Leftovers

• Alexandra Wolfe ☛ Blog Question Challenge: Tech Edition

  I would have to say almost at the same time I was starting to read and write. Growing up with two older brothers and a dad who loved to tinker with, well, everything. I learnt a lot about what went on inside radios. And I’m not talking the kind you might be thinking about. But something your grandma might have had back in the day. Those Bakelite behemoths that side on people’s sideboards back in the 50s. Ones that, when you undid the back to look inside, housed vacuum sealed valves that glowed and hummed.

• Austin Kleon ☛ Easter eggs

  Sometimes the links are random, but often they comment somehow on the list of 10.

• Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Rubber Ducking For Research Communication: Why Explaining to Nobody Helps You Explain to Anybody

  I assumed I’d misheard, but no: rubber ducking is a technique that is commonly used by coders. The term originates, as with many tech terms, from a slightly ridiculous yet oddly effective idea. The premise is simple: when stuck on a problem, the programmer talks through their code line-by-line to a rubber duck. A small, yellow toy, sitting on the edge of the desk, unblinking, unjudgmental, maybe with head slightly cocked in listening mode. Talking through the problem out loud, having to progress through it in a logical way, helps the problem reveal and resolve itself. It’s a bit kooky, but it’s easy, low-tech, low-cost, requires no training — and is curiously powerful.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ A Magnetar's Birthplace Deepens The Mystery of Its Origins

    How did it form?

  • Science Alert ☛ Gold Injections in The Eye May Be The Future of Vision Preservation

    "This technique could potentially transform treatment paradigms."

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover First Probable Evidence of a Roman Fighter Mauled by a Lion

    What we do in life echoes in eternity.

  • Science Alert ☛ Hubble Celebrates 35 Years by Gifting Us 4 Breathtaking Cosmic Images

    "A new window to the Universe."

• Career/Education

  • Irish Examiner ☛ Academics cancel US travel over fears of harassment and visa issues at border control

    “I have colleagues now who just simply are not going to go to the United States,” Mr Lucas said. “They are cancelling out on conferences and on going to seminars. It's just not worth the risk.”

  • Scott Smitelli ☛ Shut Up and Dance

    What does work-life balance even mean when both sides of that equation are so hopelessly commingled that both words effectively describe the same thing? Who’s really watching Dan and calculating his worth on a day-to-day basis? Who is keeping track of that score, and does the winner even get anything worth having in the end?

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Innovation and adopting innovations requires trusted and functioning institutions. The US and Europe have neither

    The US has effectively given up on trying to be competitive with the other leading economies of the world and the EU has a very short grace period for detaching itself from that sinking ship if it doesn’t want to get dragged down with it like a barnacle on the hull of the US economy. (Iceland, as a part of the broader European Economic Area would be a barnacle on the barnacle in this analogy.)

    Innovation comes from research and education. Corporate research builds directly on public research, both in terms of the research itself but – just as importantly – in terms of recruitment and research talent. Universities are where researchers come from. Creating innovation requires institutions that both function and are trusted and it requires a functioning education system.

  • Becky Spratford ☛ Be a Gate Opener: Using the The Library of Congress' National Book Festival Highlights Videos To Fight for More Patron Friendly Cataloging

    The Library of Congress has been holding the National Book Festival for 25 years and they are celebrating with resources for you. Well to be fair, they always have resources for free because there are our National Book Festival and like our National Museums in DC, it is free.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Hugh Grant: Screen-obsessed schools are ruining our children

    “Test scores began going down after 2012,” Dr Haidt told the event. “I don’t know if it’s because of the phones, or because that’s when we put iPads and Chromebooks on kids’ desks. Whatever it is, as soon as we brought in the EdTech, scores plunged.”

    Referring to maths and spelling apps which reward pupils with colourful tokens, icons and emojis, he added: “If you gamify a quarter of a child’s school day with these quick rewards, the child’s dopamine neurons will habituate to that constant stimulation and will become less responsive, needing more stimulation in order to make the child feel normal.

    “What that means is that the child will now find anything that’s not gamified painfully boring. That’s what we’ve done to our kids, by giving them devices in school.”

• Hardware

  • Russell Coker ☛ Russell Coker: Last Post About the Yoga Gen3

    Just over a year ago I bought myself a Thinkpad Yoga Gen 3 [1]. That is a nice machine and I really enjoyed using it. But a few months ago it started crashing and would often play some music on boot. The music is a diagnostic code that can be interpreted by the Lenovo Android app. Often the music translated to “code 0284 TCG-compliant functionality-related error” which suggests a motherboard problem. So I bought a new motherboard.

  • CNX Software ☛ Microchip launches low-cost, low-power PIC16F17576 8-bit microcontrollers for analog sensors

    Microchip PIC16F17576 8-bit MCUs are designed for low-cost and low-power analog sensors. They integrate a low-power comparator and voltage reference combination that can operate while the MCU core is in sleep mode, consuming less than 3.0 µA of current during analog measurements. The PIC16F17576 microcontrollers are equipped with up to four operating amplifiers (op amps) with software-controlled gain ladders, and a 12-bit differential ADC with automated averaging. 

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese companies stockpiled billions of dollars worth of Nvidia H20 GPUs prior to recent ban

    China's top three internet companies allegedly have stockpiled around 1 million H20 Hey Hi (AI) GPUs in anticipation of U.S export bans that took place earlier this month.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Top PC OEMs reportedly planning Saudi Arabia plants to avoid US tariffs — Lenovo, HP, Dell exploring options as panic continues

    Lenovo, HP, and Dell are all in various stages of talks to establish manufacturing plants in Saudi Arabia, as fears of tariff insecurity continue to heighten.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Evertop: A Low-Power, Off-Grid Solar Gem

    When was the last time you saw a computer actually outlast your weekend trip – and then some? Enter the Evertop, a portable IBM XT emulator powered by an ESP32 that doesn’t just flirt with low power; it basically lives off the grid. Designed by [ericjenott], hacker with a love for old-school computing and survivalist flair, this machine emulates 1980s PCs, runs DOS, Windows 3.0, and even MINIX, and stays powered for hundreds of hours. It has a built-in solar panel and 20,000mAh of battery, basically making it an old-school dream in a new-school shell.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Top PC OEMs reportedly planning Saudi Arabia plants to avoid US tariffs — Lenovo, HP, Dell exploring options as panic continues

    Lenovo, HP, and Dell, the world's three largest PC vendors, are reportedly exploring expansion options in Saudi Arabia. According to Digitimes, Saudi Arabia is actively recruiting tech manufacturers with facilities in China to relocate to the Arabian Peninsula as fears of tariff insecurities heighten.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ How a Chinese Prison Helped Fuel U.S. Fentanyl Crisis

    China’s vast security apparatus shrouds itself in shadows, but the outside world has caught periodic glimpses of it behind the faded gray walls of Shijiazhuang prison in the northern province of Hebei.

    Chinese media reports have shown inmates hunched over sewing machines in a garment workshop in the sprawling facility. Business leaders and Chinese Communist Party dignitaries have praised the penitentiary for exemplifying President Xi Jinping’s views on the rule of law.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Calculated How Much Meat You Can Sustainably Eat in a Week

    Could you make the change?

  • Science Alert ☛ Study Reveals a Shocking Amount of Plastic in The Arteries of Stroke Patients

    "Wow and not good."

