia's 'Shadow Fleet'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Ukraine Brings Home 185 Soldiers, 20 Civilians in Swap With Russia, Zelenskiy Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-02 [Older] Zelenskyy Warns Russian Drones Endanger Safety at Chernobyl and at Europe's Biggest Nuclear Plant

    • The Local DK ☛ 2025-10-01 [Older] France to try captain of Russia 'shadow fleet' vessel linked to Denmark drone flights

• Environment

  • CBC ☛ The Pacific Ocean is overheated, making fall feel like summer

    Studies have shown that marine heat waves are being made worse and more frequent by global warming, says William Cheung, director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia. Since the "blob" there have been marine heat waves every year since 2019.

  • Wired ☛ Taking These 50 Objects Out of Orbit Would Cut Danger From Space Junk in Half

    “The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem,” said Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. “Seventy-six percent of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century, and 88 percent of the objects are rocket bodies. That’s important to note, especially with some disturbing trends right now.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Explorer Ernest Shackleton May Have Known His Ship 'Endurance' Wasn't Equipped to Survive the Antarctic Ice

      “Even simple structural analysis shows that the ship was not designed for the compressive pack ice conditions that eventually sank it,” says study author Jukka Tuhkuri, a solid mechanics and ice researcher at Finland’s Aalto University, in a statement. “The danger of moving ice and compressive loads—and how to design a ship for such conditions—was well understood before the ship sailed south.”

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Truthdig ☛ 2025-09-30 [Older] ‘The Amazon Is Not for Sale’

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Mike Brock ☛ Liberalism Is Not Oligarchy

    What I argued in “Call The Wealthy’s Bluff” isn’t socialism. It’s defense of liberalism against oligarchy. And if you can’t tell the difference, that reveals how successfully moneyed interests have convinced you that serving them is “moderate” while opposing their capture of democratic institutions is “radical.”

  • Jason Becker ☛ The Confrontation Machine

    The right lionized Charlie Kirk because he was confrontational– not because he was correct, smart, kind, or convincing. His entire “doing politics the right way” was being ready to confront anyone to his left with maximum indignation and a disgust.

    I think the left also rewards this behavior.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: They’re just trying to earn a buck

    A company cannot charge infinity dollars and pay its workers zero dollars. In the former case, customers might reasonably take their business elsewhere. In the latter case, workers might sell their labor elsewhere.

    But if companies can capture their regulators and hijack power to change the rules of the game in their favor, they can go a long way to achieving both goals. An airport concessionaire on the sanitary side of the TSA checkpoint can charge $14 for a bottle of filtered tap water because exiting the checkpoint to shop elsewhere is a multi-hour affair and you'll miss your flight.

  • Ava ☛ the sims community's reckoning | ava's blog

    As many of you have probably heard by now, the game company EA is intended to be sold to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, a firm managed by Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law), and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. This would involve the company going private and taking on a considerable amount of debt, making even harsher monetization, budget cuts, AI slop and layoffs likely.

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ Qualcomm's buying Arduino – what it means for makers

    But I have two big questions:

    1. How well will Qualcomm support Linux? It will ship with Debian, but will they devote the same amount of effort to keeping it up to date as Raspberry Pi, or will they abandon it in a couple years?

    2. How will they make it easier to develop things that fully utilize the little microcontroller? In other words: what makes this different than plugging an Uno into an SBC?

  • The Register UK ☛ Qualcomm solders Arduino to its edge AI ambitions

    Qualcomm has acquired Arduino, maker of microcontrollers (and now single-board computers), in a move designed to boost its presence in edge computing, as evidenced by a new Arduino product based on one of its Dragonwing chips.

  • Tracy Durnell ☛ Can people’s minds be changed?

    We can more easily change opinions that are not hooked in to our identities and our communities… but the internet has made more topics politically charged and personally meaningful than in the past. If changing their mind will get someone ejected from their tribe, a lot of people will resist out of self-protection — so I’m not sure how many people are open to changing their minds in our current political climate.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ AI-Enabled Influence Operation Against Iran - Schneier on Security

      Citizen Lab has uncovered a coordinated AI-enabled influence operation against the Iranian government, probably conducted by Israel.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Crooked Timber ☛ Chat control in Europe, an open letter to the Irish Minister who wants to scan all our messages — Crooked Timber

    I’m publishing an email I just sent to Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, on a truly hideous and anti-democratic European law that Ireland is strenuously supporting. It’s looking like Germany, which was strong on data protection, may crack and support this law, too. This week is make or break week for ‘chat control’, a proposal to insert message-scanning software on every European’s phone, ostensibly to scan for child sexual abuse material.

