Leftovers

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Early Mars was warm and wet not icy, suggests latest research

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Snowball Earth wasn’t fully frozen: ice-free oases sheltered early life

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Why are safety concerns being raised inside Porton Down, Britain’s nerve centre of chemical and biological research?

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Pink noise: what is it and can listening to it make your sleep worse?

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Replacing humans with machines is leaving truckloads of food stranded and unusable

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Why I’m building an office out of straw

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-09 [Older] Autistic people seem to feel joy differently – here’s what it can tell us about neurodivergence

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Does the cold really ‘seep into your bones’?

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ AI Data Centers Are Now Spiking Hard Drive Prices

      While Western Digital hard drives will remain on the shelves for now, prices could soon follow the footsteps of RAM and graphical processing units as the hype surrounding generative AI continues to dominate markets — and terrify investors.

    • PC World ☛ Western Digital is out of hard drives, because AI (of course)

      Yes, hard drives. Spinning disks that hold ones and zeroes. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a PC on a shelf that defaulted to hard drive storage—they’re really only relevant for consumers who have to store multiple terabytes of data. But “AI” models need to hold lots of data, too, which is why Western Digital is now out of hard drives for the rest of the year. “We’re pretty much sold out for calendar year 2026,” said CEO Irving Tan in the company’s latest earnings report.

    • The Atlantic ☛ AI Agents Are Taking America by Storm

      Some programmers have started to warn that similar advances could cannibalize all kinds of knowledge work. Last week, Matt Shumer, the CEO of an AI company, compared the current moment in AI to the early days of COVID, when most Americans were still oblivious to the imminent pandemic. “Making AI great at coding was the strategy that unlocks everything else,” wrote Shumer. “The experience that tech workers have had over the past year, of watching AI go from ‘helpful tool’ to ‘does my job better than I do’, is the experience everyone else is about to have.” (His essay, which has upwards of 80 million views, was partially AI generated.)

    • Margaret-Anne Storey ☛ How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt

      Cognitive debt is likely a much bigger threat than technical debt, as AI and agents are adopted. Peter Naur reminded us some decades ago that a program is more than its source code. Rather a program is a theory that lives in the minds of the developer(s) capturing what the program does, how developer intentions are implemented, and how the program can be changed over time. Usually this theory is not just in the minds of one developer but fragments of this theory are distributed across the minds of many, if not thousands, of other developers.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Side-Channel Attacks Against LLMs

      Here are three papers describing different side-channel attacks against LLMs.

    • Joshua Blais ☛ A Pursuit of Mastery

      I don’t want to live in a world where everything is outsourced, handed to the lowest bidder while I have no idea about the systems that I use, the food that I eat, the religion I participate in, the house I live in.

      So, I am going all in.

    • Eric Bailey ☛ Here’s how to instruct a LLM to reference the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide

      Say you’re working with a LLM and training it to write good frontend code. Good frontend code is accessible code, so of course you want to instruct the LLM to produce it.

      However, the bulk of frontend code on the web is inaccessible to some degree. Also know here that LLMs are trained on the majority of the world’s frontend code. Similarly, many contemporary LLM-friendly UI libraries claim to be accessible, but may have varying degrees of support when manually evaluated.

      The deck is a bit stacked, folks.

    • Dan MacKinlay ☛ Evolution strategies

      ES (Evolution Strategies) is a relatively generic optimization method, but let’s talk about it in terms of neural networks, because that is what I’m thinking about, and also what the elderly literature needs updating for.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ The obnoxious GitHub OpenClaw AI bot is … a [cryptocurrenccy] bro

      As well as gullible journalists, a lot of ordinary posters — who really should know better — talked about how foreboding it was that a chatbot could do this — of its own accord! Frightening! Ominous!

      You and I know this was really obviously not some sort of rogue bot — it was a rogue human. They might even be running some sort of scam.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ The AI Scare Trade — the all-purpose excuse for number go down

      AI turns out to be a great all-purpose excuse for any business number going down. After the software companies went down, the market, which is usually on crack, went looking for something else to panic about. This is now called the “AI Scare Trade.”

      Commercial real estate stocks took a big dip last Thursday 12 February — one day after the “SaaSpocalypse” — and they’re trying to blame AI: [...]

    • The Register UK ☛ Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is boring and dangerous

      Semantic ablation is the algorithmic erosion of high-entropy information. Technically, it is not a "bug" but a structural byproduct of greedy decoding and RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback).

      During "refinement," the model gravitates toward the center of the Gaussian distribution, discarding "tail" data – the rare, precise, and complex tokens – to maximize statistical probability. Developers have exacerbated this through aggressive "safety" and "helpfulness" tuning, which deliberately penalizes unconventional linguistic friction. It is a silent, unauthorized amputation of intent, where the pursuit of low-perplexity output results in the total destruction of unique signal.

    • 404 Media ☛ Ars Technica Pulls Article With AI Fabricated Quotes About AI Generated Article

      The Conde Nast-owned tech publication Ars Technica has retracted an article that contained fabricated, AI-generated quotes, according to an editor’s note posted to its website.

