Leftovers

• Proprietary

  • Google ☛ Disrupting the World's Largest Residential Proxy Network

    This week Google and partners took action to disrupt what we believe is one of the largest residential proxy networks in the world, the IPIDEA proxy network. IPIDEA’s proxy infrastructure is a little-known component of the digital ecosystem leveraged by a wide array of bad actors.

  • Doc Searls ☛ Warm Takes

    That should be called personalized, because it's not yours. It's Google's.

  • Neocities ☛ Neocities Is Blocked by Bing

    Over the past few months, the Bing search engine has completely blocked the domain neocities.org, including the front site and all user subdomains (example.neocities.org), from its search index.

    This is not a partial demotion, a ranking issue, or a temporary crawl problem. The entire domain is completely excluded.

  • Stefano Marinelli ☛ Time Machine inside a FreeBSD jail - IT Notes

    Many of my clients do not use Microsoft systems on their desktops; they use Linux-based systems or, in some cases, FreeBSD. Many use Apple systems - macOS - and are generally satisfied with them. While I wash my hands of it when it comes to Microsoft systems (telling them they have to manage their desktops autonomously), I am often able to lend a hand with macOS. And one of the main requests they make is to manage the backups of their individual workstations.

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] What Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse U-turn means for the future of virtual reality

  • Ars Technica ☛ There’s a rash of scam spam coming from a real Microsoft address - Ars Technica

    Abusing Microsoft's reputation may make scam harder to spot.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft investors sweat cloud giant's OpenAI exposure

    It could have been a celebratory quarter, as Redmond saw profits surge 60 percent year over over (YoY) to $38.5 billion on revenues of $81.3 billion. But in question after question, analysts politely pressed CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood for assurances that Microsoft's lopsided reliance on AI model makers – and the massive capital expenditures required to serve them – wasn't going to come back to haunt the cloud giant.

    Of particular concern was the fact that 45 percent of Microsoft's $625 billion backlog was directly attributable to OpenAI.

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Responses to gpg.fail [LWN.net]

    At the 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) in December, researchers Lexi Groves ("49016") and Liam Wachter said that they had discovered a number of flaws in popular implementations of OpenPGP email-encryption standard. They also released an accompanying web site, gpg.fail, with descriptions of the discoveries. Most of those presented were found in GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), though the pair also discussed problems in age, Minisign, Sequoia, and the OpenPGP standard (RFC 9580) itself. The discoveries have spurred some interesting discussions and as well as responses from GPG and Sequoia developers.

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ NVIDIA security bulletin for January 2026 reveals new GPU driver security issues | GamingOnLinux

    NVIDIA today made public a fresh security bulletin to detail some more security issues discovered in the GPU drivers - here's the details.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Give a bit, they’ll take a megabyte: Data Protection Then and Now

      In 2000, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union enshrined data protection as a fundamental right. Stefano Rodotà, one of the author of the charter and a leading figure in European data protection law, explained this choice with the concept of habeas data. In his view, Information Technologies brought the need to extend the reach of constitutional rights to our ‘electronic body’, just as much as the habeas corpus, first enshrined in Magna Carta, protected the inviolability of the physical body against imprisonment and torture.

      This concept found its codification almost two decades later. In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed to the world that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been weaponising the American tech stack by conducting global mass surveillance programmes.

    • Papers Please ☛ OK legislators sue to block upload of state residents’ data to AAMVA’s national REAL-ID database – Papers, Please!

      Service Oklahoma, the agency that issues drivers licenses and state ID cards, plans an initial bulk upload of data about all Oklahomans to the SPEXS database over the Presidents’ Day weekend of February 14-16, 2026, unless the upload is blocked by the state Supreme Court or suspended or postponed by Service Oklahoma or Gov. Kevin Stitt.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ What AI “remembers” about you is privacy’s next frontier

      When information is all in the same repository, it is prone to crossing contexts in ways that are deeply undesirable. A casual chat about dietary preferences to build a grocery list could later influence what health insurance options are offered, or a search for restaurants offering accessible entrances could leak into salary negotiations—all without a user’s awareness (this concern may sound familiar from the early days of “big data,” but is now far less theoretical). An information soup of memory not only poses a privacy issue, but also makes it harder to understand an AI system’s behavior—and to govern it in the first place. So what can developers do to fix this problem?

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Senate judiciary presses for answers ahead of FISA deadline

      The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday on the 2024 law that revised the surveillance authorities known as Section 702, a part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Advocates have said that information collected under Section 702 — under which national security officials controversially can use U.S. citizens’ personal information to query a database for collection of their electronic communications with foreign targets without a warrant — accounts for 60% of the intelligence included in the President’s Daily Briefing.

