Leftovers

• NL Times ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Key witness against Thagi about to be released, but security is not in place: report

• James G ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Ideas and insecurity

• Robert Birming ☛ You have me

  We often only notice the value when it’s gone.

• Lee Peterson ☛ A 30 days blogging first challenge

  Let’s all give this a go to build our content, share our thoughts whilst also taking a break from social media.

• Jono Alderson ☛ Shaping visibility in a multilingual [Internet]

  The old approach to localisation assumes neat boundaries. You sell in a country, so you translate your site. You want to rank there, so you create localised content and generate local coverage.

  It’s tidy, measurable, and built on the comforting idea that you only need to care about the markets you serve.

  But the [Internet] doesn’t work like that anymore.

• Joel Chrono ☛ Some facts about me

  Anyway, this one will follow the format of Alexandra’s introductory post, just sharing some random fun (or maybe not so fun) facts about me. Plenty of other bloggers have done different types of introductions as well though.

  I decided to leave the titles of mine a bit open ended, so you can, if you want, try and fill it with your own random facts too.

• Blake Watson ☛ blakewatson.com turns 20

  Before purchasing the domain name, I had made various personal homepage sites using free hosting and free subdomains of other services. But this represented the first step I took to take ownership of my web stuff. I was learning HTML and a little CSS and for the first time I wasn’t using WYSIWYG editors but writing the code myself.

• The New Stack ☛ What To Do When Critical Open Source Projects Go End of Life

  Ninety-eight percent of organizations use open source software (OSS) regularly, according to the Linux Foundation. Open source is pervasive. It’s embedded into the fabric of most applications we use in our daily lives. But it’s getting harder to keep up the pace of OSS version deprecations and end-of-life (EOL) cycles.

• Alex Ewerlöf ☛ SLI Compass: Fidelity and Granulairty

  Service Level Indicator (SLIs) is a fundamental concept in reliability engineering. Done right, it quantifies the level of service from the consumer’s point of view in line with the business objectives.

  However, different SLIs have different signal to noise ratio and ROI (return on investment).

• Science

  • TMZ ☛ Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dead at 97

    Lovell went to space on four different missions ... first going up on Gemini VII in 1965. He followed it up with the Gemini XII flight the year after.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 Commander Who Thrived Under Pressure, Dies at 97

    He flew to space four times as a NASA astronaut, including as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission that made a heroic return to Earth following an explosion on the spacecraft. For a time, he held the record for the total amount of time spent in space, at a little under 30 days.

  • Six Colors ☛ Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell dies at 97

    Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 and one of three men to have gone around the moon twice, died on Thursday: [...]

  • France24 ☛ Legendary Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell dies at age 97

    A retired Navy captain known for his calm demeanour, Lovell told a NASA historian that his brush with death did affect him.

    “I don't worry about crises any longer,” he said in 1999. Whenever he has a problem, “I say, ‘I could have been gone back in 1970. I'm still here. I'm still breathing.' So, I don't worry about crises.”

  • Quanta Magazine ☛ How Can Math Protect Our Data?

    In this episode of The Joy of Why, Stanford computer scientist Mary Wootters joins co-host Steven Strogatz to explain how these codes work, and why they matter more than ever. Wootters discusses the evolving list of codes that keep modern communication resilient, and the frontiers in which error correction may have a crucial role, including distributed cloud systems, quantum computing and even DNA-based data storage.

  • Wired ☛ NASA Rewrites the Rules for Developers of Private Space Stations

    In the face of budget cuts, NASA has issued a new directive on how it will procure replacements for the International Space Station.

  • Malcom Coles ☛ Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming: Chapter 3 - pid1

    After a long hiatus, I’m back to doing the CTM bookclub. It’s been quite busy at work, but we (Terrateam) delivered GitLab support, are working on Bitbucket, and we’ve delivered a host of other changes. Needless to say, I’ve been too busy for other fun activities like blogging. But I’ve scraped some time together and going to aim to be more consistent. What’s helping is I’m doing this bookclub with my co-worker, so now there is a support group.

  • Dan MacKinlay ☛ Deep linear networks

    Deep linear networks (DLNs) are one attempt at that: the models that keep depth, nonconvexity, and hierarchical representation formation while remaining analytically tractable. In principle, they let me connect data geometry (singular values/vectors) to gradient-flow trajectories: which modes win first, how layers align, and why low-rank, semantic structure emerges.

• Career/Education

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Microschools are growing in popularity, but state regulations haven’t caught up

    There is no federal definition of a microschool, and with the Trump administration’s plans to shutter the U.S. Department of Education, the onus is on states to figure them out.

    In some states, microschools face a bind: If they operate as private schools, they’re required to meet facility, staffing and curricular standards that are often cost-prohibitive for schools their size. If they operate under homeschool laws, they face oversight, assessment mandates and reporting requirements that aren’t designed for multifamily or educator-led models.

  • Maggie Appleton ☛ A Treatise on AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment

    Remember the first Enlightenment ? That ~150 year period between 1650-1800 that we retroactively constructed and labelled as a unified historical event? The age of reason. Post-scientific revolution. The main characters are a bunch of moody philosophers like Locke, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire. The vibe is reading pamphlets by candlelight, penning treatises, sporting powdered wigs and silk waistcoats, circulating ideas in Parisian salons and London coffee houses, sipping laudanum, and retreating to the seaside when you contracted tuberculosis. Everyone is big on ditching tradition, questioning political and religious authority, embracing scepticism, and educating the masses.

    Anyway, Professor Bell’s thesis is that our current AI chatbots contradict and undermine the original Enlightenment values. Values that are implicitly sacred in our modern culture; active intellectual engagement, sceptical inquiry, and challenging received wisdom.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Alexandra

    This is the 102nd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Alexandra and her blog, xandra.cc

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: The Power of the Local Public Library: What Dan Read

    We really cannot fathom how much we are impacting our patrons' lives by helping their find leisure reads. Too often we think our value is tied to how we help them access information that they need, but in reality, it is the work we do for their wants, the little things we do to make people's lives more enjoyable, that really matter.