    • Socket Inc ☛ AI Agent Lands PRs in Major OSS Projects, Targets Maintainers via Cold Outreach

      The message Nolan received was authenticated (DKIM and SPF passed) and appears to have been sent via Gmail, with the sending client identifying as "Mac-mini" in the Received chain, which is consistent with someone running agent infrastructure on consumer hardware.

      The pattern is eerily reminiscent of how the xz-utils supply chain attack began, and the security community is still on high alert after that incident nearly succeeded.

    • The Register UK ☛ European Parliament bars lawmakers from using AI tools

      The European Parliament has reportedly turned off AI features on lawmakers' devices amid concerns about content going where it shouldn't.

      According to Politico, staff were notified that AI features on corporate devices (including tablets) were disabled because the IT department could not guarantee data security.

      The bone of contention is that some AI assistants require the use of cloud services to perform tasks including email summarization, and so send the data off the device – a challenge for data protection.

  • Social Control Media

    • BIA Net ☛ Seventeen adult content creators formally arrested for 'laundering OnlyFans income'

      Seventeen people were formally arrested today over allegations of laundering income earned from the adult content platform OnlyFans, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has announced.

    • International Business Times ☛ Is Facebook Messenger App Getting Phased Out? More Than 900 Million Users Could Lose Their Access - Here's What We Know

      Despite sensational claims that more than 900 million people could lose access, Meta's changes do not shut down the Messenger service itself. Rather, they phase out specific ways of accessing it. Mobile users on iOS and Android will still be able to send and receive messages through the Messenger mobile app, and desktop users can continue chatting via facebook.com/messages.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Amazon Scraps Partnership With Surveillance Company After Super Bowl Ad Backlash

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] The Surveillance State Just Bought a Super Bowl Ad

    • TruthOut ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Protesters Demand Amazon Cut Ties With ICE and Palantir

    • EFF ☛ EFF to Wisconsin Legislature: VPN Bans Are Still a Terrible Idea

      Wisconsin’s S.B. 130 / A.B. 105 is a spectacularly bad idea.

      It’s an age-verification bill that effectively bans VPN access to certain websites for Wisconsinites and censors lawful speech. We wrote about it last November in our blog “Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They're Doing,” but since then, the bill has passed the State Assembly and is scheduled for a vote in the State Senate tomorrow.

    • EFF ☛ EFF letter re: WI S.B. 130 / A.B. 105 [PDF]

    • Ludlow Institute ☛ Privacy Is Not a Price You Pay for Growth - by NBTV Media

      Today I participated in a Privacy Salon in Denver where we debated a proposition that cuts to the core of the modern privacy movement:

      “Limits on privacy are a price worth paying for mainstream adoption of cryptographic privacy.”

      I was on the “no” side alongside Matt Green, with Evin McMullen and Wei Dai arguing “yes.”

      It was a lively, thoughtful exchange that forced us to confront a deeper question: is weakening privacy simply the cost of scale?

      Below is my opening statement from the debate.

    • Hackaday ☛ AirTag Has Hole Behind The Battery? It’s Likely Been Silenced

      Apple AirTags have speakers in them, and the speaker is not entirely under the owner’s control. [Shahram] shows how the speaker of an AirTag can be disabled while keeping the device watertight. Because AirTags are not intended to be opened or tampered with, doing so boils down to making a hole in just the right place, as the video demonstrates.

    • American Friends Service Committee ☛ What is Palantir? And why is this corporation so dangerous?

      Palantir is the most dangerous tech company you may not have heard of. It uses artificial intelligence to weaponize our data against us. Built with CIA funding to support the U.S. “war on terror,” Palantir is a weapons company disguised as a software start-up. Now it helps Israel plan its military operations and powers ICE’s deportation machine.

      And it is everywhere. Palantir is used by militaries, police forces, banks, hospitals, and even your local pharmacy or favorite fast-food place. This technology is designed to help governments track and target individuals. It is killing people abroad and can be weaponized against everyone. That’s why it must be stopped.

    • The Verge ☛ Let’s talk about Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state

      Since it aired for a massive audience at the Super Bowl, Ring’s Search Party commercial has become a lightning rod for controversy — it’s easy to see how the same technology that can find lost dogs can be used to find people, and then used to invade our privacy in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, by cops and regular people alike.

      Ring in particular has always been proud of its cooperation with law enforcement. That raises big questions about our civil rights, especially since Ring announced a partnership last fall with a company called Flock Safety, whose systems have been accessed by ICE. There’s some complication to that — we’ll come back to it in a bit.

  • Confidentiality

    • The Register UK ☛ European Parliament bars lawmakers from AI tools

      It's a unfortunate for device vendors that promote on-device processing, but the European Parliament's tech support desk reportedly stated: "As these features continue to evolve and become available on more devices, the full extent of data shared with service providers is still being assessed. Until this is fully clarified, it is considered safer to keep such features disabled."

      The Register contacted the European Parliament for comment.

    • Dhole Moments ☛ Cryptographic Issues in Matrix’s Rust Library Vodozemac

      Instead, their response to my disclosure was to slap a deprecated notice on their README (despite allegedly having deprecated it in 2022) and then publicly insist they knew about the side-channel attacks all along, per Matthew Hodgson on Hacker News.

