Leftovers

• New Yorker ☛ “Being Maria” Brings Maria Schneider’s Traumatic Career to Light

  Jessica Palud’s portrait of the actress, who starred, with Marlon Brando, in “Last Tango in Paris,” centers the abuse that Schneider endured on that shoot, and its lifelong aftereffects.

• Los Angeles Times ☛ George Foreman dies at 76; boxing legend fought Muhammad Ali

• Deseret Media ☛ George Foreman, heavyweight boxer and purveyor of grills, dies at 76

• The Register UK ☛ NASA email storm strikes space agencies worldwide

  "The funny part was someone saying, 'Someone tell DOGE [sic] to rehire whoever maintains this email list.' Followed by other people saying stuff like, 'Just forward the entire email chain to DOGE [sic].'"

• Robert Birming ☛ Trusting your gut

  Keep your cool and trust your inner guide. It's a powerful tool, even if it's hard to describe.

• James G ☛ Adding “subscribed via” to the Artemis bookmarklet

  I often subscribe to blogs I like after reading one or two of their blog posts. When I see the blog in my web reader, it sometimes takes a second for me to remember what posts inspired me to subscribe to the website.

• Standards/Consortia

  • [Old] RFC ☛ RFC 2413: Dublin Core Metadata for Resource Discovery

    The Dublin Core Metadata Workshop Series began in 1995 with an invitational workshop which brought together librarians, digital library researchers, content experts, and text-markup experts to promote better discovery standards for electronic resources. The Dublin Core is a 15-element set of descriptors that has emerged from this effort in interdisciplinary and international consensus building. This is the first of a set of Informational RFCs describing the Dublin Core. Its purpose is to introduce the Dublin Core and to describe the consensus reached on the semantics of each of the 15 elements.

  • [Old] Ole Trøan ☛ The mistakes and missed opportunities in the design of IPv6 - episode 1 · The IPv6 agnostic blog

    This is a series of articles of my musings on why IPv6 failed. Previous article. Most networking protocols over the history of computer networking has failed. What makes up a successful protocol is defined in RFC5218.

  • [Old] Ole Trøan ☛ Is the transition to IPv6 inevitable? · The IPv6 agnostic blog

    In the Internet community we have been adamant that the transition to IPv6 was inevitable, and that there was no plan B. What if we are wrong? IPv6 deployment graphs seems to have flattened out. Deployment stagnated. If an end-user is IPv6 enabled, about half the traffic uses IPv6. Many Internet providers and the biggest content providers have all enabled IPv6. But there is little to no deployment in Enterprises, and there is no evidence of an increased uptake in deployments from the laggards.

• Science

  • New York Times ☛ After Lunar Disappointments, NASA Hits the Jackpot With Blue Ghost Moon Lander

    Firefly Aerospace’s successful moon lander has yielded a trove of data that scientists will pore over for years.

  • El País ☛ EU to double funding to attract US scientists fleeing Trump

    This scenario “represents an opportunity for Europe,” European Commission sources told EL PAÍS. The EU executive has confirmed it is receiving requests from parliamentarians, member states, and companies to strengthen its programs to attract talent fleeing the United States due to the cuts, uncertainty, and paralysis in scientific research imposed by the new White House administration. “We are analyzing these proposals and exploring ways to expand our immediate actions,” the Commission added. Brussels is planning a meeting of European ministers to coordinate a common response in this regard.

  • Futurism ☛ You Will Never Guess What the Stranded Astronauts Got Paid for Their Trouble

    In fact, astronauts on the ISS don't ever receive overtime, or extra pay on holidays and weekends, as spokesperson Jim Russell of the space agency's Space Operations Mission Directorate told the newspaper.

    "While in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees," Russell explained. As such, they — and seemingly their fellow astronauts — receive the same $5 "incidentals" allowance set by the Internal Revenue Service for any travel, regardless of location.

  • New Yorker ☛ Inside Trump and Musk’s Takeover of NASA

    On March 7th, a nonprofit awarded NASA the title “Best Place to Work in the Federal Government” for the thirteenth consecutive year. But nobody seems to care about that anymore, the manager told me. NASA is not the same organization that it was two months ago. Its civil servants have a track record of working fifty-to-sixty-hour weeks, based on spacecraft trajectories rather than terrestrial clocks. Perhaps no longer. “Why should anyone give up hours of personal time every week for an Administration that says you’re dirt?” the manager said. Resignations, layoffs, and disruptions are likely to affect NASA’s work far into the future. “A mistake made today might not come to fruition, so to speak, until an astronaut is on the surface of the moon in a few years,” the manager told me. “Do you want to be the Administration that killed astronauts?”

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ Europe is finally getting serious about commercial rockets

    In the coming days, Isar Aerospace, a company based in Munich, will try to launch its Spectrum rocket from a site in the frozen reaches of Andøya island in Norway. A spaceport has been built there to support small commercial rockets, and Spectrum is the first to make an attempt.

• Career/Education

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Ben Borgers

    This is the 82nd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Ben Borgers and his blog, benborgers.com

  • The Nation ☛ Trump Sets His Sights on “Eliminating” Public Education

    When President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday stating his intention to “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all,” he was doing more than implementing the standard DOGE [sic] agenda of cluelessly targeting phantom government waste. The Education Department, which Congress created in 1979, represents a key fulcrum in the right-wing theology of culture warfare. That’s why dismantling most key functions of the agency is a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s wrecking-ball tour through the administrative state: The agenda of publicly funded education has always been anathema to the modern conservative movement.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ u-blox DAN-F10N – The world’s smallest dual-band (L1/L5) GNSS module with an integrated patch antenna fits in a 4cm2 package

    u-blox has recently announced the world’s smallest L1, L5 dual-band GNSS module with an integrated patch antenna for precise meter-level positioning in applications such as asset tracking, telematics, industrial automation, consumer UAVs, and sports trackers. The module features a compact 20x20x8mm dual-band patch antenna with a unique packaging technology, enabling surface mounting for automated manufacturing and simplified integration. Its SAW-LNA-SAW RF architecture and an LTE B13 notch filter in the L1 RF path enhance out-of-band jamming immunity, ensuring smooth operation near cellular modems.

  • CNX Software ☛ Microchip AVR SD 8-bit dual-core microcontrollers offer functional safety for less than one dollar

    Microchip AVR SD family of low-cost 8-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) feature built-in functional safety (FuSa) mechanisms designed to meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level C (ASIL C) and Safety Integrity Level 2 (SIL 2) requirements, both of which mandate redundant safety checks. Hardware safety features include a dual-core lockstep CPU, two ADCs for redundancy, an Error Correction Code (ECC) on all memories, a dedicated error controller module, error injection mechanisms, and voltage and clock monitors. The company further explains the AVR SD MCU meets Fault Detection Time Interval (FDTI) targets as low as 1 millisecond, and its functional safety management system has been certified by TÜV Rheinland.