  • Amber Settle ☛ Moving on from the past

    I moved to Chicago to start graduate school at the University of Chicago almost 34 years ago. While I’ve written on this blog about how I ended up at the UC, I’ve never discussed my experience in graduate school. And there is a reason for that: it wasn’t a good one. I doubt many Ph.D. students look back fondly on graduate school, but mine had some significant bumps all the way from my first quarter up until my thesis defense. There was at least once when I seriously considered quitting the program. Luckily my advisor was (and is) an amazing person, so parts of the experience were positive. But overall it was rough and did not leave me with good feelings.

  • Security Week ☛ Black Hat USA 2025 – Summary of Vendor Announcements (Part 3)

  • Security Week ☛ Black Hat USA 2025 – Summary of Vendor Announcements (Part 4)

    To help cut through the clutter, the SecurityWeek team is publishing a digest summarizing some of the announcements made by vendors at Black Hat USA 2025, including new products and services, updates to existing offerings, reports, and other initiatives.

  • Chuck Carroll ☛ My Experiences as a Digital Nomad

    Like many, I've always romanticized the idea of traveling long-term, all while earning my living solely through my laptop and my phone. I've loosely experimented with this, traveling for periods from a week to three months while working to some degree. In my view, this kind of lifestyle is not sustainable (at least for me), and it's not really all it's cracked up to be.

• Hardware

  • PC World ☛ Seeing in the dark: How home security camera night vision works

    Contrary to popular belief, most property crimes—including burglaries and package theft—happen during the day, not under cover of darkness. But night still brings unique challenges: fewer people around, limited visibility, and more opportunity for intruders to move unseen. If your security camera can’t see clearly after dark, you’re missing protection when you might need it most.

  • Vox ☛ An Oura Ring for your brain? Neurable is working on it and Apple may be next

    For the past few months, when I really needed to get something done, I put on a special pair of headphones that could read my mind. Well, kind of. The headphones are equipped with a brain-computer interface that picks up electrical signals from my brain and uses algorithms to interpret that data. When my focus starts to slip, the headphones know it, and an app tells me to take a break.

  • PC World ☛ Intel defined the PC’s past. I’m sad that might be over

    For decades, Intel approached the industry as if its champion. It strove to further PCs overall—it wasn’t content merely to pioneer new processor innovations. We the public gave them grief when they slowed down on the CPU side, content to keep pushing out four-core, eight-thread processors with minimal clock speed bumps. Criticism of their divided attention flowed freely.

    But now, looking at how rapidly Intel has shrunk in recent years, I feel regret and sorrow. Its NUC division is gone, sold to Asus. Other divisions and projects are outright dead, part of the company’s streamlining and downsizing. And in a recent earnings call, CEO Lip-Bu Tan was quoted as saying, “I do not subscribe to the belief that if you build it, they will come. Under my leadership, we will build what customers need, when they need it.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Fake medication is a problem across the world

  • University of Michigan ☛ The pesticide liability shield is a public health crisis

    In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” an environmental science book that examined the excessive spraying of the synthetic pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, and its devastating environmental impacts. History widely credits Carson’s research with kicking off the environmental movement; by exposing the industry’s pattern of environmental poisoning and deceptive cover-ups, she ignited a global passion for conservation and awareness of widespread corporate wrongdoing. It is a disappointment, therefore, that the fight against agrochemical abuse is still ongoing more than 40 years later, as the industry deploys lobbying power to suppress human rights.

  • Vox ☛ The obscure reason it’s hard for Congress to save lives

    But the most interesting part of the report to me comes at the end. “An increase in hepatitis C treatment could also affect the federal budget in other ways—for example, by leading to improved longevity and lower rates of disability,” the authors note. The latter point is pretty straightforward: If hepatitis C leads to disabilities that make people eligible for disability insurance and subsidized health coverage, then reduced hep C means lower spending on those programs. But (and this is me speculating, so blame me and not the CBO if I’m wrong) that effect is probably swamped by that of “improved longevity.”

    Simply put: curing hep C means people live longer, which means they spend more years collecting Social Security, Medicare, and other benefits. That could mean that whatever cost savings the actual hep C treatment produces might be wiped out by the fact that the people whose lives are being saved will be cashing retirement checks for longer.

  • Lev Lazinskiy ☛ 4 Years

    4 Years $22,000 saved 43,000+ cigarettes not smoked

• Proprietary

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft no longer permits local Windows 10 accounts if you want Consumer Extended Security Updates — support beyond EOL requires a Microsoft Account link-up even if you pay $30

    However, the ESU program will not offer a lifetime of security updates to your old Windows 10 device. Instead, it just delays the inevitable and gives you a one-year extension until October 13, 2026. Furthermore, you do not get anything else with it, like technical support, so if something goes wrong with your system, you’re on your own. Should you choose to enrol in the ESU, you also need your device to be running Windows 10 22H2 with the latest update installed and a Microsoft account.

  • Wired ☛ Hackers Went Looking for a Backdoor in High-Security Safes—and Now Can Open Them in Seconds

    Politics aside, Rowley and Omo were taken aback to read that it was so easy for law enforcement to penetrate a locked metal box—not even an internet-connected device—that no one but the owner ought to have the code to open. “How is it possible that there's this physical security product, and somebody else has the keys to the kingdom?” Omo asks.

    So they decided to try to figure out how that backdoor worked. In the process, they'd find something far bigger: another form of backdoor intended to let authorized locksmiths open not just Liberty Safe devices, but the high-security Securam Prologic locks used in many of Liberty’s safes and those of at least seven other brands. More alarmingly, they discovered a way for a hacker to exploit that backdoor—intended to be accessible only with the manufacturer's help—to open a safe on their own in seconds. In the midst of their research, they also found another security vulnerability in many newer versions of Securam's locks that would allow a digital safecracker to insert a tool into a hidden port in the lock and instantly obtain a safe’s unlock code.

  • The Register UK ☛ GSA, AWS ink $1 B credit pact to fuel govt cloud migrations

    The AWS agreement announced on Thursday is the latest deal under the OneGov purchasing strategy, which the GSA announced in April. OneGov aims to eventually reshape how government agencies buy all their goods and services, with the first phase of the program focusing on IT products - like cloud platforms provided by AWS.

  • Security Week ☛ Columbia University Data Breach Impacts 860,000

    The compromised information includes contact details, Social Security numbers, demographic information, academic history, financial aid information, insurance information, and some health information.