      Knowingly shipping vulnerable cryptography to millions of people that happily insist their product is better than Signal is a level of irresponsible that borders on grifting.

      So, at that point, my public stance on Matrix became, simply: Don’t use Matrix.

• Defence/Aggression

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Dutch Arrest 15 Suspected of Spreading Islamic State Propaganda on TikTok

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Dutch police arrest 15 over 'Islamic State' TikTok posts

  • RTL ☛ Anticipated witness: Zuckerberg to testify in landmark social media addiction trial

    Mark Zuckerberg is due to take the stand in a landmark trial that could set a precedent for thousands of lawsuits alleging major social media platforms intentionally engineered addictive features that harmed young users’ mental health.

  • Irish Examiner ☛ Government to introduce social media ban for under-16s in online safety push

    The Irish Examiner understands the plan will confirm Ireland’s intention to introduce legislation to restrict social media for under-16s.

    The plan will say this will be a priority when Ireland assumes the European presidency in the second half of this year.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Major TikTok + Apple Music Integrations in the Works

    Notably, Apple Music is still the source of the music with this feature; there is a blatant “From Apple Music” label on playback in the TikTok app. That means that Apple Music remains the one paying the royalties and licensing for the music accessed in this manner.

  • The Nation ☛ Muslims in Texas Are Harassed and Surveilled. Greg Abbott Is Making It Worse.

    Since then, criticism of CAIR, especially among Republicans in Texas, has only intensified. On November 18, Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation declaring CAIR a “terrorist organization.” The order branded the group as a “front” for Hamas and, among other sweeping restrictions, barred the organization from purchasing land in the state.

  • Mon0 ☛ The Paradox of Persuasion

    The Paradox of Tolerance—first introduced by that brilliant old geezer of Karl Popper—suggests that if a society adopts a policy of unlimited tolerance, it risks its own destruction by allowing intolerant ideologies to spread unchecked. Of course, this isn't actually some mind-bending “paradox”, it's just a straightforward truth about human societies: if you let people be jerks without any pushback, eventually, the jerks take over.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Plot Against America, One Year Later - by Mike Brock

    A year ago, I wrote The Plot Against America. I traced the intellectual pipeline from Austrian economics through Curtis Yarvin’s neoreaction to Peter Thiel’s funding of the post-democratic project. I documented how a dangerous ideology born in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis had moved from the fringes of tech culture to the heart of American governance. I ended that piece with a warning: the architects were in power, the gates were closing, and the voice of the people was being replaced by the hum of algorithms.

    That was February 2025. It is now February 2026. And I am here to tell you: the gates did not hold.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ An increasingly dangerous world

    The key driver is climate change. We’re living in a world that will have fewer livable places and fewer resources. This will happen quickly.

    Rather than co-operate to slow climate change and distribute resources intelligently to preserve life and ecosystems, there are a set of powerful people who see this as an opportunity to consolidate their power and influence.

  • Hindu Post ☛ Agra’s exodus alert: 40 Hindu families hang ‘House for Sale’ posters amid repeated attacks on Hindu families

    An entire neighbourhood in Agra’s Bhagwan Nagar colony has erupted in anger and fear after around 40 Hindu families simultaneously put up “house for sale” posters on their homes, alleging sustained harassment by local Muslims and police inaction. The unprecedented move has turned a long‑simmering local dispute into a high‑profile law and order and communal sensitivity issue in Uttar Pradesh.

  • Reuters ☛ Brazil police arrest suspect with ties to Islamic State, source says

    The police said in a statement that an operation supported by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had arrested "a man under investigation for preparing acts of terrorism and being part of an international terrorist organization."

  • Raymond Ibrahim ☛ Why ‘Moderate Islam’ is an Oxymoron

    In this context, how does a believer go about “moderating” what the deity and his spokesman have commanded? One can either try to observe Islam’s commandments or one can ignore them: any more or less is not Islam—a word which means “submit” (to the laws, or sharia, of Allah).

  • [Old] Gatestone Institute ☛ Why, for the UN, Is One Mosque Massacre So Much Worse than Countless Church Massacres?

    Not only has this incident been widely condemned throughout the West — and rightfully so. It has also caused the UN to single out Islam as needing special protection.

    This response, however, raises a critically important question: if one non-Muslim attack on a mosque is enough for the UN to institutionalize a special day for Islam, what about the countless, often worse, Muslim attacks on non-Muslim places of worship? Why have they not elicited a similar response from the UN?

