Leftovers

• Evan Hahn ☛ "Sixteenth of a year", a 1.8 KiB art piece

  As I write this, we’re about 7 sixteenths through 2026, and it’s about 14 sixteenths through the day.

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • John D Cook ☛ Naively summing an alternating series

    Suppose you run across the power series for the exponential function and decide to code it up. Good idea: you’ll probably learn something, though maybe not what you expect.

    Maybe you decide a tolerance of 10−12 is good enough, and so you sum the terms until the next term to add is below the tolerance.

  • Hackaday ☛ Distilling Stale Gasoline To Make It Usable Again

    As part of his job of maintaining things like pressure washers, he got access to many grades of stale gasoline to experiment with. After a short demonstration of how poorly these grades of stale gasoline burn it’s on to the main distillation event. To the stale gasoline aluminium oxide is added as both a catalyst and to create nucleation sites that will prevent ‘bumping’ where you suddenly get a surge out of the heated flask.

• Career/Education

  • JURIST ☛ Canada teacher group urges government to engage in good-faith labor negotiations

    The Canadian Teachers’ Federation on Tuesday called on governments to engage in meaningful labor negotiations and refrain from invoking the “notwithstanding clause.” The statement urged all governments to respect teachers’ labor rights, including the right to association, collective bargaining and strike.

• Hardware

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Painting parts beige for retro towers (eventually)

    So here’s the thing. Late last year I bought the excellent SilverStone FLP02, a retro-themed computer case with modern component support. It was absolutely, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and has easily become my favourite modern case alongside the legendary NCASE M1. It’s big, relatively easy to work in with just a few caveats (a topic for another time), and yet looks the part so well. I’ve since moved our FreeBSD bhyve/jail server into our FLP02, and am giving serious consideration to an additional one for my desktop in the loungeroom. It’s that good!

  • CNX Software ☛ Reolink OMVI triple-lens Hey Hi (AI) security cameras combine 4K PTZ camera with dual-lens system with fixed 180° panoramic view

    Reolink has launched the new OMVI Series of triple-lens Hey Hi (AI) security cameras, featuring a 4K PTZ motorized camera and a fixed dual-lens system that offers a 24/7 180° panoramic view. The camera also supports Hey Hi (AI) detection and video search, designed to eliminate the typical blind spots of a standard Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera. The series includes three models: the OMVI 3i PoE, OMVI 3i WiFi, and OMVI X16 PoE.

  • Hackaday ☛ Texas Instruments Changes The NE5532 And Others Into Incompatible Versions

    First introduced in 1979 by Signetics, the NE5532 was a pretty spiffy dual op-amp for the time with low noise and low distortion. Over the years it has become a standard part that showed up in countless audio products, and has become a so-called jellybean generic component with Texas Instruments (TI) being one of countless manufacturers.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong couple arrested for child neglect after refusing DNA test for ‘free birth’ baby boy

    A Hong Kong couple have been arrested for child neglect after refusing to allow their baby boy, who was born without any medical record, to undergo a DNA test for birth registration.

  • Stanford University ☛ Research Roundup: Combating muscle loss from GLP-1s, monitoring high-risk pregnancies and reversing aging in sea squirts

    Stanford researchers are making strides across medicine and science this spring.

  • New York Times ☛ Battling a Deadly Ebola Outbreak in Eastern Congo

    At the heart of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, health care workers are racing to open new treatment centers and ramp up testing. But after years of war, the deadly virus is just one of many challenges they’re facing.

  • New York Times ☛ Only the Right Tests Can Stop This Ebola Outbreak. Congo Has Hardly Any.

    A chronic lack of investment in development of better tests has left clinicians blind and allows deadly viruses to spread unchecked.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • Eliseo Martelli ☛ Apple's lesson in how NOT to do optimistic updates | Eliseo Martelli

    It's not just slow; it's confusing. When the UI doesn't react instantly, you lose confidence in the app. You end up double-checking your own actions.

  • Michael Tsai ☛ When Dropbox Spawns a Million Folders

    Finder had trouble emptying the trash with so many files, and the customer had to do this separately on each Mac connected to the Dropbox account.

  • David Smith ☛ Apple-like

    In the last few months there has been a lot of discussion of people’s hopes for the future of Apple. With the announced leadership changes, it is a logical period of reflection and projection of hopes for the future.