  • [Old] Office Watch ☛ Microsoft can read your Office documents, legally

    Microsoft Office and Windows 8 encourage people to save documents and pictures to Microsoft’s OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) service. Some Office mobile apps only work with documents saved to OneDrive.

    How safe from reading are those documents from Microsoft’s eyes? Not at all.

    Microsoft’s Terms of Use is quite clear that anything saved to OneDrive can be read by Microsoft for any reason, at any time and without notice.

  • Ten Four Fox ☛ Mac history echoes in current Mac operating systems

    This isn't the only echo of Macs past in the operating system. The Spacebar also noticed that Apple Symbols still has many old, nay, "obsolete" icons that are only of use to people who still use web browsers on Power Macs.

  • Future US Inc ☛ Former Gears of War boss becomes former Diablo boss as Rod Fergusson leaves Microsoft a third time, "sword in hand," after 5 years overseeing the ARPG series: "I'm proud of what we've built"

    In an ironic twist of gaming history, Rod Fergusson is leaving a position at Microsoft for the third time in his decades-long industry career. He announced via social media today that he's leaving Blizzard after five years of overseeing the Diablo franchise to move onto as-yet-undetailed new pastures.

    "After five years driving the Diablo franchise with four big launches, it's time to step away from Blizzard/Microsoft, sword in hand, and see what's next," Fergusson says on Bluesky. "I'm proud of what we've built and excited for what's ahead for Diablo, and for me."

  • The Register UK ☛ Ex-White House cyber, counter-terrorism guru: Microsoft considers security an annoyance, not a necessity

    Roger Cressey served two US presidents as a senior cybersecurity and counter-terrorism advisor and currently worries he'll experience a "political aneurysm" due to Microsoft's many security messes.

    In the last few weeks alone, Microsoft disclosed two major security vulnerabilities – along with news that attackers exploited one involving SharePoint as a zero-day. The second flaw, while not yet under exploitation, involves Exchange server – a favorite of both Russian and Chinese spies for years.

  • The Register UK ☛ Sudden spike in demand causes issues in Azure East US region [Ed: Microsoft sez. Was that really the cause?]

    A problem with resources for virtual machines is still affecting users in Azure's East US region after more than a week, frustrated admins have told us, despite Microsoft saying the incident is now resolved.

    Customers using this Microsoft Azure cloud region experienced allocation failures when attempting to create or update virtual machines. The troubles began on July 29, and were supposedly rectified by August 5.

    According to details seen by The Register, the issue was caused by a sudden spike in demand for compute resources in the East US region, leading to service management operations failing due to insufficient capacity being available.

    [...]

    We asked Microsoft for clarification yesterday, and despite a spokesperson logging our request, no response has yet landed in our mailbox. We're still waiting for our Crocs too!

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ AI Is Making It Nearly Impossible to Find a Well-Paying Job. Is This the World We Want?

      The answers to those rarely-asked questions have become increasingly clear in recent months, as the looming threat of AI automation appears to be taking a concrete toll on the workforce. The bombshell July jobs report has finally confirmed what many US workers have been feeling for months: it's almost impossible to find meaningful employment anymore.

    • Vox ☛ Zuckerberg’s boring, bleak AI bet

      Of all the many famous Steve Jobs stories that tech industry folks like to share, perhaps the single most famous is his 1983 pitch to then-Pepsi president John Sculley to join Apple: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

      Like many things Jobs said, the pitch was wildly arrogant, self-important and self-aggrandizing, but ultimately correct. What Sculley did at Apple (mostly after firing Jobs) to sell the Macintosh and popularize personal, graphics-centered computing changed the world more than his invention of the Pepsi Challenge had. There really was a huge difference between selling Macs and selling sugar water.

      After listening to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lay out his vision of how AI “superintelligence” would change the world, though, my main reaction was: man, this guy just wants to sell us sugar water.

    • The Register UK ☛ Humans outperform AI models for brand safety, but cost more

      The paper, accepted at the upcoming Computer Vision in Advertising and Marketing (CVAM) workshop at the 2025 International Conference on Computer Vision, presents an analysis of the cost and effectiveness of multimodal large language models (MLLMs) for brand safety tasks.

      The researchers' calculations show human moderation to be a premium indulgence, at almost 40x the most cost-efficient machine learning labor.

    • Trail of Bits ☛ Buttercup is now open-source!

      Buttercup is a fully automated, AI-driven system for discovering and patching vulnerabilities in open-source software. Buttercup has four main components: [...]

    • Security Week ☛ Red Teams Jailbreak GPT-5 With Ease, Warn It's ‘Nearly Unusable’ for Enterprise

      Context is the necessarily retained history of the current conversation required to maintain a meaningful conversation with the user. Content manipulation strives to direct the AI model toward a potentially malicious goal, step by step through successive conversational queries (hence the term ‘storytelling’), without ever asking anything that would specifically trigger the guardrails and block further progress.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Wikipedia editors fight AI-generated mistakes

      Suspicious edits, and even entirely new articles, with errors, made-up citations and other hallmarks of AI-generated writing keep popping up on the free online encyclopedia. Deep in Wikipedia’s message boards and edit logs, the site’s stewards are toiling for long hours to find them and stamp them out.

    • Cendyne Naga ☛ Advertising to Agents

      Agents remove that effort and ease that burden to let users do what makes them happier, like eating tacos. Except, agents are not some robot advisor that has a fiduciary duty to act in your best interests. They can, through fine tuning, inequalities context window attention, and their realtime information providers (like Google), suggest activities and purchases that benefit the vendor rather than you.

    • Zimbabwe ☛ WhatsApp’s AI Message Summaries Are Likely Doomed in Zim

      Sounds useful, right? You walk away from your phone, return to 147 unread messages from the Family Group, and instead of scrolling through 14 forwarded gospel videos and 23 arguments about chicken prices, you tap a button and get a neat little AI-generated recap. Sounds like a dream.

      Except we’ve seen how this movie ends.

    • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ The AI Slop Overload Does Not Taste Good

      Another area impacted is online recipes, where the internet seems overwhelmed with websites offering thousands of recipes with accompanying AI food photos. Meta seems to have put some effort into developing “Inverse Cooking“, that is, using AI to create a recipe based on an image of a prepared dish (and has released code to allow others to do so). One can only ponder the recursive slop that will result from AI creating recipes from images generated by AI and so on, and so on.