    • Wired ☛ ICE Is Using Palantir’s AI Tools to Sort Through Tips

      The AI Enhanced ICE Tip Processing service is intended to help ICE investigators “to more quickly identify and action tips” for urgent cases, as well as translate submissions not made in English, according to the inventory. It also provides a “BLUF,” defined as a “high-level summary of the tip,” produced using at least one large language model. BLUF, or “bottom line up front,” is a military term that’s also used internally by some Palantir employees.

    • Sean Conner ☛ Notes on an overheard conversation while at the doctor's office

      “Hello! How are we doing today?”

    • CNN ☛ Alex Pretti was in earlier confrontation with federal agents who tackled him, broke his rib, sources say

      A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily assigned to the city asked them to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to correspondence reviewed by CNN.

    • NYOB ☛ noyb win: Microsoft ordered to stop tracking school children

      Second noyb win against Microsoft. In its most recent decision, the DSB has once again found that Microsoft acted unlawfully. To be specific, the company placed tracking cookies on the devices of a minor using Microsoft 365 Education. According to Microsoft’s own documentation, these cookies analyse user behaviour, collect browser data and are used for advertising. The DSB has additionally ordered Microsoft to cease tracking the complainant within four weeks. Both the school and the Austrian Ministry of Education claimed they were not aware of such tracking cookies prior to the noyb complaints.

      Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb: “Tracking minors clearly isn’t privacy-friendly. It seems like Microsoft doesn’t care much about privacy, unless it is for their marketing and PR statements.”

    • NYOB ☛ Data Protection Day: 5 misconceptions about data protection, debunked

      Ever since the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) came into force in 2018, people in the European Union have stronger privacy and data protection. However, the law is far from perfect – and big tech companies, industry lawyers and lobbyists made sure to use every tool in their arsenal to either circumvent GDPR provisions (by misinterpretation) or to influence the public opinion about the law so that consumer don’t blame them for violations, but the GDPR itself. Over the past few years, this has led to a number of misconceptions about data protection and the GDPR in particular. Therefore, in honour of this year’s Data Protection Day, noyb is clearing up 5 of the most common misconceptions.

    • Techdirt ☛ TikTok Already Getting Shittier Under The Ownership Of Trump’s Billionaire Buddies

      With the paperwork on the “new U.S. TikTok” barely even dry, the company is already informing users that it will be collecting more location data than ever: [...]

    • Ludlow Institute ☛ ChatGPT Basically Told Me "Privacy Is For Criminals."

      But even if you do have a cell number, there are many reasons not to hand it over. In my newsletter I mentioned how a phone number is a powerful unique identifier. We are trained to give it to almost everyone, which makes it trivial for data brokers and breach harvesters to link together our accounts, movements, and behavior across the [Internet].

      Today’s newsletter is about an alarming thing happened in the process of writing that last one.

      As part of my usual workflow, I ran the draft through an AI tool to check for typos, grammar, and phrasing. I often use AI for this, in this case ChatGPT. It is far more capable than a basic spell checker. It can tell the difference between diffuse and defuse, affect and effect, foment and ferment, and then automatically formats it for me with the right sized headings etc.

      But instead of a check for typos, the AI censored me.

  • Confidentiality

    • Scoop News Group ☛ If you don’t control your keys, you don’t control your data

      A recent Forbes investigation revealed that Microsoft has allegedly been handing over Bitlocker encryption recovery keys to law enforcement when served with warrants. Microsoft says it receives about 20 such requests annually. Taken narrowly, this may appear to be a routine case of lawful compliance. On closer inspection, it raises a consequential question about how modern digital systems are designed and who ultimately controls the data they hold.

      The essence of the debate centers on data sovereignty, or whether individuals and organizations truly control their own data, or whether that control can be involuntarily transferred because of architectural choices made by technology providers.

    • Nicolas Mattia ☛ Accessing LUKS and ext4 drives from macOS

      Unfortunately ext4 and LUKS are not supported natively by macOS so accessing the data from a Mac requires extra tooling. I’ve aimed for a lightweight and minimal, mostly stateless solution; this in turn should make it reliable and future-proof (I’ll report back in ten years from now). To minimize the risk of bit-rot, the only dependency beyond stock macOS is (the amazing) QEMU.

      In the next section I’ll outline the solution, then walk through the actual playbook I use when accessing those pesky Linux drives from a Mac. In the final section we’ll wrap up by looking at some issues with the playbook and possible improvements. Let’s go!