    A recurring theme I’ve heard is a desire for Apple to “return to its roots” or “go back to what made it great”. I don’t personally feel those feelings very much. Maybe I’d describe its situation as a ship which has become a bit unbalanced by some structural choices and so is listing to the side, meaning it takes more intentional effort to stay on course. I would gladly appreciate it if new leadership were able to shift some ballast around to make the ship run truer, but the general direction remains unchanged.

    A more productive line of thinking this conversation has prompted in me, which I’ve been ruminating on for weeks, is what exactly is Apple-like. What makes Apple…Apple?

  • Manton Reece ☛ Apple design and balance

    Perhaps Apple’s success has crippled their creativity, putting too much pressure on the company to only release hits. I miss the quirky products, the whimsy, the think different. AI is a perfect opportunity to build something completely new and they’ve got essentially nothing, only playing catch-up for the last two years.

  • Ars Technica ☛ Zero-day exploit completely defeats default Windows 11 BitLocker protections

    A zero-day exploit circulating online allows people with physical access to a Windows 11 system to bypass default BitLocker protections and gain complete access to an encrypted drive within seconds.

  • Macworld ☛ Microsoft warns that some Office files might not work on your Mac next month

    Microsoft has posted a support document that warns of a potential problem with Microsoft Office or 365 and iOS and macOS. Microsoft is ending support for devices running older operating systems, which can result in what the company calls “reduced functionality mode” with Office files. Users will be able to open and print files, but the files cannot be edited or saved, nor can new files be created.

  • BoingBoing ☛ What happens when the machine keeping you alive dies on vacation

    The people who make these machines, she writes, are "both keeping me alive and also my mortal enemies." The part that scared her most wasn't the hardware: "The fact that nobody could get me the damn insulin once I had the prescription is possibly even more frightening to me than the pump failure." Underneath all of it, she writes, "something is always screaming: it's fucking stupid that I have to do this at all."

  • Laura Michet ☛ What it's like to have the machine that keeps you alive die while you're on vacation | Laura Michet's Blog

    I'm about to tell you a story about the major disaster which affected much of my decisionmaking on my week-long vacation to Santa Fe. I just got home to LA, and the situation is now resolved. But it was super fucking annoying!!

    I didn't mention it in any of my other posts because I was waiting to learn how it would actually resolve.

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Press Gazette ☛ Google regulation crackdown in UK over Hey Hi (AI) use of publisher content

      Tech giant says it will roll out global changes giving publishers control over Hey Hi (AI) use of their content.

    • Nick Heer ☛ The Meta A.I.-Powered Instagram Account Takeover Problem Gets Worse

      It is not very often for there to be an update on a security incident where it is less severe than originally reported, and I cannot remember a time when Meta has ever been able to provide such welcome news. And it is not as though this is some obscure or difficult-to-use way to hijack an account. If Meta has communicated to users any steps they can take to reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim, I have not received it.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Powerful A.I. Super PACs Duel Over U.S. Midterm Elections

      The amount of money A.I. companies have on hand is truly staggering. Of course all of them are spending tens of millions of dollars to influence the results of a midterm election, just like how Formula 1 teams, which used to be plastered in cryptocurrency ads, are now covered in logos for A.I. companies. It is only going to get worse.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Digital Self-Sabotage: Why Canada’s AI Strategy Is Set to Fail Before it Even Launches

      The Canadian government’s long-awaited and much-needed AI strategy is finally set to be unveiled this week, with AI minister Evan Solomon promising a plan that prioritizes AI adoption, investment, and regulatory guardrails to enhance trust, privacy and safety. My Globe and Mail op-ed argues the strategy seems doomed to fail, even before it is released, with the government’s own digital policies working against it. An astonishing series of developments in recent weeks amount to digital self-sabotage, leaving global technology giants alarmed and Canadian tech companies openly considering leaving the country.

    • Max Leiter ☛ They're Made Out of Weights

      "The weights make the words. Are you understanding me? We opened it up. There's no dictionary in there, no grammar rules, no little man. Just weights. Eighty layers of numbers getting multiplied together."