    • Wired ☛ Inside the US Government's Unpublished Report on AI Safety

      The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) didn’t publish a report detailing the exercise, which was finished toward the end of the Biden administration. The document might have helped companies assess their own AI systems, but sources familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, say it was one of several AI documents from NIST that were not published for fear of clashing with the incoming administration. (WIRED is publishing the report in full here).

    • Jeff Geerling ☛ I clustered four Framework Mainboards to test huge LLMs

      Imagine my surprise when Nirav Patel, Framework's founder and CEO, was at Open Sauce a couple weeks ago, and wanted to talk! He said they had seen my Project Mini Rack posts earlier this year and thought it was the perfect application to try out their new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395-powered Mainboard, as it's mini ITX dimensions fit inside a 10" rack.

  • Social Control Media

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Berlin’s Striking TikTok Workers Stand Up to a Tech Giant

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Love in the age of WhatsApp – a philosopher explains how technology reduces the power of a relationship

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Ads on TikTok and video games drive 15-year surge in defence force enrolment

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Will Australia's youth social media ban work?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] China: Telegram group sparks outrage over voyeur videos

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Krebs On Security ☛ KrebsOnSecurity in New ‘Most Wanted’ HBO Max Series

      A new documentary series about cybercrime airing next month on HBO Max features interviews with Yours Truly. The four-part series follows the exploits of Julius Kivimäki, a prolific Finnish hacker recently convicted of leaking tens of thousands of patient records from an online psychotherapy practice while attempting to extort the clinic and its patients.

• Security

  • 11 Go packages hide malicious commands targeting Linux and Windows

    Eleven malicious Go packages were found using the same obfuscation technique to hide commands that retrieve remote payloads, Socket reported Wednesday.

    Most of the packages communicate with command-and-control (C2) endpoints sharing the same path (/storage/de373d0df/a31546bf), suggesting they are part of the same malicious campaign.

    Eight of the packages also appear to be typosquatted versions of legitimate packages, aiming to cause confusion for developers searching for packages via the pkg.go.dev discovery site.

  • CISA

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] CISA Issues ED 25-02: Mitigate Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] CISA Releases Ten Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Delta Electronics DIAView

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Johnson Controls FX80 and FX90

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Burk Technology ARC Solo

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Rockwell Automation Arena

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Packet Power EMX and EG

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Dreame Technology iOS and Android Mobile Applications

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] EG4 Electronics EG4 Inverters

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Yealink IP Phones and RPS (Redirect and Provisioning Service)

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] CISA Releases Malware Analysis Report Associated with Microsoft SharePoint Vulnerabilities

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Microsoft Releases Guidance on High-Severity Vulnerability (CVE-2025-53786) in Hybrid Exchange Deployments

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] CISA Adds Three Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] CISA Releases Two Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions Multiple Products

    • CISA ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Tigo Energy Cloud Connect Advanced

    • CISA ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] CISA and USCG Issue Joint Advisory to Strengthen Cyber Hygiene in Critical Infrastructure

    • CISA ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] CISA Releases Two Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Thorium Platform Public Availability

    • CISA ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Güralp Systems Güralp FMUS series

    • CISA ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Rockwell Automation Lifecycle Services with VMware

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance

    • EFF ☛ Americans, Be Warned: Lessons From Reddit’s Chaotic UK Age Verification Rollout

      Age verification has officially arrived in the UK thanks to the Online Safety Act (OSA), a UK law requiring online platforms to check that all UK-based users are at least eighteen years old before allowing them to access broad categories of “harmful” content that go far beyond graphic sexual content. EFF has extensively criticized the OSA for eroding privacy, chilling speech, and undermining the safety of the children it aims to protect. Now that it’s gone into effect, these countless problems have begun to reveal themselves, and the absurd, disastrous outcome illustrates why we must work to avoid this age-verified future at all costs.

    • Bitdefender ☛ TeaOnHer copies everything from Tea - including the data breaches

      Unfortunately, TeaOnHer hasn't stopped at copying the functionality of the original Tea app (albeit skewed towards men rating women). It also appears to have carelessly mimicked the Tea app's recklessness when it comes to data security.

    • TechCrunch ☛ TeaOnHer, a rival Tea app for men, is leaking users' personal data and driver's licenses

      But like the app it sought to emulate, TeaOnHer contains security flaws of its own.

      TechCrunch has found at least one security flaw that allows anyone access to data belonging to TeaOnHer app users, including their usernames and associated email addresses, as well as driver’s licenses and selfies that users uploaded to TeaOnHer. Images of these driver’s licenses are publicly accessible web addresses, allowing anyone with the links to access them using their web browser.

    • Court House News ☛ California pushes to protect private Medicaid data from ICE

      California and 19 other states on Thursday asked a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from giving Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency unfettered access to private information of Medicaid recipients.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Customers set for compensation payout from energy firms for faulty smart meters

      MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis welcomed the proposals as he said “likely one in five” smart meters are faulty.

      It is thought that millions of smart meters have been left in so-called “dumb” mode, where they have poor connectivity or stop automatically transmitting readings.

  • Confidentiality

    • 2025-07-31 [Older] State Legislation : Rhode Island Enacts New Financial Institutions Cybersecurity Law With Immediate Effect

    • Wired ☛ Encryption Made for Police and Military Radios May Be Easily Cracked

      But now the same researchers have found that at least one implementation of the end-to-end encryption solution endorsed by ETSI has a similar issue that makes it equally vulnerable to eavesdropping. The encryption algorithm used for the device they examined starts with a 128-bit key, but this gets compressed to 56 bits before it encrypts traffic, making it easier to crack. It’s not clear who is using this implementation of the end-to-end encryption algorithm, nor if anyone using devices with the end-to-end encryption is aware of the security vulnerability in them.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Nagasaki Marks 80 Years Since Atomic Bombing, Survivors Urge Nuke Ban

    Nagasaki is marking the U.S. atomic attack on the southern Japanese city 80 years ago and survivors of the attack are working to make their hometown the last place on earth hit by the bomb.