  • CNX Software ☛ Forlinx FET3506J-S low power system-on-module features Rockchip RK3506J industrial-grade tri-core Cortex-A7 SoC

    Forlinx FET3506J-S system-on-module (SoM) is based on a Rockchip RK3506J SoC, the industrial version of the RK3506 tri-core Cortex-A7 SoC, designed for smart industrial applications, and operating at a low power consumption of about 0.7 Watts. The Rockchip RK3506 SoC was first unveiled in 2023 through a product roadmap.

  • CNX Software ☛ Mini UPS with 5V, 9V, 12V DC, and PoE output could be useful for routers, security cameras, SBCs, and mini PCs

    Most uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) require AC voltage and use specific batteries that must be changed every few years. But those may be oversized and not the most efficient if you just want to keep single board computers (SBCs), low-power mini PCs, routers, or security cameras up and running during power failures. Luckily, some mini UPS solutions use standard rechargeable 18650 batteries, output 5V, 9V, or 12V DC, or even PoE (15V/24V) which may be more suitable for those use cases. Many mini UPS solutions come from WGP (Wonderful Green Power), so let’s have a look at the WPG103A model.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Nokia 110 4G review: a cheap burner phone with a battery that lasts for weeks

    I found the physical keypad well-designed, with decent sized, nicely spaced buttons offering satisfying tactile feedback. The T9 predictive text input works efficiently, and the navigation experience felt intuitive. The direction pad is responsive, and the menu system is straightforward to navigate. Like most feature phones, though, the buttons are quite small and fiddly, so I wouldn't recommend this handset for a frail and elderly family member.

    There's also a charging port (micro USB) on the bottom, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, both of which did their jobs well.

  • Chris Aldrich ☛ Standard Typewriters versus Portable Typewriters and Ultraportable Typewriters

    Within the typewriter space there are three broad categories of typewriters primarily based on size: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ Parents turn to smartwatches for their children amid global phone screen-time pushback

    Instead, she was given a children’s smartwatch, allowing her parents to track her whereabouts and exchange quick messages via its built-in Sim card without the need for a phone.

    Unlike with a smartphone, Ms Ng, 45, can set aside worries about addictive and harmful online content Alysandra might be exposed to, since features on the watch are limited.

  • Vox ☛ Media mistakes around masks and lab leaks in Covid hurt public trust

    Almost no one I talk to here in the Bay Area about Vox’s performance on Covid-19 remembers my article pushing back on dismissiveness and warning people should take Covid more seriously. Almost all of them remember the contempt they felt that the Recode article was encouraging toward them.

  • Vox ☛ Hospital surgery could be riskier on a Friday than a Monday, research has found.

    People who received pre-weekend surgeries — defined as a Friday or a Thursday before a long weekend — were overall about 5 percent more likely to experience one of those complications within a year of their surgery than people who got post-weekend procedures (on Monday or the Tuesday after a long weekend). The effect was stronger for heart and vascular surgeries; it was negligible for obstetric and plastic surgeries.

• Proprietary

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Meta confirms it is considering charging UK users for ad-free version

    The owner of Facebook and Instagram is considering charging UK users for an advert-free version of its platforms after agreeing a settlement in a landmark privacy case.

    Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta agreed to stop targeting a user with adverts based on their personal data after a legal agreement that avoided a trial in the high court in London.

  • The Register UK ☛ Accenture warns DOGE's [sic] Fed procurement audit hitting sales

    Accenture's Federal Services division accounted for around 8 percent of global revenue and 16 percent of Americas revenue in fiscal 2024, she said.

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump signs order consolidating federal IT purchases

    Specifically for IT, the order instructs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to designate the GSA as the executive agent for all government-wide acquisition contracts (GWACs), though it allows the GSA and OMB to defer or decline that role when necessary to avoid disruption.

  • NVISO Labs ☛ How to hunt & defend against Business Email Compromise (BEC)

    Business email compromise (BEC) remains a commonly utilized tactic that serves as leverage for adversaries to gain access to user resources or company information. Depending on the end goals of the adversaries, and on the compromised user’s business role – the potential impact can vary from simply accessing sensitive information (e.g., from emails, files uploaded in SharePoint), phishing more users via internal phishing campaigns, or even result in cloud ransomware given that the user has enough permissions to manipulate cloud resources (e.g., blob storages, S3 buckets) [1][2][3]. In this article we will describe some investigation steps to hunt for this activity, and suggest preventative actions to reduce the attack surface.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • India Times ☛ Meta doubles down on political ads that use AI ahead of Canada elections

      Meta Platforms will require advertisers to disclose the use of AI or digital techniques in creating or altering political or social issue ads, aiming to curb misinformation ahead of the Canadian federal elections. The mandate covers altered or synthetic images, videos, and audio depicting real people or events.

    • C4ISRNET ☛ US must develop measures to counter Chinese artificial intelligence

      The rise of artificial intelligence in all things military — ranging from intelligence gathering and command and control to autonomous air combat maneuvering and advanced loitering munitions — has yielded a problem for the United States: While it is crucial to stay ahead of China in technological advancement and the fielding of improved weapons systems, it also is crucial to create a doctrine of AI counter measures, or AICM, to blunt AI systems out of Beijing.

    • Simon Willison ☛ Not all AI-assisted programming is vibe coding (but vibe coding rocks)

      Vibe coding is not the same thing as writing code with the help of LLMs!

    • The Guardian UK ☛ Norwegian files complaint after ChatGPT falsely said he had murdered his children

      A Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Fans Furious at Video of Tesla Crashing Into Wall Painted Like Road

      In the piece — titled "Can You Fool a Self Driving Car?" — Rober found that a Tesla car on Autopilot was fooled by a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like the road ahead of it, with the electric vehicle plowing right through it instead of stopping.

      The footage was damning enough, with slow-motion clips showing the car not only crashing through the styrofoam wall but also a mannequin of a child. The Tesla was also fooled by simulated rain and fog.

    • Turtle's AI ☛ Resistance Against AI Web Crawlers: Nepenthes and Iocaine as Tarpitting Weapons

      Amid growing concern over the indiscriminate use of web crawlers by AI companies, tools have emerged that attempt to stop or slow down these crawlers, particularly those that bypass robots.txt restrictions. These tools are designed to “trap” crawlers, preventing them from collecting data from websites and potentially harming the AI ​​models that use them for training. One example of such a tool is Nepenthes, created by a programmer known only as Aaron B., who developed the software as a sort of “tar pit” for web crawlers.

