Government

2026 230 posts

October 2026 51 posts

New Records Obtained by EFF Expose More Problems with Medicare's AI Experiment eff.org · “Another company built a system that allowed clinical reviewers to reject claims without opening patient files; clinical reviewers using this system spent an average of just 1.2 seconds on each case.”
Oct 27
Intel, Oracle, IBM join growing list of firms objecting to OKX–ICE tokenized stock plans coindesk.com · “Under the framework, venues must notify issuers and give them 30 days to object before offering tokenized versions of their shares.”
Oct 27
This Oil Company Is Linked to 1,000 Pollution Incidents and Other Violations. Oklahoma Never Punished It. propublica.org · “In fact the commission has no record of ever fining or completing an enforcement case against Citation.”
Oct 27
UK ministers had plenty of time for AI datacenter bosses, but none for environmental groups theregister.com · “Environmental groups, by contrast, didn’t get a single meeting with ministers or senior officials.”
Oct 27
Denmark's bid to ditch Microsoft Office for open-source alternative Collabora collapses in under six months tomshardware.com · “Denmark isn’t alone in moving away from U.S. software, with France and the Netherlands both taking steps to replace Microsoft Windows.”
Oct 27
Police In Guinea-Bissau Raid Offices Of Danish Anti-Vaxxers Planning CDC-Funded Unethical Study techdirt.com · “The study is designed to knowingly expose 7,000 children to hepatitis B, which can have immensely deleterious long-term health outcomes if exposed.”
Oct 26
Interoperability vs. Security: Why not both? eff.org · “Policymakers cannot take tech giants’ claims at face value.”
Oct 26
Malcolm Gladwell: Cops Are Violent Because The US Doesn't Have Enough Cops techdirt.com · “The drop-off in police staffing is due to the cops themselves.”
Oct 26
EFF to Brazil's ANPD: Data Privacy and Free Expression Must Underpin Platform Regulations eff.org · “Age verification technology is often inaccurate and privacy-invasive.”
Oct 26
Canadians Are Running Out Of Time To Oppose The Dangerous C-22 Surveillance Bill eff.org · “It also requires services to retain metadata for up to a year.”
Oct 24
Elon Musk Just Gave Europe a Reason to Replace American Technology steveblank.com · “The U.S. is an unreliable security and technology partner willing to throw any partner under the bus.”
Oct 24
Greece's social media ban for under-15s: What you need to know euronews.com · “The new framework is due to apply from 1 January 2027.”
Oct 23
Bird Flu Is Raging on a Mink Farm. It Could Spark a Human Pandemic, Experts Say, but Officials Won't Act. propublica.org · “Instead of trying to stop the outbreak and prevent it from spilling into humans, state and federal officials have done little except try to keep its existence quiet, our investigation shows.”
Oct 23
ICE Officers Who Ran Over Man Were Trying To Arrest Someone Who Had Been Dead For Years techdirt.com · “ICE alleged in a statement that ‘Parra-Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.’”
Oct 22
Nuclear Weapons Waste Made Workers Sick. Despite a Law Meant to Help, the DOE Keeps Fighting Their Claims. propublica.org · “State records show that the DOE has filed more than 500 appeals since the presumption law passed in 2018.”
Oct 22
'VPNs at Risk': Tech Coalition Pushes Back on Piracy Blocking Duties for VPNs torrentfreak.com · “ACPA would allow courts to name VPN providers with 100,000 or more monthly U.S. users or subscribers in a blocking order.”
Oct 22
EFF's State Legislative Agenda to End ALPR Mass Surveillance eff.org · “In August 2026, Florida’s Department of Transportation ordered the removal of all ALPRs from the right-of-way on state highways within 30 days.”
Oct 22
The UAE embraces AI for kindergartners restofworld.org · “We want children who use AI to ask better questions, not children who rely on it to give them all the answers.”
Oct 21
The River Can't Be Trusted propublica.org · “They told us exactly where it was going to come and what it was going to do,” said Hall, the fire chief.
Oct 21
Victory! Court Rules OPM Data Disclosure to DOGE Is Unlawful eff.org · “However, OPM should still clean up the cybersecurity mess it created.”
Oct 20
'We Didn't Do This Perfectly': American Fork Police Chief's Understatement Now Anchors A Civil Rights Lawsuit By Reckless Ben's Helpers techdirt.com · “There seemed to be a pervasive belief among the AFPD that they could effectively scare the young people straight by detaining and threatening them, which is not how policing is supposed to work.”
Oct 20
He Waited Nine Years in Prison for His Lawyer to File a Single Brief. In This State, There's No Rule Against It. propublica.org · “O’Neal is still fighting his case, now with a new court-appointed lawyer.”
Oct 20
TP-Link moves to assemble routers in the US following an import ban engadget.com · “The company said it will still have to source components from outside the US.”
Oct 20
DeepSeek deep-sixed at all US federal civilian agencies theregister.com · “Banning DeepSeek’s own app and API is workable.”
Oct 19
He Tried to Set Limits on His State's School Vouchers. Billionaires Helped Bankroll a Campaign to Unseat Him. propublica.org · “if you oppose school freedom, expect to be held accountable”
Oct 19
France's unrest lays bare 'slow agony' of Macron twilight months yahoo.com · “Le Pen no longer needs to spend any money to campaign.”
Oct 19
Rep. Ritchie Torres Announces Congressional Legislation To Protect Video Game Ownership: 'If You Pay For It, You Own It' kotaku.com · “A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase.”
Oct 18
RIAA Flags Anna's Archive and AI Voice Cloner to U.S. Government torrentfreak.com · “The annual review doesn’t make any legal findings.”
Oct 18
DHS Inspector General Finds That TSA is Not Properly Safeguarding Passenger Facial Recognition Data eff.org · “…was able to access and extract sensitive passenger information, including driver’s license and passport images, during system troubleshooting and enhancements, without TSA’s knowledge.”
Oct 17
U.K. Sanctions Cryptomus for RU Money Laundering krebsonsecurity.com · “Cryptomus and Heleket have emerged as major payment hubs for illicit activity,”
Oct 17
Game Industry Asks U.S. to Flag Denuvo Cracker 'voices38' as Notorious Piracy Threat torrentfreak.com · “Each crack therefore unlocks an entire downstream market for an unauthorized copy of that title.”
Oct 13
Turkish Crackdown On LGBTQ+ Organizations Threatens Freedom of Expression and Association eff.org · “These actions threaten the very existence of the LGBTQ+ organizations targeted.”
Oct 13
Alabama's TikTok Settlement Comes With An Affiliate Program For Getting Other AGs To Go After TikTok techdirt.com · “The agreement sets up multiple “funds” that are wholly dependent on other state AGs coming to similar settlements.”
Oct 11
Turkish Crackdown On LGBTQ+ Organizations Threatens Freedom of Expression and Association eff.org · “These actions threaten the very existence of the LGBTQ+ organizations targeted.”
Oct 11
New York Plans Stronger Sports Betting Regulation to Curb Gambling Addiction propublica.org · “The industry is on notice by me and this commission that they need to solve this problem,”
Oct 10
Loud blast heard at Riyadh airport as travellers evacuate yahoo.com · “More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing to the airport.”
Oct 10
US bars Microsoft, Adobe, and major IT firms from green card program for skilled foreign workers techcrunch.com · “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,”
Oct 10
An Arizona County's "Housing Hub" Is a Dead End for Many Homeless Families propublica.org · “You have to stay homeless to get to the front, and that’s a design choice.”
Oct 10
Conflict in the Red Sea is forcing cloud giants to find a new route for the internet restofworld.org · “Repairs took months because the repair ships needed assurances they would not be fired upon.”
Oct 9
US Postal Service To Start Exploring Its Always-On Surveillance Options techdirt.com · “The purpose of this pilot is to leverage the Postal Service’s unique ability to collect this valuable data.”
Oct 9
Site-Blocking Will Not Defend IP, No Matter the Bill's Name eff.org · “It is about making an entire website inaccessible for everyone trying to visit it.”
Oct 9
As U.S. blocks DJI, Insta360 races to win American creators restofworld.org · “In the first half of 2026, Insta360’s net profit dropped by 94% compared with a year ago.”
Oct 9
Ken Paxton's Security for Travel Cost Taxpayers Millions. Just 1 in 6 of His Trips Had a Stated Business Purpose. propublica.org · “There’s no reason for the taxpayers to be paying for things that they would not be paying for if he had stayed home.”
Oct 9
When No ID Means No Internet: Age Verification and the Right to Access Information eff.org · “Age verification is not a neutral safety measure.”
Oct 9
We Demand More Information on How Marin Cops Illegally Shared Flock ALPR Data eff.org · “This sharing violated state law and ’exposed sensitive driver location information to misuse by the federal government.'”
Oct 5
Four Kids in One Faith-Healing Family Died. Authorities Could Do Nothing. propublica.org · “If you don’t do anything, kids are going to die.”
Oct 5
Her Agency Distributes Billions for Housing Projects. Her Husband's Company Helped Develop Some of Them. propublica.org · “The closest Bell came to a disclosure was in 2025 with this vague note with a misspelling: ‘Spouse serves in an advisory role for a developmen.’”
Oct 5
Congress Has Another Site-Blocking Bill, And This One Targets VPNs eff.org · “The decision to label a website as a ‘foreign piracy site’ can happen without the accused site even showing up in court to defend itself.”
Oct 5
We're Reporters, Not Teachers. We Were Able to Start Private Schools Anyway. propublica.org · “In Arkansas, all it took was a few clicks on the Arkansas secretary of state website, $45 and an American flag to form a bona fide private school.”
Oct 2
Who gets to decide if AI is safe? Africa wants a say restofworld.org · “Africa cannot remain merely a market for systems developed elsewhere, a source of raw data, or a testing ground for a technology it did not help govern.”
Oct 2
While the Country Rejects ALPR Mass Surveillance, SF Settles for Weak Safeguards eff.org · “Without a warrant requirement, officers can search stored location data without showing probable cause to a judge, and will.”
Oct 1