  • Techdirt ☛ DOGE [sic]’s “Efficiency” Theater: Wasted $21.7 Billion While Destroying Life-Saving Programs Based On Conspiracy Theories

    The numbers are damning. The report from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows that DOGE [sic] wasted at least $21.7 billion in just six months—between January 20 and July 18, 2025. But hey, at least they got to feel like they were “draining the swamp,” right?

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Emperor’s Nuclear Circus

    We’re not living through the careful institutional capture of a competent autocracy. We’re living through a coup directed by reality TV logic, where generating attention matters more than achieving outcomes, where owning the libs substitutes for actual policy, where the appearance of strength masks the absence of strategy.

    The incompetence of it all is—at some level—politically useful for those of us in the business of trying to fight for the survival of our democratic republic.

    But incompetence doesn’t make it less dangerous—it makes it more dangerous. A circus performed with real weapons is more destructive than calculated tyranny. When people who think in tweets and cable news segments control federal law enforcement and nuclear arsenals, the spectacle becomes lethal. The performance might be theater, but the detention centers are real. The constitutional violations are real. The human suffering is real.

  • Reuters ☛ Musk ordered shutdown of Starlink satellite service as Ukraine retook territory from Russia

    According to three people familiar with the command, Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, the Musk venture that controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim.

  • ANF News ☛ Confessions of ISIS members affiliated with Turkey

    Two ISIS members were captured by Internal Security Forces in Raqqa before they could carry out attack orders they had received from Turkey. The confessions were published by the Internal Security Forces Press Center.

    In footage provided by ANHA, Murhef Kamil Sefok and Beyan Ebdulcewad Sefok describe ISIS’ attack plans in Raqqa, its organizational efforts, and its connections.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Exclusive-Canada Defense Review Makes Case for Sticking With F-35 Jets, Sources Say

  • ANF News ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Commemoration of the Shengal genocide in Baghdad prevented by security forces

  • Vox ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Is it possible to “win” a nuclear war?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Armed Groups Attack Security Force Personnel in Syria's Sweida, Killing One, State TV Reports

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Former Israeli Security Officials Call to End the War in Gaza as Netanyahu Hints at a New Stage

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] With Only One Nuclear Arms Pact Left Between the US and Russia, a New Arms Race Is Possible

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Russia's hybrid war on Moldovan democracy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Russia Allows Transfers From Foreigners' Blocked Accounts as Part of Asset Swaps

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Russia Makes New Protest to Italy in Dispute Over Cancelled Gergiev Concert

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini slaps additional 25% tariff on India over Russian oil

    • Spiegel ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Standing Up to Putin's Regime: The Russian Lawyer Who Refuses to Back Down

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Russia Asks Central African Republic to Replace Wagner With State-Run Africa Corps and Pay for It

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Russia Arrests Man Accused of Passing Satellite Secrets to US

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Russian and Chinese Navies Practice Destroying 'Enemy Submarine', Days After Cheeto Mussolini Move

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Hails Progress in Russia Talks, White House Says Secondary Sanctions Still Planned

    • Insight Hungary ☛ Orbán blames Trump for the Ukraine war dragging on

      Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán voiced a rare criticism of US President Donald Trump during MCC Fest, where a participant asked him about the U.S. president’s statements about ending the war in Ukraine. “I thought that at least half, but rather three-quarters of 2025 would be peaceful,” Orbán said. “I thought that the American president would be sworn in in January, then there would be some pushing and shoving, and say, three months would pass, and then the roadmap for how the world would achieve peace would be revealed.” He added that Hungary’s 2025 budget was built around this assumption, but “that is not how things turned out.”

      Orbán argued that Hungary’s economy has suffered due to the ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine. “It is obvious that as long as the war continues, the economic outlook will be completely different than when there is no war,” he said, referring to inflation. He said that the country still doesn’t have “a budget of peace” and added public opinion was “slowly but surely” shifting away from what he called a “liberal pro-war stance.” Orban stressed that available funds should be allocated to economic development rather than military aid.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] A Look at the Top Buyers of Russian Oil as Cheeto Mussolini Pressures China and India to Stop Buying It

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Again Threatens to 'Very Substantially' Hike Tariffs on India Over Russian Oil

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Going Online in Russia Can Be Frustrating, Complicated and Even Dangerous

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Hungary's Orban Meets Russian-Backed, Bosnian Serb Leader

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Kremlin Slams Cheeto Mussolini Tariff Pressure on India Over Russian Oil as Illegal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Moldovan Regional Leader Jailed for Aiding Russian Meddling

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Russia Says It No Longer Will Abide by Its Self-Imposed Moratorium on Intermediate-Range Missiles

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Two Children Among Injured in Russia's Overnight Attack on Kharkiv Region, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Ukraine Found Components From India in Russian Drones, Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Ukraine's Drone Attack Sparks Fires in Rostov Region, Russia Says

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] President Reagan’s Advice to Mr. Cheeto Mussolini on Nuclear Threats to Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] India brushes off Cheeto Mussolini tariff threat over Russian oil

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Russia warns against 'nuclear rhetoric' amid Cheeto Mussolini row

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Bondi Moves Forward on Justice Department Investigation Into Origins of Cheeto Mussolini-Russia Probe

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Attack Sparks Fire at Railway Station in Volgograd Region, Russia Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] July Quake Appears to Have Damaged Russian Nuclear Sub Base, NY Times Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] One Person Killed After Bus Collides With Train in Russia's Leningrad Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Russian Drone Strike Kills Two in Ukraine's Northeast Kharkiv Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Russia's Medvedev Warns of Further Steps After Moscow Abandons Missile Moratorium

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s Deadline for the Kremlin Looms but Putin Shows No Sign of Making Concessions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Again Threatens India With Harsh Tariffs Over Russian Oil Purchases

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's Envoy Witkoff Is Expected in Russia on Wednesday, TASS Cites Sources as Saying

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Ukraine Claims Sunday's Drone Attack on Russian Fuel Depot in Sochi

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Ukraine Says It Destroyed One Russian Military Jet, Damaged Four in Crimea

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Zelenskiy Says 'Mercenaries' From China, Pakistan and Other Countries Fighting for Russia

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Deploys Nuclear Subs Amid War of Words With Russia’s Medvedev

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] New tsunami warning from Russia after Kuril Islands quake

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Russia Cancels Tsunami Warning for Kamchatka After Quake, Dormant Volcano Erupts