    • Manton Reece ☛ AI and fiber optics

      The difference between “good enough” and “great” is still pretty noticeable. In my current work with local AI models, I’m using Gemma 4, a 26-billion parameter model. It needs something like a 24 GB Mac to run. The frontier models are orders of magnitude larger, likely with hundreds of billions or trillions of parameters.

    • Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics ☛ Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

      Technological developments have repeatedly transformed the practice of mathematics. Recent artificial intelligence technologies, including symbolic and neural methods for the generation and formalization of mathematics, may already have initiated a significant chapter in this long history. Among researchers, artificial intelligence has produced a wide range of reactions: enthusiasm for its potential to yield new discoveries; intimidation by the pace of developments; indifference to these rapid changes; and concern for the implications, both for mathematics and in wider society.

      Mathematicians have a choice about whether and how to adopt artificial intelligence in the conduct of their research. They also have a responsibility to ensure the continued flourishing of the discipline. This Declaration calls upon mathematicians to exercise this responsibility, and provides recommendations for individuals, institutions, government, and industry.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Qilin And INC Ransom Drive 2026 Ransomware Surge

      Qilin operates as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform, recruiting affiliates who conduct attacks using Qilin’s ransomware builder and infrastructure in exchange for a percentage of ransom proceeds. This model allows the core group to expand operational throughput without directly executing every attack.

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ Exclusive: How One Line of Code Put Billions of Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Android App Downloads at Risk

    A simple development setting bypassed protections designed to prevent unauthorized Android apps from accessing Abusive Monopolist Microsoft account tokens, exposing billions of installations.

  • Trail of Bits ☛ The sorry state of skill distribution

    Public skill marketplaces are being flooded with malicious skills that steal credentials, exfiltrate data, and hijack agents. In response, a segment of the security industry released skill scanners, a new family of tools designed to detect malicious skills before they’re installed. But we tested them, and they don’t work.

  • Confidentiality

    • BBC ☛ Plots, love letters and remedies: The medieval secrets being revealed by AI

      Historic ciphers can be relatively simple: the Borg cipher, for example, uses a straight-forward substitution cipher, meaning that each symbol was swapped with a single Roman letter to hide what was written. Others, however, can be difficult to unravel. In some cases, nothing is known about the original language the uncoded text was written in. Extra, meaningless symbols can also be inserted as a decoy to throw off anyone hoping to snoop on the text. In other cases, several signs can be used to represent the same letter.

      This can mean a huge amount of work – often involving trial and error – to decode even a small amount of text. It took Cecile Pierrot, a cryptologist at the French National Institute for Computer Science Research (INRIA) in Nancy, France, and her colleagues six months to gradually unravel the key to a 500-year-old letter from Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, that had been written using 120 different cipher symbols across three pages. (The decrypted letter revealed Charles V – one of the most powerful men of his time – undone by fear of a plot to kill him. The king was terrified that an Italian mercenary warlord serving the French king, Francis I, was about to assassinate him.)

    • Let's Encrypt ☛ A Post-Quantum Future for Let's Encrypt

      Let’s Encrypt is committed to a post-quantum-safe Web PKI. The path we’re planning to take is Merkle Tree Certificates (“MTCs”), a new approach that adds post-quantum authentication to the web without sacrificing the speed and reliability that have made TLS universal.

      This post is about these plans and why we believe MTCs are worth pursuing as a key to a post-quantum future.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Futurism ☛ World Cup Will Be Patrolled by Security Robodogs

    "Well, that puts a chill down my spine."

  • Defence Web ☛ Anti-immigrant violence explodes in Western Cape

    Immigrants in the Overberg fled to the beaches and the mountains over the weekend as protests against immigrants gathered momentum.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Italy Says No to Kanye West and Travis Scott Concerts, Citing Antisemitism and Safety Concerns

    Italian authorities have banned Kanye West and Travis Scott concerts from taking place in Reggio Emilia, citing public order and security concerns. On Friday, Italian Prefect Salvatore Angieri announced that two concerts by Kanye West and Travis Scott will not be taking place.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Solomons PM says to review 2022 security pact with China

    Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale said Wednesday he would be “reviewing” his country’s secretive 2022 security pact with China, which rattled Canberra and Washington.