September 2026 40 posts

Unified U.S. Site Blocking Bill Targets ISPs and DNS Resolvers But Spares VPNs torrentfreak.com · “The bill’s definition of a service provider explicitly excludes ‘an entity that exclusively provides virtual private network services or similar service that encrypt and route user traffic through intermediary servers.’”
Sep 28
EFF Statement on California Governor's Executive Order on AI eff.org · “They are happening right now through biased algorithmic decision-making for employment or government benefits”
Sep 28
EU Kids Act Won't Keep the Internet Accountable and Trustworthy eff.org · “However they’re designed, age gates undermine civil liberties, reduce safety, and create barriers to internet entry, often at the expense of marginalized groups.”
Sep 24
The case for a robot tax to redistribute wealth restofworld.org · “Retraining programs are a necessary but insufficient response to systemic displacement.”
Sep 24
U.S. Site Blocking Bill Adds VPNs to the List of Blocking Intermediaries torrentfreak.com · “The term ‘service provider’ includes providers of broadband internet access services, providers of domain name resolution services, and virtual private networks, but excludes root nameserver operators and top level domain registries.”
Sep 22
D.C. Circuit Must Vacate a Drone Flight Restriction That Criminalized Recording Immigration Agents eff.org · “The FAA issued a flight restriction for drones that had effectively criminalized the recording of Department of Homeland Security officers, including immigration agents from ICE and CBP.”
Sep 22
Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It's Worse in States With Abortion Bans. propublica.org · “Almost 200 women with the condition died from 2020 to 2025, compared with about 100 in the previous six years.”
Sep 22
Australia considers banning the use of smart glasses in government buildings yahoo.com · “Australia is considering barring the use of camera-equipped smart glasses in government workplaces due to privacy and security concerns, in what it said could be the first ban of its kind.”
Sep 22
Nvidia's free AI model could push the UAE closer to the U.S. restofworld.org · “The last missing piece was the model layer. Nvidia already owns the chips.”
Sep 22
South Africa joins the global resistance against American data centers restofworld.org · “A massive data center is trying to jump the queue and take our land, water and energy.”
Sep 17
Then They Came for the Ostriches harpers.org · “Every event called for interpretation, an attempt to see through to hidden endgames.”
Sep 17
A/I Shuts Down keepitfree.ai · “‘Stay human’ is not an empty phrase to us.”
Sep 16
AWS says wartime damage means some Middle East cloud resources are gone for good theregister.com · “After a thorough assessment, we have determined that we are unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted exclusively in this Region.”
Sep 16
Arizona Lowered the Bar for Its English Fluency Test. Experts Say It Will Harm Students in the Long Run. propublica.org · “If you’re put in a class where you don’t understand what’s going on at all, you’re not learning language or content.”
Sep 16
Playing both sides of the U.S.-China AI "Cold War" restofworld.org · “Many countries around the world, particularly in the Global South, want the best of both worlds.”
Sep 16
Rep. Issa Files Competing U.S. Pirate Site Blocking Bill torrentfreak.com · “a third party whose site was wrongly blocked as the result of a rightsholder’s error could claim up to $250,000 in compensation.”
Sep 15
Vouchers Promise Students With Disabilities a Path to Private School. Parents Say That's Not the Reality. propublica.org · “About 8% of the $1.7 billion Florida distributed last year through its voucher program for disabled children was returned because recipients … were enrolled in public school instead.”
Sep 15
Higher-enriched uranium for datacenters has DoE all aglow theregister.com · “Nusano expects each unit will produce 5.9 metric tons (MT) of HALEU per year, with the first unit scheduled to be operational in 2031”
Sep 15
Apple's Siri AI Can Be Swapped Out for Claude, ChatGPT, Code Shows macrumors.com · “An inference provider in ‘Model Manager Services’ apparently allows Apple’s own server-side Siri model to be completely replaced by another model.”
Sep 15
Digital Sovereignty: What It Is, What It Could Be eff.org · “While pushing for greater sovereignty from Big Tech has benefits, there is an inherent risk that some states will pursue digital sovereignty as a means of cutting off or splintering access.”
Sep 10
New Records Reveal Problems with Medicare's AI Prior Authorization Experiment eff.org · “WISeR vendors failed to respond within 72 hours for a significant number of requests. One status report cites a prior authorization request that went unanswered for 83 days.”
Sep 10
U.S. Postal Service Failed to Properly Handle Some Ballots During This Year's Primary Elections, Audit Finds propublica.org · “There were no election-related training materials posted at 22 of 73 delivery units, or about 30%.”
Sep 10
Cops Play Hide and Seek About Using Spy Tech to Avoid Scrutiny and Bad PR eff.org · “DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE. DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.”
Sep 10
Hurricane Helene Washed His Wife Away From Their Mobile Home. Now New Residents Live on the Same Land. theassemblync.com · “Mobile homes, the country’s largest source of affordable housing, are often left out” because “trailers, even when they become immovable and lifelong homes, aren’t typically considered real estate but instead personal property, like motorcycles and boats.”
Sep 10
Switzerland tests a FOSS escape route from Microsoft 365 theregister.com · “The platform is expected to become available to about 3,000 selected employees from the end of 2027, with the first phase forecast to cost CHF 9 million.”
Sep 9
EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California's AB 1709 eff.org · “A.B. 1709 is a massive privacy and free speech nightmare.”
Sep 9
Regulators Knew This Marijuana Product Was Harming People. It Stayed on Shelves for More Than a Year. propublica.org · “Regulators knew this marijuana product was harming people. It stayed on shelves for more than a year.”
Sep 9
DOE Approves $1.9 Billion Loan to NextEra for Google's Revived Nuclear Plant techcrunch.com · “The facility’s owner, NextEra Energy, has received a $1.9 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to finance the refurbishment.”
Sep 9
Paramount Caught Using 'Astroturf' Group To Drum Up Fake Support For Merger techdirt.com · “The sender organization’s website is less than three months old. It discloses no founders, board members, staff, or funders, and the organization does not appear in ProPublica’s nonprofit database.”
Sep 8
This State Is Spending More on Lethal Injections. A Law Tries to Keep the Details Secret. propublica.org · “You wouldn’t have to pay this much money if the lethal injection process was an acceptable one.”
Sep 8
Oil Surges Toward $100 as US-Iran Attacks Escalate finance.yahoo.com · “The latest rally followed a weekend escalation in which the U.S. military struck three Iranian oil tankers after Iran launched ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy warships.”
Sep 8
Smartphone makers don't bother to comply with EU repairability requirements theregister.com · “The obligation for publicly available spare parts prices and repair manuals is a great step forward, but it needs to be enforced better.”
Sep 7
US troops can still be tracked by purchased location data, and Congress wants to know why theregister.com · “This change will essentially ensure that military device location data isn’t being included in bulk data sales being done by numerous vendors.”
Sep 6
Judge Rules DOD Unlawfully Retaliated Against Anthropic eff.org · The Department of Defense’s “supply chain risk” designation of Anthropic “constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.”
Sep 6
RFK Jr. Wants Your Medical Records techdirt.com · “Since the spring of 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has sought federal access to Americans’ medical records to investigate whether vaccines cause autism.”
Sep 6
Flock-Stalking, Nazi-Saluting Deputy Given Top Cop Honors Before Hastily Retiring techdirt.com · “The 43-page investigation found Fultz had posed for pictures as Adolf Hitler, freely used racial slurs in texts, masturbated on camera in his police vehicle.”
Sep 2
Texas and Florida Step Back from ALPRs eff.org · “ALPR mass surveillance, the indiscriminate, continuous collection and retention of location data on every driver, regardless of suspicion, should not exist.”
Sep 2
The Scientist Trying to Keep Kratom Legal Has Not Disclosed Longstanding Ties to Kratom Lobbyists propublica.org · “I’m really confused on where science ends and lobbying begins.”
Sep 2
Taiwan's six-year hunt for China's undercover chip labs restofworld.org · “Almost everyone in the industry would know or have heard of people who were approached or worked for Chinese companies.”
Sep 2
New York City Bans Generative AI for Students Through 8th Grade abcnews.com · “We’re standing firmly in our decision to not conflate innovation with more tech.”
Sep 2

August 2026 32 posts

A List of ICE Subpoenas to Tech Companies eff.org · “ICE has been forced to withdraw others after users challenged them in court or companies pushed back.”
Aug 29
'Right To Repair' State Laws Continue To Surge, But Enforcement Remains Nonexistent techdirt.com · “despite major progress on passing new legislative proposals, I’ve yet to see a single state enforce any aspect of a new right to repair law”
Aug 29
Idaho Law Protects Faith Healers. It Wasn't Always That Way. propublica.org · “From at least the 1880s through the early 1970s, it was illegal for parents in Idaho to choose prayer over medical care when a child’s life was at stake”
Aug 29
Green Party wants to slam the brakes on UK datacenter construction until water and energy use are sorted theregister.com · “A pause on building new datacenters would simply send investment and good jobs abroad, while leaving Britain dependent on overseas computing for the processing of sensitive health and defense data.”
Aug 29
Zero-Knowledge Proofs Aren't Age Verification Silver Bullets eff.org · “No method of online age verification is privacy-protective, fully accurate, and capable of guaranteeing universal coverage.”
Aug 26
CIA Director John Ratcliffe Makes Secret Trip to Moscow cbsnews.com · “CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow, Russia, for meetings, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News on Tuesday.”
Aug 26
SpaceX Announces $100 Billion Plan for New Spaceport in Louisiana cbsnews.com · “Today is nothing short of a transformational moment,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry told lawmakers.
Aug 26
Children in a Faith-Healing Sect Keep Dying. The State Lets It Happen. propublica.org · “How is this tolerable? I don’t understand how there could be an exception in Idaho law that allows for these children to die.”
Aug 25
CISA slaps its tightest three-day patching deadline on perfect-10 Oracle flaw theregister.com · “Successful attacks targeting CVE-2026-21962 can allow miscreants to create, delete, or modify access to critical data, and even gain ‘complete access’ to all data stored on the affected systems.”
Aug 25
U.S. streaming industry slams CRTC rules for Canadian content investment globalnews.ca · “CRTC is targeting and taxing U.S. companies, putting up new, discriminatory trade barriers”
Aug 25
Intermediary Liability in Brazil: The Intricate Path Ahead eff.org · “The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t establish guidelines to protect users’ due process rights when facing content take down and removal demands.”
Aug 25
Nvidia manager among nine indicted over China chip sales taiwanplus.com · “Prosecutors in Taiwan have indicted nine people for smuggling high-end AI chips to China.”
Aug 24
EFF and Civil Society Groups Call on Nottinghamshire Police to Halt Live Face Recognition eff.org · “48% of people oppose scanning the faces of those walking on high streets when there is no suspected imminent threat.”
Aug 21
Some Tech Companies Have Privately Pushed Back on ICE Subpoenas. They Should All Do More. eff.org · “In the second half of 2025, the company received three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subpoenas seeking account information from 11 users who posted content critical of ICE.”
Aug 19
Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots responsiblestatecraft.org · “AI Story Optimization… author(s) content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility.”
Aug 17
Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study ysph.yale.edu · “Adequate coverage for all could avert about 62,863 deaths annually.”
Aug 17
North Korean remote IT staffer worked for US government agency, says FBI techcrunch.com · “The case marks a rare confirmed instance of a sanctioned North Korean working for a government agency.”
Aug 12
Why we should all be worried about AI in elections restofworld.org · “Roughly 5.5 million voters were deleted from rolls in two states, many without any notice or path to reinstatement, before India’s Supreme Court halted the program.”
Aug 12
Hundreds Of Drone-as-First-Responder Programs Could Soon Be Launched Across The Country techdirt.com · “The agency issued more waivers between April 2025 and February 2026 than it had in the previous seven years combined.”
Aug 11
Asbestos, mold and crumbling walls: The US military's Pacific bases are falling apart militarytimes.com · “At Kinser Tower base housing at Kadena, concrete damage has affected 544 homes, according to the IG.”
Aug 11
EU Study: Block Live Sports Piracy in 30 Minutes, Across DNS Resolvers, VPNs and CDNs torrentfreak.com · “It would likewise be desirable for the personal scope of application to extend to the entire chain of intermediaries technically involved in the distribution of unauthorised content, including providers of content delivery networks, VPN services, dedicated servers and DNS resolution systems.”
Aug 11
US citizen detained by ICE at Atlanta airport as he boarded plane wsbtv.com · “There is no probable cause here. A matching name and birth date is not probable cause.”
Aug 11
Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers restofworld.org · “For companies where AI companionship isn’t a core business, it may simply make more commercial sense to remove these features than invest the resources needed to make them compliant.”
Aug 11
The offline messaging apps challenging internet shutdowns restofworld.org · “The decentralized architecture of the app means that there is no central server or database and therefore there cannot be a central kill switch.”
Aug 7
Californians' data deletion requests, DROP, become enforceable Aug. 1 nbcsandiego.com · “The alternative is you would have to contact 600 companies and say, please delete my information. And who’s got time for that?”
Aug 2
Meta straps on a 'Kick Me' sign by taking down video by India's prime minister theregister.com · Meta acknowledged the takedown was “a mistake, apologized, and restored the video.”
Aug 2
Governor Hochul and Attorney General James Announce Final SAFE for Kids Act Rules governor.ny.gov · “Social media companies must determine that a given user is an adult before providing them with algorithmic feeds.”
Aug 2
What Ukraine's Battlefield Openness Can Teach Washington About AI Access techdirt.com · “Ukraine’s leaderboard may be a crude way to run a war, but it is at least a rule. Public, legible, the same for every unit.”
Aug 2
The SCREEN Act Threatens Privacy Far Beyond Adult Websites eff.org · “requiring a user to confirm that the user is not a minor shall not be sufficient”
Aug 1
The CHATBOT Act Forces One Parenting Model On Every Family eff.org · “send alerts if a teen attempts to bypass or disable parental controls”
Aug 1
World Cup Piracy Crackdown Shows Limits of Domain Seizures, MPA Pushes Site Blocking torrentfreak.com · “A takedown is essential, and it can interrupt access for a moment. But it does not dismantle the business behind it.”
Aug 1
Amending AB 1709 Doesn't Fix It: California's Social Media Ban Still Threatens Free Speech and Privacy eff.org · “the bill defines ‘addictive feeds’ so broadly that it covers virtually every functional recommendation algorithm”
Aug 1