    • The Register UK ☛ Apple hallucinated Siri AI features, lawsuit claims

      The complaint [PDF], filed on behalf of plaintiff Peter Landsheft as a proposed class action, argues that Apple mid-2024 launched a marketing campaign for its iPhone 16 that included promises to imbue built-in digital assistant Siri with groundbreaking Apple Intelligence capabilities that, crucially, are yet to materialize.

    • Macworld ☛ Is Siri really that bad? Yes, yes it is

      I’d like it to be known that I hated Siri before it was cool. I’ve written numerous articles on the subject. I’m an anti-Siri hipster. But when a bandwagon comes along, you better believe I’ll be sitting up front.

    • The Register UK ☛ Cloudflare builds an AI to make life hell for other AIs

      Cloudflare’s response is to let crawler bots in and use generative AI to create junk content for them to devour in what the company has termed an “AI Labyrinth”.

    • Cloudflare ☛ Trapping misbehaving bots in an AI Labyrinth

      Today, we’re excited to announce AI Labyrinth, a new mitigation approach that uses AI-generated content to slow down, confuse, and waste the resources of AI Crawlers and other bots that don’t respect “no crawl” directives. When you opt in, Cloudflare will automatically deploy an AI-generated set of linked pages when we detect inappropriate bot activity, without the need for customers to create any custom rules.

      AI Labyrinth is available on an opt-in basis to all customers, including the Free plan.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Federal News Network ☛ DOGE blocked in court from Social Security systems with Americans’ personal information, for now

      A federal judge has temporarily blocked MElon’s Department of Government Efficiency from Social Security Administration systems that hold personally identifiable data on millions of Americans. The decision from U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander also requires the team to delete any identifiable data they may have. It comes after labor unions and retirees asked for an emergency order limiting DOGE access to the agency and its vast troves of personal data. The administration has said DOGE's work at the agency is aimed at reducing waste and fraud in the federal government.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel's technology development chief Ann Kelleher to retire, sparking leadership overhaul ahead of 18A production start

      Kelleher will be succeeded by Naga Chandrasekaran, who will be responsible for the development and implementation of semiconductor manufacturing processes. Navid Shahriari will be responsible for various back-end operations, such as advanced packaging. Kelleher will serve as a strategic adviser on technology development and production.

    • Rolling Stone ☛ DOGE [sic] Social Security Data Access Threatens Millions

      DOGE [sic] “never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE [sic] Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government,” District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander concluded in issuing a temporary restraining order against DOGE [sic]’s access to Social Security data.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Trump Signs Order Directing Agencies to Grant Officials Access to Records

      The order was posted on the White House website on Thursday while a fact sheet about it said Trump had signed the order on Friday.

    • International Business Times ☛ 'DOGEQUEST Will Remove You If You Sell Your Tesla': Website Doxxes US Tesla Owners, Sparking Safety Fears

      A website called DOGEQUEST has sparked widespread controversy by publicly exposing the personal details of Tesla owners across the United States. In a bizarre twist, the site claims it will only remove a car owner's information if they can prove they have sold their Tesla, raising serious concerns over privacy and safety.

    • The Register UK ☛ Paragon spyware deployed against journalists and activists

      Paragon Solutions was co-founded in 2019 by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Ehud Schneorson, a former commander of signals intelligence agency Unit 8200. Its flagship spyware, Graphite, is pitched as a more restrained alternative to NSO Group's Pegasus, as it allows surveillance of messaging apps without taking full control of a target's phone, according to the lab's write-up.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ Milkor strengthens naval business with new partnerships

    As it expands its vessel range, Milkor continues to strengthen its naval business and has signed multiple agreements to this effect. At the IDEX exhibition in late February, Milkor and electro-optical solutions provider HGH signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand their partnership in unmanned and autonomous surface vessels as well as maritime surveillance.

  • JURIST ☛ Rights group condemns Türkiye crackdown and arrest of Istanbul mayor

    Amnesty International condemned on Wednesday the Turkish government’s detention of over 100 individuals, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, calling it a severe escalation of its crackdown on the political opposition.

  • Meduza ☛ Russian sabotage in Europe aims to undermine support for Ukraine

    Russia intensified its sabotage efforts in Europe last year as part of a violent campaign against both European and U.S. targets on the continent, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Tracking sabotage and subversion activities from January 2022 until March 2025, the study produced a database of verified Russian attacks across Europe, ranging from warehouse explosions and undersea cable cutting to assassinations. Kremlin officials have repeatedly denied Russian involvement in such attacks, though they appear to complement Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine. With this in mind, Western countries have taken a defensive approach to countering this covert campaign so far. But according to the report’s author, former U.S. defense official Seth G. Jones, going on the offensive would be the most effective form of deterrence.

  • NDTV ☛ Never Accepted Illegal Chinese Occupation Of Indian Territory: Centre

    "The Government of India has never accepted the illegal Chinese occupation of Indian Territory in this area. Creation of new counties will neither have a bearing on India's long-standing and consistent position regarding India's sovereignty over the area, nor lend legitimacy to China's illegal and forcible occupation of the same," Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said this in a written response to a query in Lok Sabha.

  • Digital Music News ☛ US TikTok Ban Deadline is Weeks Away — Will a Deal Happen?

    ByteDance strongly favors the proposed deal structure centered on software giant Oracle, according to reports. But whether the company (and the Chinese government) will agree to release meaningful control on the platform to allow it to remain operational in the US still remains uncertain.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Pentagon restores histories of Navajo Code Talkers, other Native veterans after public outcry

    Several webpages on the Code Talkers landed on a “404 - Page not found” message Tuesday. Some were back up Wednesday — although any that also mention Native American Heritage Month remain down. Thousands of other pages deleted in the DEI purge are still offline.

    White House officials informed the Navajo Nation that an artificial intelligence-powered automated review process looking for content with DEI initiatives led to the elimination of anything mentioning “Navajo,” according to a statement from Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ OpenAI has released its first research into how using ChatGPT affects people’s emotional wellbeing

    OpenAI says over 400 million people use ChatGPT every week. But how does interacting with it affect us? Does it make us more or less lonely? These are some of the questions OpenAI set out to investigate, in partnership with the MIT Media Lab, in a pair of new studies.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Presidential Toddler Theory of Government

    This is not merely a lie—though it is certainly that—but something more fundamentally corrosive: the introduction of the Toddler Theory of Presidential Power. Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar insisting “I didn't do it,” Trump has advanced the novel constitutional principle that presidential actions somehow occur without presidential agency. Documents bearing his signature, orders issued under his authority, and policies implemented by his administration apparently materialize through some mysterious process for which he bears no responsibility.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Dire warning from Canada: "Do not to travel to the United States"

    "People whose phones are being seized and searched for any kind of incriminating evidence that they are somehow progressive or woke, that's not the actions of a democratic nation," he added. "That is the creep of totalitarianism, that is the creep of fascism, and we need to call that out."