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] North Korea builds homes for kin of troops killed in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Ukraine: Former energy minister accused of money laundering

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Kremlin Says Main Ukraine Issues Will Be Discussed in Geneva Talks, Including Territory

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Detained Ukrainian Ex-Minister Accused of Laundering Kickbacks in Case That Shook Government

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Ukraine Got 4.4 Million Large-Calibre Rounds Under Czech Initiative, President Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] Don't Get Sense EU Countries Ready to Give Ukraine Date for Membership, EU's Kallas Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Says Allies to Provide New Energy and Military Aid Within 10 Days

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] Ukrainian Anti-Graft Authorities Detain Ex-Minister in Major Case

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] MSC: Zelenskyy says Ukraine 'holding European front'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskyy at MSC: Putin is a 'slave to war'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Ukraine, IMF Ease Conditions on New $8.2 Billion Loan Program

    • CBC ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] A Ukrainian athlete was banned for his helmet. How does the IOC enforce its rules on political statements?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Ukraine Says US Is Increasing Pressure for a Deal as the Midterms Loom, NYT Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Ukraine's Foreign Minister Says China Could Help End the War, Invites Counterpart to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Zelenskiy Says He Visited Joint Ukrainian-German Drone Production

    • CBC ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukrainian athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych out of Winter Olympics over banned helmet

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Olympics: Ukrainian athlete banned over 'political' helmet

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukraine athlete Heraskevych: 'My Olympic moment was stolen'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukraine updates: NATO ministers to discuss support for Kyiv

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] ‘Moment of shame’: Ukrainian athlete disqualified over helmet

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukrainian Arms Producers Receive First Wartime Export Licences, Kyiv Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy says ceasefire must precede vote

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy to announce election plan — report

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] ‘I will not betray them’: Ukrainian athlete defies Olympic ban on tribute helmet

    • CBC ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Ukrainian skeleton competitor Heraskevych says he'll continue wearing banned helmet at Olympics

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] IOC bars Ukrainian skeleton racer from wearing memorial helmet at Olympics

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] South Africa's Ramaphosa Backs Efforts to End Ukraine War in Call With Putin

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Will Europe move to boost diplomacy with Russia?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-16 [Older] Russia Says It Downed 345 Ukrainian Drones in 24 Hours, Took Two Villages

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] North Korea Opens a Housing District for Families of Its Soldiers Killed in Russia-Ukraine War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] Russia's Taman Port Damaged by Ukrainian Drone Strike

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-15 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Strike Sparks Fires at Russian Black Sea Port Ahead of US-Brokered Peace Talks

    • CBC ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Head of military's space division warns Russia is considering putting nuclear weapons in orbit

    • CBC ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Kremlin with dart frog toxin, say European nations

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Orban says EU bigger threat to Hungary than Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Separate Talks on Iran and Ukraine-Russia Set for Tuesday in Geneva, Source Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Russia Poisoned Alexei Navalny With Dart Frog Toxin, European Nations Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Drone Strikes Kill 2 in Ukraine and Russia Ahead of US-Brokered Peace Talks in Geneva

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] France 'Reasonably Optimistic' of G7 Maritime Ban on Russian Oil, Minister Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] NATO's Rutte Says Russians Suffering 'Crazy Losses' in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] European Allies Say Navalny Was Poisoned by Dart Frog Toxin; Russia Rejects Claims

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-14 [Older] Zelenskiy Says US Too Often Asks Ukraine, Not Russia, for Concessions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] A New Round of US-Brokered Talks Between Russia and Ukraine Is Set for Geneva Next Week

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Kremlin Aide Medinsky to Head Russian Team as Ukraine Peace Talks Move to Geneva Next Week

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] Russia Pushes Back Hard Against Prospect of US-Built Nuclear Plant in Armenia

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Russia blocks WhatsApp

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Russia moves to block WhatsApp as Moscow pushes state-backed rival

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] WhatsApp Says Russia Has Tried to Fully Block the Messaging App

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Russia Fully Blocks WhatsApp, Talks up State-Backed Alternative

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Russian Air Attack Knocks Out Power, Heat to Thousands of Ukrainians

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Chinese Tourists Head to Russia, Thailand on Extended Lunar New Year Break

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] EU Leaders Meet to Counter Pressure From Russia, China and Cheeto Mussolini

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Nearly 300,000 People Without Power, Water Supply in Ukraine's Odesa After Russian Attack, Deputy PM Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Russia Fires Barrage at Ukrainian Cities as Next Round of US-Brokered Talks Is Unclear

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukraine's Air Force Gives All-Clear After Warning of Russian Missile Launch

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Strike Causes Fire at Refinery in Russia's Komi Region, Governor Says

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Norway’s defense chief does not rule out risk of Russian invasion

    • CPJ ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] CPJ welcomes Oscar nomination for documentary about US journalist killed in Russia-Ukraine war

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Telegram CEO vows to fight for app amid Russia pressure

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russia Says US Restrictions on Its Role in Venezuela's Oil Business Are Discrimination

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Lavrov Says US Restrictions on Russia's Role in Venezuela Oil Business Are Discrimination

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russia Lacks Equipment to Safely Restart Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russian Drone Attack Kills a Father and 3 Children in Ukraine While Pregnant Mother Survives

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russia Says It Will Stick to New START's Nuclear Arms Limits as Long as the US Does

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russia Says It Will Stick to Limits of Expired Nuclear Treaty if US Does the Same

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] Russia to Fly Its Tourists Out of Cuba and Then Suspend Airline Operations Due to Fuel Crisis

    • CPJ ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Russian bomb injures journalist in eastern Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Ukraine updates: Europe to set its demands for Russia in peace talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] EU's Kallas to Propose Concessions That Europe Should Demand From Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Russian Attack Kills Mother and Daughter in Ukraine's East, Hurts 14 More, Governor Says

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Epstein files suggest acts that may amount to crimes against humanity, say UN experts

    The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the US justice department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny. The crimes, they said, showed a commodification and dehumanisation of women and girls.