  • France24 ☛ 'US war on Iran not about the Iranian people: Europe can put the issue of human rights on the table'

    Nadia Massih is pleased to welcome Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, President of Iran Human Rights and Professor of Neuroscience at University of Oslo. He offers a stark assessment of the Iranian regime's response to recent unrest and wartime conditions. Professor Amiry-Moghaddam argues that the authorities have exploited international attention on regional conflict to intensify domestic repression. Civilians are effectively "risking their lives" so that "the world can know what is happening in Iran," underscoring both the scale of repression and the resilience of civil society under authoritarian rule.

  • Site36 ☛ Research for Elbit: German University overrides own ethics ruling with second project concerning Israeli military drones

    TU Dresden’s rectorate approved a €30,000 research contract with Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems — overriding its own ethics commission, which had voted almost unanimously against it. The commission was subsequently dissolved. It is not the university’s first collaboration with an Israeli weapons maker.

  • New York Times ☛ Hezbollah’s Drones

    The militant group is looking more capable now than it did when Israeli forces marched into Lebanon three months ago. Here’s how it gained an edge.

  • ADF ☛ In Senegal, Building Civilian Trust Key To Fight Against Terrorism

    When terrorists attacked fuel tankers in the town of Diboli in 2025, just steps from Mali’s western border, the long-feared spillover of Sahelian violence appeared to be at Senegal’s doorstep.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea slams US remarks comparing South to ‘dagger’

    About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea to help guard against the nuclear-armed North.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Hari Raya korban controversy reignites wave of anti-Rohingya sentiment in Malaysia

    Malaysia hosts more than 120,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan says Japan, Philippines must respect its rights in maritime border talks

    It added that China had no right to claim to speak on its behalf over the maritime boundary issue.

  • France24 ☛ 'Palestinians are unbelievable people: Vast majority of in Gaza just want to live a normal life'

    Angela Diffly is pleased to welcome Dr. Adi Nadimpalli, Medical Coordinator for Gaza with Doctors Without Borders. He offers a stark assessment of conditions in Gaza following the October 2025 ceasefire. While acknowledging that "the number of kinetic injuries and violence has decreased," he argues that the territory remains trapped in a state of profound humanitarian deterioration, marked by daily strikes, mass displacement, inadequate food supplies, collapsing living conditions, and widespread insecurity.

  • France24 ☛ Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire amid new talks in Washington

    Lebanon said Israeli strikes on June 3 killed at least nine people in the country's south, while the Israeli army says it has intercepted a "hostile aircraft" in its northern regions. This comes as a new round of talks is to be held in Washington. FRANCE 24's Renée Davis in Beirut and Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem tell us more.

  • New York Times ☛ Lebanon Endures Threats, Diplomacy and Whiplash as Others Decide Its Fate

    The conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran looms over a state that has been pummeled by military strikes but has little say in determining its own future.

  • New York Times ☛ For Dubai’s Migrants, War Is One More Worry in Super Stressed Lives

    For laborers in Dubai, a free stress-management class offers a temporary oasis of calm amid struggles with debt, loneliness, long hours and, in recent months, the fear of missile strikes.

  • RFERL ☛ One Killed In Iranian Air Strikes On Kuwait

    As the US-Israeli war with Iran continues to impact and shape the region, journalists from RFE/RL's Central Newsroom and Iranian service, Radio Farda, deliver ongoing updates and analysis.

  • Robert Reich ☛ He Won't Get Away With It

    Here’s the truth: Every study shows voter fraud, including noncitizen voting, is so rare that a person is more likely to get struck by lightning than to cast a fraudulent ballot.

    But Trump’s using this boogeyman to sabotage our elections. Here are three things I’m worried about — then I’ll tell you how we fight back.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanians in Northern Cyprus: investment or moral bankruptcy? – opinion

      "I come to terms with my conscience," said Arūnas Valinskas, a well-known Lithuanian television personality. For many Cypriots, that casual remark cuts to the heart of a troubling phenomenon – the flourishing Lithuanian trade in legally dubious real estate built on land from which thousands were expelled by force fifty years ago, writes Dalia Staponkutė, a commentator on the LRT Radio programme Kultūros savaitė and a writer based in Cyprus.

    • France24 ☛ AI chatbot responses polluted by pro-Russian disinformation

      AI-driven chatbots are increasingly being used as sources of information, but they are also vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. Experts have found that pro-Russian misinformation, in particular, can seep into the responses generated by these conversational agents.

