Leftovers

• Sean Conner ☛ “Bro, ban me at the IP level if you don't like me!”

  A further check showed that all the network blocks are owned by one organization—Tencent. I'm seriously thinking that the CCP encourage this with maybe the hope of externalizing the cost of the Great Firewall to the rest of the world. If China scrapes content, that's fine as far as the CCP goes; If it's blocked, that's fine by the CCP too (I say, as I adjust my tin foil hat).

• Robert Birming ☛ Blogging is beyond age

  And it doesn’t matter. Blogging goes beyond age.

• The Cyber Show ☛ Technical Maturity

  The question is, if you feel a sense of excitement about technology and creation, which are closely connected, what do you do with it? As a four and a half year old I had already made my career plans and was mulling a draft CV for the Space Rangers Corps, albeit prematurely. As a young adult scientist or engineer you do your best to bring dreams into being. As an artist you revel in your time, with all the creative tools and scope for speech you are given.

• Science

  • Vox ☛ The Supreme Court hands down incomprehensible gobbledygook about federal grants

    As a general rule, lawsuits alleging that a federal policy is illegal are heard by federal district courts, while suits alleging that the federal government breached a contract are heard by the Court of Federal Claims.

  • Royal Society Of Chemistry ☛ Paper mills driving exponential growth in fraudulent research, threatening scientific integrity | Chemistry World

    Previous studies have exposed paper mills using specific cases, rather than looking at the issue systematically. To gain a sense of the scale of the problem, the team, led by Luís Nunes Amaral, analysed a collection of paper-milled manuscripts discovered by science sleuths and found that the problem is even worse and more widespread than thought. ‘There are networks of individuals and entities that are producing scientific fraud at scale,’ says Amaral.

• Career/Education

  • Seth Godin ☛ The violinist problem | Seth's Blog

    If you are hoping to make a living as a pretty good violinist, you were born in the wrong century.

  • Drew Breunig ☛ Making Sense of AI Job Titles

    While collecting examples of titles from job listings, Twitter bios, and blogs, a pattern emerged: nearly all AI job titles are created by mixing-and-matching a handful of terms. Organizing the Post-Its on my wall, I was reminded of “mix-and-match” children’s books: [...]

• Hardware

  • Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Handwriting is slow which gives me time to think

    I realised something profound. One reason why it’s so much easier for me to get my thoughts out on a pen and paper compared to keyboard and screen is that I write much slower than I type. The slowdown gives me more time to process what’s coming next and develop my ideas. The physicality of feeling how the letters delineate on the paper through distinct muscle movement feeds those ideas back to me much slower and more pronounced than the dance of fingers on a keyboard.

• Proprietary

  • Scoop News Group ☛ CrowdStrike warns of uptick in Silk Typhoon attacks this summer

    Murky Panda’s attack pathways are assorted. The group has rapidly exploited n-day and zero-day vulnerabilities, including CVE-2023-3519 affecting Citrix NetScaler products and CVE-2025-3928 affecting Commvault Web Server, according to CrowdStrike.

  • International Business Times ☛ Delta and United Sued for Millions as Flyers Claim Airlines Sold 'Fake Window Seats'

    Court documents allege that Delta and United knowingly marketed certain seats on long-haul and domestic flights as window positions, even though those sections of the fuselage had no glass. Several passengers submitted booking receipts and photographs of their seat positions showing solid panels where windows should have been.

    The claimants argue they would never have paid the higher ticket prices if they had been properly informed. Their lawyers contend that the airlines benefitted from 'systematic concealment' and turned what should have been standard seating into a source of unfair revenue.

  • Security Week ☛ Russian APT Exploiting 7-Year-Old Cisco Vulnerability: FBI

    Patches for the flaw, tracked as CVE-2018-0171 (CVSS score of 9.8) and impacting the Smart Install (SMI) feature of Cisco’s IOS and IOS XE products, were released in March 2018.Russian state-sponsored hackers tracked as Static Tundra continue to target Cisco devices affected by CVE-2018-0171.