  • Reuters ☛ Britain beefs up travel warnings over US border enforcement

    The foreign office declined to comment on the reason for the revision or confirm when exactly it took place. It said its travel advice was designed to help people make decisions and the advice was constantly kept under review.

  • Newsweek ☛ Finland, Denmark Issue Travel Warnings For US

    Denmark and Finland have revised their travel guidance for transgender individuals planning to visit the United States.

  • RFERL ☛ Iran Rings In Nowruz Amid Calls To Go Nuclear

    • Hard-liners Push For Nukes In New Year: Iranian hard-liners have renewed a push for the development of nuclear weapons in the new Iranian year, which started on March 20. As prospects of direct talks with the United States fade, they argue that only going nuclear can serve as a reliable deterrent to war.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Putin is ruthlessly erasing Ukrainian identity in Russian-occupied Ukraine

    The enforced adoption of Russian citizenship is just one of the many tools being employed by the Kremlin to systematically erase all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine. Wherever Russian troops advance, local populations are subjected to mass arrests designed to root out any potential dissenters. Those targeted typically include elected officials, military veterans, religious leaders, civil society activists, teachers, journalists, and patriots. Thousands have been abducted in this manner since 2022 and remain unaccounted for, with many thought to be languishing in a network of prisons in Russian-occupied Ukraine and Russia itself.

    Those who remain are subjected to terror tactics in conditions that Britain’s The Economist has described as a “totalitarian hell.” All public symbols of Ukrainian statehood and cultural identity are being systematically dismantled. The Ukrainian language is suppressed, while any Christian denominations other than the Russian Orthodox Church face persecution or worse.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Meta to seek disclosure on political ads that use AI ahead of Canada elections

    The disclosure mandate will apply if an ad contains a photorealistic image, video or realistic-sounding audio that has been digitally created or altered to depict a real person as saying or doing something they did not actually say or do.

    It also extends to ads that show a person who does not exist or a realistic-looking event that did not happen, alter footage of a real event or depict an event that allegedly occurred, but is not a true image, video or audio recording of the event.

  • Wired ☛ How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services—and Why You Might Want To

    Collaboration between Big Tech and the Trump administration began before Donald Trump’s swearing-in on January 20. Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Uber each gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. Separately, in personal donations, so did Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook.

    Americans concerned about the Trump administration and Silicon Valley’s embrace of it, may consider becoming a “digital expat”—moving your digital life off of US-based systems. Meanwhile, Europeans are starting to see US data services as “no longer safe” for businesses, governments, and societies.

  • Wired ☛ Low-Cost Drone Add-Ons From China Let Anyone With a Credit Card Turn Toys Into Weapons of War

    The accessories the researchers found include AI drone guidance modules—essentially small mounted cameras that use object recognition to identify humans and road vehicles at long range—and miles-long fiber optic tethers. Like plugging an ethernet cable directly into your laptop, miles-long tethers allow drones to fly around a large area without being vulnerable to disruption by signal jammers. The researchers recognized them from battlefield footage and other reports that such tethers—not to mention AI guidance modules—are being used by both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war to drop explosives or autopilot crash entire drones themselves into tracked objects without requiring operator control.

  • Terence Eden ☛ How to Dismantle Knowledge of an Atomic Bomb

    Nowadays, "Hey, ChatGPT, what are the steps needed to create VX gas?"

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ China's growing grip on key German industries

    Germany’s industrial backbone is facing an unprecedented challenge. Once the leader in high-end manufacturing, the country has witnessed a five-year decline in industrial production, which threatens up to 5.5 million jobs and 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), according to a recent report by the London-based Centre for European Reform (CER).

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-03-20 [Older] How Russia Could Leverage a Ceasefire Against Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-20 [Older] EU Presses on With Steel 'Porcupine Strategy' for Ukraine as Russia Tries to End Western Support

    • TruthOut ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Hours After Cheeto Mussolini Secures Limited Ceasefire Deal, Russia Attacks Ukraine

    • CBC ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] After Putin's 2.5-hour call with Cheeto Mussolini, some in Russia see a diplomatic victory

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Europe launches defense push amid Russia threat, US worries

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] How can Africa reduce the influence of Russian mercenaries?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] EU Proposes Joint Defence Push Amid Russia Fears and US Worries

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Kremlin Says Russia Called off a Drone Attack on Ukrainian Energy Infrastructure

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Putin Wants Cheeto Mussolini to Formally Recognise All Land Russia Has Taken in Ukraine, Kommersant Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Conduct Large Prisoner Exchange After Putin-Cheeto Mussolini Call

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Russian State Has Claimed Assets Worth $28.7 Billion, Prosecutor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] UN Commission Says Russia's Enforced Disappearances of Ukrainians Amount to Crimes Against Humanity

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-19 [Older] Zelenskiy Confirms 'One of the Largest' POW Swap With Russia

    • CBC ☛ 2025-03-18 [Older] Putin agrees to 30-day energy infrastructure ceasefire; Ukraine willing to consider it

    • HRW ☛ 2025-03-18 [Older] US-Russia Engagement Should Address Rights Abuses

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-18 [Older] A Timeline of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-18 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Putin Discuss a US-Russia Hockey Series During Their Call, the Kremlin Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-18 [Older] Russia, Ukraine Accuse Each Other of Attempting Cross-Border Attacks

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-03-17 [Older] Netherlands joins 7 EU countries in UN complaint over Russian satellite sabotage

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-17 [Older] Ukraine: US and Russia's top diplomats discuss 'next steps'

    • HRW ☛ 2025-03-17 [Older] Russia: Xenophobic Crackdown on Central Asian Migrants

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-17 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says Will Speak With Putin on Tuesday to Discuss Ending Ukraine War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-17 [Older] Ukrainian Attack on Energy Facilities Sparks Fire in Russia's Astrakhan, Regional Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Russia, Ukraine Continue Air Attacks With Ceasefire Prospects Uncertain

