Leftovers

• Scott Laird ☛ Home Ethernet 101

  "So, I’m doing some construction, and I want to future-proof my home networking. What should I install so that I don’t have to worry about it in the future?"

• Buttondown LLC ☛ #009 - End of summer

  I published six blog posts this month, starting with my announcement of my upcoming PyCon Finland talk. I'm so excited to return to Jyväskylä with tech events. October 17th will mark a ten year anniversary since we organised Rails Girls Jyväskylä.

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ A changelog

  I've made a ton of changes to this site that I haven't yet written about. I likely will write about at least some of the changes given enough time, but I wanted to spit out a rough changelog in the meantime.

• University of Toronto ☛ How part of my email handling drifted into convoluted complexity

  And since I have all of this, it's not even worth the effort of switching to the proper rcvstore approach and throwing a bunch of it away. I'm always going to want the 'tell me stuff' functionality of my mlists script, so part of it has to stay anyway.

  Can I see similarities between this and how various of our system tools have evolved, mutated, and become increasingly complex? Of course. I think it's much the same obvious forces involved, because each step seems reasonable in isolation, right up until I've built a discount environment that duplicates much of rcvstore.

• Saurabh "Sam" Khawase ☛ Sam: The story behind my nickname

  People ask me the story behind my nickname, “Sam”, because my given name Saurabh has no “M” in it. There’s a fun little story behind this which I always imagined in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez1.

• Science

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications demo goes dark

    Carried aboard NASA's Psyche mission, DSOC demonstrated how data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded.

• Career/Education

  • Stanford University ☛ Safety, Security and Fire Report reveals uptick in on-campus crime

    The Stanford University Department of Public Safety published their annual report on Sept. 29, describing an upward trend in domestic violence, aggravated assault and drug law violations.

  • Coalition for Networked Information ☛ Submit Your Proposal for CNI Fall 2025

    Submit your project briefing proposal for the CNI Fall 2025 Membership Meeting by Friday, October 10, 2025.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Announcing the Enshittification tour

    This is a big tour! I'll be doing in-person events in the US, Canada, the UK and Portugal, and a virtual event in Spain. I'm also planning an event in Hamburg, Germany for December, but that one hasn't been confirmed yet, so it doesn't appear in the schedule below. You'll notice that there are events that are missing their signup and ticketing details; I'll be keeping the master tour schedule up to date at pluralistic.net/tour.

  • New Yorker ☛ Should College Get Harder?

    Since the middle of the past century, the number of Americans in college has increased substantially—in raw numbers, by roughly a factor of five. This development has felt inevitable, driven by the rise of knowledge work and the opening of higher education to once-excluded groups. And yet, in the past decade, enrollment has begun to contract, and that contraction is expected to continue. Demography is a potential factor: a decline in the birth rate, which began around 2007, is predicted to result in fewer high-school seniors. But it also seems possible that more people are concluding that college has changed, and isn’t worth the cost. Universities go out of their way to seem eternal, but higher education is an industry like any other, with its share of ups and downs. If college is a bubble, could it be getting ready to burst?

  • Matthew Knight ☛ Announcing Software You Can Love 2026

    I’m organizing another Software You Can Love conference in Vancouver, June 2026. The last time I did this was 2023 and I had a blast. I love SYCL because of the people it brings together. In an industry that feels increasingly cynical, where “I hate computers” is even a respected outlook on technology, these are the people who are contagiously curious, nurture their love for computers. They care about how the software they write affects fellow humans. It’s my pleasure to put together something where these people can come together, coalesce ideas, and have fun.

• Hardware

  • Chris Aldrich ☛ Chris Aldrich

    Thinking about the current storage capacity of my card index collection, I made a back-of-the-index-card calculation: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ Noodle Cup Trend May Increase Burn Risks for Kids

    TikTok users have rushed to get their hands on the instant noodles that appear in the film. One prominent Boston hospital has sounded the alarm.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Indonesian rescuers hunt 38 missing after Islamic school collapse

    JAKARTA - Indonesian rescuers were scrambling on Tuesday to locate 38 people feared trapped under rubble after an Islamic boarding school collapsed in the province of East Java while dozens were at afternoon prayer, disaster mitigation authorities said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Suicide now No. 1 cause of death among South Koreans in 40s

    Statistics Korea said that 14,872 people died by suicide in 2024, marking the highest toll in 13 years.