July 2026 35 posts

Tech buyers are baking in sovereignty from day one, says Forrester theregister.com · “The organisations that succeed will treat sovereignty as an architectural principle from the start.”
Jul 31
UK wants datacenters to pay a fee for grid connection requests theregister.com · “The electricity demand connections queue has more than tripled in size in less than a year, and consumers should not bear the risks created by speculative projects taking up space in the system”
Jul 31
Hims & Hers accused of sharing health secrets and hiding the cancel button theregister.com · “the consumer’s subscription would not be cancelled. Instead, the consumer would then have to click through approximately three to ten survey questions”
Jul 31
For the Second Time, Lawmakers Failed to Fix California's Warning System for Teacher Misconduct propublica.org · “When the safety of a child does not meet a legislative priority, that’s a head-scratcher for me. I think being sympathetic to the offender is on the wrong side of this issue.”
Jul 31
Vietnam Uses HiAnime Arrests As Defense Against U.S. Trade Sanctions torrentfreak.com · “on 1 July 2026, the Ministry of Public Security initiated criminal proceedings […] against 07 suspects”
Jul 31
Senators Push Federal Regulator to Prove School Bus Safety Data Is Accurate propublica.org · “Without accurate and complete data, it is impossible for FMCSA to properly target enforcement on unsafe companies”
Jul 31
Axon Insists Its AI Makes Police Reports Easier. Nothing Suggests It Makes Them Any Better techdirt.com · “It was just easier to type the report themselves.”
Jul 30
Andy Beshear Set Out to Make Drug Treatment Widely Available in Kentucky. Fraud and Abuse Followed. propublica.org · “It just became an opportunity for people to make money.”
Jul 30
With Moonshot's free Kimi K3, China changes the sovereign AI playbook restofworld.org · “The best artificial intelligence technology any country can own is now available for free.”
Jul 30
Lawmakers Call for CDC to Track Vitamin K Shot Refusals, Cite ProPublica Report propublica.org · “Recent reporting from ProPublica has highlighted a major problem: the federal government does not currently track vitamin K shot refusal, vitamin K deficiency bleeding, or the preventable deaths related to vitamin K deficiency.”
Jul 29
Farmers Are Getting Control Of Their Equipment Back eff.org · “If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it.”
Jul 29
Burnham's spanner in the works leaves UK government tech scattered across Whitehall theregister.com · “The post of a dedicated technology minister is gone.”
Jul 29
Hyperscale, hypersensitive: US teacher cuffed for applauding datacenter critics theregister.com · “I’m glad to be out, but this is an inconvenience, really. It’s not really deterring me from speaking out or, I guess, clapping.”
Jul 29
404 Media Scores Leaked Document Detailing The Dozens Of Surveillance Tools ICE Has Access To techdirt.com · “The document covers everything from monitoring social media to tracking the movements of vehicles.”
Jul 29
San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing eff.org · “Privacy is a human right, not something that people should understand as a currency to give away or protect based on how it will impact the price of groceries.”
Jul 29
Hyperscale, Hypersensitive: US Teacher Cuffed for Applauding Datacenter Critics theregister.com · “Officers approached Claridge, who declined to leave and told them: ‘Drag me out.’ Four officers duly hoisted the teacher off the floor and carried him outside.”
Jul 28
France Approves Automated, Real-Time Blocking of Pirate Sports Streams torrentfreak.com · “The French Parliament has handed ARCOM, the country’s audiovisual and digital regulator, the power to block pirate sports streams in real time without checking each targeted piracy source manually.”
Jul 28
China begins mass production of homegrown DUV lithography machines in major chip breakthrough techstartups.com · “The country has moved beyond building prototypes and into manufacturing commercial lithography systems that domestic chipmakers can begin evaluating inside real production lines.”
Jul 27
On This Nearly Deserted Alaska Island, You Pay to Keep Hundreds of Empty Buildings Wired for Internet propublica.org · “Not a single one told us they subscribe to the island’s subsidized internet service.”
Jul 27
Hundreds of Drone-as-First-Responder Programs Could Soon Be Launched Across the Country eff.org · “The agency issued more waivers between April 2025 and February 2026 than it had in the previous seven years combined.”
Jul 26
Ken Paxton Touts His Efforts to Fight Voter Fraud. His Senate Opponent Is Now Accusing Him of Committing It. propublica.org · “Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections”
Jul 26
Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory web.archive.org · “On Sunday, July 26th, at 10:13, a Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft shot down a drone that had entered the national airspace without authorization.”
Jul 26
GitHub Ordered to Remove Decentralized Messaging App Bitchat in India cyberinsider.com · “The app’s lack of mandatory registration, phone number verification, and centralized logging significantly impedes lawful interception and criminal investigations.”
Jul 24
Commission fines Google €890 million for breaches of the Digital Markets Act digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu · “Google gives preferential treatment to its own services, including shopping, hotels, transport and sports results, over those of third parties in Google Search.”
Jul 23
Lindsey Graham Cause of Death: US Senator Dies at 71 After a 'Brief and Sudden Illness' abc7ny.com · “Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular disease.”
Jul 13
FTC reaches settlement that brings right-to-repair to John Deere farm equipment engadget.com · “Those policies required equipment owners and independent repair providers to pay higher prices for any needed services.”
Jul 9
US Food and Drug Administration rejects petition to set PFAS limits in food mondaq.com · “FDA concluded that the petition did not provide sufficient scientific evidence to support establishing tolerances or action levels for the specific PFAS, foods and levels requested.”
Jul 9
All Cars Sold in the EU Now Require a Camera Aimed at Your Face allaboutcookies.org · “Starting July 7, 2026, every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera aimed at your face.”
Jul 7
Showdown in Strasbourg: The unexpected return of Chat Control 1.0 heise.de · “The European Parliament cleared the way for a renewed extension of the so-called ‘Chat Control’ on Tuesday afternoon. With a narrow majority of 331 to 304 votes…”
Jul 7
Graham Platner Denies Sexual Assault Allegations Published by Politico mainepublic.org · “Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love.”
Jul 6
Virginia Bans Sale of Geolocation Data hunton.com · “The ban on the sale of geolocation data goes into effect on July 1, 2026.”
Jul 2
DHS Confirms Hackers Breached HSIN Info-Sharing Platform nextgov.com · “The hackers targeted HSIN servers and a SharePoint system used for collaboration efforts.”
Jul 2
Political Parties Can Now Spend Unlimited Money Supporting Candidates, After Supreme Court Overturns Decades of Precedent theconversation.com · “The court was not convinced that limiting coordinated party expenditures was necessary to curb conduit corruption.”
Jul 1
U.S. Helicopter Goes Down in Arabian Sea, Crew Member Missing, Navy Says cbsnews.com · “Three of the helicopter’s four crew members have been recovered and are in stable condition aboard George H. W. Bush.”
Jul 1
New Florida Law Bans Local Net-Zero Emissions Policies insideclimatenews.org · “HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals.”
Jul 1

June 2026 7 posts

Supreme Court Lets States Count Mail Ballots That Arrive After Election Day votebeat.org · “The electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.
Jun 30
European Digital ID Wallets Are a Gift to Google and Apple waag.org · “ID wallets are public infrastructure to access critical public services. They should remain interoperable across different devices and operating systems, free from vendor lock-in.”
Jun 30
Double Threat to Private Communications: Chat Control Relaunch patrick-breyer.de · “What we are witnessing this week is a blatant disregard for democratic processes and fundamental rights.”
Jun 29
US Agency Cancels Contract For Warrantless Tracking of Mobile Devices web.archive.org · “Webloc, which is made by a vendor called Penlink, sources data from consumer apps and advertising networks, which collect the location of mobile devices from consumers who download apps or browse the web.”
Jun 28
We can still stop California's 3D printer surveillance scheme eff.org · “A printer surveillance system won’t work for its intended purpose, and will only harm law abiding users.”
Jun 26
The Brexit Catch dispatch-media.com · “Fishing built Brixham. It was Brixham men who pioneered deep-sea trawling in the nineteenth century, taking their distinctive sailing trawlers around the coast.”
Jun 18
Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 anthropic.com · “The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national.”
Jun 13