  • Security Week ☛ Orange Belgium Data Breach Impacts 850,000 Customers

    “At the end of July, Orange Belgium detected a [successful7] cyberattack on one of its IT systems, resulting in unauthorized access to certain data from 850,000 customer accounts,” the company said in an August 20 notice.

  • Security Week ☛ Password Managers Vulnerable to Data Theft via Clickjacking

    These browser extensions are very popular. An analysis by the researcher found that they have a total of nearly 40 million active installations, based on data from the official browser extension repositories for Chrome, Edge and Firefox.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ How One Researcher Hacked McDonalds And Found Flaws

    Bob’s next stop was the Feel-Good Design Hub, a platform used by McDonald’s marketers and agencies across 120 countries. This supposedly internal portal was protected only by a client-side password, an obsolete and insecure practice. After three months, McDonald’s introduced a proper login system… but not without flaws. A simple URL manipulation, changing “login” to “register”, gave Bob access to a registration form that helpfully guided him on missing fields. Once filled, he received a password via plaintext email. Yes, in 2025

  • Yury Molodtsov ☛ The Broken Promises of Substack

    This changed in March 2022, when Substack introduced its app that consolidates subscriptions in one place rather than dispersing them separately via email. The followers who subscribed through the app can’t be exported, creating a powerful lock-in. Ben Thompson, whose Stratechery newsletter directly inspired Substack, wrote then that Substack has gone from being a “Faceless Publisher” behind the scenes to trying to put “the Substack brand front-and-center,” building up its app as a destination on the backs of writers.

  • Unmitigated Risk ☛ How Microsoft Code Signing Became Part of a Trust Subversion Toolchain

    Code signing was supposed to tell you who published a piece of software and ultimately decide if you can trust the software and install it.. For nearly three decades, cryptographic signatures have bound a binary to a publisher’s identity, guaranteeing it hasn’t been tampered with since signing. But on Windows, that system is now broken in ways that would make its original designers cringe.

  • Sean Conner ☛ More issues with the Monopolistic Phone Company's “wireless service unit”

    And the only positive aspect I found, the IPv6 assignment, isn't what I thought it was. It, too, is reassigned at random like the IPv4 address. There is no need for that to happen! The IPv6 address space is large enough to almost assign every grain of sand on Earth its own IPv6 /64 network address space! There is no reason to reassign IPv6 addresses at all!

  • Jono Alderson ☛ You’re loading fonts wrong (and it’s crippling your performance)

    It’s a strange paradox. Fonts are everywhere. Every website uses them. But very few people – designers, developers, even performance specialists – actually know how they work, or how to load them efficiently. The result is a web full of bloated font files, broken loading strategies, poor accessibility, and a huge amount of wasted bandwidth.

  • CRN ☛ Cisco Layoffs To Total More Than 200 In Bay Area

    Cisco Systems is cutting 221 workers from its Milpitas, Calif., campus and at its site in San Francisco, the tech giant revealed in two August Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings.

    The latest cuts include 157 employees in Milpitas and 64 roles being cut in San Francisco. The positions will be eliminated by Oct. 13, according to the WARN notices.

  • Future US Inc ☛ Bungie CEO Pete Parsons is out, new studio head steps up with Destiny 2 flailing, Marathon in limbo, and the eye of Sony burning

    Bungie CEO Pete Partons is retiring from his position and new studio head Justin Truman, a Bungie and Destiny veteran of 15 years, is stepping up to the plate.

    The studio announced the passing of the torch in a new blog post on its website. A post from the studio's Bluesky account reads: "We are proud to announce that Justin Truman will be stepping up as Bungie's new Studio Head as Pete Parsons retires from his position to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders."

    Parsons, who joined Bungie over 20 years ago when the studio was still shepherd of the Halo series, became studio leader in 2015. "My goal was to grow us into a studio capable of creating and sustaining iconic, generation-spanning entertainment," Parsons says.