  • Court House News ☛ The mouse that roared

    It struck me then that Trump is also an entertainer — famous for firing people — and has developed a similar skill of finding the punchy words and combining them with a good delivery. So it is natural that he would see other entertainers as his most effective opponents, because of that combination of skills lacking in most politicians.

    The defeat for the administration in its push to get Disney to knuckle under seemed important, not so much as a turning point but as a time when his ability to push everybody around ran into an opponent — The Mouse — willing to stand his ground.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • FAIR ☛ ‘There’s No Space in the American Landscape Where the Shadow of the Prison Doesn’t Fall’: CounterSpin interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on media and power

    Janine Jackson interviewed incarcerated journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal about media and power for the October 3, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  • CPJ ☛ Elderly father of Guinean journalist Mamoudou Babila Keita abducted

    “The circumstances of Elhadj Adama Keita’s abduction raise fears that he is being punished for the journalism of his son, Mamoudou Babila Keita,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa representative. “Guinean authorities must ensure that Adama Keita is reunited with his family and allow the media to operate freely.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Maine Is Investigating a Claim That Bundles of Ballots Ended up in a Resident's Amazon Order

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-10-06 [Older] Organizing Amazon Should Be a Priority for Labor Globally

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Apple’s unlawful evil

    In killing ICEBlock, Apple insists that it is only complying with lawful orders, which is patently untrue. Pam Bondi has no authority to order the censorship of this legal speech tool, which is likely why she didn't seek a court order and instead merely rage-tweeted about it. This was sufficient to get Apple CEO Tim Cook, the billionaire who moved Apple's manufacturing to Chinese sweatshops where working conditions are so brutal that they require suicide nets, to cave in.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Zambian Observer ☛ Netflix has lost $25 billion after Elon Musk urged users to cancel subscription

    Some reports estimate that Netflix has lost over $15 billion in market value since Musk’s calls began. While conservative sources peg the number at around $25 billion. But regardless of the exact total, analysts agree the timing between Musk’s boycott call and the stock dip is hard to ignore.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify Stock Slips After Goldman Sachs Downgrade, CEO Leaving

    Profit margins will also rise as Spotify improves the economics of its core music business, spreads fixed podcast costs over a larger revenue base, and scales higher-margin ad sales. It’s worth noting that music royalty payments as a share of revenue could fall from about 71% this year to 64% by 2030. Meanwhile, advertising could grow more than 16% a year between 2025 and 2028.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• New York Times ☛ U.S. v. Google: What Each Side Argued for Fixing Google’s Ad Tech Monopoly

  The Justice Department argued that Google had a monopoly over three parts of the online advertising market: the tools used by online publishers, like news sites, to host open ad space; the tools advertisers use to buy that ad space; and the software that enables those transactions.

• Nick Heer ☛ Cory Doctorow Turned His Word of the Year Into a Whole Book

  Shopping on Amazon sucks now. It sounds, based on Doctorow’s article, like it also sucks to sell on Amazon now, too. But some of Doctorow’s criticisms ring hollow. For example: [...]

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • The Washington Post ☛ OpenAI’s Sora app can deepfake anyone — here’s what it did to me

      Recently I watched a video of myself getting arrested for drunken driving. Then I watched myself burn an American flag. Then I watched myself confess to eating toenail clippings. None of it happened. But all of it looked real enough to make me do a double-take.

• Copyrights

  • Kevin Kelly ☛ The Technium: Paying AIs to Read My Books

    However, Anthropic claims it did not use this particular library for training their AIs. They may have used other libraries and those libraries may or may not have been “legal” in the sense of having been paid for. The legality of using digitized books for anything is still in dispute. For example, Google digitizes books for search purposes, but only shows small snippets of the book as the result. Can they use the same digital copy they have already made for training AI purposes? The verdict in the Bartz v. Anthropic case was that, yes, using a copy of a book for training AI is fair use, if it was obtained in a fair way. Anthropic was penalized not for training AI on books, but for having in its possession a copy of the books it had not paid for.

  • Creative Commons ☛ Global Call to Action: Open Heritage Statement Now Open for Signature

    Developed by more than 60 organizations across 25 countries within the Coalition, the Statement defines shared values, highlights key challenges, and sets action-oriented priorities for closing the global gap in equitable access to heritage in the public domain. It is grounded in a shared vision and intended to lay the groundwork for a global dialogue toward an international framework for open heritage. It aims to support UNESCO’s ongoing work on cultural rights, digital transformation, and knowledge sharing for sustainable development, reinforcing UNESCO’s founding commitment to the free flow of ideas.