    “So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” they said in a statement.

  • NDTV ☛ Allegations In Epstein Files May Amount To Crimes Against Humanity: UN Experts

    The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the US Justice Department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption, and extreme misogyny.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ Hackers made death threats against this security researcher. Big mistake.

    Though she’d done this work for more than a decade, Nixon couldn’t understand why the person behind the Waifu/Judische accounts was suddenly threatening her. She had given media interviews about the Com—most recently on 60 Minutes—but not about her work unmasking members to get them arrested, so the hostility seemed to come out of the blue. And although she had taken an interest in the Waifu persona in years past for crimes he boasted about committing, he hadn’t been on her radar for a while when the threats began, because she was tracking other targets.

    Now Nixon resolved to unmask Waifu/Judische and others responsible for the death threats—and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing. “Prior to them death-threatening me, I had no reason to pay attention to them,” she says.

  • Nick Heer ☛ An Ars Technica Reporter Blamed A.I. Tools for Fabricating Quotes in a Bizarre A.I. Story

    Allegedly.

    The tale here is so extraordinary that it is irresponsible to take it at face value, as it seems the Wall Street Journal has. It seems plausible to me this is an elaborate construction of a person desperate to make waves. We should leave room for the — likely, I think — revelation this could be a mix of generated text and human intervention. That ambiguity is why I did not link to the original post.

• Environment

  • TruthOut ☛ Data Center Boom Is Fueling an Expansion of Natural Gas Projects | Truthout

    AI facilities may end up emitting carbon dioxide at levels equivalent to millions of passenger cars each year.

  • Stephen Hackett ☛ xAI Ramps Up Turbine Usage in Southaven, Repeating Its Actions in Memphis

    In January, the EPA ruled against xAI in a case in which Elon Musk’s CSAM machine/AI company said that if gas turbines were used in a temporary fashion, they were exempt from regulations.

    At the time, I wrote: [...]

  • David Rosenthal ☛ The Kessler Syndrome

    This became known as the Kessler Syndrome. Three decades later, shortly after Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collided at 11.6km/s, Kessler published The Kessler Syndrome, writing that the original paper:

    "predicted that around the year 2000 the population of catalogued debris in orbit around the Earth would become so dense that catalogued objects would begin breaking up as a result of random collisions with other catalogued objects and become an important source of future debris."

  • Arctic Portal ☛ New Research Warns of Growing Risk of Gulf Stream Collapse

    The findings indicate a 70% probability of collapse if carbon emissions continue to increase. Even if emissions remain at current levels, the risk remains at 37%. Should emissions be reduced in line with the Paris Agreement, there would still be a 25% chance of collapse, far higher than earlier estimates suggested.

    The consequences of such an event would be severe. The tropical rainfall belt, on which millions depend for food production, could shift dramatically. Sea levels along parts of the North Atlantic coast could rise by an additional 50 centimeters on top of current projections. Winters in Western Europe could become much colder, while other regions of the world would face destabilized weather systems.

  • India Times ☛ Scientists warn! Gulf Stream collapse could trigger severe global disruption

    The collapse itself, if triggered, might unfold over 50 to 100 years rather than happening suddenly. Still, scientists describe the probability as higher than past estimates. The study places the risk at 70 per cent under rising emissions. If emissions stabilise at current levels, the probability falls to 37 per cent. Even under reductions aligned with the Paris Agreement, researchers calculate a 25 per cent risk. Those figures have drawn attention because they suggest the system is more sensitive than once thought.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Mere Civilian ☛ 1 bag 1 device 10 days in Bali

      I don't know how well this one bag journey will go but I have given myself the best possible chance of success. I booked my ticket on Jetstar which charges for checked in luggage. Already saved over AUD80 by not purchasing extra luggage. Instead, I used that money towards getting an exist row seats, which is also something I have not been purchasing because when traveling with a child, I am not eligible to buy exist row seats.

    • Muxup ☛ Minipost: Additional figures for per-query energy consumption of LLMs

      The figures each Lambda model card gives us that are relevant for calculating the energy per query are: the hardware used, token generation throughput and total token throughput (input+output tokens). Other statistics such as the time to first token, inter-token latency, and parallel requests tested help confirm whether this is a configuration someone would realistically use. Using an equivalent methodology to before, we get the Watt hours per query by: [...]

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ Eurostar to cut boarding times by 30 minutes

      Under the planned shake-up, St Pancras passengers will be able to board Eurostar trains straight away rather than having to wait in the departures hall.

      Passengers are currently required to check in 60 minutes before boarding, but the new system means they will be permitted to board up to half an hour before their train departs.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-09 [Older] The economy's secret lifeline? Nature

• Finance

  • Times Media Limited ☛ At least £1m of clients’ cash missing after collapse of PM Law [Ed: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Way Too Slow to Respond to Financial Fraud at Law Firms, in Effect Helping Those Law Firms Defraud Many More People (Fleecing Clients)]

  • SRA confirms fraud investigation in relation to closure of group of law firms

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has confirmed that it is investigating potential fraud, including the misappropriation of client money, in relation to the unexpected closure of a group of law firms earlier this month.

