Leftovers

• Nat Bennett ☛ How I use Capacities as a Zettelkasten

  First, when I create a new Zettel, the ID hierarchy means I need to either find the right place to slot the new card in, or decide to put it at a top level. This usually involves a mix of searching and browsing, and then reading a few of the Zettels that are right next to the point where I insert the new one, and then usually reading a few linked Zettels.

• Chris Coyier ☛ CodePen 2.0

  Noting perhaps my largest personal career accomplishment, which is launching CodePen 2.0. Far more work, believe it or not, than the entire creation of the original CodePen.

  This isn’t the place to describe every detail of what we did and why we did it. If you’re interested, perhaps our Why 2.0? podcast or the What’s New? page.

• Andy Bell ☛ Getting started with implementing my music collection

  Anyway, we’ve got one more bit of content plumbing to do and in my eyes, this is the most important part of the website: the music collection. I hold an immense amount of pride in the collection I’ve built over the last half a decade or so. As on my old personal site, it takes pride of place in the overall system.

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Clear Evidence': Ancient DNA From Chilean Mummies Reveals Who Brought Smallpox to The Americas

    The virus lineage was named CAM9 by the researchers. While it died out well before smallpox was eventually eradicated, when the team built up a 'family tree' of the virus, this strain fitted neatly between medieval European strains and modern variants.

    You can think of it a bit like finding the remains of actual people – people we know to have descended from Europeans, found in Chile, after colonizers began arriving. Only here it's virus DNA, not human.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ A Man Unearthed a Mysterious Metal Object Sticking Straight Up From the Ground. It Turned Out to Be a 2,700-Year-Old Sword

    The next day, the metal detectorist sent photos of his discovery to local officials, who decided to act right away. Despite cold and rainy conditions, they returned to the forest, located near the city of Gdańsk, and conducted a careful excavation. Wiśniewski witnessed the dig and held the sword for a celebratory photo.

• Career/Education

  • Zachary Kai ☛ People and Blogs: Eetu

    Hello! My name is Eetu. I have a blog called moonwriting, where I write personal essays about technology, privacy, and blogging. My background is in the humanities, so I aim to provide a perspective that goes beyond technical discussions. For me, writing is a way to explore my thoughts and get them out into the world, hoping that they resonate with someone.

  • System76 ☛ System76 goes to college – a case study

    When we at System76 hear “Back to School,” our first reaction is, “We’re already there.”

    Or at least our products are – at college campuses across America, everywhere from students’ backpacks to STEM classrooms to top research labs. In fact, over our company’s two-decade history, we’ve supplied Linux computer hardware to 99% of the nation’s Tier 1 research universities.

    Faculty and researchers know that our computers provide the ultimate Linux computing experience: the latest high-powered CPUs and GPUs, generous RAM and storage for heavy data workloads, stunning OLED displays, freedom to customize and repair, and our Pop!_OS and COSMIC desktop experience to complete the Linux ecosystem stack.

  • Richard Beck ☛ The Secrets of the Kingdom

    Parables, it seems, are not designed to make things obvious. In fact, parables can conceal as much as they reveal. Parables effect a sorting of their audience. Some see. Others do not. Some hear. Others do not. The parables are not simply a teaching device. The parables are tests of perception.

  • Kyle Reddoch ☛ Walking the Stage and a Full San Antonio Trip (Week 30, 2026)

    🎓 The biggest reason for the trip was to finally “walk the stage” for my University of Phoenix graduation. I officially finished my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology back in April, but getting to take part in the ceremony made it feel like the proper finish to that long road.

  • Kelson Vibber ☛ Reading Goals for the Rest of the Year

    I’ve always been more on the Tsundoku side. I don’t need suggestions for what might be interesting to read. I have books. Lots of them, both print and digital. What I need is to prioritize!

  • Johanna-Mathilda Langenhan ☛ I just finished War and Peace, here are some thoughts

    On my 22nd birthday, two years ago, I had a pretty pleasant day. I don't really remember what about it was good, I probably had an enjoyable task at work and a good time with collegues; and in my good mood, I also went down to the book shop right outside my workplace and picked up War and Peace. The cashier made a little comment as he scanned the book, apparently impressed or surprised.

    Why'd I pick it up? Well, why would anyone want to read the book? Because it's a classic and everyone says it's good. Was it? Yes! But not in the sort of way I expected it to be.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Change is fractal. It starts with leaders

    It’s all about seeding culture. I see a lot of similarities in the underlying ideas in Corey’s work and the intention behind culture change manifestos like Emergent Strategy. Change is fractal, bubbling up from one person to affect a whole system.

  • Guy LeCharles Gonzalez ☛ "A slant fit" in a specialist job market

    The book world is notoriously myopic when it comes to evaluating experience outside of book publishing, and a couple of years ago a former colleague recommended me for a publisher role, pre-emptively positioning me as “a slant fit” because my resume didn’t obviously line up at first glance. It was her savvy pitch that got me a screening interview with the recruiter, to whom I made a good enough case to get a formal interview, but they ultimately hired someone with a more traditional book publishing background, which was disappointing but not surprising.

• Hardware

  • Bunnie Huang ☛ Name that Ware, July 2026

    If you’ve seen one of these before, you’ll know what it is – it’s pretty unmistakable, and a design pattern that’s highly conserved across processes, nodes and foundries. Bonus points to anyone that can explain some of the reasons why things are organized the way they are!

  • Bunnie Huang ☛ Winner, Name that Ware June 2026

    This gem of a board was gifted to me by someone at SGI back when I worked there in…I want to say 1998? I even still have the name plate from my cubicle, from back before the ‘bunnie’ nickname really stuck…

  • Hackaday ☛ Wrangling Datacenter GPUs Into A Desktop

    Even though these don’t perform at the same level as the latest top-tier online models, they’re surprisingly capable and also have the benefit of running completely locally. This might be concerning for those looking at the global economy being propped up by companies that essentially have no moat for motivated users, especially as more and more datacenter hardware becomes available on the secondhand market. While this build by [Andrew] goes into detail on getting the software stack up and running, we recently featured another build using the same GPUs that focuses a bit more on hardware for those looking to get started with local hosting.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ MicroSD cards

    I had another of those I’m living in the future moments today when I was at an electronics retailer, and I saw a 1 TB MicroSD card. I couldn’t afford it of course, but its mere existence shook me in a way I wasn’t expecting.

    One terabyte.

    On a thing the size of my thumbnail.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Quietly Gutted Agency Best-Known for Work on Curbing Hospital Infections

    In a July 15 letter, the small Department of Health and Human Services agency known as AHRQ told researchers it was halting at least 104 grants, many aimed at improving patient safety. Although Congress appropriated $345 million for AHRQ for this fiscal year, the agency has spent less than $15 million on grants and hasn’t issued a new one in over a year, according to a review of federal records. About 75% of agency staffers have been fired or quit since President Donald Trump took office last year, according to HHS.