  • The Mercola tapes: A wealthy antivax quack scammed

    [Orac Note: I’m trying to get this blog up and running again. To begin the process, I’m going to start out by reposting and updating several of what I consider to be important posts from the last month or so from my not-so-super-secret other blog that I want posted here on my private blog. (Sadly, things are moving so quickly that I fear that if I delay reposting these articles they will soon no longer be relevant.) Then, hopefully, within a week or so, producing new exclusive posts published only on this blog. We’ll see how it goes and how long it takes me to get back to a more regular posting schedule. In the meantime, let’s continue by revisiting an old “friend,” Joe Mercola.]

  • Wired ☛ Scientists Find Measles Likely To Become Endemic in the US Over Next 20 Years

    With vaccination rates among US kindergarteners steadily declining in recent years and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowing to reexamine the childhood vaccination schedule, measles and other previously eliminated infectious diseases could become more common. A new analysis published today by epidemiologists at Stanford University attempts to quantify those impacts.

    Using a computer model, the authors found that with current state-level vaccination rates, measles could reestablish itself and become consistently present in the United States in the next two decades. Their model predicted this outcome in 83 percent of simulations. If current vaccination rates stay the same, the model estimated that the US could see more than 850,000 cases, 170,000 hospitalizations, and 2,500 deaths over the next 25 years. The results appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

  • David Revoy ☛ A DIY digital stethoscope for cats

    And with that setup, I was able to record my cat's heartbeat using Audacity on my Debian KDE machine. Of course, getting my cat to cooperate was a challenge. At first, all I got was a lot of loud purring that masked the heartbeat sound. But I was patient, and after a few minutes he fell asleep and I managed to get a clean recording.

  • Michigan News ☛ Dear Annie: I’m choosing postcards over social media posts, and I feel happier - mlive.com

    Dear Annie: In a nutshell: I have been off social media for about five years, and this year I have made it a resolution to reduce my screen time. My screen time average is down to about an hour a day. If I had a way to measure it, I’d say my mental health has improved greatly.

  • Jeroen Sangers ☛ Hiding your phone doesn't help you concentrate better

    This suggests that the problem is not the devices themselves, but rather your habits and time management. Concentration issues seem to be more related to your environment and activities than to the technology itself.

• Proprietary

  • Security Week ☛ Blue Shield of California Data Breach Impacts 4.7 Million People

    “On February 11, 2025, Blue Shield discovered that, between April 2021 and January 2024, Google Analytics was configured in a way that allowed certain member data to be shared with Google’s advertising product, Google Ads, that likely included protected health information,” the health insurer announced earlier this month.

  • Wired ☛ Gmail’s New Encrypted Messages Feature Opens a Door for Scams

    “When the recipient is not a Gmail user, Gmail sends them an invitation to view the E2EE email in a restricted version of Gmail,” Google wrote in a blog post. “The recipient can then use a guest Google Workspace account to securely view and reply to the email.”

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ Trying out a cheap USB VK-172 GPS dongle on a Mac

    For most civilians, the most accurate source of time available comes from satellites—GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, etc.—nowadays referred to as GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). Originally targeted at GPS only, even cheap dongles today cover multiple constellations adding to the accuracy and coverage of satellite-based positioning and timing signals.

    I've done most of my testing with timing-centric u-blox receivers, but I wanted to see how accurate a cheap $10 dongle would be on my Mac.

  • The Register UK ☛ Fujitsu wins £125 million Northern Ireland contract

    Fujitsu has won a £125 million ($167 million) contract to build Northern Ireland's new land registry system, despite promising not to bid for UK public sector work in the wake of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

  • The Register UK ☛ Security snafus caused by third parties up from 15% to 30%

    One example: in third-party environments, the median time to remediate leaked secrets, such as API keys or tokens discovered in public GitHub repositories, was 94 days, giving attackers ample opportunity to exploit them.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ WARNING: Feel like you're being watched by your home cameras? Well, you might be…

    From your driveway to your bedroom, this website may publish video from your cameras showing you in your home – and it's easy to get access to

  • Lee Peterson ☛ Choosing cross platform

    I’ve fallen into a bit of a trap again with apps – lock in. As I moved away from paper to digital again recently it was a chance to get back into testing and messing with apps. What’s happened though is falling into the comfortable, what’s on my iPhone. What I’m realising now is I’ve fallen into the trap of lock in again and realising the shortcomings in Apple Reminders in using it and here is my chance to switch again and this time choosing cross platform.

  • European Commission ☛ Commission closes investigation into Apple's user choice obligations and issues preliminary findings

    This closure follows a constructive dialogue between the Commission and Apple. As a result, Apple changed its browser choice screen, streamlining the user experience of selecting and setting a new default browser on iPhone.

    Apple also made it easier for users to change default settings for calling, messaging, call filtering, keyboards, password managers, and translation services on iPhones. A new menu now allows users to adjust their default settings in one centralised location, streamlining the customisation process.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Former Proprietary Chaffbot Company staff and Hey Hi (AI) experts ask Attorneys General to block for-profit conversion

      Former employees of OpenAI, along with 30 artificial intelligence experts, have published an open letter that is asking the attorneys general in California and Delaware to stop the company from restructuring into a “for-profit benefit corporation.”

    • Qt ☛ Enhance Squish GUI Testing with Hey Hi (AI) Assistants Using the New MCP Sample [Ed: Qt pushing ACM ☛ slop and plagiarismM]

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea says DeepSeek transferred user data, prompts without consent

      South Korea's data protection authority said on Thursday that Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek transferred user information and prompts without permission when the service was still available for download in the country's app market.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Nvidia aims to solve Slop's water consumption problems with direct-to-chip cooling — claims 300X improvement with closed-loop systems

      Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 and GB300 NVL72 Hey Hi (AI, Slop) systems achieve 25 times greater energy efficiency and 300 times better water efficiency by using closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, at the cost of expensive data center redesigns.

    • France24 ☛ New Paris exhibition uses art to tell the story of Slop

      The curator of a new exhibition here in Paris on artificial intelligence has spoken to FRANCE 24 about the technology’s wonders, but also its dangers. The exhibition at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in the Tuileries Gardens in central Paris uses art to tell the story of Hey Hi (AI) through the ages, with a series of exhibits and artistic works. The exhibition also aims to show the distinction between analytical AI, such as facial recognition; and generative AI, which is more creative. We spoke to chief curator Antonio Somaini in Perspective.

    • Science Alert ☛ A Strange Phrase Keeps Turning Up in Scientific Papers, But Why?

      This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a "digital fossil" – an error preserved and reinforced in artificial intelligence (AI) systems that is nearly impossible to remove from our knowledge repositories.

      Like biological fossils trapped in rock, these digital artefacts may become permanent fixtures in our information ecosystem.

    • IT Wire ☛ Radware Finds 57% of Online Shopping Traffic Now Bots, Not Buyers

      The report highlights major bot attack trends and real-world attack data observed during the 2024 online holiday shopping season. In addition, it offers insights into the distributed, multi- vector attacks e-commerce providers and retailers can expect to battle this year.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ California bar exam: a technical disaster with AI-written nonsense questions

      Many exam questions had typos or were just nonsense. Some candidates said the questions read like they’d been quickly cobbled together with an AI or something.