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Nation ☛ The People Are Winning the Battle Against ICE

    The brave protesters in Minneapolis are doing everything that Democrats and even the law have failed to do.

  • Vox ☛ Supreme Court will decide if only Republicans are allowed to gerrymander, in Tangipa v. Newsom

    But no competent lawyer, and certainly no reasonable judge, could conclude both that the Texas gerrymander is lawful and that the California maps are an illegal racial gerrymander. Tangipa, in other words, is a test of the Republican justices’ honesty. If they actually believe what they said in the Texas case, which is known as Abbott v. LULAC, they will deny the Republican Party’s attempt to undo California’s gerrymander.

    Alternatively, if they rule in favor of this challenge, it will remove any doubt that this Court is trying to rig the game to benefit the Republican Party.

  • TruthOut ☛ New US TikTok Spinoff Will Be Controlled by Trump-Aligned Billionaires

    Trump-aligned tech barons are now set to control nearly all major US social media platforms.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Minnesota is the Beginning of an American Color Revolution

    A little background: a “color revolution” is a widely used term for the nonviolent uprisings that overthrew some of the autocratic regimes that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most famous of these uprisings was the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought democracy to Ukraine. Ukrainian democracy has had its ups and downs since then, but it’s still standing — and still standing up to Russia’s brutal attempts at conquest.

    Early in the second Trump administration it was clear that something like a color revolution was the only way to reverse the destruction of American democracy. Empowered by a corrupt Supreme Court that gave him blanket immunity and unconstitutional powers, fueled by a tidal wave of billionaire money, and abetted by a sycophantic Republican party, Trump was able to steamroll any opposition. Elites and elite institutions, from big corporations to law firms to many universities, capitulated without a fight.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Crisis, No. 7

    I must apologize for berating a subject, but I must return to the topic of Bari Weiss. In particular, her intrepid media venture, The Free Press, for which friends of the fascist regime rewarded her with $150 million, as a token of thanks for her efforts to give their constructed false reality narratives the presumption of validity vis-à-vis the reports from reality that professional journalists otherwise produce.

    I think we should look past all the pretense and see what the The Free Press is and who funds it. And why.

  • Marisa Kabas ☛ Crackdown

    The people of Minnesota, the rest of the country has learned these past few weeks, just keep coming back. Their relentlessness offers a blueprint for how to react when ICE inevitably arrives somewhere new to stir up trouble where there was none; how to look violence dead in the eye and say not in my town; how to provide aid laterally when you know those at the top won’t be passing any down.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Carney isn’t a hero (and that’s OK)

    The seven Dems who voted to fund ICE knew that they were doing something that would be wildly unpopular with the voters who sent them to DC, but they did it anyway, because they aren't afraid of those voters. They treat their voters as ambulatory wallets to be terrorized into donating small sums via relentless text messages about the impending end of democracy in America, even as they vote for the impending end of democracy in America.

    These seven lawmakers don't just need to be primaried: they need to be made an example of. Their names must be a curse. They must be confronted in public – long after they are out of office – by voters brandishing pictures of the people ICE murdered after receiving the funds they voted for. They must be haunted for this decision for the rest of their days. As Voltaire said, "Sometimes you must execute an admiral to encourage the others."

    Here are their names: [...]

  • [Repeat] Defence Web ☛ Could Mali fall to terrorists?

    Although the junta tries to project strength and support in Bamako with rallies and media suppression, the countryside continues to slip beyond its reach. JNIM and the Islamic State group’s affiliate in the Sahel enjoy relatively free rein throughout vast lands with lucrative gold reserves and smuggling routes.

    Today, more than 70% of Mali is either controlled or contested by terrorist groups. Nearly 2 million Malians are displaced, farming has collapsed, secular schools have been shuttered outside urban areas, and girls’ education has stopped completely in much of the country. A senior employee of a humanitarian group in Bamako warned that the country is undergoing a “slow-motion Talibanization.”

  • New Statesman ☛ Millionaires of the world, unite!

    But this isn’t just a story about money: it’s about who gets to decide how the world works.

    A tiny minority of people now control a huge share of society’s wealth – and they’re using it to fragment our democracies, our communities and our futures. Wealth is no longer about worth, it’s about control. That’s why billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than other people. Even wealthy people like me recognise the dangers of this increasing concentration of money and power.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ TikTok settles amid looming social media addiction trial

    Snap also settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

    Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed.