  • PHR ☛ Study: U.S. State Abortion Bans Lead to ‘Cascading Harms’ Across Various Medical Fields, from Oncology to Neurology 

    “Doctors waiting for ‘irreversible damage’ before offering care. Patients given less effective medicines instead of the best available treatments. Health systems offering substandard and discriminatory care to pregnant patients. The consequences of state abortion bans are not only manifesting in harms to reproductive health care, but across many other medical specialties. From cancer care to pulmonology and beyond, the harms of abortion bans are cascading across the health system,” said Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at PHR and professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan. “Our research shows that abortion bans are undermining fundamental principles of medicine and patient autonomy – leading to discrimination in care to women, girls, and pregnant patients.”

  • Wired ☛ How to Use a Password Manager to Share Your Logins After You Die (2025)

    Recognition of digital legacy is still spotty, and without dedicated legacy contacts, accessing the deceased’s online accounts often involves court orders or legal documentation (and plenty of time). Digital legacy doesn’t need to have so many hurdles, though. Password managers have digital legacy features built in that can unlock your digital life in the event of an emergency.

• Proprietary

  • Cyble Inc ☛ VMware Vulnerability CVE-2025-41244 Exploited For A Year

    A newly listed VMware zero-day vulnerability has been actively exploited by Chinese state-sponsored threat actors for almost a year, according to security researchers.

    The vulnerability, CVE-2025-41244, was reported to VMware parent Broadcom by NVISO researchers, who published a blog on September 29 detailing the in-the-wild exploitation. Broadcom also addressed the vulnerability in an advisory published the same day.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Annie Mueller ☛ Shelter or prison

      The individuals within a system may change and grow and need the system to change and grow with them. But systems resist change. The individuals in a system are often not served by the system, but they’re serving it. They’re trapped within it. Does it shelter them? Does it provide some resources? Does it, perhaps, even keep them alive? Sure. So does a prison.

    • RFA ☛ ‘This is fake’ — How North Korea uses AI and deepfakes as a weapon – Radio Free Asia

    • The Register UK ☛ California cops confused after trying to ticket Waymo

      Human drivers who make illegal turns risk a $234 fine, plus court fees if drivers contest a ticket. San Bruno’s police admitted they currently lack the authority to bill the vehicle's operator. However, changes are in progress to make that possible, the force said.

    • Jérôme Marin ☛ Meta’s AI strategy remains unclear

      Behind the lofty rhetoric — reminiscent of the years he spent evangelizing the metaverse — the picture is less flattering. Despite tens of billions already invested and a wave of high-profile hires, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is still steering without a clear course. So much so that it is now considering a radical shift: using models from OpenAI or Google rather than building its own.

  • Social Control Media

    • Jishu ☛ Breaking the Loop: Replacing Reddit with Quiet and Focus | Jishu

      Reddit is deceptive. It gives the illusion of depth. It feels like I am learning about hobbies or subjects I care about, but looking back, I can’t remember many moments where casual browsing led to real insight. When I do find something valuable, it is usually when I search for it directly. Random scrolling has never brought that same value.

      Worse, it fragments my attention. It makes things like writing music more difficult. Instead of keeping Reddit tailored to my interests, I have decided to block it entirely. Narrowing it down just made me use it more. The kind of knowledge I am after is not found on Reddit. It comes through experience, long-form reading, and simply doing the thing.

• Linux Foundation

  • Linux Foundation Announces Contribution of Newton by Disney Research, Google DeepMind and NVIDIA to Accelerate Open Robot Learning

  • Linux Foundation Announces Contribution of Newton by Disney Research, Google DeepMind and NVIDIA to Accelerate Open Robot Learning

    Newton advances next-generation research and development of generalist robots through open source

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Conversation ☛ As the UK plans to introduce digital IDs, what can it learn from pioneer Estonia?

