Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Why Is Textile Work Not Taught To Engineers?

  A talk from the recent Electromagnetic Field event in the UK caught our eye, in which [Amy Jeskins] looked at the overlooked engineering skill of pattern cutting. She takes us through the mechanics of creating a pattern for a piece of clothing, and asks why it is not a skill taught to engineers.

• Gigi ☛ Typing

  Why do I go on and on about typing? Because it’s one of the ways I like to express myself, that’s why.

• Eliseo Martelli ☛ We are a blip.

  My objective is still simple: leave a net positive impact. Some days are negative, some days are positive. But the direction still matters.

• Dan McQuillan ☛ Abstract for 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good'

  Abstract for the forthcoming paper 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good'. Pre-print coming soon.

• Chris Glass ☛ A surge… a disaster… a reminder

  Maybe you’ve been putting off organizing a basement or a closet. This is encouragement to move that project to the top of the list. Figure out what’s most important and make sure it’s on the top shelf, metaphorically. Digitize those home movies. Scan favorite photos. And make sure the lids are on securely.

• Kyla ☛ The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction

  This is the economic story: friction has become a class experience. Wealth has always helped smooth over bumps - but when the physical world is such a mess and the digital world is so easy, it’s simple to curate the digital into the physical if you have money.

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • John D Cook ☛ Cryptographic Keys and Decks of Cards

    The previous post looked at the idea of storing a cryptographic key in the order of a deck of cards. A deck of 52 cards can store 225 bits of data because

    ⌊log2(52!)⌋ = 225.

    Here ⌊x⌋ is x rounded down to the nearest integer.

    If we want to store bigger keys, we’re going to need a bigger deck of cards.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Hiltzik: Trump replaces science with stupidity

    Thanks to a group of University of California researchers who have gone to court to fight Trump’s cancellation of their research grants, we now have the most explicit confessions by six federal agencies about how slipshod and partisan their actions have been.

    They’re the departments of Defense, Energy and Transportation, and the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

  • The Register UK ☛ Signals are grim for Jodrell Bank Observatory after UK science funding decision

    Jodrell Bank Observatory faces an uncertain future after UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) pulled funding.

    The UK's Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) science budget is decreasing by 2.7 percent over four years, which, coupled with increasing costs, means cuts seem inevitable, and the venerable Jodrell Bank could be on the chopping block.

• Career/Education

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ You don't have to be smart if you can think clearly

    What skill do these smart engineers lack? I think it’s the ability to think slowly and clearly. Smart engineers can think clearly, but they can only think clearly at high speed. Strong engineers can think clearly all the time, even if their highest speed isn’t quite as fast. It’s like the difference between a Formula 1 car and a regular car: Formula 1 cars have a high top speed, but you couldn’t drive them in traffic, because the tyres and brakes don’t work at normal driving speeds.

  • Robert Birming ☛ I guess I’m trash

    What an awesome approach to life. Being yourself and doing your thing, no matter if others consider it to be trash or treasure.

• Hardware

  • Pradyun Narkadamilli ☛ Gallivanting Around With a New Camera

    Sadly, the main drawbacks of film for me were the things most people love about it (development time, inflexibility w.r.t ISO and white balance). The fact that you can't see the screen of the X-Pro 3 by default pretty strongly deters chimping, and while you can absolutely achieve the same effect with other cameras through discipline and willpower, it's definitely increased the immersion I feel when shooting. I do flip out the screen from time to time to play with film simulations and white balance, but I've been enjoying the practice of coming home with very little idea of how my shots turned out and going through it on my computer as a wind-down routine.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hackaday ☛ How The Vagus Nerve Promotes Healthy Cognition Via Acetylcholine Signaling

    Key to the gut-brain connection is the vagus nerve, an essential part of the autonomic nervous system that wires the brain into the body’s organs, including the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. It provides both sensory and motor fibers, so that the brain can literally sense the state of said GI tract, with various triggers as result. One of these is – as demonstrated in the paper – the release of acetylcholine (aCh) an important neurotransmitters in the CNS for cognitive functions including attention, memory and motivation.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ No screen without a matching TODO item

    My war against Screen and against Online is over and this is the peace treaty: No screen without a matching TODO item.