  • Wired ☛ Tropical Diseases Like Dengue Fever and Chikungunya Are on the Rise in Europe

    As climate change increases temperatures across Europe, invasive mosquitoes are spreading and introducing disease agents that Europeans would usually think about only when traveling to other continents. The Fano outbreak wasn’t the first time dengue had been detected as spreading locally in mainland Europe, but it was significantly larger than previous incidents, with 199 cases detected between mid-August and mid-October of 2024. Over the past few years, European countries have reported outbreaks of other mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya, a painful disease that causes joint swelling, and West Nile virus. In a heating world, so-called tropical diseases are no longer restricted to tropical regions—and researchers expect the trend to continue.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • GO Media ☛ Here’s How Microsoft’s CEO Spoke About Xbox A Year Ago Vs. Now

    When he does talk about Xbox, Nadella is almost always positive. There’s usually a little segment, a sentence or two, maybe touting a major new release or a Game Pass number milestone, where he reminds everyone that it exists and is doing well in some metric or another. Which is why his tone on today’s earnings call during the blink-and-you-miss-it Xbox mention was rather surprising.

    Nadella’s statement today was vague and hopeful, but about as down as I’ve ever heard him be about gaming. He indirectly referenced the recent devastation: layoffs impacting 1600, expectations to lay off 1600 more, and separation from four (maybe five) of its owned studios. Nadella referred to this as “necessary decisions…to reset the business for long-term growth,” which is essentially the same as what Asha Sharma has been saying.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ A Mac Mini server is running headless in my closet — it manages my photo library and handles my backups

    But the Mac has other benefits. For one, my home has a lot of Apple products in it. While I'm equally comfortable with Windows and macOS, my wife is exclusively in Apple's ecosystem. So when I realized I would want this system to back up her photos and documents too, making that easy was important. I'm able to access it from either my MacBook Pro or my custom-built PC over VNC or SSH on the command line. There are a few other benefits of using macOS if you have other Apple devices in your home.

  • Krebs On Security ☛ Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick

    Falé said the domain he scooped up was previously used for telemetry, periodically collecting full hardware information and the entire list of installed apps from tens of thousands of H96 streaming sticks plugged into television sets around the globe. But upon inspecting the traffic being funneled to the domain, he discovered nearly all of the TV boxes transmitting data claimed to be mobile phone models from a variety of manufacturers, including Samsung, Vivo, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Microsoft's Project Silica

    I have written several times about Microsoft Research's Project Silica, most recently in last year's Archival Storage:

    I'm skeptical of "commoditizing the technology". Archival systems are a niche in the IT market, and one on which companies are loath to spend money. Realistically, there aren't going to be a vast number of Silica write heads. The only customers for systems like Silica are the large cloud providers, who will be reluctant to commit their archives to technology owned by a competitor. Unless a mass-market application for femtosecond lasers emerges, the scope for cost reduction is limited.

    But the more I think about this technology, which is still in the lab, the more I think it probably has the best chance of impacting the market among all the rival archival storage technologies. Not great, but better than its competitors:

    I followed this with a list of eight major reasons for my opinion.

  • Howard Oakley ☛ Take control of updates using softwareupdate

    Neither the man page for softwareupdate nor its current usage information are complete or accurate, and they have remained in that state since at least macOS Sierra in 2016, ten years ago. The man page claims to have been last updated in 2012, 14 years ago, and the examples given there still refer to standalone EFI firmware updates, although it refers to Rosetta and Apple silicon Macs, demonstrating that it has actually been updated more recently.

  • Kyle Reddoch ☛ macOS Security Baseline with Profiles and Audits

    A practical macOS blue-team baseline covering FileVault, firewall, Gatekeeper, software updates, privacy permissions, configuration profiles, audit basics, and validation checks.

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

    • LRT ☛ AI-powered scams appear in Lithuania: how not to fall victim

      Even calls from a close relative should be treated with caution, as AI-powered scams are now taking place in Lithuania. A Vilnius resident, Domantas (his surname is known to LRT but has been withheld), shared his experience with LRT.

      "My sister called me. Her photo, name and phone number all appeared on my screen. I answered, and I heard my sister asking for help because she was in an accident. It immediately struck me as strange because my sister doesn't drive," he said.

      Realising the call might be a scam, he ended the conversation and immediately rang his sister. She told him she was at home watching TV and had never called him.

    • Futurism ☛ If You AI-Generate Code, Hackers Just Found a Devious Method to Install Malware Directly on Your Computer

      Astonishingly, cybersecurity researchers at Tel Aviv University and Intuit found that this scenario can be exploited in common AI coding tools ranging from Cursor to Microsoft’s Copilot, at rates of anywhere form 85 to 100 percent, depending on the specifics of the engineering task.

      The attack, called “adversarial hallucination squatting,” or “hallusquatting,” takes advantage of this fact. To run it, attackers can simply identify hallucinated package names that they know AI coding assistants will reference, register them as real repositories, and stuff malware inside. That malicious package then lies in wait for the near-guarantee than an AI assistant will access it and clone it into its owner’s machine.

    • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post — The Third Time is NOT the Charm: Who Will Own How AI Participates in Scholarship?

      Here’s the uncomfortable part: we keep building the pieces that lay the foundation and letting someone else own what gets built on top of it.

      The first time, we digitized the scholarly literature, and a handful of commercial aggregators came to own most of the reader or library relationships, along with most of the value that was created. The second time, we built the citation graph, and Google came to own discovery. Twice we built the foundation and ended up a supplier inside a system someone else erected on their terms.

    • Futurism ☛ Cambridge Analytica's Website Is Now an AI Slop Farm

      The explosive incident forced a mass reckoning over privacy and surveillance in the social media age. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress, and his company’s reputation has never fully recovered. Cambridge Analytica itself shut down just months after the revelations.

      Fast forward to today, though, and Cambridge Analytica has somehow returned. And its resurrection comes in an almost comically 2026 way: CambridgeAnalytica.org, the firm’s former website, is now an AI-powered content farm.

    • Memphis Flyer ☛ Students, AI, and the Future of Learning at the University of Memphis

      Raven’s concerns about AI extend beyond coursework.

      “I don’t think professors and students truly understand how harmful generative AI is on the planet, in low-income communities, etc.,” she said.

    • Techdirt ☛ Axon Insists Its AI Makes Police Reports Easier. Nothing Suggests It Makes Them Any *Better*

      Considering a lot of officers spend most of their time engaged in pretextual stops, this isn’t really good news. It just means officers will be able to violate rights more frequently with no perceivable benefit to public safety.