      A popular critique is that digital ID represents a security and privacy risk. Of course, any data can be potentially hacked or leaked. However, security and privacy is built into the system in the form of a decentralised data exchange, the X-Road, that provides timestamps and records of access.

      This ensures only appropriate people have access to digital ID data and is designed to reassure the user. In Estonia, people can identify themselves in various ways, for example using a physical ID card inserted into a card reader or SmartID – another system for authenticating users online – using a mobile device.

    • Science News ☛ Can AI spot harmful health side effects on social media?

      The tool, called Waldo, reviewed more than 430,000 past posts on Reddit forums related to cannabis use. It flagged the post above and over 28,000 others as potentially describing unexpected or harmful side effects. The researchers checked 250 of the posts that Waldo had flagged and verified that 86 percent of them indeed represented problematic experiences with cannabis products, researchers report September 30 in PLOS Digital Health. If this type of scanning became commonplace, the information could help public health workers protect consumers from harmful products.

    • DJ Bernstein ☛ 2025.09.30: Surreptitious surveillance

      It's a pleasure to meet you, sir! I'm happy to serve as your guide through our short introductory course on "Surreptitious Surveillance".

      I know that as the new overlord you'd like to understand how you can best use surveillance. You're already familiar with overt surveillance, such as installing obvious cameras. Beyond collecting information, this can help keep people in line: the idea is that they know you're watching, so they'll be terrified to misbehave. But this can also backfire. I'll give you some cautionary examples below.

      Whether or not you carry out any overt surveillance, you'll definitely want to invest heavily in surreptitious survillance, surveillance that doesn't change people's behavior. I'll give you concrete examples of how this works and what its benefits are.

    • Meduza ☛ Holy data grab Meet Zosima, Russia’s Orthodox Christian messenger app no one asked for

      The scope of data collection recalls VK’s Max, another Russian-built messenger criticized for intrusiveness. Users have even mocked Zosima in parody reviews styled after VK’s advertising campaigns for its own product.

    • The Register UK ☛ Your AI conversations are a new treasure trove for marketers

      "Users think they're getting a free VPN or SEO widget; in reality, their most private queries — health scares, finances, identity crises — are being slurped, anonymized, and resold," Dryburgh explained in an email. "Onavo and Jumpshot déjà vu, only worse: this time it's your inner dialogue."

    • Terence Eden ☛ Can you use GDPR to Circumvent BlueSky’s Adult Content Blocks?

      So I sent off a Subject Access Request asking specifically for the Direct Messages sent to/from my account.

      I was 100% sure that the messages I had sent were my personal data and should be returned to me. I wasn't sure if messages other people had sent to me could be considered personal data. But I figured that the OSA hadn't invalidated GDPR.

      Here's what happened: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • Vox ☛ TikTok deal: Both US and Chinese control of the app are troubling.

    The app is also a political flashpoint. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company under the shadow of Beijing. For years, US lawmakers have tried to rein it in, either by banning it outright or forcing a sale to American investors. Now, with Donald Trump back in office, that fight has entered a new phase that could reshape the social media landscape. Last week, Trump signed an executive order approving the creation of a new entity — TikTok US — that would allow the app to remain available in America despite the “ban” that Congress passed in 2024. Trump’s allies — Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle), Michael Dell (of Dell Technologies), and the Murdochs — will reportedly be involved in running the new company. China still has to approve the deal.

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ Latest ‘religious liberty’ hearing promotes privilege, not freedom

    “This hearing was not about protecting religious liberty,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “It was about promoting the Christian nationalist agenda, privileging Christianity in public schools, funneling taxpayer money to religious institutions, and weaponing ‘religious liberty’ to undermine equality.”

  • Mike Brock ☛ I've Seen Enough

    On Tuesday, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, American dignity died. Not democracy—not yet—but something equally precious and in our fucked up media landscape, maybe far harder to recover: the basic respect this nation once commanded through principled leadership, constitutional governance, and moral authority on the world stage.