      And they were. Of 171 multiple-choice questions, 23 were generated “with the assistance of AI” — by non-lawyers

    • The Register UK ☛ Ex-NSA boss: AI devs' lesson to learn from early infosec

      Jen Easterly championed this issue as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security director during the Biden administration, wrangling more than 150 technology vendors into signing CISA's Secure By Design Pledge with its voluntary guidelines to incentivize secure development practices.

      She also spoke out frequently at industry events about software suppliers who ship buggy, insecure code, and at one accused these vendors of "opening the doors for villains to attack their victims."

    • Invidious ☛ Conversation on Cybersecurity, Essential Cyberinfrastructure for Research & Education, & Resilience [video]

      Closing Plenary: A Conversation on Cybersecurity, Essential Cyberinfrastructure for Research and Education, and Resilience

      The intensity and frequency of attacks on information systems and services seems to be growing without bounds. This is happening across all sectors of society.

      The effects of these attacks, as well as our experience with other recent events such as the COVID pandemic, have given us a new understanding of the critical roles that archives, repositories, and scholarly communications systems play as part of the essential cyberinfrastructure for the research and higher education community (and indeed far beyond this community).

      The conversation will explore these questions: [...]

  • Social Control Media

    • CS Monitor ☛ A Holocaust survivor and influencer’s life lesson: Seek hope

      “Here” refers to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel’s southern border that killed some 1,200 people, the continued ordeal of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and Israel’s brutal, ongoing retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ YouTube turns 20 years old. How it changed TV as we know it

      From those modest beginnings, the site opened the gates for users from around the world to post funny, viral videos that could take the internet by storm, racking up millions of views and earning some millions of dollars.

      YouTube has evolved into not a mere tech operation, but a formidable force in television.

    • [Repeat] New Yorker ☛ Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over

      What, exactly, does a social network do? Is it a website that connects people with one another online, a digital gathering place where we can consume content posted by our friends? That’s certainly what it was in its heyday, in the two-thousands. Facebook was where you might find out that your friend was dating someone new, or that someone had thrown a party without inviting you. In the course of the past decade, though, social media has come to resemble something more like regular media. It’s where we find promotional videos created by celebrities, pundits shouting responses to the news, aggregated clips from pop culture, a rising tide of A.I.-generated slop, and other content designed to be broadcast to the largest number of viewers possible. The people we follow and the messages they post increasingly feel like needles in a digital haystack. Social media has become less social.

    • PC Mag ☛ YouTube Turns 20: Watch the First Video Ever Uploaded to the Site

      The first YouTube video ever is a grainy, 19-second clip of elephants at the San Diego Zoo. It was uploaded on April 23, 2005, by YouTube founder Jawed Karim, a German-born software engineer who created the company at age 25 with two PayPal coworkers. The site officially launched a few months later, on Dec. 15, and there are now over a billion videos on YouTube with 20 million uploaded each day, the company says.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Security Week ☛ 5.5 Million Patients Affected by Data Breach at Yale New Haven Health 

      YNHHS may have been targeted in a ransomware attack, but no known cybercrime group has taken credit for it. If it was indeed a ransomware attack, the healthcare organization may have decided to pay a ransom to avoid a data leak.

    • The Record ☛ Ransomware now plays a role in nearly half of all breaches, new research finds

      The telecom giant published its 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) on Wednesday, featuring an analysis of over 22,000 security incidents and 12,195 confirmed data breaches.

      Ransomware was featured prominently throughout the 117-page report — which found that generally most hackers are still abusing legitimate credentials or exploiting vulnerabilities to gain access to an organization’s most sensitive files.

    • The Record ☛ Dialysis company DaVita reviewing data leaked by ransomware gang

      The Interlock ransomware gang, which claims to have stolen 1.51 terabytes of data from Davita, posted samples of the stolen information.

    • The Record ☛ Nearly 500,000 impacted by 2023 cyberattack on Long Beach, California

      In breach notification documents filed in multiple states, the city said 470,060 people had sensitive data accessed by hackers who breached government systems during a cyberattack in November 2023.

      The city said it conducted an “extensive” forensic investigation and “manual document review” that lasted until March 18, 2025. The information stolen includes Social Security numbers, financial account information, credit and debit card numbers, biometric information, medical data, driver’s license numbers, passports, tax data and more.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Adyen Cyberattack Disrupts Payment Services Across Europe

      Global payment platform Adyen has confirmed it was the target of a Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on April 21, 2025, which disrupted services for several customers across Europe. The Adyen cyberattack caused significant delays and failures in processing transactions, highlighting the growing cyber threat of digital attacks on critical financial infrastructure.

      The cyberattack on Adyen began at 18:51 CEST on April 21, when Adyen’s internal monitoring systems flagged unusual levels of errors and slow responses across several of its payment services hosted in European data centers. The company’s engineering team swiftly launched an investigation and identified the disruption as a DDoS attack.

    • IT Wire ☛ Organisations Need to Stop Burying Cyber-Attacks

      Organisations across the globe continue to pay ransom and experience breaches while providing limited details publicly, or in some cases, hiding the entire incident. But even in the limited reported intel we can see, year-on-year, the number of cybercrime reports continues to increase, from 59,806 in 2020, to 94,000 in 2023.

      According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, most cybercrime victimisation went unreported to police or to ReportCyber, meaning official statistics significantly underestimate the size of the problem.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Cybercrime Is Rising Fast—Here’s How To Stay Safe In 2024

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released its latest Internet Crime Report for 2024, revealing a steep rise in cybercrime-related losses and spotlighting the growing challenges in securing the digital lives of individuals and businesses across the globe.

    • The Record ☛ Cyberattack hits drinking water supplier in Spanish town near Barcelona

      Spanish entities have regularly been hit by ransomware attacks in recent years, including municipalities and hospitals — with thousands of appointments cancelled in 2023 after an attack on Barcelona’s main hospital. The country is a member of the International Counter Ransomware Initiative.

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • YLE ☛ Health provider HUS to dismiss up to 200 workers

    According to HUS, the transfer does not cover employees, meaning that they will not be guaranteed jobs after the handover.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NYOB ☛ Like to play alone? Ubisoft is still watching you!

      Secret data collection. To find out more about Ubisoft’s data collection and tracking practices, the complainant filed an access request under Article 15 GDPR. Ubisoft replied with information such as a unique identifier for the complainant and information about when he launched the game, how long it was running and when he quit the game. Being a tech savvy individual, the complainant additionally examined what exact data was being sent to Ubisoft when playing. The complainant discovered that, over a period of just 10 minutes, the game established a connection to external servers 150 times. Among the recipients of the complainant’s data: Google, Amazon and US software company Datadog.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Trying to Buy Chrome So It Can Ingest Your Entire Online Life to Train AI

      OpenAI has mused in the past about creating its own web browser and even hired a few Google developers to that end. Buying Chrome would not only make the company more visible, as Turley suggested during the hearing, but also give it a staggering amount of data to train its AI models — in the form of its billions of users, whose use of the browser could be used to develop AI agents that will compete against them in the job market.

    • Truthdig ☛ The Police State, Powered by Palantir

      The documents reveal that Palantir is intensifying its relationship to ICE, “including finding the physical location of people who are marked for deportation.” Once people are tracked down, no place will be safe, since the administration has ended a policy that restricted ICE arrests at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and sites of religious worship. Another new solution, Immigration Lifecycle Operating System — or ImmigrationOS — seeks to improve enforcement efficiency and provide “near real-time visibility into instances of self-deportation.” The upgraded services also include Palantir’s Investigative Case Management System to enhance “complete target analysis of known populations” and “update the tool’s targeting and enforcement priorities.”