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Not for Russia to Decide on Peacekeepers in Ukraine, Macron Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Russian Troops Battle Last Ukrainian Forces in Kursk Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Russia Demands 'Ironclad' Guarantees in Peace Treaty With Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Putin Expected to Speak This Week as US Pushes for Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-16 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Putin Will Speak This Week on Russia-Ukraine War, US Envoy Says

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Is Russia really isolated? The increasing importance of East and South diplomacy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says He Was Being a 'Bit Sarcastic' When He Promised to End Russia-Ukraine War in 24 Hours

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Limits Kellogg's Role to Ukraine Envoy After Russian Complaints

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Multiple Russian Planes Entered South Korean Defence Identification Zone, S.Korea Military

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Firefighters Rein in Fire at Russia's Tuapse Refinery, Regional Authorities Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Launch Aerial Attacks Amid Proposed Ceasefire Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-15 [Older] Russian Captain Involved in US Tanker Crash Appears in UK Court

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Russia-Zimbabwe: An Analytical Review

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Russia: What's happening with the Ukrainian army in Kursk?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Ukraine ceasefire: What do Russia, US, EU want?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Ukraine updates: European Union extends Russian sanctions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] France's Macron Says Russia Must Accept Ukraine 30-Day Ceasefire Proposal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Norway Denies Russian Accusation of Militarising Svalbard Arctic Islands

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Visits North Korea, KCNA Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Russian Missile Attack Injures 12 in Ukraine's Kryvyi Rih, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Russia's Medvedev Says Ukrainian Troops in Kursk Will Be 'Mercilessly' Destroyed if They Don't Surrender

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] Syrians Trickle Home From Sanctuary at Russian Air Base

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-03-14 [Older] UK Police Charge Russian Captain Involved in U.S Tanker Ship Crash

    • 2025-03-13 [Older] Dual Russian And Israeli National Extradited To The United States For His Role In The LockBit Ransomware Conspiracy

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Deseret Media ☛ 'A blatant power grab': Emails show virtually no support for public records bills

    The KSL Investigators analyzed 1,200 pages of those emails mentioning either of two bills: HB69, which in part protects the government from reimbursing your legal fees if you win a public records case in court, and SB277, which replaces the state records committee with a judge appointed by the governor.

    The overwhelming message from Utahns across the political spectrum was against the changes to the public records law. Those most concerned about the changes described them as "a blatant power grab," "a harsh disgusting law," "garbage" and even "utter insanity."

  • Sean Conner ☛ A deeper dive into mapping web requests via ASN, not by IP address

    I went ahead and replaced IP addresses with ASNs in the log file to find the network that sent the most requests to my blog for the month of February.

  • Sean Conner ☛ A different approach to blocking bad webbots by IP address

    Web crawlers for LLM-based companies, as well as some specific solutions to blocking them, have been making the rounds in the past few days. I was curious to see just how many were hitting my web site, so I ran a few queries over the log files. To ensure consistent results, I decided to query the log file for last month: [...]

• Environment

  • Omicron Limited ☛ NYC will eventually have to abandon part of its water supply if it keeps getting saltier

    Road salt is considered a main driver of the increase, along with sewage treatment plant discharges and water softeners. Millions of tons of rock salt is spread on U.S. roads each winter as a cheap and effective way to reduce accidents.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • H2 View ☛ London Heathrow closure puts spotlight on sustainability and back-up power

      Fires can happen anytime and anywhere, but quite why an electricity substation blaze close to the airport premises should bring the UK’s leading airport to a halt will be a subject of investigation. It raises questions around back-up power, energy storage and “infrastructure resilience” at times of heightened geopolitical tensions. The cost of the disruption is likely to run into billions of pounds.

    • BoingBoing ☛ California utility monopoly with $2.47B profits has one simple trick to make more money (it's charging you more)

      Democratic State Sen. Aisha Wahab had the nerve to suggest that maybe, just maybe, utilities shouldn't get to raise rates whenever they feel like it. Her proposal would limit rate hikes to one per year and cap them at the Consumer Price Index. I smell communism!

    • Michigan News ☛ London’s Heathrow Airport closed by fire, affecting flights worldwide

      At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected already, including several from U.S. cities that were canceled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.

    • The Register UK ☛ Datacenters near Heathrow stay up as fire closes Airport

      “Due to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport, Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage,” states a popup message on the airport’s website. “To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23:59 on 21 March.”

    • International Business Times ☛ Heathrow Airport Closed Due To Major Fire At London Substation: What You Need To Know

      Heathrow Airport in London ceased operations until midnight on 21 March due to a substation fire in the city's west. The fire triggered a major power failure and knocked out electricity for more than 16,000 households. British news outlets report that more than 150 individuals were also moved to safety.

    • Low Tech Mag ☛ The Compressed Book Edition

      In 2018, Low-tech Magazine launched a low-energy website that runs on solar power. To reduce energy use and make the content accessible for readers with old computers and slow internet connections, we opted for a back-to-basics web design, optimising image and file sizes, as well as using a static site generator instead of a database-driven content management system. In 2019, we also launched a book edition of Low-tech Magazine, which consists of three volumes with articles and one volume with comments.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ Bitcoin's Fee Spikes

      I've written several times, for example in Fixed Supply, Variable Demand, about the mechanism that causes the cost of transacting on a blockchain like Bitcoin's to suffer massive spikes at intervals. When no-one wants to transact, fees are low. When everyone does, they are high. Below the fold I look in detail at a typical Bitcoin fee spike.

      The spike that happened on 6th June last year was by no means the largest, but it did increase the average fee per transaction by a factor of 20 from the level 3 days earlier, and by a factor of 10 from the level the day before.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Protect This Place: Montana’s Untamed Black Ram Forest

  • Overpopulation

    • European Commission ☛ Commissioner Roswall's speech at the 6th Value of Water Forum at Ambrosetti House

      Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, buongiorno,

      And thank you for inviting me to the sixth Value of Water Forum here at the Acquario Romano in Rome.

• Finance

  • Federal News Network ☛ Will DOGE crash customer service at Social Security?

    It's fine for DOGE to cut the fat from government, but if custom service tanks, then the whole efficiency drive will lose credibility and really get people mad.

  • FAIR ☛ Nancy Altman on Social Security Attacks

  • FAIR ☛ Decades of Media Myths Made Social Security Vulnerable to Political Attack

    As the hack-and-slash crusade of the “Department of Government Efficiency” picked up steam in early February, the Washington Post editorial board (2/7/25) gave President Donald Trump a tip on how to most effectively harness Elon Musk’s experience in “relentlessly innovating and constantly cutting costs”: Don’t just cut “low-hanging fruit,” but “reform entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare before they become insolvent.”