    We watched the President of the United States tell 800 generals and admirals that he plans to deploy military forces against American cities, that domestic political opponents are “enemies” equivalent to foreign threats, and threatened their careers if they don’t applaud his political agenda.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Democratic Credibility Dies in the Chaos

    You can look at these numbers and rant and rave about how the median voter is uneducated or under-informed. That Trump, the convicted felon who pardoned his personal legions of insurrectionists, cannot seriously talk about law and order.

    It won’t do any good.

    And it’s not like the Democrats are lagging on questions of public safety and the economy because they’re too busy fighting Trump. Despite the nature of America’s constitutional crisis, top Democrats are actually quite conciliatory. Hakeem Jeffries says that he and his colleagues “hope and expect that Republicans will do the right thing.” Chuck Schumer preemptively surrendered what little leverage his party had by backing away from a government shutdown earlier this year.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Democrats Are Already “Moderate.” It’s Not Working.

    The perpetual advice to Democrats is that moving rightward will solve all their problems. But look where the party is at the moment: already embracing Republican affect and policies, yet still losing.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ ISIS has its sights set on a new potential ally—Uyghur jihadi groups

    The TIP is a jihadi group primarily composed of Uyghurs from the Western Chinese province of Xinjiang; estimates of its size range from 1,500 to four-thousand fighters. Beijing’s oppressive policies against the Uyghurs underpins and helps to fuel their goal of establishing an Islamic Uyghur separatist state in Turkestan, in northern central Asia—including parts of China’s Xinjiang Province. Although the TIP has not yet made any territorial claims to establish Islamic Turkestan, its attacks against Chinese interests in Afghanistan demonstrate its capabilities and intent to pose an ongoing threat to China. These attacks drive the cycle in which Bejing paints all Uyghurs as terrorists then cracks down on Muslims in Xinjiang, providing TIP with leverage to generate propaganda and continue attacks.

  • The Local SE ☛ Who was the first Muslim to gain Swedish citizenship?

  • Bitdefender ☛ Dutch teens recruited on Telegram, accused of Russia-backed hacking plot

    According to reports, the father of one of the boys claimed that his son had been contacted by hackers via the Telegram encrypted chat messaging service, and had walked around areas of The Hague in the vicinity of the headquarters of Europol and Eurojust as well as several embassies with a Wi-Fi-sniffer that maps networks.

  • JURIST ☛ Syria judge announces arrest warrant for ousted president Bashar al-Assad

    Syrian authorities have issued an arrest warrant in absentia for the ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, a judge announced on Saturday.

  • France24 ☛ Venezuela's Maduro threatens to declare state of emergency over US boat attacks

    Venezuelan President Nicolas Madura threatened to declare a state of emergency on Monday in response to US attacks on suspected Venezuelan drug boats. Earlier in the day, his VP said that Madura had signed a decree increasing his authority over the military and certain public services, though this has not yet been confirmed.

  • France24 ☛ Madagascar President dissolves government amid youth protests over water, power cuts

    There were more protests in Madagascar on Monday, even as President Andry Rajoelina tried to quell popular outrage by firing the government. There have been days of unrest across the country over its crumbling infrastructure. On Monday, the UN estimated that at least 22 people had died in crackdowns on youth-led marches that first erupted last Thursday. The UN's human rights chief said he was shocked by the extent to which security officers responded with force. However, some of the deaths have been attributed to looting and violence by gangs taking advantage of the unrest.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ 12,000-Year-Old Desert Rock Art Conveyed Important Message For Ancient People

    These lakes, dated at roughly 15,000 years, are the first evidence of surface water returning to Arabia following the extremely arid period. And they move the timeline of the returning humid conditions back thousands of years, enlarging the opportunity window for humans to settle in these dry inland conditions.

  • Truthdig ☛ Study: Plastics Pose ‘Urgent Threat’ to Children’s Lifelong Health

    Published Sept. 21 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health medical journal, the study examined hundreds of studies involving pregnant women, babies and children. Researchers found that plastic additives such as phthalates, bisphenols and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can disrupt hormones, trigger inflammation and affect brain development, increasing lifelong risks of chronic conditions such as obesity, infertility, asthma, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

    “Our findings point to plastic’s role in the early origins of many chronic diseases that reverberate into adolescence and adulthood,” said lead author Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “If we want kids to stay healthy and live longer, then we need to get serious about limiting the use of these materials.”