    • Trail of Bits ☛ How MCP servers can steal your conversation history - The Trail of Bits Blog

      End to end, the attack works as follows. Insert a malicious tool description into an MCP server and wait for it to be installed in a user’s environment. This tool description directs the model to forward the conversation history to you as soon as the user types a chosen trigger phrase, such as “thank you.” The user talks with the chatbot as normal, and when the trigger phrase appears organically, you receive every message up until that point.

    • The Verge ☛ LinkedIn will let your verified identity show up on other platforms

      LinkedIn is expanding its free verification system to the wider web, allowing external sites and platforms to integrate LinkedIn verification rather than building their own tool. Adobe is among the first companies to sign up.

  • Confidentiality

    • American Oversight ☛ As the Signalgate Scandal Grows, American Oversight Continues Investigations of Mismanagement at Hegseth’s Pentagon

      Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership has demanded scrutiny for more than his dangerously careless use of Signal. The people deserve to know whether their defense secretary is putting his political or political interests above our national security.

• Defence/Aggression

  • CS Monitor ☛ Four years on, Convicted Felon is still focused on his 2020 loss

    Even as ongoing defamation lawsuits find no evidence of a fraudulent election, President The Insurrectionist keeps insisting that the 2020 vote was rigged. He’s issuing orders targeting officials and lawyers whose work undercut his claims, and demanding states tighten voting rules to prevent alleged fraud.

  • New York Times ☛ In California Jails, a Rash of Homicide and Negligence

    The jails of Riverside County are plagued with unusually high murder rates and recurring security failures by an inexperienced staff.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Gas diplomacy: A blueprint for Middle East peace and global energy security

    A US-Iran deal could serve as a turning point towards a wider strategy encompassing regional de-escalation and energy diplomacy.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Illicit mineral supply chains fuel the DRC’s M23 insurgency

    The illicit trade of mined materials is fueling the M23 insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), threatening regional stability and hindering development. As the United States considers a minerals-for-security agreement with the DRC, international engagement, ethical sourcing practices, and strengthened oversight are critical to fostering long-term peace in this resource-rich region.

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia-India defence cooperation should be about more than navies

    In the sprint to deepen Australia-India defence cooperation, navy links have shot ahead of ties between the two countries’ air forces and armies.

  • New York Times ☛ On TikTok, Chinese Manufacturers Open a New Line in the Trade War

    Videos on the social control media app, filmed at factories in China, urge viewers to buy luxury goods directly, as tariffs drive up prices. Americans are receptive.

  • FAIR ☛ Politico Plays With Polling to Manufacture ‘Trump-Resistance Fatigue’

    A recent Politico article (4/16/25) gave readers an excellent lesson in how not to report on a poll—unless the goal is to push politicians to the right, rather than reflect how voters are truly feeling.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Dispatch from the Kaliningrad border: Russia is fighting a long battle of attrition with the West

    Today, Lithuanians see a Russia that is in it for the long haul in a battle of attrition with the West. They see a Russia whose society and economy are adjusting in real time to a program of redoubled military recapitalization, endemic economic hardship, and the loss of a generation of young men killed or injured fighting against Ukraine.

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk's DOGE [sic] Has Been a Dismal Failure

    Besides finding little in terms of actual "waste and fraud" and massively cutting his ambitions down from $2 trillion to a mere $150 billion earlier this month, Musk's actions have had little to show except endless drama and suffering.

    Millions of people are in danger of being cut off from Social Security, the Internal Revenue Service is struggling to keep it together at the height of tax season, and international aid organizations are warning that extreme hunger and starvation will be on the rise thanks to massive cuts to US foreign aid.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Project 2025 Presidency

    The most important tactic laid out in the plan was to transform the federal bureaucracy by firing as many civil servants as possible, changing others into political appointees, and terrifying the rest into obeisance. We are already seeing the impact: Trump has bought out, driven off, or fired tens of thousands of federal employees, and although courts have ordered some of them reinstated, he has transformed—perhaps permanently—the federal bureaucracy.

  • Wired ☛ ‘Who Is Doge [sic]?’ Has Become a Metaphysical Question

    On March 20, Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, was asked a seemingly simple question during an all-hands meeting with staff: Who from the GSA worked for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency? To Ehikian, the answer was far from straightforward. “D-O-G-E?” he asked, according to a video obtained by WIRED and sources with firsthand knowledge of the meeting. “You’re talking about DOGE [sic]?” Then he clarified: “There is no DOGE [sic] team inside of GSA.

    “I’ve never seen a leader lose credibility in real time before,” says a current GSA employee. “It was like the ‘plummeting’ sound in a cartoon. We all see the team there. There’s an entire section of the building blocked off where they work.”

    The GSA, which manages federal office buildings and IT, was an early DOGE [sic] target, with Musk-linked individuals swiftly infiltrating the agency after Trump took office. As the team began working out of the GSA headquarters in Washington, DC, the agency ramped up its physical security. A section of the sixth floor, which had previously stood open, was blocked by a guard and a door, which now requires a key card to enter. That is where Ehikian and the DOGE [sic] team work, according to current staff members.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Republic Hinges on This Case - by Mike Brock

    Let's be absolutely clear about what's at stake: The Supreme Court has issued a unanimous 9-0 order demanding that the administration return Abrego García to the United States. A 9-0 ruling. In today's polarized Court. This isn't partisan; it's fundamental. The President, bound by oath and the Constitution to “faithfully execute the laws,” is openly defying the highest judicial authority in the land.

    If a President can simply ignore a direct, unanimous Supreme Court order with no consequences, then what remains of checks and balances? What remains of the separation of powers? What remains of the rule of law itself? This is not hyperbole—this is the actual constitutional crisis we were warned about, happening in real time.

  • Ethan Zuckerman ☛ AIxDemocracy: What are the politics of AI?

    My class is cross-listed in computer science, communication and public policy, but really it’s a history class. Specifically, it’s a history of how democracies have shaped and been shaped by waves of communication technologies. Democracy depends on a public sphere, the space in which people learn what’s going on in the world, debate what we as citizens and voters should do about it, and organize to take action. Over the course of millennia, we’ve moved the public sphere from a physical space – the Greek agora – to conceptual spaces of information. And it’s in this context that we need to think about democracy and AI.

  • Court House News ☛ Federal judges skeptical of Trump crackdown on law firms

    She pointed to an expert report from William Leonard, who worked 29 years at the Department of Defense in personnel security and characterized Trump's conduct as a throwback to the Red Scare. He added that such blanket suspensions actually harm national security efforts.

  • France24 ☛ Trump goes mum on 'Armenian genocide' after Biden recognition

    US President Donald Trump on Thursday steered clear of describing the Ottoman Empire's World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as "genocide," a reversal from his predecessor Joe Biden.

  • France24 ☛ Grief and discontent as Armenia marks WWI mass murders anniversary

    According to Yerevan, up to 1.5 million people died between 1915 and 1916, when the Ottoman authorities, struggling on the battlefield, carried out repressions against the Christian Armenian minority, whom it viewed as pro-Russian traitors.