  • Windows Central ☛ Bungie’s CEO is in the rearview, passing the torch to the next studio head — but the road ahead is foggy

    Parsons announced the news in a blog post on Thursday, confirming that after 23 years (and serving as CEO since 2015), he is departing the company, which has developed some of the most iconic games in the history of first-person shooters, including the original Halo titles and Destiny.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Hiltzik: AI hype is fading fast

      As it happened, GPT-5 was a bust. It turned out to be less user-friendly and in many ways less capable than its predecessors in OpenAI’s arsenal. It made the same sort of risible errors in answering users’ prompts, was no better in math (or even worse), and not at all the advance that OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, had been talking up.

    • [Repeat] The Register UK ☛ Fastly warns AI bots can hit sites 39K times per minute

      Cloud services giant Fastly has released a report claiming AI crawlers are putting a heavy load on the open web, slurping up sites at a rate that accounts for 80 percent of all AI bot traffic, with the remaining 20 percent used by AI fetchers. Bots and fetchers can hit websites hard, demanding data from a single site in thousands of requests per minute.

    • Sean McPherson ☛ Four perspectives on AI

      I agree with Ferreira about the two reactions. I feel like I've heard them both near verbatim while talking about AI with colleagues. And I agree that curiosity and a growth mindset are invaluable in our field and life broadly. But the framing of "Stage 1/Stage 2" and the motivation behind them is uncharitable (at best) and unhelpful (at worst).[1]

      The difference between the two reactions depends not on time and mindset but on an individual's belief of AI's transformative potential and positive impact.

    • Cendyne Naga ☛ Vibe Coding's Hype for non-developers is over

      The drivel from wannabe LinkedInfluencers are finally facing reality. $200 Claude Code and Cursor plans have not replaced developers with real-world experience. To the dismay of any aspiring yet-another-software-as-a-service founder, all their work through AI coding assistants collapse when the context no longer fit the abyssal spaghetti they spawned through an expensive subscription to the largest bubble in history.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ MIT on enterprise AI: 95% failure, 5% spam — from 100% crypto bros

      MIT’s Project NANDA has a new paper: “The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025.” This got a writeup in Fortune a few days ago about how 95% of generative AI projects in business just fail. The report came out in July, but nobody else noticed until now.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Surveys the easy way: fake your data with an AI chatbot

      They also threw in a question to see how the bot did outside its training, based on the new Abundance Agenda plans to limit local zoning rules.

      The chatbots just didn’t work. Their error rate was from 4% to 23% — and 15% to 30% on the results for different demographics.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI crawlers and fetchers are blowing up websites, with Meta and OpenAI the worst offenders

  • Social Control Media

    • Security Week ☛ Europol Says Qilin Ransomware Reward Fake

      Europol told SecurityWeek that it’s a “scam” and the message does not come from the law enforcement agency.

      Europol has official accounts on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, YouTube and Facebook, but it does not have a Telegram channel.

    • Rodrigo Ghedin ☛ Revisiting Facebook ⁄ Manual do Usuário

      I created my first Facebook account back when the site still required a university email address — an account I deleted in 2018. A few years later, when I created my second one, Facebook was almost unrecognizable, transformed by an amalgamation of features seasoned with a crazy recommendation algorithm.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Gazetteer, San Francisco, California ☛ The banality of Palantir’s evil airport ad

      Is Palantir’s intention ragebait and virality, or to whitewash its profitable flouting of civil rights with bland reminders that it occupies a central position in the techno-zeitgeist? I’m really not sure, and that scares me more than a little.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Vox ☛ Why Gen Alpha kids love Minecraft so much

    Kids “are still participating in culture,” said BJ Colangelo, a media theorist and analyst who has spoken about Gen Alpha trends. “They just are making their own [sic], and they’re choosing not to share it with the rest of us.”

  • US News And World Report ☛ Islamic State Extremists Exploit Instability in Africa and Syria, UN Experts Say

    Islamic State extremists are exploiting instability in Africa and Syria and remain a significant threat in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe, U.N. counterterrorism experts said Wednesday.