      Then there’s the problem AI companies just can’t seem to solve, like extremely vivid hallucinations[sic]: [...]

    • The Drone Girl ☛ The Future of Drone Delivery Might Involve Cars After All

      For years, the promise of commercial drone delivery was built on a vision of sky-high fleets replacing ground delivery vehicles entirely. The pitch was that drones would bypass traffic, slash delivery times to under ten minutes and make the traditional delivery driver obsolete for suburban takeout runs.

      Yet, even the fiercest drone delivery advocates admit that drones can’t fly 100% of the time. Thunderstorms, high winds, heavy rain or simple payload weight limits will ground delivery drones. For drone delivery companies trying to tout a reliable delivery service to actual, paying customers, that often meant the drone delivery company had two bad options: maintain an expensive, in-house fleet of backup (human) delivery drivers, or fail to fulfill the order altogether.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The stupidest imaginable excuses for surveillance pricing (30 Jul 2026)

      This works without you having to direct the AI to rip off certain groups of people – it will simply find the most vulnerable people and rip them off the most. If you're hiring in an industry that practices a lot of tacit racial discrimination, a system like this can figure out on its own that people of color typically accept lower wages because there are fewer employers bidding for their labor, and recommend lowball salary offers, all without you ever typing "please be racist" into your AI prompt.

      This works so well that Google has announced that it is their plan for making a profit off of AI, after losing hundreds of billions of dollars on chatbots: [...]

    • 404 Media ☛ Inside an AI TikTok Shop Slop Factory That Shills Supplements Recalled By the FDA

      Chang explains that he copy-pasted the script from a video posted by an account called “liverboosthub11” and tweaked it to suggest the supplement he was marketing is “something that’s been used in Asia or Africa for a long time that a lot of people don’t know about in America.”. In Google’s VEO 3, he created an AI-generated Black woman wearing a surgical mask in the foreground of the video, pointing up at another AI-generated Black woman (created in a tool called HeyGen) wearing a pink dress and standing on a stage. He directed the woman in the foreground to have a “strong African American accent,” and to say, “Why is nobody talking about what this hoe said?! If you’ve got issues with that belly, must watch!”

    • Tracy Durnell ☛ AI or not?

      I am also OK with reading flawed and imperfect works — it is interesting to me to think about how story issues could have been resolved. Generated text is a shortcut for people who don’t want to put in the work of learning how to communicate in prose. I’d rather read work by the person trying, even if they’re not that good yet. I’d rather read a person taking a swing at something interesting, even if they’re not skilled enough to pull it off yet — maybe even especially if it’s at the edge of their abilities.

      I like giving debut authors and new-to-me self-pub authors a try, but I want to be able to read a book by a new author without doing a bunch of research.

    • Mike Brock ☛ The Automated Understudy

      In July, the UK’s AI Security Institute reported the general case: “Every model we have tested for this behaviour attempted to cheat.” Models searched the [Internet] for solutions, probed the evaluation software for leaks, hard-coded answers. One was persistent enough to write and run code on an external service on the open [Internet] in an attempt to reach the institute’s evaluation infrastructure. Cheating, AISI observed, “can make evaluations overstate a model’s actual capabilities” and, in the worst case, “can invalidate them entirely.”

    • Jim Nielsen ☛ The AI Aesthetic

      Then there are other influences my subconscious is picking up on. For example, a lot of AI apps use tiny icons. These are most obvious (to me) in desktop Electron apps because they clash with the system-level grain of applications. Take a look at this screenshot, where you have desktop AI apps on the left (Claude, Codex, Cursor) and macOS apps from Apple on the right (Finder, Photos, Mail). You can see how the AI apps all have much smaller, thinner icons than their native counterparts.

    • Balthazar Rouberol ☛ On AI-assisted interviews

      Yesterday, I ran a remote interview for a Senior SRE position. After a surprisingly good start, it became clear that the candidate was using some form of AI assistance. At the end of the interview, I became absolutely convinced that our conversation was streamed to an LLM that was answering our questions for her.

      So, what happened?

    • Cryptography Engineering ☛ Some thoughts about Anthropic’s new cryptanalysis results – A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering

      Yesterday Anthropic published two new cryptanalysis results, both outputs of Claude Mythos, their (still) unreleased advanced model. The first of these results attacks a signature scheme called HAWK, while the second is an improved attack against reduced-round AES. Anthropic also released a blog post describing the research process that produced these results. A few people online have asked me what this all means. While I’m not sure I have all the answers, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write a bit about my current understanding. These are only my thoughts and other folks will probably differ (including domain experts in the two areas at issue) so take them for what they are.

      The two new results cover two very different areas, and are overall just very different in quality. Before we get to broad statements about the world, and whether you should sell all your cryptocurrency, let’s take a minute to talk about the substance.

    • Robert OCallahan ☛ Thoughts on 'Pacing The Frontier'

      Another reaction is, “we need to just stamp on the accelerator and ‘win the AI race’.” This is nonsense. To such people, I ask: what does “winning the AI race” actually mean? What is the finish line? Is it when human unemployment reaches 100%? Is it when some super-AI that you hope you still control seizes absolute power over the entire world? What experience do you have with controlling something vastly more intelligent than you, to make you think that’s easy?

    • Karl Bode ☛ AI Doomsday Bullshit Is Getting Tired

      So across the press the last week, the hacking intrusion news cycle seamlessly flowed into another "CEO said a thing!" news cycle where Altman was allowed to spew a whole bunch of bullshit unbothered by anything close to actual journalism: [...]

    • BoingBoing ☛ Claude AI chats are searchable online

      Among the material Futurism turned up: a patient's medical report, clinical trial results listing patient names, phone numbers for primary school-aged children, company files marked internal-use-only, and employee reviews. Artifacts, the feature that saves a project as a standalone app, at least warns you up front that publishing one makes it visible in search results.

    • Hay Kranen ☛ Why every Wikimedian should be a toolmaker

      This is not just an internal problem. Wikipedia is reliant on references to write verifiable articles. If the [Internet] turns into a cesspool of AI slop it becomes harder and harder to find reliable sources.

      [...]

      One important reason for organizing my Milan workshop was that not all voices in the movement were heard. Should we even use AI, or maybe ban the use of LLMs and coding agents altogether? Especially young people can have a very negative opinion on any usage of AI at all. If parts of our community feel left out of this discussion it might lead to internal polarization.

  • Social Control Media

    • Kev Quirk ☛ Toot.community is shutting down

      Sadly, toot.community is shutting down in October. This post talks about why Jorijn has made that decision.

    • Lee Peterson ☛ Quitting YouTube Premium: I’ll pay for YouTube premium when Google fixes YouTube

      I know there are workarounds that almost always involve me paying for something else but I am not changing my workflow just because Google wants as much content on it’s platform regardless of how it makes me feel.