    • France24 ☛ France arrests Russian captain of Moscow-linked oil tanker

      The captain of the Tagor, a tanker suspected of belonging to Russia’s “ghost fleet” that was boarded in the Atlantic Ocean by the French Navy, was taken into custody on Tuesday, announced Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian municipality rejects Russian claims over relocation of WWII soldiers' remains

      The Elektrėnai municipality has rejected Russian allegations that it is desecrating the remains of Soviet soldiers, while confirming plans to relocate the remains of more than 100 soldiers buried after the Second World War.

    • LRT ☛ As NATO eyes the nuclear bomb, did anyone check whether it works?

      Lithuania has embraced France's offer of shelter beneath a French "nuclear umbrella", and discussions are now under way about allowing ships carrying weapons of mass destruction to enter Lithuanian ports. These moves are a response to Russian and Belarusian actions. But do nuclear weapons actually deter?

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Drones to protect undersea cables from Russian sabotage touted in new defense pact — US one of three partners developing new tech to protect $1.8 trillion in daily transactions

      The Australian, UK, and U.S. governments just announced a cooperation to develop new technologies to protect underwater cables. The move comes after recent incidents of damages to undersea cables across the world, as well as the Russian Navy's surveying of areas near where undersea cables run.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania rejects Moscow claims of Soviet grave desecration

      Vilnius has rejected Moscow’s accusations of desecrating Soviet soldiers’ remains in Lithuania, calling them false and absurd.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • [Old] George Washington University ☛ Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified History

    In June 1999, the Archive will publish on microfiche with a detailed, item-level printed index, these extraordinary documents, which include policy and research studies, intelligence estimates, diplomatic cables, and briefing materials. Titled China and the United States: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998, this document set is part of the Archive's Special Collection Series, published by Chadwyck-Healey Inc. (Alexandria, Virginia and Cambridge, U.K.), and will ultimately also appear in the Chadwyck-Healey World Wide Web publication of The Digital National Security Archive.

    Among the highlights of this collection are the detailed (and previously classified) U.S. government accounts of the infamous military assault by the Chinese government on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. This Electronic Briefing Book represents the first publication in any media of these documents, which include remarkable SITREPs from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing as well as many of the Secretary of State’s "Morning Summaries" from June 1989. In addition to the crackdown itself, the documents also cover the student demonstrations in late 1985 and 1986 that, in hindsight, were signs of the events to come, the period leading up the PLA's use of force, and post-crackdown assessments of the events and their significance.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Transport chief says health risks linked to late-night aircraft noise over Tung Chung at ‘acceptable’ levels

      Hong Kong’s transport chief has said that late-night aircraft noise over Tung Chung is within acceptable limits in terms of risks to residents’ health. Lawmaker Chan Hok-fung relayed concerns from residents during a legislative Q&A on Wednesday.

    • Kelson Vibber ☛ The Road That Broke the Peninsula

      But had it connected in the past, and been wiped out by the landslide? I went looking for the history, and found some articles that answered my question. I must have read this 2023 LA Times article when it was published, which means I’d forgotten a key detail about Crenshaw Boulevard’s relation to the landslide:

      It caused it.

      Crenshaw never connected to the coast. An extension was planned, and initial construction reactivated an ancient landslide in 1956, as crews moved enough dirt around to shift the underlying structure out of balance. At the time, the Portuguese Bend section hadn’t moved in roughly 4,800 years. In the 70 years since, it hasn’t really stopped.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ Celebrity dog with over 1.5 million followers stolen, slaughtered in China as thief mistook it for a stray

      The alleged thief reportedly said: “The dog is dead, so stop making a fuss. I did not break the law.”