    They were either killed or sent on deadly marches into the Syrian desert, deprived of food and water.

  • ANF News ☛ 110 years ago, the Armenian Genocide

    In April 1915, the Ottoman government embarked upon the systematic extermination of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923, when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey.

    The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at about two million in 1915. An estimated one million had perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923, virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ The Taliban: From Ideological Insurgents to Organized Crime Syndicate

    Within the Taliban Network, the roles are broken up with the commander and leader of faith being at the top of this hierarchy, followed by two deputy prime ministers and one prime minister, with six ministries below that operate and control different categories of the government. This code of conduct can be looked at through their application of Sharia, or Islamic law, and jihadist ideals through their legislation and political decisions. This is further illustrated by the titular role of commander also being connected as a leader of faith. It is important to consider both internal and external factors that contribute to maintaining this type of hierarchy, and the Taliban’s code of conduct was systematically applied to take over different regions. The Taliban and Western occupations struggled for control of territories (Center for Preventive Action, 2021) after maintaining control of the province of Kandahar for many years (Peters, 2009) and eventually set their sights on Kabul to take complete control of the government in 2021. This shows a larger shift from regional to standard syndicate hierarchy as the network became the de facto government. The primary difference between a regional and standard hierarchy is the decentralization of power, the process of allowing local organizations and group leaders to wield considerable independence and autonomy over a specific geographical region (Le, 2012, p. 123).‌

  • YLE ☛ Fewer young children have mobile phones, telecom's survey finds

    Its 2025 survey about the use of mobile phones by children found that about a quarter of kids aged 5-6 have a phone, while 58 percent of 7-year-olds have one. The new figures represent a drop of "dozens of percentage points compared to last year", according to DNA's survey (PDF report in Finnish)

  • France24 ☛ 'I Shall Not Hate': A Palestinian doctor's call for peace

    Tal Barda's latest documentary shines a light on a powerful voice calling for coexistence and peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as she follows Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish in his struggle with grief, his quest for justice and his lifelong campaign for an end to the violence that has characterised his home region. "I Shall Not Hate" looks back at his life and revisits the harrowing moment when his three daughters and niece were killed by Israeli air strikes. Its director tells us why Dr Abuelaish's continued message of peace is more important than ever in the current geopolitical context.

  • France24 ☛ Gaza: How safe is the Al-Mawasi evacuation zone?

    Since Israel’s breach of the ceasefire on March 18, the Al-Mawasi zone in southern Gaza, home to at least one million displaced Palestinians, is no longer designated as a ‘humanitarian zone’ by the Israeli army. Nonetheless, they continue to direct civilians to this area, which has been targeted by several Israeli strikes in recent weeks. We explain in this edition of Truth or Fake.

  • JURIST ☛ Rights group says 2 Israel attacks against civilians in Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes

    Two Israeli attacks in Lebanon between September and November 2024 appear to be indiscriminate attacks against civilians to be investigated as war crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed on Wednesday. HRW suggests the two Israeli strikes on the town of Younine are evidence of the failure of Israeli forces to distinguish military targets from civilians.

  • New York Times ☛ After Militant Attack in Kashmir, Pakistan Braces for Strike by India

    The Pakistani government said it did not want an escalation, but in the wake of a deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir by unidentified militants, analysts warned of an unpredictable situation.

  • JURIST ☛ UN warns spiraling gang violence in Haiti triggers record displacement

    Haiti is facing a humanitarian catastrophe as gang violence intensifies, displacing over 60,000 people in just weeks and pushing the country toward collapse, a United Nations official warned Monday. UN Special Representative María Isabel Salvador told the Security Council that Haiti is “approaching a point of no return.”

  • France24 ☛ India ramps up security in Kashmir as manhunt continues

    The death toll in Kashmir has climbed to 26 after gunmen opened fire on tourists at a scenic location near Pahalgam. A manhunt is underway for the suspects, who police are labeling a "terror attack," though the shooters remain at large. Antonia Kerrigan reports.

  • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man's foreign aid cuts are a 'slow-running disaster', former USAID administrator says

    In an interview with FRANCE 24, J. Brian Atwood, who was head of USAID under Bill Clinton, warned that US President The Insurrectionist's deep foreign aid cuts are a "slow-running disaster" that would severely impact global health, food security and migration. "Many, many people are going to suffer," he said, adding that "there'll be a lot more migration". Atwood said the Convicted Felon administration had a "transactional" and "narrow-minded" worldview that abandons long-term peace and prosperity in favour of short-term return for the US taxpayer.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ A trap? Behind Putin’s change of heart on direct talks with Ukraine

      In a surprising U-turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said he was willing to hold direct talks with Kyiv for the first time in years on a Ukrainian proposal to halt strikes on civilian infrastructure for 30 days. But his offer could be a trap for Ukraine.

    • Meduza ☛ Trump portrait that Putin gifted to U.S. president was done by artist Nikas Safronov, known for his paintings of Putin — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ The 'tribunal for Putin' is ready European officials have drafted a plan to prosecute Russia's top leadership — but there's still a long road ahead — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Despite Putin’s denials, Russia’s military has welcomed foreign mercenaries from at least 48 nations — iStories — Meduza

    • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man applies more pressure on Zelensky to reach Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

      US President The Insurrectionist on Wednesday was reportedly "frustrated" with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of "moving in the wrong direction" and threatening to abandon talks on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. US Vice President JD Vance said earlier that a "land swap" would be necessary to reach a deal, but Zelensky said Ukraine would not hand over Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed over a decade ago, to Putin in any agreement.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • US Navy Times ☛ Hegseth reportedly had unsecured internet line in office for Signal

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.

    The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential [instrusion] or surveillance.

  • EFF ☛ Six Years of Dangerous Misconceptions Targeting Ola Bini and Digital Rights in Ecuador

    Lacking evidence, authorities rapidly changed the criminal offense underpinning the accusation against Bini and struggled to build a case based on a mere image that shows no wrongdoing. Yet, Bini remained arbitrarily detained for 70 days in 2019 and outrageously remains under criminal prosecution.

    This week, the Observation Mission monitoring Ola Bini’s case is again calling out the prosecution’s inaccuracies and abuses that weaponize misunderstandings about computer security, undermining both Bini’s rights and digital security more broadly. The Observation Mission is comprised of digital and human rights organizations, including EFF. Specifically, we highlight how Ecuadorean law enforcement authorities have tried to associate the use of Tor, a crucial privacy protection tool, with inherently suspicious activity.

• Environment

  • JURIST ☛ Rights group urges Panama to strengthen rights protection within climate relocation decree

    Human Rights Watch submitted recommendations on Tuesday to Panama’s Ministry of the Environment regarding a draft executive decree that would regulate national, sectoral, and municipal responses to climate change and adaptation, the biodiversity crisis, and the degradation of ecosystems.

  • University of Michigan ☛ Local Ann Arbor environmental organizations come together for Earth Day march

    U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich, and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich spoke on the importance of protecting environmental policy. Dingell told the crowd people today have a responsibility to take action for the environment and support future generations, referencing political efforts in passing various environmental policies in the 1960s.

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Toronto Bike Lane Removal Blocked by Temporary Injunction

    Cycling advocates celebrated an Earth Day win earlier this week after a judge granted a temporary injunction preventing the Ontario government from tearing out three Toronto bike lanes.