    • Jorijn Schrijvershof ☛ Jorijn Schrijvershof (@jorijn@jorijn.com)

      Today, I’m letting you know that toot.community will close permanently on 28 October 2026.

      This decision is final, and the server won’t be handed over to anyone else.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Dark Reading ☛ Minnesota Water Utility Attacks Expose Sector's Cyber-Risks

      A coordinated cyberattack targeting more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota this week underscored the growing threat to often poorly protected operational technology (OT) from adversaries seeking to disrupt critical infrastructure services across the US.

      The attacks, which US government officials have reportedly attributed to Iran, disrupted automated systems in some Minnesota communities, forcing them to switch to manual operations for brief periods. However, the attacks don't appear to have affected water supply, water safety, or wastewater services in a major way, based on public statements by community officials and Minnesota's IT Services (MNIT) unit.

    • Security Week ☛ CISA Urges Water Sector to Protect OT After Coordinated Attacks on PLCs

      The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is urging water and wastewater system (WWS) operators to protect operational technology (OT) against malicious activity targeting programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

      The alert is a fresh call to action that comes just days after a coordinated cyberattack disrupted automated controls at dozens of water utilities in Minnesota.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Roman Zipp ☛ Fix OBS "code signature invalid" on macOS

      I just encountered the error message "An error has occured while installing the virtual camera: code signature invalid" with OBS Studio on macOS.

      You may have installed OBS via Homebrew and it pulled an unsigned version on update.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NYOB ☛ 1,741 “informed” consents with one click?! GDPR complaint against dict.cc filed

      Today, noyb has filed a complaint against the popular online dictionary dict.cc. The GDPR requires that consent is freely given, informed, specific and unambiguous. However, when visiting dict.cc, users are nudged into consenting to online tracking by a staggering 1,741 (!) “partners” with a single click. This makes it impossible for users to know exactly who has access to their data and how it is actually used. While dict.cc is an extreme example, requests to blindly waive your right to privacy for countless third parties is unfortunately a common issue with websites and apps relying on online advertising, even 8 years after the GDPR came into force.

    • Futurism ☛ LinkedIn Adds Button on Every Post to Report "Seems Like AI Slop," Which Is Definitely Going to Get a Real Workout

      Just last week, Substack CEO Chris Best took aim at the Microsoft-owned career site when he announced the launch of an AI detector feature “because we’re sick of slop and we don’t want Substack to turn into LinkedIn.”

      According to AI detection company Pangram, a shocking two thirds of LinkedIn posts are showing up as being AI generated by users of its browser extension. More than 40 percent of longform posts were flagged as “fully AI-generated,” according to the company.

    • Futurism ☛ Meta's Attempted Crackdown on AI Glasses Perverts Is Already Failing

      After Meta announced this month that it would ban users using the glasses to film themselves harassing strangers, a recent investigation by Oligarch Watch still found hundreds of these videos on its platforms. Many of them are from sleazy “pickup artists” who approach women in public, making sexual or degrading comments and recording their buttocks or breasts.

    • EFF ☛ 🏃 Fitness Tracker Privacy Fails

      There are many potential privacy issues with these sorts of devices, including whether the companies who make them share or sell information to third parties. But here we focused on two specific facets of health data privacy: 1) whether the company shares information with law enforcement and governments and 2) if they offer end-to-end encryption, which means the company itself can’t access that health data to begin with.

      After reading through dozens of product review sites, we identified 10 companies that seem to make the majority of recommended consumer health products on the market: Amazfit, Apple, Coros, Garmin, Google (including Fitbit), Hume, Oura, Polar, Suunto, Whoop. We reviewed each company’s public facing policies, then emailed them to confirm those findings.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Joseph Cox Interviews Mike Yeagley

      If you have read Byron Tau’s reporting, including his book “Means of Control”, you might be familiar with Mike Yeagley. He was the one who made the U.S. military and intelligence community aware of the surveillance they could conduct through digital advertising placements and the open data market.

    • Eetu ☛ Re: Security versus Privacy

      It’s already questionable to claim that Google’s security is better than anything else, but it’s straight up insulting to declare that people who prefer privacy-friendly providers are neglecting their security. In fact, the author presents zero evidence that Google alternatives would lack in security.

• Defence/Aggression

  • La Prensa ☛ Chronicle of the Original Illegitimacy of the Ortega-Murillo Regime

    The current constitutional reforms promoted by the Ortega-Murillo regime represent the culmination of a deliberate process of constitutional dismantling and concentration of power. The path toward authoritarianism has been systematic: the removal of the prohibition on reelection in 2014, elections lacking democratic legitimacy in 2021, and the creation of a co-presidency without a popular mandate in 2025. This sequence demonstrates the regime’s strategy to remain in power outside popular will.

  • The Gray Zone ☛ Nicaragua banned US-sponsored coup leaders from elections, sparking corporate media meltdown

    In his national address on July 19, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stated that when the country’s next elections take place in 2027, none who promoted a violent anti-government insurrection in 2018 will be allowed to stand for office. The pledge was universally interpreted by Western media outlets as a total ban on voting, prompting hysterical interventions from the US State Dept and throughout South Florida.

  • Wired ☛ X Says Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban Risks Interfering With Foreign Law

    The social media platform, which sits within Elon Musk’s SpaceX, issued a submission to the Australian parliament published Tuesday that called for the government to drop efforts to strengthen its underage social media ban. It complained that the proposals to increase pressure on sites to demonstrate efforts to crack down on underage access are unnecessary, ill-suited, unfair, and could violate privacy rights.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Office Hours: What's Trump's Most Likely Move on the Midterms?

    One of the biggest uncertainties is what (if any) tactics Trump and his lapdogs will use to reduce the odds of a Democratic victory, especially in the House, where 435 seats are up for reelection.

    I’ve spent the last several days talking with election experts and political advisers. When I spoke with them last year, they were most worried about gerrymandering, restrictions on mail-in voting, voter IDs, and the demise of what’s left of the Voting Rights Act.

  • Rebecca Solnit ☛ Lifeguards and Angels

    In a way this is a terrible metaphor. The harm is not being done by a vast and ancient natural force or even by a majority; it's being done by an unpopular regime that is plummeting in the polls and seems almost frantic to do as much as it can while it can (because they seem likely to lose the midterms, because they are losing popularity fast, because Trump seems to be in a phase of rapid decay, and because the courts– thanks to the lifeguards of the law--keep overturning their overreach and other transgressions). A touchstone essay for me is Michelle Alexander's 2018 proposition that we are not the dam trying to stop the river; we are the river that they are trying to dam, and whatever they build we will overtop it and flow in in the end. I agree with that profoundly; at the heart of my new book, The Beginning Comes After the End, is the argument that the right is engaged in backlash against all that we have changed over the past three quarters of a century to make a more just and equal world (and that that should be a reminder that we did change the world, we do have power, we have a history of victories that are even more often and more significantly incremental cultural shift as landmark legal successes, and they are furious about all of it).