May 2026 9 posts

Uber, Lyft Drivers In Massachusetts Form First US Ride-Share Union usnews.com · “It changes the game for ride-share workers across this country.”
May 26
EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing" cyberinsider.com · “The Parliamentary Research Service describes commercial VPN services as a loophole that needs closing.”
May 9
France Moves to Break Encrypted Messaging reclaimthenet.org · “The French interior ministry is preparing legislation that would require backdoor access to all encrypted communications.”
May 8
Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs tomshardware.com · “Sites would face liability if a Utah user accessed restricted content using a VPN, even if the site complied with all standard age verification requirements.”
May 4
US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants techcrunch.com · “Healthcare.gov state exchanges leaked citizenship status, race, and income data to Google, Meta, and LinkedIn through tracking pixels.”
May 3
Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027 ecopv-eu.com · “From 2027, all smartphones sold in the EU must have batteries that the user can replace without specialized tools.”
May 3
Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores nytimes.com · “The law prohibits grocery chains from using individual consumer data to set personalized prices at checkout.”
May 1
Russia Poisons Wikipedia bettedangerous.com · “Coordinated edits across hundreds of accounts have inserted Kremlin-aligned framing into thousands of Wikipedia articles, including pages with no obvious Russia connection.”
May 1
California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws bbc.com · “Starting July 1, the California Highway Patrol can issue moving violations directly to autonomous vehicle operators.”
May 1

April 2026 7 posts

U.S. Senators Vote to Ban Themselves from Trading on Prediction Markets wsj.com · “The Senate voted 81-15 to prohibit members from holding positions on Kalshi or Polymarket while in office.”
Apr 30
Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants dpa-international.com · “Belgium reverses its 2003 nuclear phaseout and will keep all seven reactors operating past 2035.”
Apr 30
EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs juraj.bednar.io · “The EU’s age control proposal is functionally a digital ID mandate.”
Apr 25
2,100 Swiss municipalities showing which provider handles their official email mxmap.ch · “A public dataset showing which email provider each of 2,100 Swiss municipalities uses.”
Apr 19
US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification reclaimthenet.org · “A new US bill would require operating systems to verify user ages on-device.”
Apr 16
France pulls last gold held in US mining.com · “France has repatriated the last of its gold reserves held at the Federal Reserve in New York.”
Apr 6
ASML Shares Fall as MATCH Act Threatens to Tighten China Chip Equipment Restrictions cnbc.com · “Those tools potentially account for a low-teens percentage of ASML’s 2026 sales.”
Apr 5

March 2026 14 posts

Newsom Signs Executive Order Imposing AI Standards on Companies Doing Business With California calmatters.org · “Unlike the Trump administration, California remains committed to ensuring that AI solutions adopted and deployed by the state cannot be misused by bad actors.”
Mar 30
FCC updates covered list to include foreign-made consumer routers fcc.gov · “The FCC has added several Chinese consumer router brands to the covered equipment list, banning their sale and import.”
Mar 23
FBI Director Confirms Bureau Is Buying Americans Location Data Without Warrants techcrunch.com · “The FBI uses all tools to do our mission. We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the Constitution.”
Mar 22
Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars cnn.com · “Paris removed 70,000 parking spaces over a decade. Car traffic fell by 45 percent.”
Mar 21
Do Not Turn Child Protection into Internet Access Control news.dyne.org · “Every age verification proposal, in every jurisdiction, ends in the same place. Universal identity checks for everyone.”
Mar 21
Foster City Declares State of Emergency After Ransomware Attack cbsnews.com · “Public services outside of emergency responses have been temporarily paused.”
Mar 20
Iran Drone Strikes on AWS Data Centers Signal a New Kind of War fortune.com · “Physical attacks on data centers are only going to become more common moving forward as AI becomes more and more significant.”
Mar 19
Despite doubts, federal cyber experts approved Microsoft cloud service propublica.org · “Internal FedRAMP reviewers flagged serious unresolved security issues. The service was approved anyway.”
Mar 18
Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain michaelgeist.ca · “The third revival of lawful access in Canada keeps the encryption backdoor language nearly intact.”
Mar 15
ByteDance Secures 36,000 Nvidia B200 Chips in Malaysia to Skirt US Export Controls theonlinecitizen.com · “ByteDance is working with Southeast Asian firm Aolani Cloud to deploy about 500 Nvidia Blackwell computing systems in Malaysia.”
Mar 14
Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs pymnts.com · “Every single cent of IEEPA duties that was imposed must be refunded.”
Mar 5
British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time cbc.ca · “We are done waiting. British Columbia is going to change our clocks just one more time — and then never again.”
Mar 3
Charter Gets FCC Permission To Buy Cox, Become Largest ISP In the US arstechnica.com · “Charter has committed to new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination.”
Mar 2
AIs Can't Stop Recommending Nuclear Strikes In War Game Simulations newscientist.com · “In 95 per cent of the simulated games, at least one tactical nuclear weapon was deployed by the AI models.”
Mar 1

February 2026 21 posts

US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives reuters.com · “A State Department cable instructs embassies to oppose foreign laws requiring data to be stored locally.”
Feb 25
Russia Charges Telegram Founder Pavel Durov With Facilitating Terrorism meduza.io · “The illusion of anonymity has drawn armies of radicals, drug addicts, killers, and terrorists to the messenger.”
Feb 24
F-35 Software Could Be Jailbroken Like an iPhone, Dutch Defense Minister Warns twz.com · “You can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone.” — Gijs Tuinman, Dutch State Secretary for Defense
Feb 22
Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran nytimes.com · “Employees who raised concerns about transactions routed to Iran were let go before the company reached a settlement with US regulators.”
Feb 22
Trump's Global Tariffs Struck Down by US Supreme Court reuters.com · “The court invoked the ‘major questions’ doctrine, ruling that Congress had not clearly authorized the president to impose sweeping global tariffs under emergency trade powers.”
Feb 20
Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoiding public oversight thenevadaindependent.com · “It’s a short circuit of the democratic process.” — Jay Stanley, ACLU lawyer
Feb 20
IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup theregister.com · “Last year, we lost approximately 40 percent of the IT staff and nearly 80 percent of the execs.” — IRS CIO Kaschit Pandya
Feb 18
EU mandates replaceable batteries by 2027 environment.ec.europa.eu · “By 2027, portable batteries incorporated into appliances must be designed so they can be readily removed and replaced by the end-user.”
Feb 18
Pentagon Threatens To Label Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk axios.com · “That kind of penalty is usually reserved for foreign adversaries.”
Feb 16
South Korean ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection theguardian.com · “Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law lasted only hours before the National Assembly voted it down, but it triggered months of political turmoil.”
Feb 15
America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks governance.fyi · “People aren’t failing to save because they’re weak. They’re failing to save because the world is rough, and their institutions don’t do enough to help them weather it.”
Feb 15
The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling politico.eu · “Brussels is preparing legislation that would ban infinite scroll, autoplay, and engagement-driven feed algorithms on platforms used by minors.”
Feb 13
Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists reuters.com · “Two thousand artists will receive 325 euros a week with no work requirement under a permanent expansion of Ireland’s pilot program.”
Feb 11
Democrat Wins Louisiana Special Election in District Trump Carried by 13 Points cbsnews.com · “Republicans squandered their first flip opportunity in an election they should’ve had in the bag.”
Feb 10
France's homegrown open source online office suite github.com · “The French government’s open source office suite is now in production use across multiple ministries.”
Feb 7
EU Tests Matrix Protocol as Sovereign Alternative for Internal Communication dig.watch · “The Commission aims to deploy it as a complement and backup to Teams rather than a full replacement.”
Feb 6
A new bill in New York would require disclaimers on AI-generated news content niemanlab.org · “More than 76% of Americans are concerned about AI stealing or reproducing journalism and local news stories.”
Feb 6
CIA to Sunset the World Factbook abc.net.au · “End programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.”
Feb 5
New York's budget bill would require 'blocking technology' on all 3D printers blog.adafruit.com · “The proposed law requires every 3D printer sold in New York to refuse to print certain regulated objects.”
Feb 3
France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US apnews.com · “France is migrating government communications off Microsoft Teams and Zoom to European-hosted alternatives.”
Feb 3
Christian Menefee Wins Texas House District 18 Special Election nbcnews.com · “Once Menefee is sworn in, it will be 218 R, 214 D.”
Feb 1

January 2026 14 posts

Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native theregister.com · “The European Commission is moving from advisory language to mandatory deadlines for migrating critical infrastructure off US-controlled cloud providers.”
Jan 31
Thune: Democrats, Go Talk to Trump electoral-vote.com · “Thune stated that ’legislating is none of his business’ and belongs to the president.”
Jan 29
Minnesota Rejects DOJ Demand for Voter Rolls talkingpointsmemo.com · “Her letter is an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security.”
Jan 28
The 3.5% Rule: How a Small Minority Can Change the World bbc.com · “No campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5% of the population.”
Jan 25
FBI agents search Washington Post reporter's home washingtonpost.com · “Searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here.”
Jan 23
Texas and Oklahoma brace for snow and ice as winter storm barrels toward eastern US apnews.com · “Texas officials say the state is ready for the 2026 weekend winter storm and it won’t repeat 2021 catastrophe.”
Jan 23
TikTok Finalizes Deal To Form New American Entity npr.org · “TikTok’s recommendation algorithm will be retrained and tested using American user data.”
Jan 23
EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity eu-inc.org · “A single corporate registration valid in all 27 member states, with English-language filings and a unified equity structure.”
Jan 21
Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries reuters.com · “AkademikerPension will sell its full holdings of US Treasury bonds, citing political risk and currency considerations.”
Jan 20
American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis kielinstitut.de · “The empirical pass-through of 2025 tariff increases to US consumer prices is approximately 90 percent.”
Jan 19
FBI raids Washington Post reporter's home theguardian.com · “Federal agents executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post investigative reporter, seizing notebooks, phones, and devices.”
Jan 16
How SpaceX Rockets Put Passenger Planes at Risk propublica.org · “We’re too close to the debris.”
Jan 15
An Act of Cosmic Sabotage theatlantic.com · “On Mars, in the belly of a rover named Perseverance, a titanium tube holds a stone more precious than any diamond or ruby on Earth.”
Jan 8
NPR investigation shows how the government tried to erase information about January 6 npr.org · “All right, guys, getting my loadout bag. I got the carbon fiber knuckles, matching hatchets.”
Jan 6

2025 138 posts

December 2025 1 posts

The Shocking Crash That Led One County to Reckon With the Dangers of E-Bikes nytimes.com · “E-bikes go really fast—faster than the surrounding people and cyclists and pedestrians would warrant.”
Dec 7