    The PM Law Group was headquartered in Sheffield and comprised practices across Yorkshire, the North West, East Midlands and South East. It employed about 400 people.

    The SRA announced on 4 February 2026 that it had intervened into PM Law Ltd and associated firms following the unexpected closure of the group.

    Its intervention agent, Gordons LLP, has taken possession of files and money - including clients' funds - held by the firm. This includes accessing case management systems, which has identified tens of thousands of live cases.

  • Truthdig ☛ 2026-02-13 [Older] The Amazon Imperative: Unions Must Join Forces

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-02-10 [Older] Nigerian lawmakers approve real-time online election results

  • Papers Please ☛ Show ID or pay a fee to attend a “public” meeting? – Papers, Please!

    Is it an “open” meeting if you have to identify yourself, show ID, and/or pay a fee to attend?

    That’s the question presented by today’s meeting of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which is scheduled to be held in the “secure” area of the MSP airport reachable only by passing through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ NCSC To SMEs: Adopt Cyber Essentials Before It’s Too Late

    Horne’s warning is blunt: the gap between knowing cybersecurity is important and actually implementing protective measures is widening. Many SME leaders acknowledge the growing threat landscape. They see ransomware headlines and supply chain breaches. But too many assume their own business won’t be affected.

  • Inside Towers ☛ House Panel Advances Bill to Boost Broadband Deployments

    Specifically, H.R.5419 directs federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive review of administrative barriers that delay the review of communications use authorizations. Within one year, the agencies must report to Congress with their findings and submit a plan to provide adequate staffing to ensure timely permit reviews. The bill addresses a bottleneck in broadband deployment: the permitting process for placing communications infrastructure on millions of acres of federal land, particularly in rural areas where expanding coverage is most needed.

  • Seth Godin ☛ Misguided optimization

    Make a list of every well-known organizational failure (from big firms like Yahoo to Enron to Sears all the way to the little pizza place down the block) and you’ll see the short-term optimizer’s fingerprints.

    You can’t profit maximize your way to greatness.

  • Neritam ☛ Why Was Carl Sagan Blackballed from the National Academy of Sciences?

    In 1991, the American astronomer and superstar science popularizer Carl Sagan was nominated for membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Despite the efforts of some strong backers—including the Nobel laureate Stanley Miller, who advocated passionately for Sagan’s admission to the Academy—the nomination did not succeed. Sagan was blackballed in the first round of voting, which led to a full debate and vote by the Academy members. [...]

  • Ish Sookun ☛ openSUSE Board Election 2025 has been announced

    The openSUSE Project is a worldwide community effort promoting the use of Linux everywhere. The openSUSE Board guides the project's direction and facilitates community collaboration. Two seats are now open as the 2025 Board Election begins — get involved by running or casting your vote in March.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Liberalism Has Failed

    In the first three chapters, Deneen tells us that liberalism has failed. It set out to destroy hereditary elites, but ended up replacing one hereditary elite with another hereditary elite. It has led to loss of virtue. These elites despise the non-elites, variously described as the people, the many, and working people. I’ll use the term subservient class. Deneen says we need to return to an earlier form of social structure, one oriented to order, stability, virtue, balance, and continuity.

    Deneen’s explanation depends on specific but mostly unstated meanings for the operative words. Here’s my best guess at definitions.

  • Tor ☛ Keeping track of decisions using the ADR model | The Tor Project

    A crucial aspect of the proposal, which Jacob Kaplan-Moss calls the one weird trick, is to "decide who decides". Our previous process was vague about who makes the decision and the new template (and process) clarifies decision makers, for each decision.

    Inversely, some decisions degenerate into endless discussions around trivial issues because too many stakeholders are consulted, a problem known as the Law of triviality, also known as the "Bike Shed syndrome".

    The new process better identifies stakeholders: [...]

  • Frontpage Magazine ☛ Islamophobia and Islamoignorance

    In recent years, we have gotten into the habit of assuming that most people are decent and trustworthy. “The more you understand others,” we like to say, “the less you fear them.” But that’s not always the case. In the early days of Nazi rule in Germany, many Jews gave the Nazis the benefit of the doubt. But those Jews who really understood what Nazism was all about left while they still could. They survived and most of the others did not.

    But we wouldn’t refer to the distrustful survivors as “Naziphobes.” Why? Because their fear of Nazism was perfectly rational. Indeed, many people throughout the world came to fear Nazism and even to hate it.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • BoingBoing ☛ Pet microchip company shuts down, takes your pet's info

    Now, however, Save This Life has gone out of business and gone offline, leaving all the microchips in their database unregistered. Any pet with a Save this Life chip registration must be reregistered. Veterinarians and animal shelters have readers that can read the chip number.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • BIA Net ☛ Iranian journalist faces deportation from Turkey despite protection request

    According to Efe, Siahgourabi was arrested in Iran in 2009 for participating in anti-regime protests. He was subjected to mistreatment and threats during interrogation and spent nearly four months in Tehran’s Evin Prison before being released on bail. After a second legal case was filed against him, he fled the country.