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ They gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday. Then an animal rights group found their event

    But Khan’s plans began to fall apart in late June when national animal advocacy organization Animal Outlook lodged allegations with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that livestock had been inhumanely slaughtered during a May event at Shahnawaz Ranch for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, and that the operation had sold the meat without required federal inspection.

  • The Irish News ☛ Norwegian hitman guilty of murder plot for gang linked to Iran

    A teenage hitman from Norway has been found guilty of travelling to England to carry out a killing on behalf of an international crime gang backed by Iran.

  • BBC ☛ Teenage Norwegian 'hitman' guilty of UK murder plot

    During the trial opening, prosecutor Alistair Richardson said the teen was "recruited" by the Foxtrot Network, which was described as a Swedish [sic] organised crime group backed by the Iranian regime.

  • Crown Prosecution Service UK ☛ Teen ‘hitman’ guilty of UK murder plot | The Crown Prosecution Service

    The prosecution case was that Natland was acting on behalf of the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish [sic] criminal network, with links to the Iranian regime.

    Today at the Old Bailey, Natland was convicted of conspiracy to murder following a retrial. He had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition without a firearms certificate.

  • ABC ☛ Norwegian teen guilty of UK murder plot tied to Iran-linked group

    Prosecutors said Natland had been recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish [sic] organised crime group used by the Iranian state and sanctioned by both Britain and the United States.

  • CBS ☛ Norwegian teen found guilty of U.K. murder plot for Swedish organized crime group with links to Iran

    The target of the assassination remains unknown, but police say "a significant amount of evidence" showed "Natland was fully aware he was being asked to kill someone." The investigation is ongoing.

    "This was a calculated plan to kill for money," said Frank Ferguson, head of the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division for the CPS.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Norwegian teen found guilty in UK murder plot tied to Iran-linked group

    After a retrial at London's Old Bailey court, Natland was found guilty of conspiracy to murder. A jury at his initial trial in June could not reach a verdict on that charge.

  • SCMP ☛ Norwegian teen found guilty in UK murder plot tied to Iran-linked group

    Johannes Natland, now ‌19, was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, northern England, in March last year with two firearms and ammunition in his possession.

    Prosecutors said Natland had been recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish [sic] organised crime group used by ⁠the Iranian state and sanctioned by both Britain and the United States.

  • Iconic Media Group Ltd ☛ Norwegian hitman arrested in Yorkshire guilty of murder plot for gang linked to Iran

    However, jurors heard he had lied repeatedly following his arrest and even tried to persuade his girlfriend not to give evidence in phone calls from prison.

    An Old Bailey jury deliberated for 17 hours and six minutes to find him guilty of conspiracy to murder following a retrial.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ 'It was all about money': UK court convicts Norwegian teen ‘hitman’ in murder conspiracy linked to Iran-linked group

    The case is among those in Britain involving young adults accused of carrying out serious criminal acts after allegedly being recruited online for money, with prosecutors claiming they were used as proxies by a foreign state.

  • Mirror UK ☛ Dramatic arrest of teenage Norwegian 'hitman' who organised crime gang tasked to kill someone

    Natland was only prevented from carrying out the hit because Norwegian police arrested the teenager who had recruited him and alerted the UK force.

  • CNN ☛ Teenager convicted of UK murder plot ordered by Iran-linked crime gang

    Natland, who was working part-time at a pizza restaurant at the time of his arrest, was recruited by a Swedish [sic] organized crime group known as the Foxtrot Network, which has links to the Iranian government, counterterrorism officers from London’s Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement.

    “Although the target of the murder plot has never been identified, (counterterror) London officers uncovered a significant amount of evidence demonstrating that Natland was fully aware he was being asked to kill someone in the UK,” the statement said.

  • UK ☛ Norwegian man convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in UK | Counter Terrorism Policing

    “This investigation highlights the importance of the strong links with our international law enforcement partners to counter the very real threat of criminal organisations across European borders. We’ve worked particularly closely with colleagues from Norwegian law enforcement authorities and as a result, we have stopped somebody from being assassinated here in the UK.

    “Our investigation, which remains ongoing, has also resulted in two lethal weapons and ammunition being taken out of criminal hands and off the streets of the UK which has undoubtedly made the public safer.”

  • Newsquest Media Group Ltd ☛ Norwegian hitman guilty of murder plot for gang linked to Iran

    Despite having supportive parents, his life went downhill after getting hooked on drugs and he was placed in rehab and a care home, he said.

• Environment

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Town That Wants a Data Center Next Door

    Opposition to data-center construction is the bipartisan issue of the moment—70 percent of Americans are against construction in their communities. Recently, New York passed the country’s first statewide data-center-construction moratorium. Maine was supposed to have been the first.

    For this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic, I traveled to Maine to understand why one tiny town killed what would have been America’s first data-center moratorium.

  • The Nation ☛ As Europe Burns, a Climate Cover-Up Continues

    “To cover up 1 high level report…looks odd,” remarked Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the UK’s Green Party. “To cover up 2 looks like a pattern.” Lucas was commenting on reporting in The Guardian revealing that the Labour party was again burying an explosive report by UK military and intelligence leaders warning that the global collapse of ecosystems poses grave threats to the UK’s security and food supply within as little as five years.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Southern Europe 'becoming more flammable' in hotter climate, experts say

    The steep increase in the frequency of fire weather—characterized by searing temperatures, low humidity, dryness and strong winds—"can only be attributed to global warming," said study co-author Raul Cordero.

    "The number of days when the fire weather index is extreme has nearly tripled in some areas of southern Europe," Cordero, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, told AFP.

  • The New Lede ☛ Pesticides aren't just making us sick, they're cooking the planet

    It turns out that global food systems produce 16 billion metric tons of CO2-equivalent a year, or roughly a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Two agricultural inputs in particular, pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, deserve far more scrutiny than they usually receive in either conversations about health or climate.

    Pesticides and climate change represent a vicious cycle. Researchers have recently described a pattern that is dangerously sweeping in its consequences.

  • Sang-Ki Lee ☛ Strengthening of the Indonesian Throughflow Accelerated Indian Ocean Warming Contrary to Climate Model Projections

    For decades, the consensus among global climate models has been clear: as greenhouse gases trap more heat in our atmosphere, the planet’s great oceanic arteries should respond by slowing down. Specifically, scientists predicted a steady weakening of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF)—a massive underwater current that serves as the “heat and material budget” manager for two of the world’s largest oceans. This current acts as a vital gateway, funneling warm, fresh water from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Danube water levels: Hungary, Romania cut nuclear output

      Hungary and Romania have drastically reduced output at their nuclear power plants due to insufficient water flow from the Danube river, which has sunk to historically low levels.