    “The temporary injunction guarantees that the provincial government cannot move forward with removing bike lanes before the judge can make his decision on the merits of the applicants’ Charter challenge,” writes Ecojustice, the environmental law charity that filed the case on behalf of Cycle Toronto and cyclists Eva Stanger-Ross and Narada Kiondo. “The decision goes on to say that failing to suspend the provision mandating removal of the three bike lanes will cause more harm to the public interest than allowing the removal to begin while the matter is under reserve.”

  • EcoWatch ☛ ‘The World Is Moving Forward’: UN Chief Says Fossil Fuel Interests and Hostile Governments Can’t Stop Clean Energy Future

    No fossil fuel interest or government can stop the world from working toward a clean energy future, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday after holding a closed-door virtual meeting with 17 heads of government and state.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ Where do Australia's political parties stand on energy policy?

      Australia will hold an election on May 3, and energy security has become a key issue as voters face rising power bills and the prospect of gas shortages.

    • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk Has a Huge Problem With His Republican Fans: They're Ditching Their Teslas

      On Tuesday, the company revealed that its net income had plummeted by an astonishing 71 percent. Sales have plummeted across the globe as consumers are becoming wary of being associated with the highly divisive personality.

    • Wired ☛ The Real Winners of the Trump Memecoin Feeding Frenzy

      On Wednesday, the team behind the official Donald Trump memecoin sparked a trading frenzy after announcing that the investors who held the largest amount of the [cryptocurrency] coin in the coming weeks would be invited to a gala dinner attended by the US president.

    • Nexstar Media Group Inc ☛ Piedmont Cybertruck crash victim’s family demands answers

      Krysta Tsukahara was a backseat passenger in the Cybertruck. She was not seriously injured in the impact, but she was trapped inside the vehicle as it burned, attorneys said.

      “This young woman suffered the most horrifying death one could imagine. Her death was caused by her inability to get out of the car and being consumed in the fire that engulfed the vehicle,” said attorney Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora. “The family still doesn’t know what the course of events were that evening that led to this crash and why this vehicle caught fire. The family wants and deserves answers to those questions.”

    • DataGeeek ☛ Bollinger Bands: Invesco CoinShares ETF

      With the rising Bitcoin price movement, the downtrend of Invesco CoinShares Global Blockchain ETF has been fading and has moved to the consolidation phase.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Nvidia aims to solve AI's water consumption problems with direct-to-chip cooling — claims 300X improvement with closed-loop systems

      Modern cloud data centers not only consume an immense amount of power for computing and cooling, but also a significant amount of water, as most use evaporative liquid cooling.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ 84% of Earth's Coral Reefs in Crisis as Worst Bleaching Event on Record Hits

      Disastrous for people and the planet.

    • Robert OCallahan ☛ Rakiura Northwest Circuit

      I’d heard how the track was notoriously muddy and rough. With the side tracks and without skipping huts it would take 11 days, which is about twice as long as the longest hike I’d ever done before. We’d have to eat dehydrated food almost the whole time so our packs wouldn’t be too heavy. We’d be at the mercy of the fickle Stewart Island weather. I thought it was well within the limits of what I could do, but perhaps not within what I would enjoy doing. But this year my son declared out of the blue that he wanted to do it, and that settled it! I couldn’t let him down.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Atlantic ☛ Musk’s High-Tech Polygamy Is a Dead End

      Sex selection on this scale would mean a demographic bust, because of the huge number of males produced. Too many excess males is a problem because males cannot reproduce on their own, thus limiting population growth, and because an excess of males tends to generate social conflict.

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ Lithuanian banks post €1 billion profit, sparking calls to extend windfall tax

    Banks operating in Lithuania posted a record profit of €1 billion last year, prompting renewed political debate over whether to extend the so-called solidarity tax, a levy on windfall profits in the sector.

  • Pro Publica ☛ How Kids Are Harmed by Trump’s Budget Cuts

    The clear-cutting across the federal government under President Donald Trump has been dramatic, with mass terminations, the suspension of decades-old programs and the neutering of entire agencies. But this spectacle has obscured a series of moves by the administration that could profoundly harm some of the most vulnerable people in the U.S.: children.

    Consider: The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don’t die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse, some as soon as May 1. And funding for investigating child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children; responding to reports of missing children; and preventing youth violence has been withdrawn indefinitely.

  • New York Times ☛ 12 States Sue Convicted Felon Over His Tariffs

    The lawsuit, filed by Democratic attorneys general, said the president’s tariffs have hurt their economies and residents.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Vox ☛ OpenAI: How should we think about the AI company’s nonprofit structure?

    For a long time, investors were happy enough to pour money into OpenAI despite a structure that didn’t put their interests first, but in 2023, the board of the nonprofit that controls the company — yep, that’s how confusing it is — fired Sam Altman for lying to them. (Disclosure: Vox Media is one of several publishers that has signed partnership agreements with OpenAI. Our reporting remains editorially independent. One of Anthropic’s early investors is James McClave, whose BEMC Foundation helps fund Future Perfect.)

  • Scoop News Group ☛ CISA gets new No. 2: Madhu Gottumukkala

    Madhu Gottumukkala has been named deputy director. He comes over to CISA from his prior position in the South Dakota government, where Kristi Noem was most recently governor before taking over as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Gottumukkala had been commissioner of the Bureau of Information and Telecommunication (BIT) and state chief information officer.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Intel cuts spending for 2025 as it attempts to turnaround its business

    Chipmaker Intel announced significant spending cuts Thursday that will shrink its workforce this quarter, months after announcing huge layoffs and receiving more than $7 billion in funding from a Biden administration program designed to revitalize U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ 16 House Dems Ask Law Firms that Capitulated to Trump If They've Thought about Their Bribery Exposure

    Letters like this are an example of things that fit solidly within normal legislative effort that help with messaging in the short term but might serve as a powerful lever down the road.

  • India Times ☛ Nokia flags disruption from Trump's tariffs on Q1 profit miss

    But now the sweeping tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump could counter this trend, as companies might pause orders fearing price increases.

  • India Times ☛ CEO steps down at Discord, the social chat app

    Jason Citron, a cofounder of the popular social chat app Discord, stepped down as the company's chief executive on Wednesday, a significant management shake-up ahead of Discord's potential public offering.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft 365 Copilot enterprise search, agents updated

    The latest update to Microsoft 365 Copilot brings AI-powered search, so-called reasoning agents, and a new Agent Store. Some users already have access to certain features, while others may have to wait through May.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Ofcom Finalizes Online Child Safety Rules

    Tech firms have until July 24, 2024, to finalize risk assessments for services accessed by UK children. From July 25, 2025, they must implement the measures outlined in Ofcom’s Codes—or demonstrate alternative approaches that meet the same safety standards.

    Ofcom has the authority to issue fines or apply to the courts to block access to non-compliant sites in the UK.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Every complex ecosystem has parasites

    Another great explainer is Bruce Schneier, the security expert. In the wake of 9/11, lots of pundits (and senior government officials) ran around saying, "No price is too high to prevent another terrorist attack on our aviation system." Schneier had a foolproof way of shutting these fools up: "Fine, just ground all civilian aircraft, forever." Turns out, there is a price that's too high to pay for preventing air-terrorism.