    The militant group is now using advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and social media, which poses a new challenge, the experts told a U.N. Security Council meeting.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] The Frustrations and Resentment of Working-Class Russians

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Polish officials say crashed drone is Russian 'provocation'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] German Prosecutors Charge Russian With Planning Attack on Israeli Embassy in Berlin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Russia Bars Entry to 21 People It Says Spread Disinformation Against It in UK Media

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] No more German visas for Kremlin critics fleeing Russia?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] WhatsApp Accuses Moscow of Trying to Block Secure Communication for Millions of Russians

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Will Russia-Ukraine War End with Diplomacy or on Battlefield? John Mearsheimer vs. Denys Pilash

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Is India beefing up China, Russia ties amid US friction?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] The significance of the Donbas in Russia's war in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Russia Says Its Forces Advance in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Russia Says Talks on Ukraine's Security Without Moscow Are a 'Road to Nowhere'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Three Killed in Russian Shelling of Key Eastern Ukrainian City, Local Officials Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-20 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Says Russia Struck Gas Distribution Station in Odesa Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-19 [Older] US Treasury Chief Bessent Accuses India of Profiteering on Russian Oil Purchases

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-19 [Older] Despite a Flurry of Meetings on Russia's War in Ukraine, Major Obstacles to Peace Remain

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] Russia-Ukraine war: Which possible territorial concessions are under debate?

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] Kseniya Alexandrova Car Crash: Did an Elk Really Cause the Tragic Death of Miss Universe Russia 2017?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] Zelenskyy Brings Europe's Top Leaders With Him to Meet Cheeto Mussolini on Ending Russia's War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] The Latest: European Leaders Arrive for White House Meeting on Russia-Ukraine War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] A Timeline of Territorial Shifts in Russia's War on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] At Least 20 Killed, 134 People Injured in Blast at Factory in Russia's Ryazan Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] German Foreign Minister Urges More Pressure on Russia Before Cheeto Mussolini–Zelenskiy Meeting

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] India's Modi Has Phone Call With Russia's Putin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] Russian General Seriously Wounded on Front Line, Regional Leader Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] Russia Striking Azerbaijan's SOCAR Oil Facilities in Ukraine on Purpose, Kyiv Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] What to Know About Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula Seized by Russia From Ukraine Over a Decade Ago

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] European Leaders Arrive at White House in Show of Support for Ukraine Ahead of Cheeto Mussolini Meeting

    • Vox ☛ 2025-08-18 [Older] What we learned from the Cheeto Mussolini-Zelenskyy meeting, briefly explained

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Sparks Outrage Over 'Donbas Betrayal' in Peace Deal Handing Ukraine's Key Region to Russia

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Zelensky says Russian ceasefire refusal complicates peace efforts

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Hungarian Opposition Leader Demands Russia Refrain From Interference

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Russia Says It Destroyed 300 Ukrainian Drones, Hit Sapsan Missile Storage Sites

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Russia Says It Prevented Ukrainian Drone Attack on Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Russia Strikes Kharkiv With Ballistic Missile, Injures 11, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-17 [Older] Ukraine Drone Attack Injures Train Station Employee in Russia's Voronezh, Governor Says

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini-Putin meeting LIVE updates: US, Russian presidents fail to strike deal in Alaska to end Ukraine war

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Blast at Factory in Russia's Ryazan Kills 11, Injures 130

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Russian Politicians Hail Alaska Summit as Victory for Moscow

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Russia's Lavrov Discusses Alaska Summit Outcome With Turkish, Hungarian Counterparts

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskyy to Meet Cheeto Mussolini on Monday After US-Russia Summit Secured No Halt to Fighting

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-16 [Older] Ukraine Says It Presses Russian Troops Back on Part of Sumy Front

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] The Latest: Meeting Between Cheeto Mussolini and Putin on Russia-Ukraine War Has Ended

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Exclusive-US Mulled Use of Russia Icebreakers for Gas Development Ahead of Summit-Sources

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Polish President Shows off Military Hardware, Sees Russia 'Floundering' in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Putin: Talks Can Be Starting Point to Settle Ukraine Conflict and Restore Russia-US Ties