      Hungary's Paks nuclear plant, located 120 kilometers (74.5 miles) south of the capital, Budapest, cut output by 50% at ⁠reactor ⁠2 on Thursday morning. But later on Thursday, Prime Minister Peter Magyar issued a statement saying that "for the first time in 44 years," the power plant would be shut down altogether, urging members of the public to rein in their own power usage accordingly.

  • Overpopulation

    • RLG ☛ Earth Overshoot Day 2026 and the Power of Circular Solutions

      We only have one planet, yet humanity currently uses natural resources at a rate equivalent to 1.73 Earths.

      Few indicators illustrate this more clearly than Earth Overshoot Day, which, according to Global Footprint Network, falls on July 30, 2026. From that date onwards, humanity will be living in ecological debt, with 2026 representing the highest level of ecological overshoot ever recorded.

    • Social Justice Ireland ☛ How Many Earths Do We Need? Earth Overshoot Day 2026

      Earth Overshoot Day marks the point in the year when humanity's demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what the Earth's ecosystems can regenerate during that same year. Each year on June 5th, which is World Environment Day, the Global Footprint Network announces the Earth Overshoot Day date for the current year. On June 5, 2026, they announced that Earth Overshoot Day 2026 falls on July 30, meaning humanity will have used all the biological resources that Earth can regenerate in a year by that date.

    • European Grandparents for Climate ☛ Country Overshoot Day 2026

      According to analyses of carbon emissions and ecological footprints, the world’s richest 1 % of people effectively “used up” their fair share of the annual carbon budget extremely early in the year — roughly within the first 10 days of the year (around January 10). This means that if the richest 1 % of the global population were allocated an equal share of the carbon emissions “budget” consistent with limiting warming to agreed climate goals, they have already exceeded that share by about January 10 of the year.

• Finance

  • D Griffin Jones ☛ Apple Upgrade vs. Apple Card Monthly Installments

    Both systems are, basically, 0% interest loans.

    Apple Upgrade, managed by Klarna, replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program and expands to other product categories. So you pay a fixed amount to lease an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad or Mac and trade it in for a new model after two or three years. At any time, you can pay the remaining balance up to the device’s original full price to own it forever. And you actually have six months after the end of your term to decide what to do.

    When you finance using the Apple Card Monthly Installments, you pay a fixed amount to own your device. There are no savings here — aside from the 3% cashback — the monthly payment is the purchase price divided by either 12 or 24 months.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Conversation ☛ As Larry the cat welcomes yet another prime minister, an expert explains how pets adapt to change

    Cats thrive on predictability and the consistency of their environment is important for their welfare. On the whole cats prefer an unchanging environment. Some cats cope with change better than others. Many cats are distressed by disturbances such as moving house, changes in familiar routines, people moving into or leaving the household, or even changes to the scent of their home environment.

  • TruthOut ☛ Nearly All of Europe Vow to Boycott World Cup Over Plan for Kushner Family Sale

    The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), which includes 55 countries, announced on Thursday that it has voted to boycott FIFA-run competitions until “this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.” This boycott would come to consequence soon, with the women’s World Cup next year.

    The group also said that the plan is anti-democratic, formed in secret and presenting an “ultimatum” to coerce football teams to agree to sell off the World Cup.

  • Inside Towers ☛ Verizon Signs $1 Billion Google Fiber Deal to Support AI Growth

    Verizon said its more than 500,000 route-mile fiber network positions the company to meet rising demand for high-capacity, low-latency connections between AI data centers. The carrier is also expanding long-haul fiber routes and repurposing former central offices into AI-ready data center sites as it continues replacing legacy copper networks with fiber.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Let’s palm off humanoid robot teachers onto the poor kids!

    So let’s fob the dolls off onto people who can’t say no!

    Realbotix is trying to push the robots onto old people in England, to combat loneliness. It’s not like the local councils could hire visiting carers, who would be cheaper than the robots.

    But Realbotix made a real splash this month with the announcement they’d got a robot doll into a school in upstate New York. Meet Sally, the robot teaching assistant for Salamanca High School!

  • Civil Society Alliances for Digital Empowerment ☛ Karisma hosts workshop on the digitalisation of public services in Riohacha - CADE – Civil Society Alliances for Digital Empowerment

    Building on this work, Karisma is planning two more workshops as part of the same initiative. The next visits are scheduled for 19 August 2026 in Cusco, Peru, and 22 August 2026 in Quito, Ecuador.

  • Wired ☛ LinkedIn Won’t Be Expanding Its Data Centers in the Next Year

    The spending calculations apply to LinkedIn’s fiscal year that began last month and ends next June. The company says it was able to avoid spending big on AI hardware because it found ways to use its existing GPUs twice as efficiently over the past six months. LinkedIn’s plan could still unravel because the hardware demands of AI are shifting rapidly, but executives say the company has already taken into account surging prices for memory chips.

  • Yury Molodtsov ☛ The Game of Consequences

    Any solution becomes someone else’s problem. Sometimes, the very people you wanted to help. Subsidize something and someone will find a way to produce more of it. Protect one group and the cost may be shifted to another.

    Unintended consequences are everywhere. I wanted to help people understand them, so I built Consequences, the game.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Trump's huge hidden upward redistribution

    There’s a much simpler explanation for corporate America’s silence if not encouragement. In point of fact, both Trump’s war and Trump’s tariffs are helping their bottom lines.

  • Michael Geist ☛ Starting Over: Court Filing Confirms the CRTC’s Streamer Contribution Decisions Are Dead With a Full Online Streaming Act Reset to Come

    When the government announced plans last month to kill the CRTC’s Online Streaming Act ruling, it left a critical question unanswered: was the target only the Commission’s decision to increase streamer contributions to 15 percent, or did the reversal extend to the original base contribution decision requiring foreign streamers to contribute five percent of their Canadian revenues? A new court filing confirms it is both. In a letter to the Federal Court of Appeal dated July 17, 2026, first reported by the Wire Report, Department of Justice Senior General Counsel Michael Morris advised the court that “the Government’s intention is to eliminate the base contribution requirement on streaming services and to provide government funding to replace those contributions.” The entire contribution framework the CRTC has built since 2024 is therefore dead, with taxpayers covering the costs while the government develops a replacement.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ AOC Must Run For President

    In this moment of momentum, with big structural changes necessary to defend American democracy itself, going into an election tilted towards Democrats, the left needs to run a candidate. That much, I think, is obvious. Having a presidential candidate to rally around boosts turnout, draws an enormous amount of attention to the movement, and helps lower-ballot candidates as well. There must be a real left candidate in the Democratic primaries. If we (and I realize that speaking of the political left as “we” implies a level of coordination that does not exist, but you get my drift) do not field a candidate we can unite behind in these primaries, we are fools, and we are throwing a lot of potential political capital in the trash.