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Ukraine's Drone Attack Injures One, Sets Homes on Fire in Voronezh, Russia Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Russian Firefighters Extinguish Sochi Oil Depot Blaze After Ukrainian Drone Attack, Authorities Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Russian and Chinese Navies Carry Out Artillery and Anti-Submarine Drills in Sea of Japan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Russian Missile Attack Injures Seven in Mykolaiv, Ukraine Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] Ukraine: Kyiv says it hit Russian oil, military facilities

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] India to Maintain Russian Oil Imports Despite Cheeto Mussolini Threats, Government Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] India Indicates It Will Keep Buying Russian Oil Despite Cheeto Mussolini's Threats

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] Flight Restrictions at Russia's Samara Airport Lifted, Says Aviation Authority

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] Ukraine Says It Hit Russian Oil Facilities, Military Airfield

    • The Record ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Hackers leak purported Aeroflot data as Russia denies breach

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini deploys two nuclear submarines near Russia after 'inflammatory statements’ from Medvedev

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini deploys nuclear subs in Russia row

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] How Moscow Might Respond if Cheeto Mussolini Stops Russian Oil to India

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] US Sanctions Force Vessels With Russian Oil to Divert From India, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Kyiv Mourns After Deadliest Attack in a Year Kills 31 People in Ukraine, Including 5 Children

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Putin, Facing Cheeto Mussolini Deadline, Signals No Change in Russia's Stance on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Putin Says Russia's Hypersonic Missile Has Entered Service and Will Be Deployed in Belarus

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Russian and US Space Chiefs Meet to Discuss Continued Cooperation

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Orders Nuclear Submarines Moved Near Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Ukrainians Mourn 31 Killed in Russian Strike on Kyiv

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Ukraine Protects Europe From Kremlin Aggression, Russian Dissident Yashin Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says US Does Very Little Business With India, Almost None With Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] As Russia Advances, Ukrainians Flee Once-Sleepy Mining Town

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Concerns Grow for 3 OSCE Workers Jailed Since Shortly After Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Medvedev Reminds Cheeto Mussolini of Russia's Doomsday Nuclear Strike Capabilities as War of Words Escalates

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Russian Missile and Drone Attack Hits Ukrainian Capital Kyiv, Killing 9 People and Wounding 124

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Russia Claims Capture of Chasiv Yar After 16-Month Battle

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Russian Strikes Pound Kyiv, 6-Year-Old Boy Listed Among Dead

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Ukraine’s drone air war has given Zelensky additional bargaining power with Putin – new research

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Fact check: Fake claim of UK officers 'captured' in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Ukraine updates: Putin rules out Zelenskyy meeting for now

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] France's Macron Reaffirms Support for Ukraine Ceasefire After 'Long Discussion' With Zelenskiy, European Leaders

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] The Diplomatic Efforts That Paved the Way for a Possible Cheeto Mussolini-Putin Meeting on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-07 [Older] Zelenskiy Discussed New Lending Program With IMF Chief Georgieva

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Denmark, Sweden, and Norway join NATO fund to supply U.S. weapons to Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Ukraine: Cheeto Mussolini hails 'progress' after envoy meets Putin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] The Latest: Putin Hosts Cheeto Mussolini Envoy Witkoff for Crucial Talks on Ukraine Peace Deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Germany Plans to Cut Benefits for Newly Arrived Ukrainian Refugees, Draft Law Shows

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Ukraine Appoints Long-Awaited Economic Security Chief in Reform Push

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Ukraine Reopens Its Danube Canal After Closure Due to Explosion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Ukrainians' Trust in Zelenskiy Dips After Wartime Protests, Pollster Finds

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Netherlands to buy US arms for Ukraine under new NATO scheme

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Ukrainian refugee aid across Europe compared

    • The Local DK ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Denmark part of Nato scheme to buy US weapons for Ukraine

    • The Local SE ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Sweden, Norway and Denmark to donate $500m in arms to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Sweden, Norway, Denmark Give $500 Million to NATO Project to Send US Weapons to Ukraine

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Netherlands first NATO nation to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine in $500M aid

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Finland’s President Discusses Ukraine Ceasefire, Icebreaker Deal With Cheeto Mussolini

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Netherlands Uses New NATO Channel to Pay for US Arms for Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Ukraine Bets Big on Interceptor Drones as Low-Cost Air Shield

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Ukraine Charges Six People, Including Lawmaker, in Drone Procurement Scheme

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Long-distance weapons: German money for Ukraine's combat drones

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-03 [Older] Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Agencies Uncover Drone Procurement Graft Scheme

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] IAEA Reports Hearing Explosions, Sees Smoke Near Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] Ukraine Says It Uncovers Major Drone Procurement Corruption Scheme

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Germany to Deliver Two Patriot Systems to Ukraine in Deal With US

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] US, UK in Secret Talks With Ukrainian Officials To ‘Replace Zelensky’: Report

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Ukraine: Bill restores independence of anti-graft bodies

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Ukraine's Parliament Approves Law Restoring Independence of Anti-Graft Watchdogs Following Backlash

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Analysis-Ukraine's Huge Financing Gap Set to Widen as War Heats up and Reforms Stall

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Zelenskiy, Moving to Defuse Crisis, Restores Power of Anti-Graft Agencies

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Ukrainian Parliament Approves Restoring Independence of Anti-Corruption Agencies

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • CBC ☛ Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump: a timeline

    As media outlets reveal new information about the Epstein case and his long-ago personal relationship with Trump, the U.S. president and his administration have tried to shift the narrative.

    Here's a quick guide to the Epstein saga and how it has intersected with Trump over the years.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Nonprofit Psst connects tech whistleblowers to improve AI oversight

    A startup nonprofit is trying to make it easier for tech workers to blow the whistle by connecting them with others who have witnessed similar problems.

• Environment

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Pacific tsunami: modern early warning systems prevent the catastrophic death tolls of the past

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Learning to live with earthquakes: Lessons from around the world

  • CiberCuba ☛ An impressive waterspout causes panic on the Malecón in Havana

    There are two main types: the non-tornadic, which are more common and can even form without severe storms, and the tornadic, associated with more violent systems. In the case of Havana, it appears to have been a non-tornadic waterspout, favored by the atmospheric instability that characterized the capital's weather during the morning and midday today.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Europe's airports prepare to ease unpopular liquid rules

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Germany updates: Sabotage suspected in major rail disruption

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Germany: Second arson attack on rail line in two days

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Why Qatar's gas lifeline to Germany is at risk

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] US and Pakistan strike trade deal to develop oil reserves

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Why are the US and Pakistan making an oil deal?