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Russian Missile Hits Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Russia Readying Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Test, Ukrainian Military Intelligence Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Alaska Summit Should Open Path to Ukraine-Russia-US Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-15 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Russia Continues Attacking Ukraine Ahead of Summit

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Dutch children among those at EU sanctioned Russian summer camp in occupied Crimea

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Russia–Iran–China Alliance Signals Deep Shift in Global Power

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Hungarian Opposition Leader Accuses Russia of Political Interference

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Putin Suggests Russia and US Could Make a Deal on Nuclear Arms Control

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Putin Suggests Russia and U.S. Could Make a Deal on Nuclear Arms Control

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Russian Officials Say at Least 16 Wounded in Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Two Cities

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Russia Reports Fire at Volgograd Refinery After Ukrainian Drone Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Russia Says It Struck Ukrainian Missile Plants

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Ukraine Brings Back 84 POWs Including Dozens of Civilians

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-08-14 [Older] Ukraine Says Eastern Front Stabilised After Recent Russian Thrust

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ A Miles-Long Cave in Kentucky Was a Smelly Disaster. Now It’s Spectacular.

    The restoration of Hidden River Cave is one of the most remarkable examples of a cave cleanup, one that could point the way back to health for other polluted caves, said Chris Groves, a professor of hydrogeology at Western Kentucky University.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • PC World ☛ How much power and water does AI use? Google, Mistral weigh in

      Of course, there are caveats: Each report was self-generated, and not performed by an outside auditor. Also, training a model consumes vastly more resources than inferencing, or the day-to-day tasks users assign a chatbot each time they query it. Still, the reports provide some context for how much AI taxes the environment, even though they exclude the effects of AI training and inferencing by OpenAI and other competitors.

    • Crooked Timber ☛ The Cheltenham to Manchester Piccadilly Adventure

      The young lad (I suppose he was in his mid-to-late 20s, but he looked 13 to me) who appeared to be in charge of the whole business was, let’s say, stoical, despite being besieged by hundreds of people many of whom were being quite rude to him, poor chap. I sidled up to him and said “So, there’s no trains to New Street this evening right? Probably a death on the line?”. He confirmed my worst fears. “But: trains are still running to Worcester Foregate?” – he assented. “And, presumably, we could all get the next train to Foregate street, change there, and get a train from there to Birmingham Moor Street, from where we could walk to New Street?” (It’s a very short walk). His eyes lit up: “Yes”, he said, “That would work brilliantly”. Then his face fell, “But how would people know how to get from Moor Street to New Street?”. “Well”, I said, “The most absurd strategy would be to tell them to follow me. Or – they nearly all have phones. And another option would be to send an employee to lead them across the city”. He chose the most absurd option.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ How NYT’s Bad Reporting Helped Justify Trump’s Tariffs on Brazil

    US President Donald Trump officially declared the state of bilateral relations with Brazil a “national emergency” on July 30, using the decision to justify imposing 40% tariffs on all imports from Brazil.

  • FAIR ☛ NYT Complains Trump Isn’t Anti-Media Enough

    A New York Times editorial (8/8/25), headlined “Trump Is Letting TikTok (and China) Win,” illustrates why the paper is ill-equipped to counter the tyranny of this out-of-control administration. The editorial criticized President Donald Trump for being  authoritarian, but also not authoritarian enough.

  • The Register UK ☛ Uncle Sam eyes slice of Intel in return for CHIPS Act cash

    Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Intel would be required to give the federal government an equity stake in the company in return for its CHIPS Act subsidy cash, which was granted last year under the previous administration.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Crime and Self-Promotion

    The data, of course, don’t support any of this. Growth is slowing, possibly to “stall speed,” while inflation is accelerating. Urban crime, however, has been plunging, and in general our cities are safer than they’ve been since the 1960s, or maybe ever.

  • Gazetteer, San Francisco, California ☛ TikTok is being overrun by Sean Parker’s royal hamsters

    To get the word out about his new project, Parker has seemingly hired an army of very young people to astroturf TikTok with would-be viral content promoting Cantina, and paying them up to $5,000 a month to do so. According to a job posting on Cantina’s website, the company is hiring “AI content ambassadors,” or, as they used to be called, underpaid (and, in some cases, seemingly underage) street team employees.