    I can spend any amount of time online or on devices or watching TV and do anything on there as long as I do this: [...]

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • The Record ☛ Outdated VPNs should be purged from federal agencies, senator says

    Wyden (D-OR) told the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that they must lead an effort to remove public [Internet] facing and insecure virtual private networks from the government’s systems.

    “For too long, federal agencies and government contractors have suffered devastating cyberattacks due to their reliance on legacy, insecure, [Internet]-facing VPN servers to grant employees remote access,” Wyden said in a letter to the agencies.

    The senator cited “multiple recent and devastating hacking campaigns” targeting VPNs and remote-access systems, including products from Cisco, Fortinet, Ivanti and Check Point.

  • Dark Reading ☛ Thousands of Data Center Controllers Open to Takeover

    Researchers at Lava discovered the flaw when researching Internet-exposed Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) for vulnerabilities and said it found evidence of attackers having exploited the issue in the wild.

  • Hackaday ☛ Samsung’s SmartThings API Terminates Free Access

    SmartThings was originally a 2012 Kickstarter campaign that ended up becoming successful enough that the company was bought by Samsung in 2014. Its current offerings are very much like other so-called Smart Home products, with recently support for Matter and thus interoperability with third-party devices added.

  • CompaniesMarketCap ☛ Largest software companies by market cap

    Companies: 478

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • 404 Media ☛ Spotify's AI Problem Is So Bad Random People Are Stepping In to Track the Slop

      This confusion could have been avoided if Spotify had done what many of its users and critics have been begging it to do since AI music generators like Suno and Udio made it trivial to flood the [Internet] with AI music. Spotify could flag Slime Dot and other AI-generated music on its platform as such. Other platforms, like YouTube, already do this.

    • Numeric Citizen ☛ About a potential AI bubble

      [...] What worries me, actually, is the impact of this crisis on my finances. [...]

    • Lzon ☛ What if useful AI is a fantasy?

      I see a clear trend in my use of AI for programming, and that trend ultimately is to use it less. First I gave up on “set and forget” vibe coding, and transitioned to an active, guided approach. Still feeling frustrated and unsatisfied, I’ve recently transitioned to AI assisted ideation: attempting to build those large mental models just through conversation with the AI, and then writing the actual code on my own, just as I always have.

    • Jono Alderson ☛ SEO vs GEO is the wrong question

      This is why the SEO versus GEO debate starts from the wrong question.

      Understanding how language models retrieve information, weigh evidence and construct recommendations is clearly valuable. Learning how to influence those processes will become an important capability.

      But “AI visibility” is a slippery proxy. A system can cite your page without recommending your business, and the same prompt can produce different sources from one run to the next. Ray’s research into self-promotional listicles shows how easily citation and recommendation can diverge. Citation volume matters only insofar as it improves how the business is understood, considered and chosen.

      Treating that capability as “the new SEO” still shrinks a fundamental shift in marketing into another optimisation discipline.

    • David Mead ☛ So tired of these shit AI tools

      I am so tired of every company feeling the need to shoehorn in an AI helper. To be honest I've found zero use for any of them, and they are all a bit shit.

      Take a banking app I have.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Discernment (28 Jul 2026)

      In other words, I lack the discernment to evaluate the output of the chatbot that Tao exchanged theories with. If you showed me an equally opaque transcript of a "conversation" between a chatbot and a crank with AI psychosis whose math made no sense whatsoever, I couldn't make an a priori judgment about which one was a solid piece of mathematical theorizing and which one was a math-flavored word-salad.

      As many skilled programmers can attest, chatbots can produce very useful output – but as even the most ardent AI-assisted coder will admit, chatbot-written code is also full of baffling, obvious errors (and subtle, hard-to-spot ones): [...]

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Sam Altman: Guys, we’re in the Singularity now

      You’ll get better and more coherent predictions from a 1-900 telephone psychic.