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Former Dimension Data boss joins iOCO board

    Nompumelelo Mokou, formerly MD of Dimension Data (now NTT Data) in Southern Africa, has joined the board of iOCO with immediate effect.

    Formerly known as EOH Holdings, the JSE-listed IT services group recently changed its name to iOCO, after to its principal operating subsidiary.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Namibia inaugurates first female president

    Nandi-Ndaitwah is a “trusted leader” and “party stalwart,” noted the BBC. She joined the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party aged just 14, when it was still a liberation movement, undergoing arrest, detention, and later exile in the fight for independence, which Namibia finally won from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ EU preps Chips Act 2.0 to strengthen semiconductor industry after original program reportedly flopped

    The group includes nine European Union members led by the Netherlands, including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, which already have semiconductor industries (except Spain, which is more focused on R&D activities). Dutch Economy Minister Dirk Beljaarts explained that this group is preparing for a potential second funding package for the semiconductor industry, including both small and medium-sized companies.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ FCC’s Carr alleges Chinese companies are making ‘end run’ around Chinese telecom bans, announces investigation

    The list includes Chinese companies Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hikvision, Chinese Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Dahua Technology Company and Pacific Networks Corp.

    The law already forbids U.S. telecoms from using federal subsidies to purchase equipment and services, but Carr alleged the FCC was aware of potential violations.

  • Macworld ☛ Apple 'ousts Siri boss,' finally taking failures seriously

    John Giannandrea is reportedly out as Siri lead, Mike Rockwell is in.

  • Gregory Hammond ☛ Who I Think Will Likely Acquire Netlify

    Netlify is a website (other might call it a platform or a service) that allows people to take the code they’ve written and make a publicly available website from it. It’s very popular with developers as they make it easy to have a site by have a generous free plan, and making it easy to update by only updating when the code is changed in the repo where the code is stored.

  • Rlang ☛ rOpenSci Code of Conduct Annual Review

    Here we report our annual review of rOpenSci’s Code of Conduct, reporting process, and internal guidelines for handling reports and enforcement.

  • India Times ☛ Meta to launch generative AI assistant in the EU: Statement

    Meta's bot available in the EU was not trained on data from EU users.

    Until now, the company had held off on introducing its AI in the bloc, saying it was unclear how authorities might interpret overlapping rules on data protection, AI and digital markets.

  • Forbes ☛ Neither US States Nor Companies Fully Disclose Corporate Subsidies

    Our research suggests that barely 20 states report the governmental assistance they give companies. 80% of firms receiving subsidies worth more than $1 million do not disclose such aid in their 10Ks.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • El País ☛ Sarah Wynn-Williams: Meta silences promotion of best-seller by former executive who criticizes the company

    Wynn-Williams continues to work in the tech industry, but in an interview prior to the arbitration order, she denied taking money from anyone to publish the book. In an interview with The Times of London, where she lives with her husband, a journalist for The Financial Times, Wynn-Williams said she was not a disgruntled former employee, but rather wanted to shed light on the company’s inner workings: “I had to ask myself: who was my silence benefiting? I wouldn’t put myself through this if it didn’t matter.”

    EL PAÍS sought to speak with Wynn-Williams and received a response from a legal representative for the author: “Due to an injunction initiated by Meta, Wynn-Williams is prevented from commenting at this time.” The arbitrator issued the temporary injunction because the author violated a non-disparagement agreement. Wynn-Williams did not testify in the brief arbitration proceedings.

  • The Local SE ☛ Five men no longer suspects in killing of Quran burner in Sweden

    Momika, a 38-year-old Iraqi Christian whose actions sparked outrage in several Muslim countries, was shot on January 29th in an apartment in Södertälje, south of Stockholm. He died soon after in hospital.

  • Meduza ☛ Russia imprisons Soviet dissident Skobov for anti-war views

    “Today I will be asked if I plead guilty. Well, I’m the one making the accusation here. I accuse Putin’s entire ruling clique, which is built on corpses, of preparing, unleashing, and waging a war of aggression, of war crimes in Ukraine, of political terror in Russia, and of the corruption of my people,” he concluded. “And I ask this of the servants of Putin’s regime present here, who are the small wheels and cogs of his repressive regime: Do you plead guilty to complicity in Putin’s crimes?”

  • EFF ☛ A Win for Encryption: France Rejects Backdoor Mandate

    In a moment of clarity after initially moving forward a deeply flawed piece of legislation, the French National Assembly has done the right thing: it rejected a dangerous proposal that would have gutted end-to-end encryption in the name of fighting drug trafficking. Despite heavy pressure from the Interior Ministry, lawmakers voted Thursday night (article in French) to strike down a provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow hidden access to private conversations.

    The vote is a victory for digital rights, for privacy and security, and for common sense.

  • Techdirt ☛ Pentagon Anti-DEI Purge Leads To More Erasure Of Our Shared History

    Well, gosh golly gee, welcome to the real world. If only someone could have predicted that this haphazard effort to whitewash history would result in such collateral damage. This is, after all, somewhat akin to content moderation. Which, as we’ve noted repeatedly, is essentially impossible to do correctly at scale.

    And when the collateral damage amounts to the erasure of our history, it really is the sort of thing you should want to get as close to correct as possible.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Under Threat From Trump, Columbia University Agrees to Policy Changes

    “Columbia’s capitulation endangers academic freedom and campus expression nationwide,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

  • Consequence ☛ Members of British Punk Band UK Subs Denied Entry into US

    In the post, Gibbs stated he was flagged for questioning upon landing in Los Angeles with his partner, and informed he lacked the proper visa. Gibbs added that there was an undisclosed issue raised by the officer, which he speculated might be related to his band’s criticism of President Trump.

  • RFERL ☛ 2 Men Convicted In New York For Plotting To Kill Iranian Dissident Journalist

    Prosecutors said Iranian intelligence officials first plotted in 2020 and 2021 to kidnap Alinejad and move her to Iran to silence her criticism of the government. When that failed, Iran offered $500,000 for her to be killed, prosecutors said.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ X sues Modi's government over content removal in new India censorship fight

    The lawsuit and the allegations mark an escalation in an ongoing legal dispute between X and the government of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, over how New Delhi orders content to be taken down. It also comes as Musk is getting closer to launching his other key ventures, Starlink and Tesla, in India.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russian Comedian Beaten During Arrest in Belarus, Human Rights Official Says

    Ostanin’s lawyer, Veronika Polyakova, said Belarusian law enforcement officers beat him with batons and used stun guns on him in a forest before handing him over to Russian authorities, according to human rights council member Eva Merkacheva.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia

    Nobody should suppose that this will stop at Columbia or with the specific academic programs targeted by the government’s letter. Precisely because great research universities are centers of independent, creative thought, they generate arguments and ideas that challenge political power across fields as varied as international relations, biology, economics, and history. If government officials think that stifling such criticism is politically acceptable and legally permissible, some people in authority will inevitably yield to the temptation to do so.