  • Crooked Timber ☛ States of Resistance

    Strategizing like this is not really my thing. But I have an idea. And I think it could be significant. Over at Vox, Dylan Matthews argues that Trump’s 15% tax on Nvidia’s and AMD’s chip exports to China is flagrantly unconstitutional. It’s not just that Trump lacks any authority from Congress to impose this tax. It’s that Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution says, “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” Trump is imposing a duty on a major export from the State of California. This looks like an open-and-shut case, easy to understand.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • 404 Media ☛ Real Footage Combined With AI Slop About DC Is Creating a Disinformation Mess on TikTok

      Some of the slop is obvious fantasy-driven engagement farming and gives itself away aesthetically or through content. This video and this very similar one show tents being pulled from a vast field into the back of a moving garbage truck, with the Capitol building in the background, on the Washington Mall. They’re not tagged as AI, but at least a few people in the comments are able to identify them as such; both videos still have over 100,000 views. This somehow more harrowing one feat. Hunger Games song has 41,000.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Suing Marco Rubio: Why We’re Supporting a Lawsuit to Defend Free Speech

    Our declarations of support for the plaintiffs were filed last week with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

    Let’s be clear: Supporting FIRE’s plaintiffs means support for their constitutional rights, not necessarily what they’re actually saying. For example, one of the plaintiffs, a legal resident and former student, chanted “from the river to the sea” at anti-Israel demonstrations. We could not disagree with this rhetoric more. It’s eliminationist: If Russian calls to erase Ukrainian statehood are wrong, then we should agree that calls to erase Israel are as well.

  • The Register UK ☛ China cut itself off from the global internet for an hour on Wednesday [Ed: Also: The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)]

    China cut itself off from much of the global internet for just over an hour on Wednesday.

    Activist group Great Firewall Report spotted the outage, which it said disrupted all traffic to TCP port 443 – the standard port used for carrying HTTPS traffic.

    “Between approximately 00:34 and 01:48 (Beijing Time, UTC+8) on August 20, 2025, the Great Firewall of China (GFW) exhibited anomalous behavior by unconditionally injecting forged TCP RST+ACK packets to disrupt all connections on TCP port 443,” the group wrote in a Wednesday post.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Gazetteer, San Francisco, California ☛ I reported from an ICE action on Sansome and all I got was a face full of pepper spray

    On Wednesday, federal agents escalated their approach. The language and behavior was more aggressive and, in many cases, preemptive. Several protesters were thrown to the ground. Some people were pepper-sprayed without provocation.

    One of those people was me.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Inside Towers ☛ Charter Execs Sued Over Internet Subscriber Numbers

    Two senior executives at Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), the Stamford, CT-based cable company, are named in a class action lawsuit, Broadband Breakfast reported. The suit, filed on August 14, alleges that Charter CEO Chris Winfrey and CFO Jessica Fischer violated securities law related to company statements regarding the financial impact of the May 2024 termination of a federal broadband subsidy for low-income households.

    The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was implemented on December 31, 2021, when the FCC officially launched the program following its authorization under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law on November 15, 2021. The ACP shut down on May 31, 2024, after depleting funding that provided $30 monthly internet discounts to eligible low-income households.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Howard Oakley ☛ How to check if your Apple silicon Mac is booting securely – The Eclectic Light Company

    There are so many controls in macOS that sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees. This can leave uncertainty over essentials, such as whether your Apple silicon Mac really is properly secure, or maybe there’s something sinister going on with it? This is a question I’m asked not infrequently, usually when someone has been spreading disinformation or FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). So how can you check that your Mac is properly locked down and boots securely?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Creative Commons ☛ Creative Commons Becomes an Official UNESCO NGO Partner

    We are proud to announce that we are now established as an official NGO partner to UNESCO (consultative status). UNESCO stands for “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” and is the UN’s specialized agency that aims to foster international cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture, and communication.