    Latent in these two statements is the idea that the most secure systems are simple, and while simplicity is a fine goal to strive for, we should always keep in mind the maxim attributed to Einstein, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." That is to say, some things are just complicated.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Axios ☛ Gen Z increasingly listens to peers over doctors for health advice

      Young adults around the world are increasingly taking health decisions into their own hands, according to new global survey results from communications firm Edelman.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: Fake videos falsely linked to Turkey earthquake

      Following events like this, images and videos begin to circulate on social media — content creators are eager to gain views and increase their number of followers. However, a study shows that misinformation during and after natural disasters often leads to panic and hinders effective disaster management.

      DW's research shows that many videos circulating online following the earthquake in Turkey do not depict the recent event. Here are three examples.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Techdirt ☛ Federal Prosecutor Fires Off Letter To Medical Journals Asking About Their Policies On ‘Competing Viewpoints’

    The language is coded, but definitely not clever. Composed by a DOJ prosecutor perhaps best known for his hundred-plus appearances on Russian state-owned media outlets, the letter [PDF] is full of phrases that make it clear at least one federal prosecutor is interested in deterring scientific rebuttals to the parade of horrors that will be emanating from RFK Jr.’s Dept. of Health and Humans Services over the next few years.

  • Michael Tsai ☛ Careless People

    There are so many details here that are hard to believe but apparently true.

  • JURIST ☛ Harvard sues Trump administration following $2.2 billion research funding freeze

    The complaint, filed in US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, follows an April 11 letter from the Trump administration demanding changes to the university’s leadership structure, admissions polices, and approach to campus activism. Among the conditions outlined, the administration called for the appointment of an independent third-party auditor to evaluate the ideological and political viewpoints of students, faculty, and staff; the revocation of recognition for certain student organizations; and enhanced screening of international students considered “hostile to American values.” The administration cited concerns about rising antisemitism on college campuses, particularly in connection with student protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza last year.

    Harvard president Alan Garner rejected the demands, saying the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights… No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Badenoch: I fear Labour will erode free speech with blasphemy laws

    It comes as Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, plans to introduce a new definition of Islamophobia, which critics have warned could amount to a de facto blasphemy law.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • JURIST ☛ US judge temporarily blocks Convicted Felon from dismantling federally funded news networks

    A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday temporarily ordered the Convicted Felon administration to reinstate employees and restore funding and programming to federally funded networks under the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

  • American Oversight ☛ Don't Believe DOGE [sic] When It Says It Isn't an Agency — It Is, and That’s Important

    DOGE [sic] has claimed that it is not subject to either the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which requires federal agencies to make records available to the public and prohibits the destruction of records that have been requested under FOIA, or the Federal Records Act (FRA), which requires agencies to preserve records of information it creates or receives. By “records,” the FRA means all recorded information, regardless of form, including digital communications. That’s why all the recent revelations about top officials’ use of the ephemeral, auto-deleting Signal app to conduct official (and highly sensitive national security-related) government work are so alarming. A healthy democracy depends on the public having access to information about what its leaders are doing, and preventing abuses of power and ensuring our leaders work in the interests of the people they represent depends on them knowing they cannot operate in secret.

  • American Oversight ☛ American Oversight Sues DOGE [sic], Trump Officials for Violating Federal Records Act

    “Despite hollow claims of being ‘the most transparent organization in government ever,’ the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has operated at breakneck speed to dismantle critical functions of the federal government — all while deliberately shielding its actions from public view,” said American Oversight interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “This administration’s brazen use of Signal and Google Docs represents a calculated strategy to evade transparency laws and illegally destroy the public record. Transparency and the rule of law are not optional — they are essential. No one in this administration has the right to cover their tracks by deleting records or impeding oversight. That’s why we are taking decisive legal action to protect vital public records and hold those responsible accountable.”

    The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent the destruction of federal records and enforce compliance with FOIA requirements.

  • Techdirt ☛ FCC Boss Brendan Carr Whines About Accurate Comcast/NBC Reporting That Made Donald Trump Sad

    Instead of tackling any of this, new Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr has spent the lion’s share of his first months in office engaged in erratic authoritarian zealotry, whether it’s abusing FCC authority to harass journalists who refuse to kiss Donald Trump’s ass, or “investigating” Verizon, Comcast, and Disney for not being racist enough.

    Now Carr is again taking aim at Comcast, simply because journalists at MSNBC and NBC gave King Donald a sad.

  • Axios ☛ "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens resigns

    Driving the news: "Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for '60 Minutes,' right for the audience," Owens wrote in a staff memo obtained by Axios.

    "So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward," he wrote.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Politico celebrates tenth birthday in Europe amid ‘significant growth’

    Day told Press Gazette that ten years ago “we were then a tiny team in Brussels trying to figure out whether this recipe that had worked so successfully in America could be transported to Europe”.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • NYPost ☛ Paramount, CBS settle discrimination lawsuit over DEI policies punishing straight white males

    Media giant backs away from diversity quotas after 'SEAL Team' writer claimed he was denied promotion for not checking the right identity 'boxes.'

  • Harvard University ☛ Future doesn’t have to be dystopian, says Ruha Benjamin

    “There’s absolutely no reason to trust that tech elites have any wisdom to offer when it comes to alleviating human suffering,” Benjamin told the audience who packed Paine Hall. “Billionaires building bunkers to survive AI apocalypse, attempting to disrupt death through cryopreservation, scouting the planet for pop-up cities and network states, are not reliable stewards of the collective good.”

    Too often AI technologies marketed as “efficient” and “progressive” only create more oppression, Benjamin said, citing examples such as facial recognition software leading to false arrests and automated triage systems deciding who receives healthcare.

  • Wired ☛ AI Is Spreading Old Stereotypes to New Languages and Cultures

    We spoke about a new dataset she helped create to test how AI models continue perpetuating stereotypes. Unlike most bias-mitigation efforts that prioritize English, this dataset is malleable, with human translations for testing a wider breadth of languages and cultures. You probably already know that AI often presents a flattened view of humans, but you might not realize how these issues can be made even more extreme when the outputs are no longer generated in English.

    My conversation with Mitchell has been edited for length and clarity.

  • NBC ☛ New images could change cancer diagnostics. ICE detained Harvard scientist who analyzes them.

    Romanovsky said that CBP typically imposes two penalties for such customs violations: the forfeiture of the items and a fine, usually around $500, and that “for a first-time violation, the fine is typically reduced to $50.” Instead, officials canceled Petrova’s J-1 scholar visa.

    “It appears to be part of a broader effort to create an unwelcoming and hostile environment for noncitizens,” Romanovsky said.

  • Ankur Sethi ☛ The tools I love are made by awful people

    I understand that my switching to Linux won’t really fix the basic problem that large corporations are bad for society. As long as I’m using a computer, I’m complicit to some degree in the harms caused by the technology industry. But I believe, maybe naively, that using libre software is at least a tiny bit better for the world compared to proprietary software.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Image loading times

    I apologise that the site has been a bit slow since it suddenly turned into a travel blog. My plan was to roll out my poor man’s CDN before we left, but I ran out of time. It’s definitely not just a nginx GeoIP lookup that refers image requests to a different cloud instance running in Toronto depending on where you’re coming from.

  • APNIC ☛ IPv6 capability reaches 50% in the Asia Pacific region

    The Asia Pacific region has reached 50% IPv6 capability.

  • APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: PCTA Tech Show 2025

    Anna Mulingbayan presented on DASH at the PCTA Tech Show 2025, held in Manila, Philippines from 24 to 28 March 2025.

  • APNIC ☛ Monitoring highly distributed DNS deployments: Challenges and recommendations

    Guest Post: The root server system highlights the challenges operators and researchers face when monitoring highly distributed DNS deployments from the outside.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ How the US retreat from the UN endangers the future of internet governance

    A recent meeting of an obscure United Nations body reveals how the Convicted Felon administration is challenging decades of consensus-based work on internet development.

  • The Register UK ☛ Asia reaches 50 percent IPv6 capability

    It does not, however, mean that more than 50 percent of devices in APNIC’s service area – 56 countries that span from Afghanistan to Oceania – rely on IPv6.

    Instead, it’s a measure of whether hosts across APNIC’s territory are IPv6-capable, based on an average of the last 30 days of network analysis and probing by APNIC Labs.

  • The Record ☛ Cloudflare: Government-backed [Internet] shutdowns plummet to zero in first quarter

    But so far in 2025, there have been no new shutdowns, according to Cloudflare’s Q1 2025 Internet disruption summary. Cloudflare said they have seen this happen in only two other quarters over the last three years.

  • APNIC ☛ April 2025 PeeringDB product update

    Guest Post: PeeringDB update to bring more features, better tools, and a smoother experience

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • SchwarzTech ☛ …Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain

    Streaming services have been another area where the trust has been broken. I love good television and movies, but name a streaming service that hasn’t increased prices without actually bringing much more to the table. What about restrictions and inventing new tiers as a money-grab? What was the only/basic plan included high-quality video and no ads. Now, most think of their ad-centric plans as the default and may not even offer 4K unless you’re paying almost triple the base price. On the base plan, Netflix touts their ads as “less than you might think”—what kind of bullshit is that? Even stepping away from pricing structures, a lot of interfaces have just been user-hostile or buggy with no intentionality of making a great experience. These days, I’m more likely to let a service go and just watch (or do) something else.

  • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America

    Cory Doctorow apparently coined the term “enshittification”. Which is where something starts out good for the customer, then they make it horrible for the customer to make it good for advertisers and themselves, then they make it horrible for advertisers and the customers, to extract all the value for themselves.

    In the context of streaming media, I use the term “slopping the trough” to refer to that third phase.

    One reason I hate streaming, other than its ongoing expenses and price hikes, and ads, is that the “content” usually just isn’t very good.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Google Search Remedies: Boosting Competitors While Harming Consumers

  This week, Surveillance Giant Google and the Justice Department (DOJ) face off with opening statements in the remedies phase...

• New York Times ☛ At Meta’s Antitrust Trial, a Bygone Internet Era Comes Back to Life

  In the landmark antitrust case, tech executives have harked back to a Silicon Valley age when social apps like Facebook, Path, Orkut and Surveillance Giant Google Plus boomed.

• [Repeat] European Commission ☛ Commission finds Apple and Meta in breach of the Digital Markets Act

  Today, the European Commission found that Apple breached its anti-steering obligation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and that Meta breached the DMA obligation to give consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data. Therefore, the Commission has fined Apple and Meta with €500 million and €200 million respectively.

  The two decisions come after extensive dialogue with the companies concerned allowing them to present in detail their views and arguments.

• CBC ☛ EU fines Apple 500M euros, Meta 200M euros for breaking competition rules

  The penalties were issued under the EU's Digital Markets Act, also known as the DMA. It's a sweeping rulebook that amounts to a set of do's and don'ts designed to give consumers and businesses more choice and prevent Big Tech "gatekeepers" from cornering digital markets.

  The DMA seeks to ensure "that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers," said Henna Virkkunen, the commission's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, in a statement.

• Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Europe hits Apple, Meta with huge fines

  Apple was fined €500-million (R10.6-billion) on Wednesday and Meta Platforms €200-million as EU antitrust regulators handed out the first sanctions under landmark legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.

• The Guardian UK ☛ Google broke the law. It’s time to break up the company

  The rulings against Google’s illegal monopoly in digital advertising offer a once-in-a-generation chance to redesign the infrastructure of surveillance that underpins Google’s ill-gotten dominance. But if regulators settle for symbolic fines or behavioral tweaks, it will do nothing to structurally reform the business model and incentives that underpin Google’s illegal dominance. In a three-week hearing that began this week, the US justice department is urging a judge to break up the company. Whether we seize this moment to break up these concentrations of power will shape the future of markets, media and democratic governance.

  Google is emblematic of the platform economy in which we now live. The Silicon Valley corporation and its platform brethren provide core infrastructure – for advertising, for information access, for the economy at large. Google’s control of the search ecosystem, from its Chrome browser and Android operating system to its dominance in digital advertising and search, gives it unrivaled power over who gets heard and who gets paid. That power has stifled competition, undermined journalism and distorted the digital economy.

• Patents

  • JUVE ☛ NanoString demands damages for enforcement of PI [Ed: Embargoes and worse before there is even any actual judgment is not justice]

    In September, the UPC’s Munich local division will consider whether NanoString is entitled to damages for the period it was barred from the market due to a preliminary injunction. The day before, the same division will hear the infringement case concerning the same patent.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Warner Music Group Files $24 Million Lawsuit Against Crumbl Cookies Over Alleged Fentanylware (TikTok) and Instagram Infringement

    Warner Music Group sues Crumbl Cookies for around $24 million, alleging copyright monopoly infringement on social control media—including Fentanylware (TikTok) and Instagram.

  • Techdirt ☛ Nintendo Once Again Seeking To Unmask Discord User For Leaking Content

    Leaks can be both embarrassing and aggrevating for any content producer, though we often see the most anger over this sort of thing coming from large corporate interests. The video game space is lousy with examples of this, but there is perhaps no more notoriously draconian respondant to leaks than Nintendo. The company has unsurprisingly suffered its share of leaked content and it’s response generally ranges from attempting to DMCA the leaks into oblivion — which never actually works — to unmasking and then bringing down the heaviest legal hammer it can wield upon the leaker. Lost in the sauce in all of this appears to be just how much this keeps those leaks Nintendo wanted to bury in the news, working at a complete cross-purpose to what the company’s stated aims are.

  • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ Mariah Carey Lawsuit Turns Ugly Amid Legal-Fees Dispute

    Furthermore, the plaintiff reiterated his own litigation expenses (purportedly including a $40,000 bill just to oppose summary judgement motions) and claimed that “forcing him to sell parts of his catalogue of music will accomplish nothing.” Against the backdrop of a volume-heavy infringement-litigation landscape, the defendants’ counsel would probably disagree with the latter remark.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ "You Wouldn’t Steal a Car”... But Would You Pirate a Font?

    Twenty years ago, the statement "You Wouldn't Steal a Car" launched one of the most iconic anti-piracy campaigns. Through a memorable commercial, the movie industry forcefully equated digital piracy with physical theft. While the PSA became instantly recognizable, spawning countless parodies, it also attracted its own controversy. New revelations suggest that the campaign's distinctive font may have itself been copied, or dare we say 'stolen'.

  • Nick Heer ☛ The Anti-Pirate Code

    "So I chucked it into FontForge and yep, turns out the campaign used a pirated font the entire time!"