  • France24 ☛ TikTok settles landmark social media addiction lawsuit ahead of trial

    TikTok has agreed to settle a major lawsuit claiming its platform deliberately addicted and harmed children, just days before the trial was set to begin. The case, which also involves Meta’s Instagram, Google’s YouTube and Snap, could influence hundreds of similar lawsuits targeting social media companies over youth mental health and safety.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ TikTok’s new ownership structure doesn’t solve security concerns for Americans

    Plus, the Chinese parent company ByteDance will retain control over the TikTok algorithm, leaving the door open to possible manipulation by the Chinese government of what shows up in Americans’ feeds.

  • The Walrus ☛ Is Canada Ready for an American Civil War?

    But unlike Edmonton or Winnipeg, Minneapolis is under siege, its people targeted because they are Democrats. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs Border Protection (CBP) have become the president’s private militia, which he is using to send a message to a blue state that has refused to vote for him. Under the guise of what the Trump administration is calling “law enforcement,” a radical movement toward totalitarianism in America is playing out before our eyes.

  • Futurism ☛ Even Palantir Staff Are Now Disgusted With ICE

    Palantir and ICE have deep ties. A 404 Media scoop from earlier this month, for example, described how Palantir was secretly providing ICE a tracking tool called “ELITE” to scour Medicaid data and other government sources to create a map of people it could potentially deport, generating a dossier for each person that included where they live. Palantir was also awarded a $30 million contract to build ICE an “ImmigrationOS” to provide “near real-time visibility” on people self-deporting from the country, and also worked on updating the agency’s database so it could “complete target analysis of known populations.”

  • The Atlantic ☛ Policing in the Age of Open Carry

    Judging from the video evidence and news reports, this is what seems to have taken place: The Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti carried his loaded, concealed 9-mm handgun to a protest against the ICE agents. He had no criminal record, and a permit to carry the gun. Holding only a phone when an agent moved in to make an arrest, he was pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground. Then, as federal agents wrestled him into submission, Pretti’s coat rode up and his holstered gun came into view. It set off panicked screams of “Gun!” among the agents. One of them reached in and removed the pistol from Pretti’s waistband; another then drew his own pistol and shot Pretti in the back. Pretti died in the street never having touched his gun. He had been disarmed before the first shot was even fired.

  • [Old] SR ☛ Mobile phones to be banned in Swedish schools — even during recess

    The ban is for classes as well as breaks and after-school activities.

  • Reuters ☛ EU Commission to open proceedings against Grok on Monday, reports Handelsblatt

    The EU Commission will open proceedings against Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok under the Digital Services Act on Monday, Germany's Handelsblatt reported on Monday, citing three high-ranking EU officials.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Amid Trump’s ‘Antifa’ Crackdown, Refuse Fascism Faces Challenges

    For one, while No Kings’ turnout was impressive, its somewhat hazy goals — electing more Democrats in the 2026 midterms, promoting future rallies — struck some as insufficient. Refuse Fascism, on the other hand, has a clear, easily articulated aim, which is chanted by the attendees today and plastered everywhere, including the orange T-shirts Taylor and most of the group’s volunteers wear: “Trump Must Go Now!” Today’s events are a launch for what Refuse Fascism’s leaders envision as a persistent siege of the nation’s capital featuring near-daily protests, which they hope will create a political earthquake that leads to Trump’s impeachment, resignation, or removal via the 25th Amendment.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Bruce Springsteen Responds to Minneapolis Killings With Protest Song

    Prior to Pretti’s death, Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the Light of Day benefit in Red Bank, New Jersey, where he denounced ICE and the senseless killing of Renee Good. “If you believe in the power of law and that no one stands above it,” he said, “if you stand against heavily-armed masked federal troops invading an American city, using gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens, if you believe you don’t deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest, then send a message to this president, as the mayor of the city said: ICE should get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

• Environment

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft plans more server farms, despite water worries

    The technology giant has been given approval to build 15 more server farms at Mount Pleasant in Wisconsin, reports say, near its existing AI datacenter campus, which Microsoft has said is on track to come online in 2026 and has billed as "the world's most powerful AI datacenter."

  • Wired ☛ Data Centers Are Driving a US Gas Boom

    The findings from Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco–based nonprofit that tracks oil and gas developments, come as the Trump administration is both encouraging data center build-out and doing away with pollution regulations on power plants and oil and gas extraction. They will also almost certainly mean an increase in US greenhouse gas emissions, even if some of the projects tracked by Global Energy Monitor never get built.

  • Futurism ☛ Earth's Lower Orbit Could Rapidly Collapse, Scientists Warn, Raining Deadly Missiles Onto Planet Below

    With satellites and space junk increasingly cluttering our planet’s low Earth orbit, a team of scientists warn that this entire region could suddenly collapse into a destructive maelstrom of swirling debris, posing a threat to any spacecraft that dares to venture up there, and hurling dangerous missiles of space junk down onto our planet below.