    • NDTV ☛ Al-Qaida And ISIS Are Using AI Very Differently. Here's How

      Artificial intelligence may not create a new kind of terrorism, but it makes existing tactics cheaper, faster and easier. That is the central argument of a July 2026 report from the US-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK judge Wilson Chan to retire early after repeatedly committing plagiarism

      In the latest instance of plagiarism, Chan was found to have copied large parts of the defence’s opening and closing arguments in a HK$40 million shares dispute between Koo Ming-kown, the founder of digital products company Nam Tai Electronics, and Koo’s former brother-in-law.

      Koo lost the case initially but won an appeal this month, with the Court of Appeal finding that 95 per cent of Chan’s judgement was plagiarised. The case was ordered to be retried before another judge.

    • Gizmodo ☛ If You're Reading This, You're Probably an AI Bot

      As the New York Times points out in a fresh report, Google results are directing more and more people to…Google, and that’s it. Generally, there’s an AI Overview at the top of a results page for any given informational search, and perhaps that’s enough for many queries. But a study from Growth Memo referenced by the Times says 75% of people who find themselves using AI Mode, stay in AI mode rather than switching to the web. And if you’re in AI Mode, that means you’re just hanging out chatting with the bot while Google’s AI agents flit around trying to answer your question.

      But the point is that whether users tend to stop at the AI Overview, or engage with it and end up in AI Mode, “more than 50% of traffic on the Internet is now non-human,” a Cloudflare report from earlier this month says. As less and less human traffic comes from Google Search, and more and more ads are being shown to bots, the danger is that the business model of a free and open web will become unsustainable.

• Security

  • The Register UK ☛ Bank for charities pulls online services over security fears

    CAF Bank, which serves 14,000 charities, has suspended online banking as it fixes a vulnerability in how third-party software connects to its portal.

    The outage has left some organizations struggling to run payroll after being cut from their accounts.

    In a message to customers, seen by The Register, the Charities Aid Foundation-owned bank confirm online services had been unavailable since July 24 and will remain so until further notice.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ DEF CON bans Meta-style 'pervert glasses'

      Statements made via its social media channels went on to say that no exceptions will be made for those using the devices with prescription lenses.

      “Be sure to pack non-violating eyewear if you need them,” DEF CON said, before directing delegates to the conference’s official photo policy.

    • The Record ☛ UK court rejects Bahrain immunity claim in spyware case

      The men now live in the U.K., where they filed a lawsuit contending that they are owed damages from Bahrain for the mental harm they suffered.

      The alleged hacking by officials in Bahrain “allowed access to and exfiltration of information on the computers, interception of communications conducted using the computers and use of the computers’ microphones and cameras to surveil the respondents,” according to the court opinion.

    • UK ☛ JUDGMENT: The Kingdom of Bahrain (Appellant) v Shehabi and another (Respondents) [PDF]

      6. Conclusion

      For all these reasons, I would allow the appeal.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Employment Scams Target Job Seekers As FBI, LinkedIn Warn

      Employment scams are increasingly being used to target job seekers, with the FBI and LinkedIn joining forces to educate applicants about fraudulent job opportunities and the warning signs of potential exploitation. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 24,688 reports of employment scam victimization in 2025, with nearly $363 million in reported losses.

      The FBI defines employment fraud as a scheme designed to deceive someone into believing they have been, or could soon be, hired for a job. However, officials warn that these schemes are not always focused on stealing money from victims. They can also be used to recruit money mules, collect personally identifiable information, or force people into labor.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Links to Claude Chats Were Indexed by Google and ‘Bing’, Whatever That Is

      Search engines do not automatically discover new URLs as they are created. They are typically indexed by taking one of two actions: either the site owner submits URLs to search engines — by using a site map, for example, or by manually submitting the page for indexing — or by someone linking to the URL from a different already-indexed page. The critical thing left unreported in Varner’s article is whether these Claude links were being indexed thanks to Anthropic’s actions or those of users.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Chrome forces Gemini global shortcut onto your Mac

      Google doesn’t have the same control over desktop computers. But in MacOS on the Apple Macintosh, any application can set a keyboard shortcut that works globally — in any other app.