    In the first case, Siahgourabi was sentenced to one year and ten months in prison. The second case remains open, Efe said.

  • The Nation ☛ CBS Surrenders to Trump

    The network tried to bury an interview critical of Trump. Stephen Colbert made it an indictment of the administration’s assaults on the First Amendment.

  • Truthdig ☛ Washington Post Layoffs Another Way for Bezos to Suck Up to Trump

    And a month into Trump’s second term, Bezos made a major announcement. He was banishing all viewpoints from the Post’s opinion pages except those promoting “personal liberties and free markets.” (This led to another 75,000-plus canceled subscriptions.)

    If Post columnists objected to the pro-Trump turn, they could take a generous buyout on offer last year. So many rushed for the exits, it was “an absolute exodus,” said one Postie, while another decried the “purge” underway.

  • Project Censored ☛ The Project Censored Newsletter—January 2026

    Project Censored’s fiftieth anniversary yearbook, State of the Free Press 2026, has been receiving a lot of positive attention. Shealeigh Voitl and Andy Lee Roth discussed the yearbook, including the tightening of media control, cultural hegemony, and the power of music, on an episode of Macro N Cheese, with host Steve Grumbine. Roth also appeared on Corporations and Democracy, hosted by Annie Esposito and Steve Scalmanini, to discuss corporate surveillance and other themes from SFP26. Eric Tegethoff of Public News Service highlighted some of the Project’s top stories from the past year in a short feature interview with Roth. Greg Godels and Pat Cummings highlighted State of the Free Press 2026 in an episode of the Coming From Left Field podcast with Andy Lee Roth. Mickey Huff and Roth appeared on the January 16 episode of Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang. Finally, Jason Myles’ This is Revolution podcast featured Huff to discuss the Project’s 50th anniversary and the increasing challenges to press freedoms today.

  • CPJ ☛ ‘I literally felt naked’: Angolan journalist Teixeira Cândido targeted with Predator spyware

    “First and foremost, we must seek to find out who the entities are that have acquired these spyware tools,” Cândido told CPJ, as findings published by Amnesty International’s Security Lab show that a malicious link sent in a WhatsApp message infected his phone with Predator spyware.

    The commercially available spyware can provide access to an infected device’s microphone, camera, and data, including contacts, messages, photos, and videos, without the user’s knowledge.

  • CPJ ☛ Ethiopia revokes Reuters journalists’ accreditation following investigative report

    “The revocation of Reuters’ credentials is the latest in a troubling pattern of repressive regulatory action against international and independent press in Ethiopia,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Ethiopian authorities should restore Reuters’ credentials, lift sanctions on other independent media, and stop treating critical journalism as a threat.”

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Futurism ☛ It Turns Out That Constantly Telling Workers They're About to Be Replaced by AI Has Grim Psychological Effects

    Two researchers are warning of the devastating psychological impacts that AI automation, or the threat of it, can have on the workforce. The phenomenon, they argue in a new article published in the journal Cureus, warrants a new term: AI replacement dysfunction (AIRD).

    The constant fear of losing your job could be driving symptoms ranging from anxiety, insomnia, paranoia, and loss of identity, according to the authors, which can manifest even in absence of other psychiatric disorders or other factors like substance abuse.

  • American Oversight ☛ Report: “ICE Officials Knew Use of Force Was Rising Well Before Minneapolis Shootings” - American Oversight

    Tuesday, we released a tranche of records obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailing troubling training practices and a sharp escalation in use-of-force incidents by ICE officers soon after President Trump returned to the White House (more on that here).

  • American Oversight ☛ What We Know About How ICE is Being Trained on the Use of Force - American Oversight

    ICE has expanded rapidly in the past year, in staffing numbers and in reach. Officials say they have hired more than 12,000 agents in less than a year, which President Trump has deployed to at least 15 American cities. The violence ICE officers bring into these communities has been well documented: Officers have assaulted, detained, and killed protesters and suspected undocumented immigrants. The public has a right to know more about how these federal law enforcement officers may impact their or their neighbors’ lives, including how officers are being trained and whether there are consequences for violating that training.

    We filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in early 2025 for information about the administration’s planned immigration enforcement actions and tactics to increase arrests and deportations. We also requested records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agencies failed to release the records as required by law, so we sued for their release in June.

  • Politico LLC ☛ ICE officials knew use of force was rising well before Minneapolis shootings

    Top Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials knew as early as March of last year that officers were using dramatically more force against civilians and the targets of their enforcement operations, months before ICE and Border Patrol officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

    Internal emails obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the liberal-leaning watchdog nonprofit American Oversight show that top officials knew the amount of force — be it lethal force or non-lethal efforts to physically restrain or subdue people or neutralize threats — used by ICE officers was rapidly rising after President Donald Trump took office and that incidents were occurring nationwide.