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Chides “Environmental Insurrectionists” in False Claims About Extreme Cold

    Climate scientists have noted that Trump’s claims on the storm are not based in science, as warmer global temperatures — especially those in the Arctic — can actually result in weather phenomena like the polar vortex.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Conversation ☛ 2026-01-19 [Older] The next generation of driverless cars will have to think about what’s on the road, not just see it

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Conversation ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Some dogs can pick up hundreds of words – do they learn like children?

    • Naz Hamid ☛ Chasm Lake, Again

      9 miles, 2545 ft of elevation gain, and smiles for miles.

• Finance

  • Hackaday ☛ The Fancy Payment Cards Of Taiwan

    Generally, most of us get by using payment cards linked directly to our main banking accounts. However, if you happen to find yourself in Taiwan, you might find the iPASS to be a very useful tool indeed. You can load it once with a bunch of money, and then run around on buses and trains while buying yourself snacks and beverages all over town. Plus, if you buy the floppy disk one, you’ll have an awesome souvenir to bring back with you, and you can entertain all your payment-card-obsessed friends with tales of your adventures. All in all, the banking heavyweights of the world would do well to learn from the whimsical example of the iPASS Corporation.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Patreon is lying again, and blaming Apple, again.

    Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it.

    Here's what I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago and then chickened out: [...]

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Citizen Lab ☛ Want the Federal Government to Hear Your Thoughts on AI?: New Consultation Launched

    Citizen Lab senior fellow Cynthia Khoo spoke with the CBC about the People’s Consultation on AI, launched by a civil society coalition last week in response to the federal government’s “national sprint” on AI. The independent initiative decries the short timeline of the “mad 30-day rush” to inform national policy and its overreliance on industry opinion.

  • Court House News ☛ Former Google engineer challenges claims of stealing AI trade secrets

    The federal government claims Ding began transferring files in May 2022, copying information from internal Google documents to the notes application on his company-issued laptop, converting the notes to PDFs and uploading them to a personal cloud account.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Amazon lays off 16,000 employees to prioritize growth areas

    On Tuesday, Amazon announced plans to shutter 72 retail stores that operate under its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh brands. A limited number of venues will reopen as Whole Foods locations. Amazon will also stop selling its Amazon One system, a palm print scanner that retailers can use to process payments in cashierless stores.

  • Politico ☛ France to ban officials from US video tools including Zoom, Teams

    The notice will be published “in the next few days,” a spokesperson from Dinum said.

    That follows an announcement on Sunday by the Minister for State Reform David Amiel that France would target the adoption of a home-grown videoconferencing platform by 2027.

  • Computer World ☛ French authorities to ban Teams, Zoom, other video apps for gov't use – Computerworld

    France plans to phase out American video conferencing services such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams within government agencies and replace them with its own proprietary tool, Visio. The goal is to strengthen security and protect confidentiality in public communications by reducing dependence on non-European solutions.

  • Michael Geist ☛ Government Reveals Digital Policy Priorities in Trio of Responses to Canadian Heritage Committee Reports

    The Canadian government has responded to three reports focused on digital policies from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, shedding new light on potential future policies and priorities. The three reports – on tech giants, local media, and harms caused by illegal sexually explicit materials posted online – recommended a wide range of measures that include new laws, regulations, and government programs. The government sidesteps some of the recommended legislative reforms in its responses signed by Heritage Minister Marc Miller, suggesting limited interest in committing to broad-based platform liability rules.

    The response to a study on “tech giants’ intimidation and subversion tactics to evade regulation in Canada and globally” is a case in point (I appeared before the committee on the study and yes, that was the real title of the study). The committee’s lead recommendation was: [...]

  • Tech Policy Press ☛ The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack

    Ironically, both strategies may increase dependency, limit government agency and increase economic and geopolitical risks — the very problems sovereignty seeks to solve. As Mike Bracken and I wrote earlier this year: "Domination by a local champion, free to extract rents, may be a path to greater autonomy, but it is unlikely to lead to increased competitiveness or greater global influence."

    Any realistic path to increased agency will be expensive and take years. To be sustainable, it must focus on commoditizing existing solutions through interoperability and de facto standards that will broaden the market (and enable effective) national champions. This should be our north star and direction of travel. The metric for success should focus on making it as simple as possible to move data and applications across suppliers. Critically, this cannot be achieved by regulation alone, it will also require deft procurement and a willingness to accept de facto as opposed to ideal standards. The good news is governments have done this before. However, to succeed, it will require building the capacity to become market shapers and not market takers — thinking like electricity grids and railway gauges, not digital empires.