November 2025 7 posts

California High-Speed Rail Reaches 80 Miles of Completed Guideway hsr.ca.gov · “Materials needed to lay track along the 119-mile segment will be 100% state funded.”
Nov 26
COP30 Ends Without Agreement on Phasing Out Fossil Fuels climatechangenews.com · “Science has been deleted from COP30 because it offends the polluters.”
Nov 22
Ministers Launch Global Initiative to Cut Farm Methane and Nitrous Oxide ccacoalition.org · “FIRST is the first coordinated South-South platform linking countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia to share practical, low-cost solutions.”
Nov 19
Energy Department Closes $1 Billion Loan to Restart Pennsylvania Nuclear Plant energy.gov · “The Energy Department announced it closed a $1 billion loan to accelerate the restart of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant that will deliver 850 megawatts of electricity.”
Nov 18
43-Day Government Shutdown Becomes the Longest in US History cnn.com · “The 2025 shutdown, by comparison, has derailed 100% of appropriations.”
Nov 12
UK and Brazil Launch $25 Million Program to Cut Methane and HFCs ccacoalition.org · “The UK and Brazil launched a ‘Super Pollutant Country Action Accelerator’ to drive rapid cuts in methane, HFCs, and air pollutants across 30 developing countries by 2030.”
Nov 9
FDA Creates New Pathway for Personalized Gene Therapy scientificdiscovery.dev · “The FDA launched a new pathway to market for personalized gene therapy procedures in November.”
Nov 7

October 2025 5 posts

UK Government Announces CMA Reform, May Replace Panel Model goodwinlaw.com · “The consultation considers whether to replace the panel model for overseeing in-depth merger reviews with a committee model.”
Oct 25
Vienna-Bratislava Railway Electrified and Reopened en.wikipedia.org · “The Marchegger Eastern Railway reopened and was electrified between Vienna and Bratislava.”
Oct 11
Passenger Rail Service Resumes Between Bucharest and Kyiv en.wikipedia.org · “Passenger services resumed between Bucharest and Kyiv on October 10.”
Oct 10
China Expands Rare Earth Export Controls, Adds Five More Elements aljazeera.com · “China hasn’t yet pulled the trigger on export restrictions, but it’s reminding Washington that it could.”
Oct 9
Belgrade-Subotica High-Speed Train Launches as Part of Budapest-Belgrade Railway en.wikipedia.org · “The Belgrade-Subotica high-speed train was launched as part of the Budapest–Belgrade railway.”
Oct 3

September 2025 6 posts

Fifth Circuit Upholds Voting Rights Act in Louisiana electoral-vote.com · “The conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld application of the Voting Rights Act.”
Sep 16
Tarrant County, Texas Reduces Polling Places by 35% electoral-vote.com · “County cut polling places from 331 to 216 and reduced early voting days, citing security and efficiency.”
Sep 15
US Secret Service Dismantles Telecommunications Threat bbc.co.uk · “Network of 300+ SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards dismantled near the UN General Assembly.”
Sep 13
Dozens of Scientists Find Errors in New Energy Department Climate Report npr.org · “More than 85 scientists issued a joint rebuttal to a DOE report full of errors and cherry-picked data.”
Sep 11
China's Space Program Will Soon Equal That of the US arstechnica.com · “Research finds China has made significant progress across all fronts in space exploration.”
Sep 10
2025 Infrastructure Report Card infrastructurereportcard.org · “The annual assessment of US infrastructure.”
Sep 6

August 2025 12 posts

Pentagon Warns Microsoft: Company's Use of China-Based Engineers Was a 'Breach of Trust' propublica.org · “The program was designed to comply with contracting rules, but it exposed the department to unacceptable risk.”
Aug 29
Germany's Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong? politico.com · “After World War II, the allies did a tremendous job of re-educating the German population. This led to a society which I would say is peace-minded, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is also non-military.”
Aug 29
A Texas Congressman Is Quietly Helping Elon Musk Pitch a $760M Plan to Build Tunnels Under Houston to Ease Flooding propublica.org · “If you build a smaller tunnel, OK, it’ll be cheaper, but it can carry less water. So what have you saved?”
Aug 28
Two Texas Moms Were Forced to Wait for Urgent Care After Pregnancy Loss. They Died. longreads.com · “At the outset of Texas’ abortion ban, medical experts worried women like Porsha and Brenda would die from delays in care.”
Aug 26
FCC Bars Over 1,200 Providers from Robocall Mitigation Database fcc.gov · “These providers violated FCC rules by failing to maintain accurate Robocall Mitigation Database certifications, thereby shirking their obligations to protect consumers from illegal robocalls.”
Aug 25
Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying longreads.com · “Give them masks” — the repeated recommendation from Forest Service researchers that the agency rejected, despite CDC findings that crews were breathing carcinogens and harmful chemicals.
Aug 20
Pipe Hitters longreads.com · “It would be easy. You hire a hundred gunmen for a month, get a few Toyota pickups, and you’re in business.”
Aug 18
China Launches Three-Day Robot Olympics hardware.slashdot.org · “A previous Beijing humanoid robot marathon saw several competitors emit smoke and fail to complete the course.”
Aug 15
ULA Launches First National Security Mission On Vulcan Centaur tech.slashdot.org · “This is a truly game-changing capability,” said Andrew Builta of L3Harris Technologies regarding the satellite’s software architecture that allows in-orbit reprogramming.
Aug 13
America's Clean Hydrogen Dreams Are Fading hardware.slashdot.org · “Three-quarters of proposals will not meet this deadline,” according to Wood Mackenzie, regarding the shortened qualification window for Biden-era tax credits.
Aug 11
Wikipedia challenges UK Online Safety Act wikimediafoundation.org · “The Court has an opportunity in this case to set a global precedent for protecting public interest projects online.”
Aug 11
NASA Satellites That Scientists and Farmers Rely On May Be Destroyed tech.slashdot.org · “The data are of exceptionally high quality.”
Aug 6

July 2025 18 posts

St. Paul Hacked So Badly National Guard Deployed arstechnica.com · “The magnitude and complexity of the cybersecurity incident exceeded the city’s response capacity.”
Jul 30
Dying for Gold: Who Killed the Miners of Buffelsfontein? economist.com · “We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out.”
Jul 24
You Shouldn't Have to Make Social Media Public to Get a Visa techdirt.com · “The government may interpret lack of social media activity or refusal to unlock accounts as an attempt to evade the requirement or deliberately hide online activity.”
Jul 24
Libraries Oppose Private Control of Law (Pro Codes Act) techdirt.com · “Access to the law cannot be conditioned on the consent of a private party.”
Jul 23
Power Cuts, Cable Damage, and Government Shutdowns Behind Q2 Internet Outages theregister.com · “Internet traffic falling by approximately 80 percent within the next few hours in Spain, and up to 90 percent in Portugal.”
Jul 23
UK Backing Down on Apple Encryption Backdoor arstechnica.com · “This is something that the vice-president is very annoyed about and which needs to be resolved. The Home Office is basically going to have to back down.”
Jul 21
DOGE Error-Prone AI for VA Contracts propublica.org · “I think that mistakes were made.”
Jul 20
China Jumps Ahead in Orbital Satellite Refueling arstechnica.com · “A game-changing technology.”
Jul 20
Venezuelan Deportations to El Salvador Prison propublica.org · “Men languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”
Jul 18
ICE's Facial Recognition App of 200 Million Images 404media.co · “This app shows that biometric technology has moved well beyond just confirming someone’s identity. In the hands of ICE officers, it’s becoming a way to retrieve vast amounts of data about a person on demand just by pointing a camera in their face.”
Jul 17
Idaho Coroner System Failures propublica.org · “Someone shows up with a dead body and just says they died of natural causes…do you just take their word for it?”
Jul 16
Congress Moves to Reject Bulk of White House's Proposed NASA Cuts arstechnica.com · “The White House proposed just $3.9 billion for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate for FY26, but the minibus allocates $7.25 billion, just a 1% drop from enacted 2025 levels.”
Jul 16
DOGE Denizen Marko Elez Leaked API Key for xAI krebsonsecurity.com · “One leak is a mistake. But when the same type of sensitive key gets exposed again and again, it’s not just bad luck, it’s a sign of deeper negligence.”
Jul 14
ICE Searching Insurance Database for Deportation Targets 404media.co · “ICE will stop at nothing to build a mass surveillance dragnet to track, surveil and criminalize all community members.”
Jul 9
US Court Nullifies FTC Requirement for Click-to-Cancel arstechnica.com · “An utter failure to comply with notice and comment cannot be considered harmless if there is any uncertainty at all as to the effect of that failure.”
Jul 8
Witness: Inside America's Death Chambers theatlantic.com · “The only certainty I had going into the Indiana death chamber in December 2020 was the simple sense that it’s generally wrong to kill people, even bad people.”
Jul 6
Stop Killing Games Consumer Movement Hits Major Milestones games.slashdot.org · “The UK petition surpassed 126,066 signatures, exceeding the 100,000 threshold needed for parliamentary consideration.”
Jul 4
The NO FAKES Act Has Changed And It's So Much Worse techdirt.com · “The bill requires internet platforms to remove flagged content immediately upon notice and implement filters to prevent recurring uploads.”
Jul 2

June 2025 8 posts

The big change affecting European travel bbc.com · “As a result, Spain’s Consumer Rights Ministry fined five budget airlines €179m (£149m) for what it deemed “abusive practices” in November 2024.”
Jun 29
Defense Department will stop providing crucial satellite weather data npr.org · “A spokesperson for the U.S. Space Force, which is responsible for the satellites, said in a statement that the satellites and instruments are still functional, and the Department of Defense will continue to use them even as it cuts off access for scientists.”
Jun 28
I Fought in Ukraine and Here’s Why FPV Drones Kind of Suck warontherocks.com · “The proportion of missions when we successfully carried out a task that only a first-person view drone can fulfill — delivering a precision strike on a target that could not be hit by other means — was in the single-digit percent.”
Jun 26
French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for open source office and collab tools theregister.com · “Lyon’s government employs almost 10,000 people, so losing it as a customer will briefly sting some regional Microsoft salespeople and partners but won’t make a noticeable dent in the software giant’s balance sheet.”
Jun 26
New EU rules for durable, energy-efficient and repairable smartphones and tablets start applying single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu · “Smartphones today are powerful and indispensable tools, yet all too often they quickly become obsolescent waste. With the new EU rules, we are turning the tide.”
Jun 23
Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS wired.com · “The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans’ sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used”
Jun 11
EU launches EU-based, privacy-focused DNS resolution service helpnetsecurity.com · “The EU will not have access to configuration, data, etc. On top of that, DNS4EU will not be forced on anyone.”
Jun 9
Ukraine destroys more than 40 military aircraft in a drone attack deep inside Russia npr.org · “The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the attack took over 1 1/2-year to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”
Jun 1