      If you install the Chrome web browser, pressing control-G — and in one report, shift-command-G — in any app brings up a Gemini window. Even if the app was already using that key combination. Chrome doesn’t ask first, or tell you when it takes the key.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Trump asks Supreme Court to let him curtail mail-in voting ahead of midterms

    The filing also follows a Supreme Court ruling in late June that let states keep counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day if postmarked on time.

    You can read the full filing below.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ The Putinization of the American Military

    But the loss to Iran is different: it is the closest we have come to outright military defeat. U.S. forces pulled out of Saigon and Kabul, not because they had been beaten in battle, but because the domestic political cost of propping up client regimes became too great.

    Granted, U.S. forces haven’t suffered any conventional defeats at Iranian hands either.

    But all indications are that the main reason the Trump administration is again calling off major operations against Iran is that America is running critically short of ammunition.

  • The Next Move ☛ Ukraine’s Protesters Remind Us Why Their Country Isn’t Russia

    All of this is taking place under martial law, which grants governments expanded emergency powers needed to confront a declared threat. In Ukraine this means men aged 23 to 60 are barred from leaving the country, mass conscription, and curfews in most cities, including Kyiv. Ukrainians have endured these extraordinary restrictions for a reason: to protect their democracy. That’s why a US Marine veteran like me volunteered to serve in the Ukrainian military in the very first days of the full-scale invasion. Now Ukrainians are hitting the streets en masse for the same reason—to safeguard their freedom—and I had the privilege of joining them.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Germany: Islamist terror attack triggers political debate

    The suspected perpetrator was a 21-year-old German national, born to a woman of Lebanese origin. He was known to the police as a sympathizer with the Islamist terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS) in Syria. In the summer of 2025, he attempted to travel to Syria via Turkey and Lebanon to join IS fighters. However, he was detained in Lebanon, brought back to Germany in November 2025, and placed in pre-trial detention.

    He stood trial in Berlin on charges of preparing a serious act of violence. Prosecutors sought a prison sentence of two years and ten months. However, the court released the young man, handing down a suspended sentence of one year and ten months. The IS sympathizer had been free since mid-May of this year — a decision the prosecution appealed.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Deadline ☛ Judge Rules Trump's Trust Must Provide Financial Documents To BBC

    The judge had already indicated her ruling at a hearing last week. Per Politico, the judge also limited the scope of information that could be sought by the BBC into January 6th. “All of the impressions that were received by President Trump’s statements on January 6 are at issue. The full relitigation of January 6 is not at issue,” the judge said, per the outlet.

    In her written ruling, the judge rejected the trust’s claims that the subpoena for documents from nearly 400 different entities is outside the scope of discovery, citing Trump’s claims that his “brand, properties and businesses” were harmed.

• Environment

  • Robert Reich ☛ Are AI Data Centers Really THAT Bad?

    No. They're worse.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ The fight against AI datacenters is important – but it’s just a starting point

    Local datacenter opposition is grounded in legitimate concerns about misallocation of land resources when housing is at a premium, pressures on already higher energy prices, and localized environmental impact. Unlike other resource-consuming and polluting industrial facilities, datacenters produce very few jobs. The fact that US opposition to datacenters seems to be most fierce among lower-income communities reflects righteous indignation with an inequitable bargain, where tech companies and developers profit from exploiting local resources but offer little in return. On a global scale, their carbon footprint could grow unsustainably if usage accelerates. And all this is in aid of a technology that many fear will propagate misinformation, take their jobs, or even cause existential risks for humanity.

    For some, datacenter opposition may feel like the only tangible mechanism for registering their concern, disapproval, or even anger about AI. The problem is that this may be exactly what the AI companies are banking on. They can overcome the protest when it matters to them, and live with a significant fraction of proposals being defeated. More importantly, focusing political opponents on the datacenter issue obscures the bigger prize they’re after.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Politico LLC ☛ Data center boom sparks lobbying surge

      More than 200 entities lobbied between April and June on proposals to prevent data center electric demand from spiking utility rates, a nationwide moratorium on new facilities and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s actions around how to connect the massive electricity users to the grid, a rev[1;5Hiew of new federal lobbying disclosures by POLITICO showed.