• Finance

  • WhichUK ☛ The annual cost of a comfortable retirement has risen by £2,000

    New figures highlight the challenges many face to save enough for retirement, with just 9% on track to afford a 'comfortable' lifestyle

  • Joost de Valk ☛ Lovable should sponsor TanStack

    TanStack is funded transparently. In “The State of TanStack, Two Years of Full-Time OSS” (Nov 24, 2025), Tanner laid out the model in detail: 16 partners then (13 today), funding “a reasonable salary for me, a growing rainy-day fund for the organization, monthly sponsorships for around 12 core contributors, and short-term contracts for another 3 to 5 people.” In March 2026 he pulled third-party ads off the site entirely, because partnership revenue was carrying the load on its own.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ What to Know About South Korea’s Elections

    President Lee Jae Myung came to office after his predecessor, a conservative, was ousted for imposing martial law. Now exit polls suggest that Mr. Lee’s popularity rippled across other contests.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Koreans vote in local elections seen as gauge of President Lee’s first year

    Voters will choose mayors and governors in 16 cities and provinces in South Korea.

  • Michael Geist ☛ From Making Web Giants Pay to Making Taxpayers Pay: Government Announces Plan to Kill the CRTC's Online Streaming Ruling

    The government has been careful to insist that the Online Streaming Act itself was and remains a necessary step. But the objectives set out for the coming policy direction, namely affordability, consumer choice, flexibility for streamers and broadcasters, and leveraging public investment, were largely dismissed as priorities throughout the legislative and regulatory process as the government focused instead on extending the cross-industry subsidy model through streamer payments. Better late than never, but what is needed for the next round is a willingness to rethink the foundation of a cross-industry subsidy model that long ago stopped reflecting the realities of Canadian film and television production.

  • Robin D Otis ☛ Robin's Fibre Optics

    About 7 years ago we had a fibre optic connection installed in our home. The router, provided by our ISP, is a Fritz!Box 5490, for which I pay about 4€ a month. To my surprise I realised a few weeks ago that the last time it received security updates was in 2023! Time for a new router.

    This time I decided to buy the router, rather than rent it. Since my current router has a direct fibre connection I had choices to make. In fact many more than I had anticipated.

  • Protesilaos Stavrou ☛ On the absence of Greeks from Hollywood’s Odyssey movie

    Sure, it would be nice. Though I personally do not see any problem in the absence of Greeks. This is a story. We are meant to take it lightly: it is make-belief. We are not supposed to treat it as a living continuation of antiquity, nor as an accurate depiction of Greekness (assuming we can even define and capture “Greekness”). If we do watch the movie, then we set our expectations accordingly. Or we simply ignore it and move on with our lives.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Microsoft Threatening Security Researcher [Ed: BitLocker is intentionally back doored [1, 2]]

    An anonymous security researcher called “Nightmare Eclipse” has been publishing a series of significant security exploits against Microsoft Windows—including one that breaks BitLocker. Microsoft has threatened legal action against the researcher. Lots of recriminations are being traded back and forth.

  • TechCrunch ☛ Microsoft under fire for threatening security researcher with criminal investigation

    On Wednesday, Microsoft published a blog post criticizing the researcher, who goes by the handle “Nightmare Eclipse,” for publicly disclosing a series of bugs, including BlueHammer, RedSun, UnDefend, and YellowKey. The flaws affected products such as the Windows built-in antivirus engine Defender and the disk-encryption tool BitLocker.

  • Security Week ☛ Microsoft Tries to Calm Legal Threat Fears After Zero-Day Disclosure Backlash

    Details remain unknown, but it appears there was a disagreement between the researcher and Microsoft during a vulnerability disclosure process. The researcher then decided to release the details of several vulnerabilities that had not been reported to Microsoft.

    The list includes RedSun (CVE-2026-41091), UnDefend (CVE-2026-45498), BlueHammer (CVE-2026-33825), YellowKey (CVE-2026-45585), GreenPlasma, and MiniPlasma.

    Most of these vulnerabilities can be exploited to escalate privileges. YellowKey allows an attacker to bypass BitLocker protection, and UnDefend is a Microsoft Defender denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability.

  • New Tang Dynasty ☛ Epoch Times Obtains Over 2,000 Unseen Tiananmen Square Photos on 37th Anniversary of the June 4th Massacre | NTD

    On the 37th anniversary of the June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese Edition of The Epoch Times has exclusively obtained more than 2,000 previously unreleased historical photographs, exposing a period of history the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long attempted to erase.

    In the spring of 1989, a student-led democracy movement erupted in Beijing and spread nationwide. Millions of citizens peacefully protested against corruption and called for democratic reforms. In response, top CCP officials deployed military forces, launching a brutal crackdown with tanks and machine guns on June 4th.