May 2025 12 posts

Denmark to raise retirement age to highest in Europe bbc.com · “Denmark has a healthy economy and yet the EU’s highest retirement age,” he said.
May 25
Minister: Finland plans to change its track gauge to European standard yle.fi · “Of course, we are very pragmatic and realistic, we cannot do this in five years.”
May 20
France Becomes First Government To Endorse UN Open Source Principles unite.un.org · “The UN Open Source Principles consist of eight guidelines that offer a framework for the use, development, and sharing of Open Source software across the Organization.”
May 18
"We would be less confidential than Google" – Proton threatens to quit Switzerland over new surveillance law techradar.com · “This revision attempts to implement something that has been deemed illegal in the EU and the United States. The only country in Europe with a roughly equivalent law is Russia,” said Yen.
May 17
How California sent residents' personal health data to LinkedIn themarkup.org · “As visitors filled out forms on the website, trackers on the same pages told LinkedIn their answers to questions about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications.”
May 15
E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper buttondown.com · “Every time a customer spent 26¢ to send those eye-catching blue-and-white envelopes that first year, the USPS lost an astounding $5.25 in printing and delivering them.”
May 14
US: Major Companies Violate Gig Workers' Rights hrw.org · “Digital labor platforms have created a business model that evades employer responsibilities while keeping workers under tight algorithmic control, driven by opaque and unpredictable decisions…”
May 12
Massive BART Outage Not Related to Old Train Control System, Agency Says kqed.org · “It was the largest systemwide BART outage since 2019, when a weekend service meltdown highlighted the need to replace the agency’s decades-old central train control system.”
May 9
OpenAI caves to pressure, keeps nonprofit in charge theregister.com · “Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure … we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock,” Altman said.
May 5
I Randomly Decided To Pay Off A School’s Lunch Debt. Then Something Incredible Happened. huffpost.com · “I learned that, contrary to popular belief, most school lunch debt doesn’t come from low-income families — those kids generally qualify for federal free lunch programs.”
May 4
The US has approved CRISPR pigs for food technologyreview.com · “He says the company does not think pork chops or other meat will need to carry any label identifying it as bioengineered.”
May 3
Irish Data Protection Commission fines TikTok €530 million and orders corrective measures following Inquiry into transfers of EEA User Data to China dataprotection.ie · “Throughout the Inquiry, TikTok informed the DPC that it did not store EEA User Data on servers located in China.”
May 2

April 2025 8 posts

Commission finds Apple and Meta in breach of the Digital Markets Act ec.europa.eu · “Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers.”
Apr 23
JUICYJAM: How Thai Authorities Use Online Doxxing to Suppress Dissent citizenlab.ca · “Thanks to a public leak of confidential military and police documents in March 2025, we can now attribute the campaign to the Royal Thai Armed Forces and/or the Royal Thai Police.”
Apr 20
Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram dropsitenews.com · “Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023.”
Apr 11
Facebook's former global policy director criticises company in Congress hearing thenationalnews.com · “Throughout my seven years at Meta I saw executives repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values.”
Apr 9
Basic Income Pilot Project | Study results pilotprojekt-grundeinkommen.de · “The pilot project followed 122 people for three years who received an unconditional sum of €1,200 every month. The control group included a further 1,580 people who did not receive any money.”
Apr 9
BREAKING: Bill that would have blocked OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit has mysteriously been gutted. garymarcus.substack.com · “My sources assure me that this is NOT a clerical error and that Papan’s office confirms that the change is real.”
Apr 7
Europe preparing to 'ease the burden' of landmark data privacy law therecord.media · “The European Commission is now finalizing a plan to simplify and potentially remove many of the regulatory requirements imposed by the continent’s complex and far-reaching General Data Protection Regulation, particularly those impacting small and medium-sized businesses.”
Apr 7
What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested laist.com · “Late last year, LAist requested samples of MVP-Fx from Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions, which manufactures the product, for the purpose of running an independent analysis for heavy metals. All declined.”
Apr 4

March 2025 24 posts

BREAKING: IU terminated professor the same day the FBI searched his homes idsnews.com · “A search on the U.S. government’s Public Access To Court Electronic Records system yielded no recent results for either Wang or Ma.”
Mar 31
Targeted advertising: the Autorité de la concurrence imposes a fine of €150,000,000 on Apple for the implementation of the App Tracking Transparency ("ATT") framework autoritedelaconcurrence.fr · “While advertising tracking only needs to be refused once, the user must always confirm their consent a second time.”
Mar 31
Inside a Marine's decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter jet and the betrayal in its wake postandcourier.com · “Both investigations concluded that most highly experienced pilots with similar levels of experience in an F-35 would have punched out of the plane.”
Mar 31
Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House quaker.org.uk · “They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.”
Mar 30
How not to build an AI Institute chalmermagne.com · “By outsourcing the institute to the universities, the EPSRC guaranteed that the ATI would always be less than the sum of its parts.”
Mar 27
Forgotten in jail without a lawyer: how a Texas town fails poor defendants ksat.com · “In 2023, when more than 240 misdemeanor defendants requested representation, the county judge appointed lawyers in only a handful of cases, records show. Nonetheless, the state has imposed no consequences.”
Mar 25
Rickover's Lessons chinatalk.media · “He made the final hiring decision for every naval officer who applied to serve on a nuclear submarine until he retired.”
Mar 23
Attorney General Bonta Urgently Issues Consumer Alert for 23andMe Customers oag.ca.gov · “Given 23andMe’s reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company.”
Mar 22
A Win for Encryption: France Rejects Backdoor Mandate eff.org · “The proposed law was a surveillance wishlist disguised as anti-drug legislation.”
Mar 21
The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings—Without Telling Her Why reason.com · “Instead, the notice she received listed hundreds of possible federal crimes that would justify a seizure, though it didn’t provide Martin’s supposed connection to those offenses.”
Mar 21
New USPTO Memo Makes Fighting Patent Trolls Even Harder eff.org · “The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just made a move that will protect bad patents at the expense of everyone else.”
Mar 21
Investigators Say South Korean President's Bodyguard Asked ChatGPT About 'Martial Law' Hours Before Coup gizmodo.com · “Lee’s lawyer said that prosecutors had screwed up the digital forensics. He didn’t deny that Lee had asked the AI about martial law, just that it happened after Yoon had declared it.”
Mar 21
Despite denials, Serbian gov't proven to have deployed sonic devices on 15 March protest europeanwesternbalkans.com · “Serbian officials were forced to admit on Wednesday, 19 March, that there was a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) on the streets of Belgrade on 15 March, which they had previously denied.”
Mar 20
EU sends Apple first DMA interoperability instructions for apps and connected devices techcrunch.com · “According to the Commission, device manufacturers and app developers should be able to access nine iOS connectivity features that were restricted to Apple’s exclusive use before, such as peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connectivity, NFC features and device pairing.”
Mar 20
In Memoriam: Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying eff.org · “Mark stood up and told the truth at great personal risk to himself and his family.”
Mar 12
$16B health agency managed finances with single Excel spreadsheet. It hasn't gone well theregister.com · “The use of an Excel spreadsheet file to track and report financial performance for a NZ$28bn expenditure organisation raises significant concerns, particularly when other more appropriate systems are present on the IT landscape.”
Mar 11
The worst year in shutdowns: a blow to democracy and human rights in Africa accessnow.org · “From people’s movements to contentious elections, as political escalations continued to make headlines in Africa, authorities increasingly defaulted to internet shutdowns to disempower and disconnect people.”
Mar 10
Do you DARE? Europe bets once again on RISC-V for supercomputing sovereignty theregister.com · “If you’re having deja vu, you’re not alone: Europe has been talking about and toying with using RISC-V for supercomputing for some years, even getting far as some silicon, though turned to Arm’s architecture for its first exascale system.”
Mar 9
How a Connecticut DMV Employee Made Thousands by Selling Towed Cars propublica.org · “The DMV employee sold the Jeep to a used car dealer for $13,500. After passing through several more hands, another dealership ultimately sold it to a customer for $28,781.44.”
Mar 7
First Porn, Now Skin Cream? 'Age Verification' Bills Are Out of Control eff.org · “Age verification laws do far more than ‘protect children online’—they require the creation of a system that collects vast amounts of personal information from everyone.”
Mar 7
"Let's hire an ISIS suicide bomber to blow him up in the street!": Europe's most wanted man plotted my murder — and that of my colleague theins.press · “A jury at the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, has just found six of my compatriots — citizens of Bulgaria — guilty of conspiring with the Kremlin to kidnap and possibly murder me and my colleague and friend, Roman Dobrokhotov.”
Mar 7
Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation motorillustrated.com · “Over a three-day period, Tesla reported selling 8,600 vehicles at four locations across the country, resulting in $43 million in government rebates.”
Mar 7
NCSC, GCHQ, UK Gov't expunge advice to "use Apple encryption" for Barristers, Solicitors (etc…) — co-incidental with Apple lawsuit against HMG's demanding a backdoor in the same alecmuffett.com · “the politically inconvenient ADP-promoting “for barristers” document has actually been wholesale deleted from the internet, with a HTTP redirect put in place to point to the inferior “defending democracy” documents.”
Mar 5
Cabinet moves to reverse Italy's anti-nuclear stance world-nuclear-news.org · “Italy’s Council of Ministers has approved a draft law calling for the government to adopt a series of legislative decrees to create the legal framework for the reintroduction of nuclear power, which was phased out following a referendum in 1987.”
Mar 4

February 2025 22 posts

Authorities worldwide can see more than ever, with Big Tech as their eyes proton.me · “The US government made nearly 500,000 data requests to Google and Meta — more than all the other members of the so-called 14 Eyes Alliance combined.”
Feb 28
Signal's CEO: Then We're Leaving Sweden swedenherald.com · “The purpose of the bill – which may be passed next year – is for the police and Security Service to be able to request message history in retrospect for individuals suspected of crimes.”
Feb 25
I Went To SQL Injection Court sockpuppet.org · “Schemas are now file layouts. We lose.”
Feb 25
Right to Repair Laws Have Now Been Introduced in All 50 US States ifixit.com · “Manufacturers told legislators that sharing repair information would make it impossible for them to protect their trade secrets and would be dangerous to customers—so we brought in experts, shared data, and proved that repair information is not protected and changing batteries isn’t dangerous.”
Feb 24
In Memoriam - OnlineSafetyAct.co.uk onlinesafetyact.co.uk · “The following sites and services have stated that the Online Safety Act 2023 is the reason for their closing, or for geo-blocking UK users.”
Feb 23
Thailand cuts power supply to Myanmar scam hubs therecord.media · “Thailand cut off power supply on Wednesday to three areas in Myanmar where online scamming hubs are concentrated.”
Feb 23
Utah Bill Aims to Make Officers Disclose AI-Written Police Reports eff.org · “S.B. 180 is unfortunately a necessary step in the right direction when it comes to regulating the rapid spread of police using generative AI to write their narrative reports for them.”
Feb 22
Apple Pulls Encrypted iCloud Security Feature in UK Amid Government Backdoor Demands macrumors.com · “We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” Apple said in a statement.
Feb 21
Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. propublica.org · “The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.”
Feb 20
Should Virginia police be allowed to lie to children? wvtf.org · “I had enough to charge the juvenile delinquent for something else, but instead I told him a lie so I could get to the gun. And ultimately, that worked…”
Feb 19
New SF public health chief was part of notorious McKinsey opioid-marketing operation sfstandard.com · “The records show that Tsai — who worked for McKinsey from 2007 to 2015, according to his LinkedIn page — helped develop a marketing strategy for tramadol sold under the brand name Ultram ER, an effort that involved cultivating relationships with doctors who became prolific prescribers.”
Feb 15
Watchdog ponders why Apple doesn't apply its strict app tracking rules to itself theregister.com · “Apple is feeling the heat over its acclaimed iPhone privacy policy after a German regulator’s review of iOS tracking consent alleged that the tech giant exempted itself from the rules it enforces on third-party developers.”
Feb 14
The Prophet of Parking worksinprogress.news · “One survey of the literature suggests that drivers in the typical American city spend an average of eight minutes looking for parking at the end of each trip.”
Feb 12
February 2025: Starlink in the Falkland Islands – a National Emergency situation? openfalklands.com · “Because Sure International holds an exclusive monopoly telecommunications licence, Starlink’s use in the islands is currently illegal.”
Feb 8
The UK's Demands for Apple to Break Encryption Is an Emergency for Us All eff.org · “There is no technological compromise between strong encryption that protects the data and a mechanism to allow the government special access to this data.”
Feb 8
Cities Can Cost Effectively Start Their Own Utilities Now kevin.burke.dev · “The average PG&E electricity charge now starts at 40 cents per kilowatt hour and goes up from there.”
Feb 7
Announcing the Data.gov Archive lil.law.harvard.edu · “The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov.”
Feb 7
Subway crime plummets as ridership jumps significantly in 2025 in congestion pricing era amny.com · “In the first month of 2025, there were 147 reported crimes on the subway down from 231 last year—resulting in 36% fewer crimes committed on the rails this year.”
Feb 6
Senator Hawley Proposes Jail Time for People Who Download DeepSeek 404media.co · “The Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley has introduced a new bill that would make it illegal to import or export artificial intelligence products to and from China, meaning someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass.”
Feb 3
AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU techcrunch.com · “They could be on the hook for up to €35 million (~$36 million), or 7% of their annual revenue from the prior fiscal year, whichever is greater.”
Feb 3
Tiny vanes glued to planes promise big savings for US Air Force newatlas.com · “Literally gluing a few microvanes to the rear fuselage of a C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane can result in fuel savings in the tens of millions of dollars.”
Feb 2
Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows cbsnews.com · “Only one air traffic control worker was managing the helicopters and some planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a job normally done by two people, two sources told CBS News Thursday.”
Feb 1