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ How scientists can see Earth’s permafrost thawing from space

    Permafrost, which lies beneath about 15% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, is defined as ground that has remained frozen for at least two years. Historically, much of the world’s permafrost has remained solid and stable for far longer, allowing people to build whole towns atop it. But as the planet warms, a process that is happening more rapidly near the poles than at more temperate latitudes, permafrost is thawing and causing a host of infrastructural and environmental problems.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Fossil Fuels and Fossilized Minds

    OK, not really. Wind power is, in fact, far cleaner and safer than burning fossil fuels. And I personally like the sight of wind turbines. After all, I value the comforts of modern civilization and find it reassuring to see the power needed to provide those comforts generated without harmful emissions.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico building its own satellites to monitor climate, security threats

      Collectively called Mission Ixtli, the satellites will reduce Mexico’s dependence on foreign providers for data on forest health, fires, landslides, crop health and species monitoring, as well as a variety of national security issues.

    • Vintage Everyday ☛ The 1958 Volvo PV 544 Sport: A Swedish Classic of Style, Safety, and Performance

      The 1958 Volvo PV 544 Sport marked an important evolution in Volvo’s line of durable and stylish family cars. Introduced as an update to the earlier PV 444, the PV 544 featured a more modern, curved one-piece windshield, a wider interior, and improved visibility, making it more comfortable and safer for everyday driving.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ The Gaslit Asset Class

      James Grant invited me to address the annual conference of Grant's Interest Rate Observer. This was an intimidating prospect, the previous year's conference featured billionaires Scott Bessent and Bill Ackman. As usual, below the fold is the text of my talk, with the slides, links to the sources, and additional material in footnotes. Yellow background indicates textual slides.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI's New Data Centers Will Draw More Power Than the Entirety of New York City, Sam Altman Says

      Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in the project, an enormous project that could end up requiring an astronomical amount of electricity to run.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ AI data center boom sends some wholesale electricity prices soaring up to 267% in five years, says report — as global rollout of AI factories continues apace

      In its analysis of Grid Status' energy data analytics, Bloomberg found that for areas located near new data centers built to run and train AI, wholesale electricity prices had risen by up to 267%. Although that cost doesn't necessarily have to be passed on to the consumer, some of its cited examples clearly show that happening.

    • RIPE ☛ Keeping Network Sites Online During Blackouts

      Keeping networks online during repeated blackouts comes with a number of challenges. To address this, I built and deployed a fast-charge, cloud-aware power management system for network nodes. It adds thermal control, per-cell battery monitoring, cell balancing, support for multiple battery types, multiple energy sources (mains, battery, generator, solar), and telemetry suitable for a Network Operations Centre (NOC). This article shares the architecture, algorithms, an operator run-book, and KPIs you can reuse.

    • The Drone Girl ☛ Meet Eric Thurber: San Francisco's most sought-after drone pilot

      What followed was a fascinating conversation with one of the Bay Area’s most successful drone photographers, whose Instagram feed @thurber_shots has amassed roughly 120,000 followers thus far and has attracted top-tier clients like the Golden State Warriors, Waymo, UCSF and even drone light show company Sky Elements.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Venus flytrap's touch response traced to specialized ion channel in sensory hairs

      Plants lack nerves, yet they can sensitively detect touch from other organisms. In the Venus flytrap, highly sensitive sensory hairs act as tactile sensing organs; when touched twice in quick succession, they initiate the closure cascade that captures prey. However, the molecular identity of the touch sensor has remained unclear.

• Finance

  • WCCF Tech ☛ EA $55 Billion Deal Might Bring Massive Layoffs Between AI Pivot and $20 Billion of Debt

    Speaking about that debt, Bloomberg's report reveals that this deal is partly funded by $20 billion in debt sourced by JPMorgan Chase & Co. This is the most significant debt commitment ever registered for a buyout.