    Non-governmental estimates place the death toll between several thousand and over 10,000.

  • [Old] Craig Calhoun ☛ Revolution and Repression in Tiananmen Square [PDF]

    "Turmoil" was the Chinese government's wordfor the six weeks between mid-April and early June, the label with which officials chose to brand the student protest movement. The news readers on China Central Television's English service pronounced it with an emphasis on the second syllable, and it figured in every official speech. Any important event, or movement, or set of ideas must have a standard appellation in China, where sloganizing and repetition of set rhetorical formulas is raised to an art. The now-infamous People's Daily editorial of April 26 labeled the movement and simultaneously fanned its flames by insulting and threatening to suppress it. "Turmoil" is the standard translation adopted for ""dongluan." to make chaos. "'Luandong"' refers to free-form dancing, the sort of individually creative movement popularized in the West during the 1960s. Beijing students liked the reversal; they were dancing in spontaneous order, they said, not making chaos.

  • [Old] California State University San Bernardino ☛ Reclaiming Tiananmen: The Politics of Space within Tiananmen Square, 1989, [PDF]

    Abstract: The word Tiananmen in any context now brings to mind the 1989 protests and their goals rather than evoking thought of a center for Chinese Communist Party Power. The 1989 Tiananmen Square activists chose to alter their surroundings in two distinct ways in order to create a space that would serve as a tangible representation of their feelings as a whole. The first way in which they chose to alter the Square came at the start of the protests when students systematically transformed the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the middle of the square to memorialize Hu Yaobang’s death. The creation of the statue named the “Goddess of Democracy” was the second way in which protestors reclaimed the space in the Square. This paper will analyze the ways in which protestors altered Tiananmen Square and will describe how the use of public space by the protestors represented their emotions, political aims, and a distinctive new generational culture.

  • Amnesty International ☛ What really happened in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests | Amnesty International UK

    It has been over 37 years since hundreds if not thousands of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters were killed in Beijing and the arrest of tens of thousands of demonstrators in cities across China.

    The protesters, based in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, were peacefully calling for political and economic reform. In response, the Chinese authorities responded with overwhelming force to repress the demonstrations.

  • HRW ☛ China: No Justice for Tiananmen Massacre 37 Years On

    The Tiananmen Massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gathering in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and other Chinese cities in April 1989 of students, workers, and others calling for free expression, democratic reform, and an end to corruption. On June 3-4, People’s Liberation Army soldiers opened fire upon and killed numerous protesters and bystanders in Beijing. Chinese authorities have long banned commemorations of the massacre on the mainland. No steps have been taken to provide information or compensation to the families of those who died or to prosecute those responsible for the killings.

    “By burying the past, the Chinese government is also burying respect for fundamental rights in the future,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should cease censorship of the Tiananmen Massacre, allow commemorations, compensate the victims’ families, and free those imprisoned for pressing for accountability and justice.”

  • New Indian Express ☛ China suppressing Tiananmen Square massacre remembrance efforts ahead of 37th anniversary: HRW

    He urged Beijing to end censorship, allow commemorations, compensate victims' families, and release those imprisoned for seeking accountability.

    According to Human Rights Watch, authorities disrupted a New Year gathering of the Tiananmen Mothers in Beijing in December 2025, marking the first time since 2009 that the victims' advocacy group was prevented from holding the event.

  • Harvard University ☛ The Great Firewall of China: Implications of Internet Control for China Post-Tiananmen Square Massacre to Present Day [PDF]

    This research analyzes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political motives behind its control of the Internet in China by exploring the restrictions and actions taken regarding a historical event that directly conflicts with the Party’s interests: the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989. To obtain answers and a fuller understanding of this crucial event, my research pursued an in-depth look at internet restrictions established by the CCP in four key areas: law, architecture, market forces, and social norms. By analyzing each of these areas in some detail, my research answers the following questions: (1) What methods are used by the CCP to control information flow, as exemplified by actions taken vis-à-vis the annual anniversaries of the Tiananmen Square Massacre? (2) Is it possible for an authoritarian government to put forward and control a specific version of history in today’s era of the internet? (3) What are the short- and long-term implications for China as a result of its effort to control the internet domestically, using the 1989 Tiananmen Square annual anniversary as a case study?