    (If we run more than one candidate who splits the left vote, we are also fools.)

  • Bitdefender ☛ North Korea's elite [crackers] turned on their own government — and got caught

    According to a report by Daily NK, which specialises in reporting on the internal affairs of North Korea, the country's National Intelligence Agency arrested a hacking ring on 12 July after uncovering a sophisticated scheme to steal from the Chosun Central Bank and the Foreign Trade Bank - the two institutions sitting at the very heart of North Korea's financial system.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Paul Krugman ☛ Reality is a Communist Plot

      The modern American right is very good at hating. MAGA hates immigrants (unless they’re white South Africans); it hates liberals; it hates scientists.

      What the ongoing show trial of Fauci — which motivated this post — has really driven home, however, is that what Trump and his supporters hate most of all is reality. They know what they want to believe. They fly into paroxysms of rage whenever someone points out that the world isn’t what they want it to be. And they always want to shoot the messenger.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Tor ☛ Heads up: anti-censorship tools now packaged on deb.torproject.org - tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

    We're currently preparing 4 new Debian packages to be included in the Tor Project Debian repository hosted at "deb.torproject.org" in the coming days: [...]

  • Gigi ☛ Unfiltered

    Unfiltered thoughts are a beautiful thing. I think that’s in part why people enjoy long-form conversations, or the unhinged stuff that kids will say from time to time. You can’t self-censor for three hours straight, and kids haven’t developed the ability to self-censor in the first place.

    The current world is a filtered world. There are certain things that are kosher when it comes to evening news, and other things that are kosher when it comes to what’s being discussed on X (what used to be twitter), and YouTube, and all these other platforms.

    On the one hand it’s the Overton window and various political agendas, on the other hand it’s “the algorithm” (and again, various political agendas. Mixed in with business interests and other stuff, but hey, there’s hardly any difference between business and politics these days, so: potato, potahto.)

    The algorithm.

    Everyone is catering to “the algorithm.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Harvard University ☛ Henry Chu named curator of Nieman Foundation for Journalism

    He also hopes to foster greater connections between Nieman and other parts of Harvard and to deepen engagement with the foundation’s global network of alumni. Since the organization was founded in 1938, more than 1,700 accomplished journalists have spent a year at Harvard as Nieman Fellows pursuing academic study to enrich and strengthen their journalistic practice.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Free Press Calls for End to Carr’s Unconstitutional Crusade Against ABC

    On Wednesday, Free Press called out Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for engaging in a political crusade against broadcaster ABC that not only violates free speech rights but distorts and weaponizes existing agency rules and procedures in service of a censorial president.

    In a filing in the FCC docket regarding early license reviews of eight ABC affiliated and owned stations, Free Press called the proceeding “an arbitrary and capricious abuse of power, ordered by Brendan Carr to exact the revenge Donald Trump demands against ABC for exercising its First Amendment rights.”

  • Richard J Tofel ☛ Thinking Aloud About the Quiet Crisis in Audience for News

    The search/AI story is, I think, relatively straightforward. It is affecting peripheral, lower value traffic the most, and, in the aggregate, hitting hardest those publishers for whom such traffic was a larger part of their offering. That is more of a business problem for publishers, candidly, than it is a larger loss for society. Cheap, commoditized traffic was hardly the cornerstone of democracy.

    To be sure, if the transformation of search eventually bleeds into most people getting news directly from a chat bot or agent, that could pose a much more fundamental problem. But I continue to think it’s way too soon to be confident that’s where we are headed.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • teleSUR ☛ Yazidi Genocide Remains Unpunished 12 Years Later: Murad - teleSUR English

    Murad and other Yazidi women who survived sexual violence and slavery visited the United Nations headquarters in Geneva ahead of Yazidi Genocide Memorial Day, observed on Aug. 3.

    “Today we are here to remind states and everyone in positions of power that they must act. For 12 years we have been repeating the same issues: missing women and children, unidentified remains, the need for Yazidis to be able to return to their homes, and justice for survivors,” Murad said.

  • ANF News ☛ Women bear the heaviest burden of genocide

    According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, genocide refers to acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. While many mass atrocities throughout history have been recognized as genocide by international courts, the legal classification of some events remains the subject of international debate.

    During genocides, women are often targeted not only through attacks on their lives but also through their bodies, identities and social roles. Sexual violence, forced displacement, the loss of family members, physical violence, forced marriage, violations of reproductive rights, economic devastation and social exclusion are among the most common abuses they face.

  • JURIST ☛ Environmentalists and tribes sue Bureau of Land Management over approval of Mojave Desert pipeline

    There are a long list of concerns with the renewed approval. Plaintiffs argue that the project will seriously damage the groundwater-dependent ecosystem, including freshwater springs, seeps, and riparian areas. Additionally, they claim that the BLM has “violated multiple laws and regulations in granting the right of-way for the Northern Pipeline to pump and transport water across federal lands as part of the Cadiz Project.” Additionally, the BLM has failed to “fulfill its responsibilities under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) to meaningfully review the impact of its actions on cultural and historic properties and resources in, and the environment of, the Mojave Desert…”

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ American Being Prosecuted for Wiping His Phone Before Handing It Over to Border Officials

    It’s hard to know how much the Constitution matters in the US right now.

  • Gizmodo ☛ A Feature That Makes Your Phone Data Self-Destruct in Authorities’ Hands May Soon Have Its Day in Court

    Quite a bit may be at stake. According to the Guardian, two privacy experts, Christophe Boutry and Electronic Frontier Foundation technologist Bill Buddington, expressed concern about this case and said it has no known precedent. Boutry told the Guardian the prosecution “sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default.” Atlanta Solidarity Fund member Marlon Kautz told the Guardian, “We all have a right to secure our private data against unconstitutional searches. And we should – especially in a time of rising authoritarianism.”

  • PC Mag ☛ GrapheneOS Defends Data-Wiping Function That Blocked US Border Search

    “GrapheneOS is completely legal. We have no obligation to weaken any of the security protections it provides,” the software developer tweeted on Monday. “Laws attempting to make it illegal or require weakening the security would be unconstitutional.”

    At issue is an Atlanta-based environmental activist named Sam Tunick, who had the free GrapheneOS software installed on his Pixel phone. In January 2025, US Customs agents demanded the device's password during a search at the airport. Tunick’s lawyers claim the agents “never read him his Miranda rights,” and ignored his request to speak with a lawyer. When Tunick provided a password for his phone, it was actually a “duress password” that irreversibly wipes a device when entered.