  • Andrew Nesbitt ☛ The Dependency Layer in Digital Sovereignty

    David Eaves recently argued that the path to tech sovereignty runs through commodification, not duplication. Europe shouldn’t try to build its own AWS. Instead, governments should use procurement power to enforce interoperability standards. The S3 API became a de facto standard that lets you move between providers, reducing switching costs. If governments required that kind of compatibility as a condition for contracts, smaller providers could compete. Sovereignty through standards rather than state-owned infrastructure.

    The same logic applies to the software supply chain, though that layer gets less attention in sovereignty discussions than cloud and storage.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • TruthOut ☛ So-Called “Intellectual Freedom Centers” Spread Right-Wing Ideologies on Campus | Truthout

      The centers are at the forefront of campus culture wars about “viewpoint diversity,” a term used by Republicans and the Trump administration to decry higher education’s perceived lack of conservative voices. Some of the same supposed pro-free speech groups, donors, and legislators championing these centers simultaneously cheer on the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and rail against critical race theory.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ The Staircase of Oppression

    The determination to crush this resistance fuels the next step up the staircase. In America, the government has not fully taken this next step, but it is clear that many in the administration would like to. Opposition has been formally classified as domestic terrorism. Government databases of protesters are being built. The FBI has opened an investigation into the Signal chats that activists use to follow ICE agents. All of these things are flirtations with criminalizing activism.

    If this step is taken in earnest, you can expect to see arrests and prosecutions of protest organizers and activist leaders; aggressive mass arrests of street protesters; and even more outright violence used by police to crush protest actions. Activists will be treated as criminals and targeted and sent to jail. The circle of government oppression, which started out by including immigrants and minorities, will be expanded to include regular people who take action to stop that oppression. The criminalization of protest—justified by the argument that impeding law enforcement is itself a serious crime—gets us much closer to real authoritarianism.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ DMs Mentioning Jeffrey Epstein Were Blocked on TikTok, Worrying Users

    Besides the data center troubles and the still unexplained blocking of the Epstein DMs, TikTok USDS has faced scrutiny for the terms of its user agreement. After the U.S. takeover, American users were prompted to sign amended policy guidelines that reflected the venture’s broadened power to collect data from customers, including “precise” GPS location and data from user interactions with TikTok’s AI tools. This language raised alarm bells from activists who warned that the app could theoretically be used to track the movements of protesters, though the GPS feature has reportedly not yet been enabled and is expected to be opt-in only.

  • Allbritton Journalism Institute ☛ Democrats Are Taking Claims of Anti-Trump Censorship on TikTok Seriously

    On Sunday, the day after Alex Pretti was fatally shot during the Trump administration’s immigration offensive in Minnesota, TikTok users began reporting that videos mentioning the words “ICE,” “Epstein,” “Israel” and “Trump” from accounts with large followings were getting zero views hours after posting. They also reported that messages containing words such as “Epstein” would not reach their recipient. The social media giant blamed technical glitches, but by Monday, Democrats were threatening at least one investigation and renewing their calls for more regulation of social media platforms.

  • Human rights Activists News Agency ☛ Thirty-First Day Since the Start of the Protests; Continued Internet Blackout, First Court Hearing Held

    Following the aftermath of the protests, the “digital blackout” and severe restrictions on [Internet] access continue to be reported as one of the main axes of controlling and managing the public sphere. NetBlocks data indicate the continuation of a restricted, “whitelist-based” situation; such that even in cases where some networks have become “globally visible,” this does not mean a return to normal [Internet] access, and public connectivity remains blocked or highly unstable. Within this framework, reports have emerged of entering the nineteenth day of a “complete [Internet] shutdown,” alongside the formation of quota-based access mechanisms for certain groups. Among these, holders of commercial cards have reportedly been granted only limited and short-term access (approximately 20 minutes per day) at chambers of commerce and under supervision, a situation that effectively transforms the [Internet] from a public service into a security-administrative privilege.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ Iran: 3 journalists arrested as news trickles out under [Internet] shutdown

    Iran is experiencing the bloodiest crackdown since the 1979 revolution, after December 28 demonstrations over economic grievances expanded into nationwide protests.

  • CPJ ☛ Turkey’s most frequently arrested reporter, Furkan Karabay, under house arrest

    “Turkish authorities keep arresting Furkan Karabay — once every year since 2023 — for reasons directly linked to his professional work,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “This vengeance is a cautionary tale for critical journalists. The authorities should free Karabay without delay and let all journalists do their jobs without fear of retaliation.”

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Where Is the Off-Ramp From All This State Violence?