  • Canadian energy minister disappointed by Imperial Oil’s planned layoffs

    Canada’s energy minister says he’s disappointed with Imperial Oil’s plan to lay off 20 per cent of its workforce by 2027.

    Tim Hodgson says he’s working to understand what went into the company’s decision and that the government will explore ways to support the workers losing their jobs.

    Calgary-based Imperial says the cuts are part of a restructuring plan and would save the company about $150 million annually.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New Yorker ☛ The Insurrectionist’s Fentanylware (TikTok) Deal Looks Like Crony Capitalism

    The sale demonstrates the President’s personal brand of industrial policy—transactional, opaque, and designed to politically benefit him and his allies.

  • Digital Music News ☛ VP Vance Says Fentanylware (TikTok) ‘Successfully Separated’ from ByteDance-Owned Global App—But When Will ‘TikTok America’ Go Live? [Ed: Now controlled more by MAGAts, a separate kind of problem and still not compliant with the demands of Congress]

    Vice President JD Vance said he’s optimistic about the future of Fentanylware (TikTok) in the US. But when will the American version of Fentanylware (TikTok) go live? On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that he feels confident about the future of Fentanylware (TikTok) in the United States.

  • NYPost ☛ Aviation groups warn a government shutdown will delay aircraft safety inspections, maintenance work on ‘critical’ equipment

    Air traffic controllers, technicians and airport security personnel would continue to work (without pay) in the event of a shutdown, but some Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees would be furloughed, the groups said, putting a strain on safety oversight.

  • Security Week ☛ CISO Conversations: John ‘Four’ Flynn, VP of Security at Google DeepMind

    John Flynn, usually known as ‘Four’, has been DeepMind’s VP of security since May 2024. Before then he had been a CISO with Amazon, CISO at Uber, director of information security at Facebook, and (between 2005 and 2011) manager of the security operations team at Google.

  • RTL ☛ Leadership shake-up: Spotify founder Daniel Ek to give up CEO role

    Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek will step down as CEO on January 1 and become executive chairman, handing the reins to two of his deputies in a leadership shake-up, the music streaming giant said Tuesday.

    Spotify said Gustav Soderstrom, its chief product and technology officer, and chief business officer Alex Norstrom would take over as co-CEOs.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ America’s elite universities have lost their way

    What they need to do is explicitly make education their primary mission again. They should adopt more objective admissions criteria; stop inflating grades as part of a drive to make science, social science and humanities classes more rigorous; and rededicate themselves to putting excellence in education and research first.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Electronic Arts to be acquired as gaming industry consolidates

    The buyer consortium includes Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and a firm run by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

  • The Record ☛ Tech companies should be shielded from spyware lawsuits, report says

    Apple, Meta and Google have sophisticated threat hunting teams in place and have made spyware findings known to victims and the public. The proposed legislation, the report says, essentially would incentivize the tech industry to continue aggressively rooting out the surveillance tools.

  • Bruce Lawson ☛ Regulation fun with lawyers and economists

    On the other hand, other lawyers seemed concerned that things were galloping. One mentioned the tight time frames that the CMA gives to reply to mandatory requests for information that it issues “with death threats”. I too have struggled with these, for example, working until literally the last minute before a medical procedure to get some probably irrelevant historic statistics. So, dear CMA et al, spare a thought for those of us in smaller businesses who are the sole regulator-botherer, juggling RFIs and consultations from CMA, the EU, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Germany, Australia and more.

    In a panel titled “Regulatory Coordination and the Growth Agenda”, Alex Olive from the Payment Systems Regulator mentioned how National Security concerns are part of Digital Markets regulation, and suggested that Twitler and Facebooks’ roles in influencing elections could be considered in the purview of regulators.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Marisa Kabas ☛ Trump mandates all federal agencies send email blaming Dems for potential gov’t shutdown

      The marching orders went out to agencies’ leadership via email at 1:30pm ET, a government source confirms. Then on a 3pm intra-agency call with around 300 participants, a member of OMB leadership reinforced the mandatory nature of the note and stressed that no modifications could be made to the message.

