TechBytes Episode 26: €£98 GNU/Linux Computer, Stuxnet's Government Roots, and More

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 1: Brandon from Fedora	TechBytes Episode 1: Apple, Microsoft, Bundling, and Fedora 14 (With Special Guest Brandon Lozza)	1/11/2010
Episode 2: No guests	TechBytes Episode 2: Ubuntu's One Way, Silverlight Goes Dark, and GNU Octave Discovered	7/11/2010
Episode 3: No guests	TechBytes Episode 3: Games, Wayland, Xfce, Restrictive Application Stores, and Office Suites	8/11/2010
Episode 4: No guests	TechBytes Episode 4: Fedora 14 Impressions, MPAA et al. Payday, and Emma Lee's Magic	9/11/2010
Episode 5: No guests	TechBytes Episode 5: Windows Loses to Linux in Phones, GNU/Linux Desktop Market Share Estimations, and Much More	12/11/2010
Episode 6: No guests	TechBytes Episode 6: KINect a Cheapo Gadget, Sharing Perceptually Criminalised, Fedora and Fusion 14 in Review	13/11/2010
Episode 7: No guests	TechBytes Episode 7: FUD From The Economist, New Releases, and Linux Eureka Moment at Netflix	14/11/2010
Episode 8: Gordon Sinclair on Linux Mint	TechBytes Episode 8: Linux Mint Special With Gordon Sinclair (ThistleWeb)	15/11/2010
Episode 9: Gordon Sinclair returns	TechBytes Episode 9: The Potentially Permanent Return of ThistleWeb	17/11/2010
Episode 10: Special show format	TechBytes Episode 10: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux	19/11/2010
Episode 11: Part 2 of special show	TechBytes Episode 11: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux - Part II	21/11/2010
Episode 12: Novell special	TechBytes Episode 12: Novell Sold for Microsoft Gains	23/11/2010
Episode 13: No guests	TechBytes Episode 13: Copyfight, Wikileaks, and Other Chat	28/11/2010
Episode 14: Patents special	TechBytes Episode 14: Software Patents in Phones, Android, and in General	29/11/2010
Episode 15: No guests	TechBytes Episode 15: Google Chrome OS, Windows Refund, and Side Topics Like Wikileaks	30/11/2010

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 16: No guests	TechBytes Episode 16: Bribes for Reviews, GNU/Linux News, and Wikileaks Opinions	3/12/2010
Episode 17: No guests	TechBytes Episode 17: Chrome OS Imminent, Wikileaks Spreads to Mirrors, 'Open' Microsoft	5/12/2010
Episode 18: No guests	TechBytes Episode 18: Chrome OS, Sharing, Freedom, and Wikileaks	11/12/2010
Episode 19: No guests	TechBytes Episode 19: GNU/Linux Market Share on Desktop at 4%, Microsoft Declining, and ChromeOS is Coming	16/12/2010
Episode 20: No guests	TechBytes Episode 20: GNU/Linux Gamers Pay More for Games, Other Discussions	18/12/2010
Episode 21: No guests	TechBytes Episode 21: Copyright Abuses, Agitators and Trolls, Starting a New Site	20/12/2010
Episode 22: No special guests	TechBytes Episode 22: Freedom Debate and Picks of the Year	27/12/2010

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 23: Tim, Gordon, and Roy	TechBytes Episode 23: Failuresfest and 2011 Predictions	2/1/2011
Episode 24: Tim, Gordon, and Roy	TechBytes Episode 24: Android, Microsoft's President Departure, and Privacy	10/1/2011
Episode 25: Tim and Roy	TechBytes Episode 25: Mono, Ubuntu, Android, and More	14/1/2011

Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late): GAFAM was never trustworthy
Maintenance Reminder: We'll carry on publishing
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff: that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs: "just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds": Links for the day
Racism Dressed Up as "Choice": Racism is rampant at IBM
Probably an All-Time Record: Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol): Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security: Women are like kryptonite to them
Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.: We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members: Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities: Many companies fake their health and their size
Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails: PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
Techrights Was Always a Community Site: The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month: In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs): Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential: Remember what happened to Skype last year
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense: many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop: if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News: There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus: Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon: Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet: Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure: "HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago: "the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026: IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade: Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com): The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism: Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends): We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders): For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').: It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware: Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet: Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic: 5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants): hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night: Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement: Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison: "Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies: Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles): Windows fell by a lot
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply": Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800: For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron): Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers.": continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini": Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026: IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026

TechBytes Episode 26: €£98 GNU/Linux Computer, Stuxnet's Government Roots, and More

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