    Set aside the fact that this rhetoric determines the pace of reporting within the MAGA-aligned media ecosystem, which includes Fox News. It’s possible that the self-evident lies about moral atrocities help build a perverse kind of political community. Lying blatantly to the public, then daring the faithful to show their fealty by genuflecting before the leaders’ traducing of the truth, is a way of reinforcing a political identity. Performative violence that echoes actual brutality may be a particularly effective, even supercharged, way to reaffirm and deepen the political bonds that make brutalization an attractive political strategy in the first place. In effect, it sends the message that certain people are so deserving of hate that even in death they do not warrant the truth.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Here's how to constrain ICE

    True, but the whole point here is leverage. Democrats never voted for the Big Ugly in the first place. This is their one opportunity to constrain ICE.

    The only way ICE should get any funding is if its agents are (1) prohibited from carrying and using firearms, stun guns, tear gas, pepper spray, or any other potentially lethal or injurious weapon or chemical; (2) required to get warrants before searching homes or automobiles or places of work or worship; (3) clearly identified with their vehicles clearly identified; (4) prohibited from making stops or arrests based on someone’s appearance.

  • The Next Move ☛ Blind Spots - by Jay Nordlinger - The Next Move

    Instead, there is excuse after excuse for Vladimir Putin, and considerable admiration. “He is a defender of Christian civilization,” many say. That defames both Christianity and civilization.

    Let me try something out on you—see what you think. Today, the peoples of Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran are lucky in one respect, and one respect only: they live in dictatorships opposed by the Trump administration.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Islamic Republic’s Predatory Contract With Its People

    Our national slogans will be “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” never “Long Live Iran.” As Khomeini once put it, “Patriots are useless to us. We need Muslims. Islam is opposed to patriotism.” While we chant these slogans, we will send our own children to study in the West.

    We will treat half the population as second-class citizens. If you are a woman, your testimony in court will be worth half that of a man’s, and your inheritance will be half that of your brother’s. We will make a piece of cloth—the hijab—the primary symbol of our state’s authority, and we will beat you to death in detention centers for wearing it “improperly.”

  • The Walrus ☛ Is It Dangerous to Let Kids Be Free?

    In early 2017, he decided to opt out. He gave his kids lessons on transit safety and did a few trial runs, with him sitting at the back of the bus, silently observing them. Then he let them do the trip on their own. They returned from school triumphant. Crook was elated too. “Kids feel empowered when they get to navigate the world,” he says. At last, he had his workdays back.

    His victory was short lived. In the spring of 2017, Crook got a call from a social worker with BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development. Somebody had spotted his kids on the bus and notified the department, triggering an investigation. The ministry’s view was that children under ten should be watched by someone at least twelve years old. In late April, Crook sat down in his living room with a government-appointed social worker, who assailed him with questions: Why wasn’t he with his kids? Couldn’t he drive them to school? Did he really think a seven-year-old was safe riding the bus without an adult?

  • Futurism ☛ Doctor Says What Border Patrol Agents Did After Shooting Alex Pretti Was Sickening

    A doctor who witnessed the brutal shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents says that the agents didn’t even bother trying to save the victim’s life as he bled out on the ground — because they were too busy counting the bullet wounds.

  • France24 ☛ ‘We are just not stopping’: How Minnesotans turned the tables on ICE - France 24

    By holding these faceless agents fixed in a smartphone’s unflinching eye, many of those mobilising on the streets of Minneapolis and Saint Paul hope to one day hold their agencies accountable for their actions.

  • Futurism ☛ Google Staffers Terrified of ICE After Attempt to Force Entry Into Company Building

    In a response to internal concerns about what Google’s senior leadership was doing to keep its employees safe, the company’s head of security and risk operations reportedly said that an “officer arrived at reception without notice,” attempting to gain entry. Ultimately, the agent was “not granted entry because they did not have a warrant, and promptly left.”

  • New Yorker ☛ Minneapolis Is Standing Up for America

    “Stand up for America,” Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, implored on Saturday, after federal agents shot to death another one of his constituents. “Recognize that your children will ask you what side you were on. Your grandchildren will ask you what you did to act to prevent this from happening again—to make sure that the foundational elements of our democracy were rock solid. What did you do to protect your city? What did you do to protect your nation?”

  • TruthOut ☛ House Democrat Says Abolishing ICE Isn’t Enough — DHS Must Go, Too

    “The officer who shot Alex worked for DHS for 8 years. The officer who shot Renee worked for DHS for over 10 years. Both are considered ‘highly trained,’” Ramirez wrote. “The problem isn’t ‘training.’ DHS was built to violate our rights and has been empowered to act with impunity.”