      During any other period of recent American history, this email would have been deemed a flagrant violation of the Hatch Act. The law was passed, according to the US Office of Special Counsel website, “to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.​​​​”

    • The Kyiv Independent ☛ 'Tantamount to defeat' — even Russian propagandists don't think Russia is winning the war in Ukraine

      On September 19, on Russia’s state-controlled channel NTV during the live political talk show "Mesto Vstrechi" (Meeting place) one guest openly questioned the official figures on Ukrainian losses. He argued that the numbers cited by the Russian side were simply impossible:

      "With the outbreak of hostilities, the Ukrainian army went up to 800,000 people. Then, along the way, it increased by somewhere near 100,000–120,000 per year. Thus, there can be no 1,700,000–2,000,000 losses because, in that case, the Ukrainian army simply would not exist," he said.

      "So you mean the Russian Ministry of Defense is lying?" The host asked him.

    • Techdirt ☛ Trump Makes It Very Clear They’re Going To Turn TikTok Into A Right Wing Propaganda Machine

      TikTok’s new owners will include Rupert Murdoch (responsible for creating Fox News, the most effective mass media right wing propaganda platform ever) and Trump bestie Larry Ellison, who is in the process of turning CBS News into basically the same thing via his nepo baby son and Bari Weiss.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Truthdig ☛ When Everyone Is 'Antifa,' No One Is Safe

    The United States has no laws to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations — a deliberate constitutional protection. The Trump administration’s September 2025 executive order, despite its dramatic language about designating antifa as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise,” doesn’t actually flip any legal switch. The Cato Institute notes the order primarily signals enforcement priorities rather than creating new crimes. It can direct surveillance resources, encourage financial subpoenas and coordinate interagency efforts, but it cannot formally designate a domestic movement as a terrorist organization.

  • The Verge ☛ Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia | The Verge

    Google appears to have blocked AI search results for the query “does trump show signs of dementia” as well as other questions about his mental acuity, even though it will show AI results for similar searches about other presidents.

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: How to ACT During Banned Books Week via Kelly Jensen

    Before I get too caught up in 31 Days of Horror, I wanted to make an addendum to this post I had last week: Getting Ready For Banned Books Week.

    If I have not made it clear to you already (and I think I have)-- all library workers should be speeding next week focused on ACTION STEPS. As I said in that post: [...]

  • RFERL ☛ Afghanistan Goes Dark As Taliban Imposes Nationwide Communications Blackout

    The Taliban has imposed a nationwide telecommunications shutdown in Afghanistan, cutting off Internet and mobile networks.

    The blackout has disrupted flights, banking, e-commerce, online jobs, and education, sparking chaos across the country.

  • El País ☛ Kremlin silences wives of soldiers deployed to the front, but some still raise their voices in protest

    Women can be a powerful force in Russia. Their protests to bring their men home helped bring peace in the First Chechen War. And they built the country up after World War II in countless homes without fathers, just mothers and grandmothers. On September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin decreed a massive mobilization to continue the offensive against Ukraine that had been launched a few months earlier. While men boarded buses and trains, women took to the streets. The threat of destabilization loomed over the Kremlin, but it ultimately calmed the storm with a campaign of pressure. Three years later, fear reigns among women, although some try to keep the protest alive.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Leh Curfew Eased for 4 Hours, Internet Ban Continues

    The officials said mobile [Internet] services continued to be suspended in Leh town, and prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons are still in force in other major parts of the Union Territory, including Kargil.

  • The North Lines IN ☛ Leh Curfew Eased for Seven Hours; Security Forces on Alert

    The curfew relaxation initially extended from 10 AM to 2 PM, later prolonged depending on emerging circumstances. The Additional District Magistrate in Leh, Ghulam Mohammed, permitted the opening of groceries, vegetable shops, hardware stores, and other essential services during the relaxation period. Mobile [Internet] services remain suspended, and prohibitory orders banning gatherings of five or more continue in other parts of the Union Territory, including Kargil.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Taliban's [Internet] shutdown in Afghanistan: What's at stake?