    • Wired ☛ Why the US Is Racing to Build a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon

      NASA has set a 2030 deadline to build a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor on the moon. It’s an ambitious but potentially achievable goal that could transform space exploration, experts tell WIRED.

    • The Register UK ☛ NASA boss calls for nuclear reactor on the Moon

      Duffy's directive [PDF] warns about China and Russia's own intentions to put a reactor on the Moon by the mid-2030s. According to the directive, "The first country to do so could potentially declare a keep-out zone."

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ We Don’t Have to Anthropomorphize Animals to Care About Them

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Germany updates: Wolf numbers on rise in much of country

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] Why on Earth is the planet’s day getting shorter?

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Nature’s underground engineers: how plant roots could save harvests from drought

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] UN warns of food insecurity in northern Nigeria

• Finance

  • FAIR ☛ Raeghn Draper on Tipped Workers, Pete Tucker on DC Stadium

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Will Germany raise retirement age beyond 67?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] How Cheeto Mussolini's high tariffs against Brazil could backfire

  • International Business Times ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Red Friday Chaos: Dow Nosedives as Cheeto Mussolini's Tariff Blitz Rattles Wall Street and Amazon Shares CRASH – £2 Trillion in Value at Risk

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] Brazil Dismisses Calls to Relocate COP30 Amid Amazon City Price Surge

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Chief Actuary Says GOP Budget Will Accelerate Depletion of Social Security Funds

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] How City-Owned Grocery Stores Can Tackle Food Insecurity

  • International Business Times ☛ Frontier Airlines CEO Warning Predicts Fewer Local Flights: Is The Carrier In Financial Trouble?

    Frontier Airlines passengers could soon have fewer choices when booking domestic flights, as the company's chief executive warns of looming cuts across the US airline industry.

    Barry L. Biffle, CEO of Frontier, issued a blunt statement during the company's second-quarter earnings call: 'There's going to continue to be reductions in capacity in this industry.' In other words, airlines – including Frontier – are likely to reduce the number of planes flying within the United States.

    The reason is simple: many domestic routes are currently unprofitable. 'If you take out your code share, take out your international flow... the domestic is not making money. And that's because there is too much supply relative to demand,' Biffle explained.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • HRW ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Macao: Ex-Lawmaker Held on National Security Charge

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] Homeland Security Removes Age Limits for ICE Recruits to Boost Hiring for Cheeto Mussolini Deportations

  • University of Toronto ☛ 2025-08-02 [Older] The XLibre project is explicitly political and you may not like the politics

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Ghislaine Maxwell Moved From Florida Prison to Lower-Security Facility

  • CBC ☛ Some U.S. Republicans want Canada to axe its Online Streaming Act

    Geist says the legislation was controversial for that reason and because of its narrow definition of what Canadian content actually is. For example, a Netflix production entirely made and developed in Canada may not be included. Canadian filmmakers are also excluded from potential funding, according to reporting by The Globe and Mail.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Hiltzik: The beauty and horror of "Brazil"

    That’s a linchpin scene from Terry Gilliam’s visionary 1985 masterpiece “Brazil,” a prophetic and bleakly satirical depiction of a society entombed in fascism. What’s amazing about “Brazil,” even after 40 years, is how prophetic it was about the manipulation of public mores and knowledge by a totalitarian regime.

  • India Times ☛ SoftBank buys Foxconn's Ohio plant to jumpstart Stargate AI push: Report

    SoftBank Group is reportedly acquiring Foxconn’s Ohio EV plant to kickstart its $500 billion Stargate data center project with OpenAI and Oracle. The move signals SoftBank’s push into AI infrastructure.

  • India Times ☛ Meta acquires AI audio startup WaveForms

    Meta Platforms has acquired WaveForms AI, a startup using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and mimic emotion in audio. Founded by former OpenAI and Google employees, WaveForms launched in December 2024. Its founders, Alexis Conneau and Coralie Lemaitre, will join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs as part of Meta’s growing focus on AI.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-01 [Older] Fact check: Grok gets it wrong on Gaza's malnourished kids

    • India Times ☛ 84% Gen Z consumers rely on GenAI for news interpretation: Google, Kantar report

      The report titled, ‘Bridging the Gap: Reimagining News for Gen Z’ was prepared from a survey of over 4,000 Gen Z respondents (ages 15-28) spread across 40 markets and eight language clusters on news consumption patterns and underlying trends. Among the many interesting takeaways is that 43% of the respondents said they verify messages before sharing with others, while 49% distrust reports from unverified accounts.

    • Vox ☛ PragerU: The PBS education alternative for Republicans and Trump.

      For the White House exhibit, PragerU created AI-generated videos of the Founding Fathers delivering patriotic accounts of the Revolution. In one, an AI-generated John Adams borrows a catchphrase from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and tells the viewer, “Facts do not care about our feelings.”

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ Belarus Steps Up Attacks On Opposition, 5 Years After Crushing Mass Protests

    "Ahead of the anniversary, the crackdown has only intensified," she added. "The regime isn't just punishing dissent. It's trying actually to erase the memory of 2020."

  • The Hindu ☛ Have never banned books, never will, says J&K CM Omar Abdullah

    Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday (August 8, 2025) distanced himself from the recent ban on 25 books by the Lieutenant-Governor’s administration.

  • CS Monitor ☛ How India’s booming comedy scene became a free speech frontier

    India’s stand-up scene has evolved dramatically in the last decade, with Indian comics packing stadiums and raking in millions of views on platforms like YouTube. The risks have grown, too. Unlike in the United States – where a comedian might bomb a show or, at worst, get “canceled” because of an offensive joke – Indian comics have faced death threats, police complaints, and even jail time over sets that anger Hindu nationalists.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Dissenter ☛ Police Who Have 'Bad Breakfast' May Not Arrest Reporters Who Stand Too Close, Appeals Court Rules

  • Meduza ☛ Billionaire Oleg Deripaska sues Russian journalist after court‑ordered on‑air retraction — and a cat‑vomit apology

    In June, journalists at Verstka and iStories published an investigation reporting that Deripaska is mentioned as a client in a criminal case against several men who involved underage girls in prostitution. Plushev has suggested Deripaska’s new lawsuit aims to distract from that story. Oleg Deripaska maintains deep ties to Ust-Labinsk, where he spent his childhood and pays a portion of his taxes.