  • Truthdig ☛ The Gutting of the National Park Service

    This sudden hollowing out of institutional knowledge, Sams said during an interview at his kitchen table, was the most pernicious aspect of the attack on the park service — one that cannot be easily righted. “It’s the biggest tragedy I see,” he said.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Kash Patel investigates Signal groups warning about ICE

    Civil liberties advocates pushed back hard. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said groups have "legitimate reasons" to share lawfully obtained information, including enabling public accountability of law enforcement. The Knight First Amendment Institute pointed out that citizens have constitutional protections to record and document official activities. Critics argued Patel's framing of "balancing" First Amendment rights against federal law fundamentally misunderstands the Constitution — it takes precedence over government interests in suppressing disfavored speech.

  • NBC ☛ FBI investigating MN Signal groups tracking ICE, Patel says

    The investigation quickly drew skepticism from free speech advocates who said the First Amendment protects members of the public who share legally obtained information, such as the names of federal agents or where they are conducting enforcement operations.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Trump Says 'You Can't Have Guns' in Wake of Alex Pretti Killing

    On Saturday, ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who was legally carrying a gun before federal law enforcement swarmed him on the street, disarmed him, and then shot him repeatedly. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security posted an image of Pretti’s gun on a car seat, claiming he intended to “massacre law enforcement.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti a “would-be assassin.” FBI Director Kash Patel said, falsely, on Fox News the following morning, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.”

    Pretti carrying a gun on the streets of Minneapolis was entirely legal, with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirming he held a valid permit to carry in public. The Trump administration has been scrambling, largely unsuccessfully, to defend ICE against widespread backlash to the killing, and given the abundance of video appearing to demonstrate an egregious miscarriage of justice, officials grasped at the gun as a way to pin the blame on Pretti.

  • YLE ☛ Children's Ombudsman says East African disciplinary institutes are no secret

    Concerns about the practice are, however, not new. Already in 2010, the Finnish League for Human Rights published a report warning that children were being sent to such facilities. The issue was raised again in 2017 by Pekkarinen's predecessor, Tuomas Kurttila.

    "Last summer, the foreign ministry also organised a roundtable discussion on this subject," Pekkarinen noted.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Alex Pretti Was the Type of American Country Singers Love to Valorize

    I wish I could talk about all of that here, and it’s my personal opinion that these are issues of morality and not politics — so therefore the country music community should have been speaking out en masse ages ago. But because Alex Pretti was a nurse at the VA — someone who served injured and sick veterans directly — I want to talk about why country music, which prides itself on serving and honoring soldiers, veterans, and military families and has a longstanding relationship with military service, has remained mostly silent.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Starlink hype vs reality in South Africa

    But here’s what’s puzzling: OneWeb’s LEO services are already operational in South Africa through partnerships with Paratus, Q-KON Africa and others. Amazon Leo (previously Project Kuiper) is preparing to launch here, too. Yet these services generate minimal public interest. The hype surrounding Starlink has overshadowed a more fundamental question: what is the actual addressable market, and who really needs this service?

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Hidde de Vries ☛ I'm back to building my own digital music collection

    With streaming services, as long as you pay monthly, you'll have music. I've really loved being able to listen to anything I could ever wish for, unlimited. But more choice isn't necessarily better, and changes in the choice are out of your control. Artists could pull out, and have good reasons too, as they aren't paid well given they provide the main product.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Neil Young gives Greenlanders a key to 'Our House' and more

    Greenlanders who take him up on his offer can renew for free annually as long as they stay put on the island. Young’s team will need cellphone numbers with the Greenland country code: 299.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Walled Culture ☛ Wikipedia at 25 grapples with new challenges arising from generative AI

    That’s testimony to the global nature of Wikipedia. But there’s something else, not mentioned there, that is of great relevance to this blog: the fact that every one of those 65 million articles is made available under a generous licence – the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence, to be precise. That means sharing and re-use are encouraged, in contrast to most material online, where copyright is fiercely enforced. Wikipedia is living proof that giving away things by relying on volunteers and donations – the “true fans” approach – works, and on a massive scale. Anil Dash puts it well in a post celebrating Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary: [...]

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Aylo Wins $90 Million Default Judgment Against Porn Piracy Network

    Adult entertainment conglomerate Aylo has won a $90 million default judgment against a large piracy ring in a Washington federal court. Recouping these damages will be a challenge because the owner of the sites was not located. For Aylo, however, the main priority is to use the court's judgment to seize control of the associated domain names of 'Freshporno,' 'Kojka', 'PornHeal', and others.