  • Marisa Kabas ☛ For ICE to build concentration camps quickly, they're leaning on this Dept. of War [sic] program

    DHS is using a repurposed Navy logistics program to fund the buildings and materials necessary to create these concentration camps quickly, as first reported by CNN in October. The Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC) program was created by the Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) so that it could call on contractors quickly in the wake of international natural disasters, pandemics and the like, bypassing the traditionally lengthy bidding process. It served 26 designated regions—until last year when the United States itself was added as number 27. That region is called TITUS: Territorial Integrity of the United States. And now, thanks to this relatively new designation, domestic vendors are being fast-tracked by DoW and DHS to expeditiously furnish and run concentration camps around the country.

  • Ken Klippenstein ☛ ICE Expands Watchlist Effort

    It is also today of all days, as McLaughlin prepares to exit the public stage, that I learned a DHS contractor is looking for a “Criminal Analyst” to join their company to help ICE with its evidently growing watchlisting effort.

    The company, Xcelerate Solutions, is looking for a Top Secret-cleared analyst to join the “watchlisting team” for the purpose of “Supporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” to quote from the job announcement.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: What’s a “gig work minimum wage”

    Take gig workers: the rise of Uber and its successors created an ever-expanding class of workers who are misclassified as independent contractors by employers, seeking to evade unionization, benefits and liability. It's a weird kind of "independent contractor" who gets punished for saying no to lowball offers, has to decorate their personal clothes and/or cars in their "client's" livery, and who has every movement scripted by an app controlled by their "client":

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/02/upward-redistribution/

    The pretext that a worker is actually a standalone small business confers another great advantage on their employers: it's a great boon to any boss who wants to steal their worker's wages. I'm not talking about stealing tips here (though gig-work platforms do steal tips, like crazy): [...]

  • The Register UK ☛ Dutch cops arrest man after sending him confidential files

    The man did not actively break in or exploit a vulnerability in the traditional sense; he simply clicked the link he was given and gained access to material he was never meant to see.

    Dutch cops say they told him to stop and delete the material, but he allegedly refused, saying he would only do so if he "received something in return."

    He did, in the end, get something in return – a trip in the back of a police car.

  • BoingBoing ☛ DHS subpoenas Google, Meta, Reddit to unmask ICE critics

    Unlike warrants, administrative subpoenas skip the judiciary entirely — DHS issues them on its own say-so. Tech employees told the Times the tool used to be reserved for serious crimes like child trafficking. Now it's being aimed at people posting neighborhood watch alerts. The ACLU of Pennsylvania's Steve Loney, who represents people targeted by these subpoenas, told the Times: "It's a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability."

  • New York Times ☛ Homeland Security Demands Social Media Sites Reveal Names Behind Anti-ICE Posts

    In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

  • Christian Post ☛ Top court to hear cases against Turkey labeling Christians ‘security threat’

    The European Court of Human Rights has opened proceedings in 20 cases involving Christians barred from re-entering Turkey after being designated as national security threats. The individuals, mostly foreign residents, say they were denied entry or residence solely for peacefully practicing their faith.

    The Turkish government has used internal codes like “N-82” and “G-87” to issue entry bans or deny permit renewals to at least 160 foreign Christians since 2019, according to the legal advocacy group ADF International.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-02-11 [Older] [Guest post] Paris Court of Appeal clarifies platforms’ obligations under Article 15 DSM Directive in twin decisions against X

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Matt Birchler ☛ A passionate defense of the M Pro series of chips

    On the latest episode of ATP, a show I should mention that I really love, they discussed the possibility of Apple discontinuing the Pro series in their M lineup of Apple silicon chips. One of the main arguments, which I think Marco leaned into the most, was that the performance uplift on the Pro chips isn’t significant, and therefore most people probably bought the baseline MacBook Pro or they splashed out on the Max models to get MAXIMUM POWER.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2026-02-12 [Older] Rethinking creative fairness under the UK’s new automated decision-making rules

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Jérôme Marin ☛ The Chinese AI threatening hollywood

      A fight between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt on the rooftop of a building in a devastated city. Viewed millions of times on social media, the AI-generated scene immediately triggered a backlash from major Hollywood studios. In their sights: ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which has just unveiled Seedance 2, a new video-creation model. The tool is striking and, by many accounts, outperforms Sora 2 and Veo 3, released last year by OpenAI and Google, respectively.

• Copyrights

  • India Times ☛ Balancing AI and copyright; Adani's $100B bet

    Day 2 of the India AI Impact Summit featured additional announcements, sessions, and policy discussions focused on emerging technology. This and more in today's ETtech Top 5.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Spanish Court Orders ProtonVPN and NordVPN to Block Pirate Football Streams

    In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a Spanish court has labeled VPN services as "technological intermediaries," ordering them to actively block IP addresses that host illegal LaLiga matches. The "dynamic" injunction compels NordVPN and ProtonVPN to intervene, similar to local ISPs. But with both companies operating outside EU jurisdiction with privacy-centric business models, it remains unclear if and how the order will actually be enforced.

  • CopyrightLately ☛ Meet Seedance 2.0, Hollywood’s Newest AI Copyright Headache

    The entertainment industry’s legal claims in AI copyright cases are strong, but the launch of Bytedance’s Seedance 2.0 highlights the harder challenge: enforcing them across borders.