January 2025 15 posts

The Government Says Money Isn't Property—So It Can Take Yours reason.com · “Money is not necessarily ‘property’ for constitutional purposes,” the government’s brief declared—putting the very idea of property in scare quotes.
Jan 31
California Law Enforcement Misused State Databases More Than 7,000 Times in 2023 eff.org · “The sheriff’s department’s 6,789 abuses made up a majority of the record 7,275 violations across California that were reported to the state Department of Justice (CADOJ) in 2023 regarding the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS).”
Jan 30
California's AG Tells AI Companies Practically Everything They're Doing Might Be Illegal gizmodo.com · “California’s memo makes clear that companies that use AI to create “deepfakes, chatbots, and voice clones that appear to represent people, events, and utterances that never existed” could fall under the category of “deceptive” and, thus, be considered a breach of state law.”
Jan 29
FTC Takes Action Against GoDaddy for Alleged Lax Data Security for Its Website Hosting Services ftc.gov · “Millions of companies, particularly small businesses, rely on web hosting providers like GoDaddy to secure the websites that they and their customers rely on.”
Jan 28
Brazil bans Worldcoin from giving crypto for eye scans cointelegraph.com · “offering crypto as compensation could compromise the validity of user consent for collecting sensitive biometric data.”
Jan 27
Sweden seizes ship suspected of Baltic Sea cable sabotage therecord.media · “Swedish authorities seized and boarded a ship on Sunday just hours after it was suspected of sabotaging a communications cable in the country’s exclusive economic zone beneath the Baltic Sea.”
Jan 27
Texas Is Enforcing Its State Data Privacy Law. So Should Other States. eff.org · “The Texas Attorney General’s office estimates that 45 million Americans, including those in Texas, unwittingly downloaded this software that collected their information, including location information, without notice or consent.”
Jan 25
A very Chicago gamble bitsaboutmoney.com · “And so I feel some sense of civic duty, as a Chicagoan, taxpayer, and reasonably financially sophisticated person, to say the following publicly: What the hell, Chicago.”
Jan 24
Leaked documents expose deep ties between Israeli army and Microsoft 972mag.com · “Between October 2023 and June 2024 alone, the Israeli Defense Ministry spent $10 million to purchase 19,000 hours of engineering support from Microsoft.”
Jan 23
The FTC's Ban on GM and OnStar Selling Driver Data Is a Good First Step eff.org · “In reality, no consumer knowingly agrees to let their carmaker sell their driving data to other companies.”
Jan 22
Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber face calls for app transparency personneltoday.com · “Instead, you are automating exploitation – leveraging black-box algorithms to make decisions about de-activation, work allocation and pay without sufficient explanation, stripping workers of the ability to understand and challenge those decisions.”
Jan 21
A Spy Satellite You've Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War spectrum.ieee.org · “It would be up to a top-secret satellite program called Parcae to help keep the Cold War from suddenly toggling to hot.”
Jan 21
Making an Intersection Unsafe for Pedestrians to Save Seconds for Drivers collegetowns.org · “One of the most frustrating things is that the change only saved seconds for drivers.”
Jan 14
White House unveils Cyber Trust Mark program for consumer devices nextgov.com · “We want to signal and prime the pump with our own major tech purchases of the U.S. government that this is the way we move the internet of things market to be more secure,” she said.
Jan 8
U.S. appeals court strikes down FCC's net neutrality rules tvtechnology.com · “The rules require broadband operators to treat all internet traffic equally and banned them from giving preferential treatment to some sites by speeding up or slowing down consumer access.”
Jan 2

2024 158 posts

December 2024 14 posts

More telcos confirm China Salt Typhoon security breaches as White House weighs in theregister.com · “In one instance, the spies broke into an admin account that then gave them access to more than 100,000 routers, she added.”
Dec 31
EU law mandating universal chargers for devices comes into force france24.com · “The law was first approved in 2022 following a tussle with US tech giant Apple.”
Dec 28
Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland 'was loaded with spying equipment' lloydslist.com · “The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ship’s generator, leading to repeated blackouts”
Dec 27
Bill requiring US agencies to share custom source code with each other becomes law fedscoop.com · “Doing so, bill sponsors said, will address the inefficiency that can happen when agencies unknowingly hire contractors to develop code that has already been developed for another agency.”
Dec 26
Russian air defence missile incident emerges as likely cause of Azerbaijan Airlines crash euronews.com · “surviving passengers heard an explosion followed by what looked like shrapnel hitting the plane and damaging the fuselage.”
Dec 25
Rhode Island's online benefits system shuts down after cyberattack theverge.com · “Governor Dan McKee said during a press briefing that attackers may have gotten personal info like names, addresses, and social security numbers of those who’ve used the system between 2019 to now.”
Dec 16
Over 2,400 Voice Service Providers Face Removal for Failing to Comply with the Robocall Mitigation Database Filing Requirements docs.fcc.gov · “The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau announced that 2,411 voice service providers failed to properly file in the Robocall Mitigation Database and must show cause why they should not be removed.”
Dec 11
Wyden proposes bill to secure US telecoms after Salt Typhoon hacks bleepingcomputer.com · “It was inevitable that foreign hackers would burrow deep into the American communications system the moment the FCC decided to let phone companies write their own cybersecurity rules.”
Dec 11
U.S. math scores drop on major international test chalkbeat.org · “We have countries leapfrogging over us,” Carr said.
Dec 10
Airline informant received thousands from passenger cash seizures atlantanewsfirst.com · “The DEA wasn’t keeping records of its encounters unless it found cash or drugs,” Horowitz said.
Dec 8
UK bans daytime TV ads for cereals, muffins and burgers france24.com · “The government hopes the new measures could help prevent some 20,000 cases of childhood obesity a year.”
Dec 8
Tokyo government gives workers 4-day workweek to boost fertility, family time cnn.com · “Only 727,277 births were recorded last year, with the fertility rate - the number of children a woman has in her lifetime - dropping to a fresh low of 1.2, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.”
Dec 6
FTC bans data brokers from selling Americans' sensitive location data bleepingcomputer.com · “Virginia-based Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel used this information to build products and services, allowing customers to search through at least three years of historical data (including raw, precise mobile location data).”
Dec 4
Proposed amendment to legal presumption about the reliability of computers postofficescandal.uk · “This amendment overturns the current legal assumption that evidence from computers is always reliable which has contributed to miscarriages of justice including the Horizon Scandal.”
Dec 2

November 2024 12 posts

New York Fines Geico and Travelers $11 Million Over Data Breaches securityweek.com · “Geico was notified several times of an industry-wide hacking campaign aimed at information theft from online automobile insurance quoting applications and responded to separate incidents, but did not take the necessary measures to protect its systems.”
Nov 29
Children and teenagers under 16 to be banned from social media after parliament passes world-first laws abc.net.au · “There are no penalties for young people or parents who flout the rules.”
Nov 28
Do you need ID to read the REAL-ID rules? papersplease.org · “You shouldn’t need ID to read the law, just as you shouldn’t need ID to travel by common carrier.”
Nov 25
Italian food delivery app Foodinho eats another privacy fine techcrunch.com · “Foodinho has also been banned from using riders’ biometric data, such as facial recognition, for identity verification.”
Nov 25
Senators Say TSA's Facial Recognition Program Is Out of Control, Here's How to Opt Out gizmodo.com · “This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology’s precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect passenger privacy”
Nov 24
Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted, sparking warnings of possible ‘hybrid warfare’ cnn.com · “We can confirm that the internet traffic disruption was not caused by equipment failure but by physical damage to the fiber optic cable.”
Nov 18
FDA Proposes Ending Use of Oral Phenylephrine as OTC Monograph Nasal Decongestant Active Ingredient After Extensive Review fda.gov · “after an agency review of the available data determined that oral phenylephrine is not effective for this use.”
Nov 8
Anthropic teams up with Palantir and AWS to sell AI to defense customers techcrunch.com · “Claude became available on Palantir’s platform earlier this month and can now be used in Palantir’s defense-accredited environment, Palantir Impact Level 6 (IL6)”
Nov 8
Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada: but Canadians can still use it cbc.ca · “The statement stressed that the government is not blocking Canadians from accessing the app or using it to create content.”
Nov 6
Regulators deliver successive blows to Amazon and Meta’s nuclear power ambitions techcrunch.com · “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees the U.S. electricity and natural gas grids, voted 2-1 on November 1 to deny the expansion of an existing data center power agreement that would have allowed Amazon to connect directly to the power plant.”
Nov 5
Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe bbc.co.uk · “Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands.”
Nov 5
Tens of thousands of taxpayer accounts hacked as CRA repeatedly paid out millions in bogus refunds cbc.ca · “Imposters used the company’s confidential credentials to get unauthorized access into hundreds of Canadians’ personal CRA accounts, change direct deposit information, submit false returns and pocket more than $6 million in bogus refunds from the public purse, an investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada has found.”
Nov 1