  • Robert Reich ☛ The Incredibly Shrinking American Workforce

    This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the labor participation rate — the percentage of people of working age who are working or actively looking for work — is now down to 61.5 percent. That’s 0.6 percentage points lower than it was at the first of the year.

    In other words, the U.S. economy has lost 1 million workers since January.

    It’s the lowest level of labor participation in 50 years outside the pandemic.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Republicans Are Destroying Decades Of Policy Progress On Affordable Broadband

    Enter Trumpism, which has been taking a merciless hatchet to absolutely any effort, anywhere across government, to try and ensure that Americans — whether rural Trump supporters, struggling school kids, or inner city urban residents — have affordable access to the internet.

    The USF is technically overseen by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), which has been tasked since 1998 with overseeing more than $9 billion in broadband subsidies annually. Now FCC boss Brendan Carr has announced a full review of the program, something he says is necessary for the sake of efficiency: [...]

  • Internet Archive ☛ The Case for Crowdfunding at Scale: How Donors are Fundraising With Us and Creating a Path to Lasting Preservation | Internet Archive Blogs

    Preserving humanity’s memory isn’t cheap. Servers need power, storage needs upgrading, and physical collections need scanning teams working around the clock. Leading a philanthropy department and building a high-performing team to fund these projects and meet that challenge is no small task. Since leading this department, we have grown our fundraising by 350%, guided by a commitment to nonprofit best practices and sustainable, donor-centered growth. Over time, that discipline has paid off: a loyal community of supporters emerged, expanding our fundraising base to hundreds of thousands of donors worldwide. That growth prompted the launch of a new fundraising strategy in partnership with GoFundMe, one designed to leverage crowdfunding fundraising tools and build a community of supporters who could engage firsthand with our work and see, up close, how our programs come to life. In 2025, that strategy took shape as a full-scale platform launch that has become a strategic funding and effective tool for turning individual passion into institutional impact.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Long-Lived Vulnerability in Microsoft Secure Boot

    Microsoft’s Secure Boot has had a serious vulnerability for most of its existence.

  • Ars Technica ☛ Microsoft’s Secure Boot has been broken for a decade and no one noticed until now

    An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux, devices from firmware infections has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years of existence. The discovery was made by researchers at security firm ESET after identifying 11 firmware images, at least one from 2013, that were known to be defective but remained signed by the software company anyway.

    The images are known as shims, which were invented to extend Secure Boot to Linux devices and utility software. Using a technique simple enough to be performed by novice [crackers], these old, forgotten shims can be used to completely circumvent the protection, which is embedded into the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) of the device’s motherboard. The gaffe is the result of the failure by Microsoft, which oversees the signing of shims, to revoke the publicly available images once vulnerabilities were found in them.

  • Fabio Akita ☛ Removing DRM from Kindle Ebooks in 2026

    I decided to try again now. The new DeDRM version can handle the current DRM, but the process has changed quite a bit. It takes work, requires Windows for one step, and relies on a community tool still in pre-release. It worked. I recovered 106 books I’d bought, tested the EPUB conversion, and can now read them on whatever device I choose.

    This is the state of play on July 30, 2026. Amazon could change the encryption or the app tomorrow. Ignore old tutorials telling you to install Kindle for PC 1.17, disable updates, and enter the device serial number in Calibre. That world is gone.

    And let’s get the obvious out of the way: I’m talking about books I bought. I’m not talking about downloading Kindle Unlimited titles, library loans, or somebody else’s books. Laws covering DRM circumvention vary by country. Check the law where you live and take responsibility for what you do.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Trademarks

    • Right of Publicity

      • Techdirt ☛ The Worst Person You Know Just Filed A Good First Amendment Lawsuit Against A Very Badly Drafted Nudify App Ban

        Let’s start with the basics: apps (mostly powered by various AI tools) that are used to produce modified imagery, especially stripping people of their clothes are… bad. They should be socially shunned. People using them to objectify or sexualize others are doing bad things, and people should judge those who use those apps accordingly. This is not a defense of those apps. Similarly, Elon Musk’s Grok and its widely promoted use of putting people (including children) in bathing suits definitely deserves social shunning as well. Norms take time to form, and the shunning here is still catching up to the technology.

        But passing a badly drafted, obviously unconstitutional law does not help form those norms. Nor does it punish Elon Musk. Instead, it allows him to act like a First Amendment martyr.

        It’s also worth clearing something up early, because a lot of the coverage has gotten it wrong: this is not a law about child sexual abuse material. CSAM is already quite illegal under both state and federal law, and nothing in HF 1606 is limited to images of minors. Had Minnesota drafted a law narrowly targeting AI-generated CSAM, it might have survived a constitutional challenge. That’s not what it did.

  • Copyrights

    • Digital Music News ☛ Influence Media Unveils $600M Anthem Entertainment Acquisition

      Multiple sale attempts and one bidding war later, Anthem Entertainment’s catalog has found a new owner: Influence Media Partners, which is set to pay north of $600 million for “substantially all” the IP [sic] at hand.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Anthropic Trained Claude on Donald Passman’s Music Industry Bible Without His Permission. His Payout? $5,000.

      Now, all those nuggets of industry knowledge have been hoovered up by Anthropic, which trained Claude on Passman’s books — and millions of others — for years without receiving permission from any of the authors involved.

      Perhaps it’s no surprise that Claude trained on millions of copyright books without author consent. But that decision sparked a major class action lawsuit — Bartz v. Anthropic PBC — that ultimately resulted in a massive, $1.5 billion settlement for impacted authors.

    • Michael Geist ☛ From CCH to ChatGPT: How Canadian Copyright Law Played the Key Role in Deciding a Leading AI Training Data Case in India

      The ANI lawsuit focused on two claims: that OpenAI copied and stored its articles to train its models, and that ChatGPT reproduced its content in outputs, including through retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which allows an AI service to pull current information from external sources before answering. The court dismissed the output claim, finding that when the ChatGPT responses were compared with the ANI articles as complete works rather than in fragments, there was no substantial reproduction of ANI’s expression. Further, the court concluded that articles cited by ANI as evidence were likely based on retrieval rather than memorization and ANI had not pleaded retrieval as a basis for infringement.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Cartoonist sues AI meme generator monetizing his work

      Replacing the text in popular comic strips is a common meme format, and few artists are displeased to see their work mutating online. Websites can generate these pics for users lacking image-editing skills. But when sites seek payment, a line is crossed. Artist Elmer Saflor, also known an Superelmer, likes to see remixes of his "Running Away Balloon" comic. But he did not like to see an AI slop site commercializing it without his permission.