      It’s a sharp increase from the same quarter in 2025, when fewer than 100 companies and groups reported lobbying on data center matters.

• Finance

  • Lee Peterson ☛ Stop buying things by using a simple rule and a list

    I’m not sure if it’s the neurodivergence in me or a character trait but I run mostly on impulse. This applies to almost anything but is most prevalent around money and gets me in trouble a lot of the time. One area I’ve been able to calm it down a little is with purchase decisions thanks to a simple rule and a list.

    If I come across something I like or want in the future instead of impulse buying I’ll stop for 24 hours and put it in a list. In Apple Reminders I have a list called “things”, in here I put anything I want. It’ll either be from a text input or web link. Once in the list it’s out of my head. When I’m out and about, if it’s under £20 I might pick it up but if not it’ll go in the list and I give it at least 24 hours, most of the time I’ve forgotten about it later or feel no need to purchase.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Enshittification Relies on Broken Economic Math

    There is no easily quantifiable answer to that question. And that is the problem. The way that America’s version of capitalism proves its utility is by adding up all of the profits created by the privatization of public goods without subtracting the value that has been destroyed by the same activity. We have created the largest enshittifying machine in world history by employing a financial logic that leaves out half of the equation.

    Take a scenic countryside and fill it with billboards. You can calculate precisely the amount of profit that has thereby been created for advertising companies, and the associated rise in profits for the companies that attract more customers with the billboards. But what is the cost of the destruction of the scenic countryside view? Don’t ask! It would, of course, be something of a philosophical project to place an exact dollar value on the lost beauty. The bigger problem is that, in our economic system, we do not even try. Across our economy, externalities are simply ignored. Their costs fall on the public’s shoulders. This is not a novel observation— “privatize profits and socialize costs” is what makes the “too big to fail” business model so successful. What is remarkable is the extent to which our government regulations, our views of common sense business practices, and our whole conventional wisdom about the way that material progress should rationally unfold all seem to proceed calmly towards oblivion without even trying to calculate what should be on the “minus” side of the ledger.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Fawlty Towers star John Cleese says he trusts Rupert Lowe more than any other UK leader

    Comedy legend John Cleese has expressed his support for Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe. The Monty Python actor has been vocal on his political views for decades but has recently leaned to the right over concerns about immigration, free speech and Islamic fundamentalism.

    Responding to a post on X calling for people to share the first word that comes to mind above a picture of Mr Lowe, Mr Cleese responded: "I trust this man more than any of the other leaders."

    Mr Lowe responded: "John Cleese is a patriot. His support for our rape-gang inquiry is appreciated."

  • The Verge ☛ The US is banning foreign robots

    A FAQ page published by the FCC defines an “advanced robotic device” as a machine that is capable of “locomotion, obstacle avoidance, navigation, or movement on the ground;” comes with a sensor that perceives the surrounding environment; and has a chip for network connectivity. It must also weigh more than 4.4 pounds (including its docking station, if it has one).

    By that definition, even future robot vacuums would automatically be banned if they do not obtain a waiver. The FCC does not appear to be limiting this ban to robots with legs. In fact, the National Security Determination that the FCC is using to justify the move explicitly mentions The Verge’s reporting on the poor security of DJI’s Romo robovac.

  • Stephen Hackett ☛ Pray They Don’t Alter It Any Further

    I am not surprised that the company would back away from previously made promises,1 nor am I surprised that my local leaders would be naive enough not to see this coming.

  • Protesilaos Stavrou ☛ Beyond the temple

    Where religion meets opulence corruption arises. Such is a consequence of human’s frail character: its base desires are amplified by riches. That is because wealth gives the impression of boundlessness, which in turn conditions the person to think they can live beyond the limits. Limits are essential. They keep us in check by forcing us to be mindful of the consequences of our actions. Otherwise we do not stop. In the ecstasy of gold the soul is consumed by darkness as human commits hubris.