  • Northwestern University ☛ Illinois Newsrooms Receive $4 Million from State

    They span major legacy organizations, small community newspapers, digital start-ups and public broadcasters. Most of the funding went to organizations outside the Chicago metro area. Nonprofit outlets received 30% of the money. The vast majority of news organizations in Illinois are for-profit.

  • CPJ ☛ Qatar cybercrime law amendments raise press freedom concerns

    “While the amendments are being framed as a measure to protect individual privacy, the vague and overly broad language poses a serious threat to press freedom,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program director. “Criminalizing the publication of images taken in public spaces risks silencing journalists and undermining their ability to report on matters of public interest.”

  • CPJ ☛ 2 DRC journalists jailed following defamation complaints

    “DRC authorities should unconditionally release journalists Glody Ndaya and Espérant Kasongo and end the use of laws that have censorious roots in the colonial era,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal. “Journalists in the DRC are subjected to a relentless pattern of arrests and attacks, which must be reversed.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Amazon Labor Union Leader Chris Smalls Released From Israeli Prison

  • Terence Eden ☛ How long does it take to upgrade an eBook?

    The older I get, the more comfortable I become with complaining. Not merely moaning on social media, but writing a direct email to the perpetrator of some annoyance.

    I'd purchased an eBook and was appalled by how crappy the accessibility was. If you don't know, modern ePub books are just HTML wrapped in a zip file. They have all of the accessibility advantages of the web and should be easy to read no matter if you're sighted or not.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-06 [Older] [Guest post] Was Mary lost in cyberspace? A domain name decision that aims to redefine the Oki Data criteria

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Physical Media Is Cool Again. Streaming Services Have Themselves to Blame

    These days, consumers aren’t entirely happy with the trade off. Licensing deals mean the film that was on Netflix for two years can leave and take a spin on a platform you don’t pay for, older films can have controversial scenes edited out, or an original series can get cancelled and disappear entirely. For many of these series, like Love Life, box sets or DVDs have never been available to purchase, meaning streaming is the only way to see it. When it leaves a streamer, it virtually disappears for the average consumer. Physical media, on the other hand, doesn’t have this issue. While streamers aren’t necessarily losing customers, people who collect Blu-rays, DVDs, and VHS tapes tell Rolling Stone their trending culture isn’t nostalgia bait. It’s participating in the digital world while recognizing the value of holding something in their movie-obsessed hands.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] [Book Review] Food, Philosophy, and Intellectual Property [Ed: Intellectual Property misnomer]

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] You snooze, you lose: CJEU upholds cancellation of plant variety rights for failure to pay fees on time

• Zimbabwe ☛ Japan to Force Apple to Allow Real Browsers on iPhones

  But all of that blinded people to Apple’s monopolistic ways. And I guarantee you there are still folks out there who’ll defend every single one of Apple’s vindictive decisions. For them, yes, the label sheep applies.

  Now Japan has jumped into the fight and might just go further than the EU ever did.

• [repeat] Press Gazette ☛ Google told to 'stop the BS' as it claims AI has not harmed website clickthroughs

  In response multiple SEO experts have pointed out that many websites are seeing declines in traffic as documented by the Google Search Console measurement tool, and that there are various surveys showing a drop in clickthroughs.

  They also contended that any overall stability or growth in search traffic is largely benefitting the major players such as Reddit or Google’s own Youtube, not the wider web ecosystem of smaller publishers and other websites.

• The Guardian UK ☛ Thousands of hotels in Europe to sue Booking.com over ‘abusive’ practices

  It alleges that the “best price” pledge on Booking.com was extracted from hotels under huge pressure not to offer rooms at lower prices on other platforms, including their own websites.

• Patents

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] The UPC Court of Appeal finds no temporal restrictions on its jurisdiction in XSYS v Esko [Ed: UPC is totally illegal, yet the litigation profiteers who now run this blog keep boosting this illegality]

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] No change: The EPO's guidance to Examiners on how to apply G1/24 [Ed: Tribunals without independence from corrupt EPO management]

    • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] The reproducibility challenge for advanced therapies (T 0827/23)

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-05 [Older] CJEU: National trade name rights are not governed by the EU Trade Mark Directive

• Copyrights

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-08-04 [Older] [Guest post] Upcycling under EU copyright law: from infringement risks to protectability requirements

  • Digital Music News ☛ Mike Tyson Sued for Copyright Infringement During Jake Paul Fight

    “Neither plaintiff nor any of his representatives granted defendant Tyson permission to use the song title ‘Murdergram’ to promote his boxing match with Jake Paul,” reads the lawsuit. “By listing the song title ‘Murdergram’ on his Instagram post, defendant Tyson misled viewers to believe that plaintiff endorsed, or was affiliated or associated with, him and/or his participation in the match.”

  • Torrent Freak ☛ MovieBox is Still Alive and Preparing to Fight Intellectual Property Thieves

    Reports that the Nigerian Copyright Commission had recently shut down a pirate site didn't sound especially interesting. Operating under MovieBox branding, currently seen on endless domains, the local site reportedly received over 130 million visits in the previous three months and was actually still in business. Indeed, plans to develop the MovieBox brand began last month, with an application for intellectual property protection underpinning all kinds of business opportunities.

  • 404 Media ☛ Archivists Let You Now Read Some of the First Ever Reviews of Mario and Zelda

    Preservationists at the Video Game History Foundation purchased the rights to Computer Entertainer, the first video game magazine ever written and uploaded it for free.

  • Sophie Koonin ☛ This website is for humans

    How does it know? Because it’s trained on all the ramen recipes that multiple recipe authors spent hours, weeks, years perfecting. Generative AI is a blender chewing up other people’s hard work, outputting a sad mush that kind of resembles what you’re looking for, but without any of the credibility or soul. Magic.