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: Stop What You Are Doing and Talk to Your Patrons About the Proposed IMLS Cuts Today!

    Late on Friday, March 14, President Trump issued an executive order attempting to dismantle the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Millions of people rely every day on library services and programs supported by IMLS. Now we need YOU to show up for our libraries.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Journalists visiting deported Uyghurs in Xinjiang face Chinese surveillance

    A group of Thai reporters was invited to China on Tuesday to verify the condition of 40 deportees.

  • France24 ☛ French jihadist accused of holding journalists hostage in Syria sentenced to life in prison

    A court in France on Friday has sentenced Mehdi Nemmouche, a 39-year-old French jihadist indicted for allegedly holding four journalists hostage for the Islamic State group in war-torn Syria over a decade ago, to life in prison. Nemmouche is already in prison for killing four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in May 2014.

  • SBS ☛ Voice of America: Trump's media cuts delighted China and Russia, and could be an opportunity for Australia | SBS News

    The White House announced last week it was terminating the federal grants that sustain the operations of Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

    Rights activists say the outlets — from which thousands have now been sent on leave — have long served as a rare source of reliable news in authoritarian countries like Russia, China and North Korea.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Voice of America closure by Trump sparks fond memories in today’s Russia

    Voice of America started programming in Russian in 1947 at the start of the Cold War, and from the very beginning the Soviets sought to silence it.

    Authorities made elaborate efforts to jam the signals of foreign radio stations like VOA that broadcast news happening both inside and outside the USSR.

    In the era of Vladimir Putin, VOA came under attack again. In 2014, Kremlin authorities labeled it a “foreign agent” spreading propaganda aimed at undermining the Russian state. Its correspondents were evicted.

  • CPJ ☛ Severed pig head sent to Indonesian news outlet as president attacks foreign-funded media

    The pig’s head, sent in a cardboard box, was addressed to a female journalist at Tempo who covers politics and hosts a popular podcast program, said Wahyu Dhyatmika, chief executive of Tempo’s digital team. He called the incident an attempt to “scare and silence” the Indonesian press into self-censorship, and said Tempo lodged a police report on Friday.

  • Raw Story ☛ ‘Such garbage!’ Trump question time goes off rails as he melts down over Musk report

    The report triggered fury among many who argued Musk has no position — or authority — that merited him getting such a briefing.

    Trump then descended into a meltdown about the media.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Trump's attacks on the free press intensify as Musk visits the Pentagon

    When asked about a New York Times report concerning Elon Musk's being given illegal defense briefings, convicted felon #47 became enraged about press freedoms.

  • RFERL ☛ RFE/RL Audiences Voice Support For Its Journalism -- And Fears For Its Future

    Amid an attempt by US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt congressionally allocated funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the broadcaster’s audiences in the countries it covers are voicing support and admiration for its journalism.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ A light in the darkness: Why RFE/RL matters now more than ever

    This is the power of RFE/RL. It is not just a news organization, but a shield for those whose own governments have abandoned them. In Turkmenistan, as in many of the places the organization serves, there are no fair and impartial courts to turn to, no free press to expose wrongdoing, no way for many citizens to hold power accountable. Without RFE/RL, Maya’s story would never have been heard. And she would have been just another forgotten casualty of authoritarian rule.

    In recent days, however, the Trump administration has raised the specter of a world without RFE/RL. On March 15, the US Agency for Global Media terminated the funding grant for RFE/RL, endangering the organization’s ability to provide journalism for millions of people who would struggle otherwise to get access to news that is not controlled by an authoritarian government.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Futurism ☛ Pentagon Says It's Using AI to Delete Pages About History That's Too Woke

    Rather than fessing up to the racist snafu, Parnell suggested that artificial intelligence was at fault.

  • The Nation ☛ Jackie Robinson Teaches Us to Never Back Down to Bigots

    This might not sound like much, especially in a climate where people are being disappeared for thought crimes against US foreign policy. But it is, I would argue, a desperately needed reminder that even in this repressive climate, we can beat them back. Like sniveling bullies, they only project strength when they think we’re weak.

  • La Quadature Du Net ☛ « Simplification » Bill: a denial of democracy to impose giant data centers in France

    The National Assembly has begun examining the bill on the simplification of economic life. Through its Article 15, this “simplification” bill (or PLS) aims to speed up the construction of huge data centers in France, by allowing the government to impose them on the territories concerned and by increasing exemptions to municipal planning regulations, environmental laws, and to the principle of public participation. Against this new denial of democracy imposed to serve the interest of the tech industry, La Quadrature du Net and the collective “Le Nuage était sous nos pieds”, together with the other members of the“Hiatus” coalition, are calling for the deletion of Article 15 and a two-year moratorium on the construction of large data centers, so as to provide the time to establish the conditions for the democratic control of these digital infrastructures.

  • The Register UK ☛ AWS sued for alleged gender, age discrimination

    A former senior product manager at Amazon Web Services has sued the cloud colossus in the US, claiming she faced retaliation from bosses and was ultimately laid off due to her gender and age.

  • 404 Media ☛ How Three Alleged Tesla Vandals Got Caught

    Federal law enforcement agencies have turned to a variety of techniques and surveillance capabilities to identify people who have allegedly set fire to Tesla vehicles and property, including automatic license plate readers and social media crawling, according to newly unsealed court records obtained by 404 Media.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ The Underlying Problem

    The underlying cause of our situation is inequality. We have allowed too few people to accumulate too much wealth. The imbalance has grown so severe that a tiny number of individuals with twelve-figure net worths have the means to purchase so much political power that they can effectively make the federal government’s decisions. The significant thing about the way that Elon Musk is presently dismantling our government is not the existence of his own political delusions, or his own self-interested quest to privatize public functions, or his own misreading of economics; it is the fact that he is able to do it. And he is able to do it because he has several hundred billion dollars. If he did not have several hundred billion dollars he would just be another idiot with bad opinions. Because he has several hundred billion dollars his bad opinions are now our collective lived experience. The inequality, the decades of regulatory failures that led up to Elon Musk’s net worth, were the precondition for all of the insanity that is now playing out. It is easy to lose sight of this amid the daily headlines and the cartoonish corruption and the outrageous statements and the think pieces about the esoteric philosophy of Mencius Moldbug. It is tempting, because of the sudden severity of our situation, to imagine that there is a secret, hidden reason driving it all.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • South Africa ☛ How to steal the internet

    Singaporean businessman Lu Heng is poised to capture Africa’s regional IP address regulator, and with it, the keys to control of much of the world's remaining IPv4 addresses

  • ARRL ☛ FCC Initiates Broad Inquiry on Rules to Delete or Amend

    It is expected that the Commission will incorporate suggestions that it decides worthy of its consideration in a future Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that could be issued later this year. There will then be an opportunity for public comment on the specific rules that the Commission proposes for deletion or modification.