  • Joshua Barretto ☛ Cargo security wishlist

    In a discussion with another open-source contributor I started listing some changes I’d like to see in the Rust ecosystem to reduce the chance and scope of potential supply chain attacks. It occurred to me it might be useful to write these down.

    I’ve not put much thought into each of these. They range from ‘probably easy’ to ‘requires a fundamental rethink of Rust’s security model’, so take them with a pinch of salt.

  • Daniel Pocock ☛ UK tech sector missing from democratic process

    The alternative is quite scary: the UK tech sector runs the risk of waking up one day and finding out the people in charge have signed away our ability to do basic things like modifying apps on our phones or installing Linux on a new computer. As the saying goes, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In this case, the price of freedom is local campaigning in every by-election.

  • Adolfo Ochagavía ☛ That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

    Maybe Microsoft did want interns to solve riddles as part of their job. Or maybe I screwed up something else. I’m afraid I’ll never know!

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New Eastern Europe ☛ Europe can learn from Ukraine how to break Russian myths - New Eastern Europe

      Ukrainian long-range strikes have reached Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as strategic bomber bases and critical military infrastructure. Crimea, once presented by the Kremlin as untouchable Russian territory, is increasingly becoming a battlefield dominated by Ukraine’s Armed Forces. For the first time since the full-scale invasion, Russia is beginning to experience what it has inflicted on Ukraine for years – a war that carries real costs.

      This is precisely the moment when Europe faces a strategic choice. Either it allows Russia to finally hit rock bottom and experience a defeat profound enough to trigger internal change, or it repeats the familiar cycle of premature negotiations, sanctions relief and another “reset” before the roots of Russian aggression have been addressed. Defeat does not require Ukrainian boots on Red Square. Instead, it requires the collapse of the regime and with it the myths that fostered the continuous rebirth of imperialistic and dehumanizing regimes.

      For more than three decades, the Kremlin has systematically cultivated a set of narratives portraying Russia as invincible, escalation as inevitable, compromise as the only rational strategy, and peace through accommodation as Europe’s safest option. This is not accidental. Indeed, it is the product of decades of what Russian military thinkers increasingly call “mental warfare”. The term itself is effectively a local attempt at “import substitution” when it comes to western cognitive war concepts.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • 404 Media ☛ Person Opposing Data Center Arrested for Clapping at City Meeting

    Police refused to release the arrest report, saying it could "could interfere with ongoing investigative efforts."

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Wired ☛ Can the New York Times Save Journalism From Our AI Overlords?

    Sulzberger, who took on the publisher role about a decade ago and has been an influential leader in the Times’ much-lauded push into digital innovation, has no shortage of defending to do lately. Nearly three years ago, the Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies illegally used New York Times journalism to train AI models. That legal case, in which motions are still being filed about discovery requests, is only one front in a broader battle: The Trump administration is waging an ongoing war on press freedoms—most recently with an outrageous attempt to subpoena Times journalists over coverage of the president’s Qatar-gifted jet to be used as Air Force One—while AI companies radically reshape the way people find and consume information online.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ From the Great Depression to Japanese-American internment, Dorothea Lange's camera bore witness to some of the darkest moments in US history

    Commissioned by the Farm Security Administration, she documented the lives of migrant workers, Dust Bowl refugees and rural poor with an unflinching but deeply empathetic eye.

    In his curator statement for her 1966 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, John Szarkowski described her as "by choice a social observer and by instinct an artist"; neatly capturing the tension that makes her work so compelling.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • International Business Times ☛ Man Allegedly Put Up Explicit AI Posters of Real Women Claiming They Were Available for Sex Work

    Investigators say the posters were not limited to fake images. Police allege they also carried the women's real names, social media usernames and employment details, making it easier for strangers to identify and contact them. Authorities believe eight women aged between 40 and 60 were targeted in a campaign detectives say lasted more than five years.