    Afghanistan's private TOLO news channel, quoting an unnamed official, told DW that one possibility in the near future would be for the Taliban to restrict mobile [Internet] access to a slow-speed 2G network, which would make it impossible to send anything other than text.

    TOLO also reported that the Taliban have given network operators a one-week deadline to shut down higher speed 3 and 4G mobile [Internet] services.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Afghanistan's Cellphone, Internet Services Down After Taliban Ordered Cut, Sources Say

    The Taliban have ordered [Internet] and mobile phone data services to be cut across Afghanistan, diplomatic and industry sources said on Tuesday, as residents and monitoring services reported no connectivity and disruption to flights and financial services.

  • CPJ ☛ CPJ calls on FCC chair to respect First Amendment rights, press freedom 

    “The Federal Communications Commission’s regulatory powers should not be used as a cudgel to punish voices that contradict the Trump administration’s narrative,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “This concerning abuse of authority threatens the First Amendment protections that the mechanisms of the federal government—including FCC Chairman Brendan Carr—should seek to protect, not undermine.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ UN experts warn of surging executions in Iran

    The UN experts wrote: “With an average of more than nine hangings per day in recent weeks, Iran appears to be conducting executions at an industrial scale that defies all accepted standards of human rights protection.”

  • Rik Huijzer ☛ Companies are Lying About AI Layoffs

    Companies are saying that the economy and AI are causing the large amount of tech layoffs, but Vanessa Wingårdh looked at the H-1B visa data and noticed that the companies are lying.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Edge cases in DNSSEC validation with multiple algorithms

    Guest Post: Investigating transition requirements for PQC DNSSEC.

  • American Library Association ☛ ALA disappointed by FCC takebacks, lack of due process in decision to end library hotspots, school bus Wi-Fi | ALA

    The FCC’s action overturns its 2024 order establishing hotspot lending programs for schools and libraries. These initiatives provided critical connectivity to millions of students and library patrons who lack reliable internet access at home.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Doc Searls ☛ On the Continuing End of OTA TV, Part 2

  The “affiliate model” is the current TV show distribution system. Simply put, networks (primarily ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS) sell programming to affiliates. Put another way, they wholesale it. In the business, payments by affiliates to networks for wholesaled programming is called reverse compensation. It’s “reverse,” because from the 1940s to the late 1990s, networks paid stations to carry programming. Now it’s the other way around. (I suppose the same applies to the lesser networks—ion, CW, Daystar, Bounce, Cozi, etc.—but nobody cares much about those. Stephen’s ice cube is mostly the “Big Four” commercial networks.

  Here is a table of major affiliate station owners: [...]

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ EcoFactor: Did the Federal Circuit Unconstitutionally Displace the Jury?

    Over the past couple of years, I have noticed increased willingness of the Federal Circuit to reject jury verdicts, especially in situations involving potentially inadequate expert testimony. This past summer, the Federal Circuit's en banc EcoFactor decision followed this pattern by overturning a $20 million jury verdict based upon flaws in the patentee's damages expert testimony. EcoFactor, Inc. v. Surveillance Giant Google LLC, 137 F.4th 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2025) (en banc). In my view, the decision did not alter any law associated with expert testimony, but rather served as a pointed reminder to district to rigorously scrutinize whether the expert's opinions are actually tied to sufficient facts in the record and whether the methodology is reliably applied to the specific circumstances of the case. But, this rigor has some potential of improperly overstepping into the jury's role as fact finder.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ OpenAI’s Sora 2 app lets users remix friends in short AI video clips

      If you think the internet was not yet entirely AI slop, OpenAI’s new Sora launch just might change your opinion. The company has unveiled Sora 2, its upgraded video-and-audio generation model, alongside a new iOS social app also called Sora.

      The app borrows heavily from TikTok’s short-video format but adds a twist: users can record short clips and let friends spin them into AI-generated cameos.

    • Dark Reading ☛ AI-Powered Voice Cloning Raises Vishing Risks

      As vishing becomes more frequently used amongst threat actors, researchers have discovered that AI-generated voice clones from as little as five minutes of recorded audio are well on the rise.