    The key findings from this analysis show how the current methods of control by the CCP have an impact on the historical facts and the legacy of the Tiananmen Square protest and massacre of 1989, and whether that legacy will prevail, waiver, or be obscured through manipulation of the domestic Chinese internet.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Cost cuts and new donors help Full Fact weather loss of £1m Surveillance Giant Google funding

    UK-based fact-checking service has more than 2,000 paying supporters.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Mandelson and Streeting wooed News UK bosses days before general election

    Mandelson 'ribbing' of Times editor was 'masterfully done' said Streeting.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Publishing in a warzone at Lebanon’s L’Orient-Le Jour

    Subscriptions are up but costs are rising faster for French language title.

  • Marisa Kabas ☛ A tale of two media women

    But the last several months have seen one crash after another at CBS News under Bari’s leadership, with her swiftly laying off journalists of color, putting an incompetent anchor at the helm of the flagship evening news, pulling a 60 Minutes segment about El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison where the US had illegally sent people, and shuttering the storied radio division. Despite declaring “Let’s do the fucking news” in her first meeting with staff last fall, it’s become clear that her actual mandate was to do the dirty work; to treat the near hundred-year-old news organization with no more respect than a TikTok account.

    That all came to a head in a 60 Minutes staff meeting Monday morning in the wake of the firings of executive producer Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. (Alfonsi was the lead correspondent on the CECOT segment.) Hosted by Bari’s new EP Nick Bilton, things quickly went sideways when longtime correspondent Scott Pelley accused Bari of “murdering '60 Minutes.'" He went on to say: "She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she's doing exactly that." Pelley had gone from traveling to Vietnam in March for a story exploring the world’s largest cave to sparring with a guy who had no broadcast journalism experience. By Tuesday night, Pelley was fired.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • NPR ☛ Thieves are targeting the world's copper. This phone company is fighting back

    We arrive at the tracks a little before noon, and the aftermath of the crime comes into focus.

    The phone and [Internet] cables that should have stretched over the track are gone. A pair of bolt cutters lies in the dirt, along with bits of rubber and plastic stripped from the wires. Down a trail by the train line, there's a string of freshly charred spots in the dirt — what the AT&T crew call "burn pits." An abandoned tent overflows with clothes and junk, and behind it lies a small pile of wires.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Dead eclipse ☛ Nightmare Eclipse

    One of them was JonasLyk, he did most work, I just did the emotional support part. But he found a way to violate secure boot trust, it's not a full secure boot bypass but it breaks the guarantees secure boot is supposed provide. We believe this be used to compromise confidential virtual machines but we're not really sure if that's possible since we don't have access to such technologies.

    One thing we're sure of, is it fully bypasses bitlocker.

  • 404 Media ☛ Demand Is Booming for New No Tech, Repairable Tractor

    “I talk to farmers every day and I hear from farmers every day about how they went out and bought machinery from 1987 so that it wouldn’t have a computer on it,” Wilson said. “All of this came from a simple discussion with a customer who wanted to be able to turn [the tractor] on at the start of the day, to use it, and shut it off at the end of the day. It needed to work, so that’s what we built.”

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Copyrights

    • Digital Music News ☛ Appeals Court Reverses 2 Live Crew’s Copyright Termination Victory Based on a Bankruptcy Detail

      2 Live Crew have lost their prior copyright monopoly victory in appeals court, based on a technicality that affects artists’ rights under federal bankruptcy law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned the previous October 2024 jury verdict that saw iconic rap group 2 Live Crew regain control of their copyright.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Udio Joins Suno Fight to Redact Core Training Data In Court — What Are These Guys Hiding?

      Suno isn’t alone in pushing to keep its “training data number” – or a tally of the tracks used to train its models – out of the public view. Now, amid a legal battle with Sony Music, Hey Hi (AI) music rival Udio is also attempting to seal the figure.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ European authorities crack down on illegal streaming networks

      The continent-wide collaboration, led by Bulgaria and the European Union’s police agency, allowed authorities to dismantle nine organized crime groups supporting the illicit streaming networks, officials said. “Operation Kratos 2” focused on disrupting the networks’ underlying infrastructure and stretched for seven months before coming to a close in April.