  • The Verge ☛ The union drive at the Wikimedia Foundation is expanding

    “While the Wikimedia Foundation touts to the public that they plan to take a neutral stance in our organizing efforts, they have already proven that not to be the case behind the scenes,” a press release sent by Communications Workers of America, with which Wiki Workers United is affiliated, reads in part. “When the Foundation rejected our request for voluntary recognition this week, they immediately sent out to employees and the public statements couched in classic union-busting rhetoric, rhetoric undoubtedly provided by outrageously expensive union-avoidance law firms. This insulting and wasteful use of Foundation resources is both an insult to Foundation employees and to the Free Knowledge Movement as a whole.”

  • Nick Heer ☛ Data Privacy in the U.S. Border Zone

    The classic advice of turning off your devices when passing through a border or, on an iPhone, entering the “Power Off” mode to suspend biometric features seems insufficient. Border agents claimed that “refusing to talk [gives them] the authority to go through your phone” and demand a passcode without needing a warrant.

  • Kelly Hayes ☛ The Fight Against ICE Has Entered a New Phase

    The violence and scale of the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants and the communities they live in can be disorienting. In recent months, the terrain has shifted from roving spectacles of violence in blue cities to arrests increasingly embedded in the everyday harms of policing. Meanwhile, activists and community members have forced the administration to retreat from one of its most horrifying aspirations to date, a network of Amazon-style detention warehouses, some of which could have held as many as 10,000 people and accelerated deportations on an industrial scale.

    How can we keep our bearings in these times—celebrating our wins and our solidarity while also keeping up with the shifting tactics of the deportation machine? I recently spoke with Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network and author of Unbuild Walls. Silky’s insights are invaluable for understanding how the machinery of enforcement is changing, where communities still have leverage and what it will take to sustain resistance over time.

    This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

  • Ken Klippenstein ☛ FEMA’s New Mission: Domestic Terrorism

    Now FEMA is shelling out grant money to state and local authorities to build up capacity to carry out pre-crime operations against “organized political violence,” as one FEMA information bulletin I obtained says.

    The bulletin, dated July 9, instructs local authorities to prioritize “domestic terrorism” in their grant applications. Titled “Implementation of National Security Presidential Memorandum-7…,” the document echoes President Trump’s emphasis on rooting out suspected domestic terrorists before an attack takes place.

  • Fernando Borretti ☛ When The Future Doesn’t Need Us

    AI changes this. If AI works the factories, drives the trucks, does most of the white collar work, fights the wars, then humans become materially powerless. We lose one type of leverage against power. We become disempowered. When people talk about AI taking jobs, the main problems they worry about are poverty and meaning, but I think more people should be worried about disempowerment.

    But what if there is no mass unemployment? After all, we’ve spent two hundred years automating one job after another, and every advanced economy is de facto at full employment. We keep discovering new, higher-level, better-paying jobs to do. So maybe the AIs take today’s jobs, and humans move one level up, to work newer jobs. Alex Imas, in What will be scarce?, describes what this looks like: [...]

  • The Guardian UK ☛ He was shot at by ICE, then wrongfully accused. His nightmare had only just begun

    After masked agents fired on his truck, Francisco Longoria was ambushed, charged and jailed – only for the case against him to fall apart. Now he and his family are seeking justice, and says the harrowing experience is part of a troubling pattern

  • The Oregonian ☛ Armed men posing as ICE agents detained, assaulted person after fake traffic stop, police say

    State police said the men were dressed in green long-sleeve shirts and tactical vests labeled “POLICE” and carried fake police badges. They were also wearing boots, baseball caps and face coverings that hid their identities.