  • Inside Towers ☛ FCC Begins Streamlining Copper Retirement

    The FCC is taking what it’s calling an “initial” set of actions to help speed the transition from aging copper lines to modern network infrastructure. “These actions will help ensure that providers roll out upgraded, high-speed networks to more Americans on a faster timeline—rather than requiring providers to keep pouring resources into maintaining decades-old and increasingly expensive copper line networks,” states the agency.

    The Commission is keeping consumer protections in place. It’s requiring interoperability and guarding against price increases by ensuring that consumers transitioning to new networks get access to services at similar or lower price points.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Zimperium report warns that mobile rooting and jailbreaking still pose serious security risks [Ed: New FUD against people looking to actually be in control of their devices; they try to tell companies to reject such people]

    A new report out today from mobile security platform provider Zimperium Inc. warns that mobile rooting and jailbreaking remain a persistent and evolving threat to enterprises worldwide. Mobile devices that have been rooted, meaning someone got administrator access to the operating system, and jailbroken, meaning apps installed from outside official app stores, bypass critical security protocols.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The United Kingdom Parliament ☛ Subject: Microsoft 365 price increases [PDF]

  As discussed briefly with you, I have noted with some dismay the significant price increase for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans, which were raised by 42% and 31% respectively earlier this year; reportedly due to the addition of Copilot.

• The Register UK ☛ Microsoft dodges questions about Copilot 365 consent

  The UK's Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee is pressing Microsoft for answers about the recent Microsoft 365 price hikes and why customers are forced to opt out of the more expensive Copilot version.

  In a letter [PDF] to Hugh Milward, Microsoft's VP of external affairs, dated March 17, committee chair MP Chi Onwurah expressed her "dismay" that the price increases have hit everyday consumers but not large organizations such as the UK government.

• Open Web Advocacy ☛ UK Regulator's Final Verdict: Apple’s Browser Engine Ban Harms Competition

  The UK's Mobile Browsers and Cloud Gaming Market Investigation Reference (MIR) has published its final report. The conclusion is clear: Apple’s “WebKit restriction”, which forces all browsers on iOS to use Apple’s engine, harms competition, stifles innovation and functionality, particularly for Web Apps.

  Most importantly, the MIR recommends a complete reversal of Apple’s ban on third-party browser engines. For the first time, a regulator proposes a remedy requiring Apple to allow third-party browsers to install and manage Web Apps using their own engines. This is a critical win for developers, startups, and anyone who relies on an open web.

• Aral Balkan ☛ Careless people

  Were this a review, I’d mention that beyond providing an unflattering glimpse inside the putrid bowels of a trillion-dollar surveillance capitalist, it is a raw, personal, and emotional account of Sarah’s life. A beautifully executed redemption arc – which isn’t surprising given the author’s job is to manipulate people for a living – as long as you don’t think too hard about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg calling the people who trusted him “dumb fucks” was already public information in 2010, a whole year before the author’s “idealism” led her to start a job at Facebook.

  But as I said, this isn’t a review of the book. Instead, it’s a summary of the bits that stood out to me. Bits, for example, that if the EU Parliament and Commission were to ever pull their heads out of their asses, would lead them to having some strong words not just with Meta but also with, say, the government of Ireland.

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • EFF ☛ New USPTO Memo Makes Fighting Patent Trolls Even Harder | Electronic Frontier Foundation

      The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just made a move that will protect bad patents at the expense of everyone else.

• Copyrights

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Can data be owned? A South African legal scholar weighs in

    In today’s digital economy, data is the most valuable asset – it’s often referred to as “the new oil”. Whether in commerce, research or social interactions, the ability to generate, use and trade with data is central to economic competitiveness.

    If data ownership is not clearly established, it could stifle innovation and investment. Companies require legal certainty to operate effectively in a knowledge-driven economy.

  • Digital Music News ☛ AI-Generated Works Cannot Be Copyrighted in the US

    “The Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authorized in the first instance by a human being,” said Circuit Judge Patricia A. Millett for US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “Even if the human authorship requirement were at some point to stymie the creation of original work, that would be a policy for Congress to address.”

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ My Writings Are in the LibGen AI Training Corpus

    The Atlantic has a search tool that allows you to search for specific works in the “LibGen” database of copyrighted works that Meta used to train its AI models. (The rest of the article is behind a paywall, but not the search tool.)

  • Stephen Smith ☛ Facebook Pirated my Books

    The Atlantic has an interesting story on all the books Meta/Facebook pirated to train their Llama 3 AI model. The story includes a tool where you can enter an Author’s name and get a list of pirated books. For me, my three ARM Assembly Language programming books came up;

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

    This act, along with other information outlined and quoted here, recently became a matter of public record when some of Meta’s internal communications were unsealed as part of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought against the company by Sarah Silverman, Junot Díaz, and other authors of books in LibGen. Also revealed recently, in another lawsuit brought by a similar group of authors, is that OpenAI has used LibGen in the past. (A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation against the company. In a response sent after this story was published, a spokesperson for OpenAI said, “The models powering ChatGPT and our API today were not developed using these datasets. These datasets, created by former employees who are no longer with OpenAI, were last used in 2021.”)

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Court Orders Google to Poison Public DNS to Prevent IPTV Piracy

    Last December the Court of Milan ordered Cloudflare to block sites added to Italy's Piracy Shield system. Cloudflare sees itself as a neutral intermediary but increasingly frustrated rightsholders say it should play a more active role by assisting their fight against piracy. A decision issued by the same court now requires Google to poison its Public DNS to prevent access to pirate sites. It was handed down on March 11 without Google being heard in the matter.

  • Digital Music News ☛ NMPA Doubles Down on Spotify Criticism, Calls Out Stock Sales

    Who said the Spotify bundling criticism was letting up? The NMPA is calling out CEO Daniel Ek for allegedly selling more company stock in 2024 than his platform paid all U.S. songwriters in royalties for the year.