  • BoingBoing ☛ ICE arrested a green-card holder while she was gardening and kept her for a year

    Beata Siemionkowicz had lived legally in the United States for decades when ICE agents grabbed her from a backyard garden and shoved her into a car. She has now spent 51 weeks in detention over misdemeanor cases her family says were cleared up years ago.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Hackaday ☛ Breaking The Parental Lock On An XBox 360 Is Very Much An Inconvenience

    The short version is that, unless you want to go medieval on the hardware and perform a NAND Flash-level reset, your best bet is probably to brute-force the pass code. You do not even have to mash in the thousands of codes yourself, but can use a keyboard emulator on something like a Teensy development board. This got [eWastelander] into the console after a mere five hours of the little MCU running through the combinations.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Nick Heer ☛ Chris Person Hates Adobe, and I Do Too

    And that is just how it begins. If you work in a creative industry and have the option of not using something from Adobe, know that you are very lucky. There is still nothing like Photoshop, in ways good and bad. I have said it before and I will say it again: if I had known the path Adobe’s software would eventually go down, I might very well have picked a different career.

  • Daniel Pocock ☛ UK, EU & Australia: sovereignty requires independent rival app stores

    One of those policy themes is the availability of rival app stores for smartphones. The US president Donald Trump and other leaders in his administration have frequently told their allies to get serious about defence. Allowing a bunch of immature men in California to control or restrict what citizens in other countries put in our phones is a huge loss of sovereignty.

  • Trademarks

    • Right of Publicity

      • International Business Times ☛ Hugging Face Exposed as Hub for AI Deepfake Nudes in Scathing Forensics Report

        The European non-profit organisation tested nine image-editing Spaces on Hugging Face and found seven produced altered nude images after receiving a basic request to remove clothing.

        The investigation examined how the platform's developer-led approach to hosting AI models handles tools that can be used for non-consensual intimate imagery, a form of AI-generated sexual abuse.

      • Wired ☛ Hugging Face Has a Deepfake Nudes Problem

        The open-source AI platform Hugging Face—a repository of AI models and datasets, which has been valued in the billions—has a widespread problem with nonconsensual deepfakes, according to a new report published Tuesday by the European nonprofit AI Forensics. Researchers from the group say they tested nine of the top image editing Spaces on Hugging Face, which host models people can directly use on the site, and seven of these easily changed a clothed image of a woman into a topless one.

      • AI Forensics ☛ Unmoderated by Design: How Hugging Face Enables NCII | AI Forensics

        Our investigation found that Hugging Face, the top platform for sharing open-source AI models, isn't just hosting tools that generate non-consensual intimate imagery. It's helping users compare, benchmark and optimize them, making image-based sexual abuse easier to scale.

        By investigating the platform's most widely used Hugging Face Spaces and creating our own, we found: [...]

      • CNBC ☛ SpaceX's xAI sues Minnesota over law to ban 'nudify' apps

        Elon Musk's xAI, now owned by SpaceX, sued Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to challenge a law that would ban so-called nudify apps in the state.

  • Copyrights

    • The Verge ☛ Ariana Grande is suing the [crackers] who’ve been leaking her songs and videos for years

      The lawsuit accuses the unidentified [crackers] of selling the content, as well as publishing it on social media platforms like X, TikTok, and YouTube. It claims their actions are invading her privacy and violating California’s Comprehensive Data Access and Fraud Act, a law against unauthorized computer access that has come up in cases including Sony’s lawsuit against George Hotz and Meta’s lawsuit against the Pegasus spyware.

    • Rolling Stone ☛ Ariana Grande Sues [Crackers] and Claims They Leaked Unreleased Music

      The defendants are listed as “John Doe,” but Grande is likely to seek court approval to issue subpoenas to uncover the identities of the alleged [crackers] behind the attacks through [Internet] service providers and online platforms. “Ms. Grande initiates this action to uncover the identities of these currently unknown and unscrupulous individuals in order to hold them accountable for their invasive and reprehensible conduct,” lawyers for the artist stated.

    • NPR ☛ Authors have mixed feelings about the $1.5B Anthropic copyright infringement ruling

      And perhaps more importantly, the case could be seen as more of a win for the AI companies than it is for the publishing industry.

      A win for the AI industry?

      That's because within the narrow terms of this particular lawsuit, the court did not find it illegal for Anthropic to train its AI algorithms on authors' copyrighted works – as long as the company pays for the books it uses.