October 2024 11 posts

Victory Is Sweet: We Can Now Fix McDonald's Ice Cream Machines ifixit.com · “It is still a crime for iFixit to sell a tool to fix ice cream machines, and that’s a real shame.”
Oct 25
LinkedIn fined $335 million in EU for tracking ads privacy breaches techcrunch.com · “As well as being fined, LinkedIn has been given three months to bring its European operations into compliance with the GDPR.”
Oct 25
Penn State pays DoJ $1.25M to settle cybersecurity compliance case theregister.com · “Penn State told the government in late 2020 that it hadn’t implemented all the requirements”
Oct 25
Goldman and Apple 'illegally sidestepped' obligations to credit-card customers: CFPB finance.yahoo.com · “As part of the agreement, Apple had the right to impose a $25 million penalty for each 90-day delay caused by Goldman.”
Oct 23
Most Forest Service Trail Workers Are About To Lose Their Jobs: Here's Why backpacker.com · “In September, the agency announced that it would be suspending all seasonal hiring for the 2025 season, a decision that will cut about 2,400 jobs.”
Oct 23
The Feds Are Coming for John Deere Over the Right to Repair gizmodo.com · “The investigation has been ongoing since 2021, and we know more about it now thanks to a court filing made public on Thursday.”
Oct 18
Marriott agrees to pay $52 million settlement after multiple data breaches theverge.com · “The FTC’s complaint alleges that Marriott failed to implement appropriate password controls, firewall controls, or network segmentation.”
Oct 11
The FBI secretly created a coin to investigate crypto pump-and-dump schemes theverge.com · “Liu Zhou, a “market maker” working with MyTrade MM, allegedly told promoters of NexFundAI that MyTrade MM was better than its competitors because they “control the pump and dump” allowing them to “do inside trading easily.””
Oct 11
The Disappearance of an Internet Domain every.to · “In return for a 99-year lease for the military base, the islands will become part of Mauritius.”
Oct 9
UK nuclear site Sellafield fined $440,000 for cybersecurity shortfalls bleepingcomputer.com · “roughly 75% of Sellafield’s servers were vulnerable to attacks with potentially catastrophic consequences.”
Oct 7
T-Mobile pays $31.5 million FCC settlement over 4 data breaches bleepingcomputer.com · “As part of the settlement, the telecom carrier must invest $15.75 million in cybersecurity enhancements and pay the U.S. Treasury an additional $15.75 million civil penalty.”
Oct 2

September 2024 14 posts

SB 1047 Veto Message gov.ca.gov · “By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.”
Sep 29
FTC Report Confirms: Commercial Surveillance is Out of Control eff.org · “The FTC also found that some companies were not actually deleting user data in response to deletion requests.”
Sep 29
Meta fined $102 million for storing passwords in plain text engadget.com · “Some of the passwords had been stored in easily readable format in the company’s servers since 2012.”
Sep 28
Britain buys semiconductor factory for defence purposes ukdefencejournal.org.uk · “This facility is the only secure site in the UK capable of manufacturing gallium arsenide semiconductors, a vital component in military platforms such as fighter jets.”
Sep 28
New California law means digital stores can’t imply you’re buying a game when you’re merely licensing it polygon.com · “The law won’t change the fact that we’re all licensing games instead of actually owning them, but it will force companies that operate in California to be more transparent about it.”
Sep 27
The FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen on the plan androidauthority.com · “The Commission fails to point to specific statutory authorization for an unlocking mandate and would have profound economic consequences, thus raising a major question that would require clear statutory authority from Congress.”
Sep 21
Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over DOJ, DHS and HUD use of facial recognition technology therecord.media · “As a result, the report said it is impossible to know how many evictions from public housing FRT played a role in.”
Sep 20
Germany seizes 47 crypto exchanges used by ransomware gangs bleepingcomputer.com · “We have their data – and therefore we have your data. Transactions, registration data, IP addresses.”
Sep 20
FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged in Vast Surveillance of Users with Lax Privacy Controls and Inadequate Safeguards for Kids and Teens ftc.gov · “The report lays out how social media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans’ personal data”
Sep 19
Degrees of deception: How America's universities became debt factories anandsanwal.me · “Nearly 40% of federal student loan borrowers aged 65 and older are in default.”
Sep 14
FDA Authorizes First Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Software fda.gov · “The HAF was evaluated in a clinical study with 118 subjects with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, at multiple U.S. sites.”
Sep 12
Apple must pay 13 billion euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules cnbc.com · “Apple said in a filing on Tuesday that it will incur a one-time income tax charge of about $10 billion in its fourth fiscal quarter ending Sept. 28, 2024.”
Sep 10
[tor-relays] Artikel 5 e.V. - Another police raid in Germany - general assembly on Sep 21st 2024 forum.torproject.org · “Apart from one burnt (middle relay) node and some billing paperwork for the exit node this was all about, the team left the house after one and a half hours with mostly empty hands.”
Sep 10
Clearview AI Faces €30.5M Fine for Building Illegal Facial Recognition Database thehackernews.com · “Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world,”
Sep 6

August 2024 12 posts

Brazilian court orders suspension of Elon Musk's X after it missed deadline theguardian.com · “The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.”
Aug 30
Judge Rules $400 Million Algorithmic System Illegally Denied Thousands of People's Medicaid Benefits gizmodo.com · “When an enrollee is entitled to state-administered Medicaid, it should not require luck, perseverance, and zealous lawyering for him or her to receive that healthcare coverage.”
Aug 29
Appliance and Tractor Companies Lobby Against Giving the Military the Right to Repair 404media.co · “General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin consider much of the data on the ship to be proprietary, so the Navy had to delay missions and spend millions of dollars on travel costs just so that contractor-affiliated repairmen could fly in, rather than doing this ourselves.”
Aug 28
Dutch DPA imposes a fine of 290 million euro on Uber because of transfers of drivers' data to the US autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl · “It concerns account details and taxi licences, but also location data, photos, payment details, identity documents, and in some cases even criminal and medical data of drivers.”
Aug 26
Audit finds notable security gaps in FBI's storage media management bleepingcomputer.com · “The FBI does not adequately track or account for electronic storage media, such as internal hard drives and thumb drives, once they are extracted from larger devices, which increases the risk of these media being lost or stolen.”
Aug 26
Albuquerque's Police Chief Says Cops Have a 5th Amendment Right To Leave Their Body Cameras Off reason.com · “Even more troubling, Medina said he "purposefully did not record because he was invoking his 5th Amendment right not to self-incriminate."”
Aug 25
This confidential government report proves that we need to liberate the Postcode Address File takes.jamesomalley.co.uk · “When compared to AddressBase, the new dataset was only 90.8% accurate, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that translates to 2.9 million dud addresses”
Aug 23
Apple is shaking up how it manages the App Store theverge.com · “Apple decided to break up the division after European regulators started requiring Apple to allow third-party payment methods and alternative app stores”
Aug 22
NIST Releases First 3 Finalized Post-Quantum Encryption Standards nist.gov · “We encourage system administrators to start integrating them into their systems immediately, because full integration will take time.”
Aug 14
NASA Investigation Finds Boeing Hindering Americans' Return to Moon flyingmag.com · “Yet the space agency has neglected to punish Boeing financially for these flaws, arguing that doing so would run contrary to the terms of its contract.”
Aug 12
EFF's Concerns About the UN Draft Cybercrime Convention eff.org · “The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention is an extensive surveillance pact.”
Aug 10
X officially kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate workers to South Bay sfstandard.com · “Thirteen years after the city carved out a special tax break to attract tech companies to its beleaguered downtown corridor, X has confirmed plans to shut its San Francisco headquarters.”
Aug 8

July 2024 11 posts

Amazon must recall dangerous products properly: even ones sold by third parties theverge.com · “The CPSC says Amazon failed to adequately notify the public about more than 400,000 recalled products.”
Jul 31
Cyber ransom payments will need to be disclosed by businesses under new laws abc.net.au · “It also said ransomware attacks had increased roughly five-fold since the pandemic.”
Jul 31
Verizon to pay $16 million in TracFone data breach settlement bleepingcomputer.com · “The number of exposed individuals and SIM-swapping incidents have been censored in the public version of the Consent Decree document.”
Jul 24
minuteman missile communications computer.rip · “HICS, as originally installed, operated at 1.3Kbps.”
Jul 20
Public toilets are vanishing and that's a civic catastrophe psyche.co · “For instance, data collected in the United Kingdom in 2018 showed that the number of public toilets had dropped by 39 per cent over the previous two decades.”
Jul 20
FCC Votes Unanimously to Significantly Lower Phone and Video Communication Costs After Decades of Exploitation by Prison Telecoms worthrises.org · “For decades, the cost of an ever-expanding suite of invasive surveillance services has been passed on to incarcerated people and their loved ones.”
Jul 19
USPS shared customer postal addresses with Meta, LinkedIn and Snap techcrunch.com · “we were unaware of any configuration of the platform that collected personal information from the URL and that shared it without our knowledge with social media.”
Jul 18
Banks in Singapore to phase out one-time passwords in 3 months bleepingcomputer.com · “The digital token will authenticate customers’ login without the need for an OTP that scammers can steal, or trick customers into disclosing”
Jul 17
CISA broke into a US federal agency, and no one noticed for a full 5 months theregister.com · “The passwords for both accounts had not been updated in over eight years and were not enrolled in the organization’s identity management (IDM).”
Jul 12
ICPEN Sweep finds majority of websites and mobile apps use dark patterns in the marketing of subscription services icpen.org · “A global internet sweep that examined the websites and mobile apps of 642 traders has found that 75,7% of them employed at least one dark pattern, and 66,8% of them employed two or more dark patterns.”
Jul 11
Russia forces Apple to remove dozens of VPN apps from App Store bleepingcomputer.com · “If you need additional information regarding this removal or the laws and requirements in Russia, we encourage you to reach out directly to Roskomnadzor.”
Jul 10

June 2024 14 posts

The Death of NYC Congestion Pricing apricitas.io · “Yet just before implementation, congestion pricing was indefinitely paused at a press conference framed around inflation and cost of living concerns”
Jun 28
FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't npr.org · “Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn’t previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost.”
Jun 26
Apple found in breach of EU competition rules theguardian.com · “If the commission’s preliminary views were to be ultimately confirmed, none of Apple’s three sets of business terms would comply with article 5(4) of the DMA, which requires gatekeepers to allow app developers to steer consumers to offers outside the gatekeepers’ app stores, free of charge.”
Jun 24
Traffic engineers build roads that invite crashes because they rely on outdated research and faulty data theconversation.com · “It also absolves traffic engineers, planners and policymakers of blame for creating a transportation system where for most Americans, the only rational choice for getting around is a car.”
Jun 23
New Government Ban on Kaspersky Would Prevent Company from Updating Malware Signatures in U.S. zetter-zeroday.com · “Asked what evidence the government found to support concerns that the Russian government is using Kaspersky software to spy on customers, Raimondo and other government officials on the call declined to provide specifics.”
Jun 21
Massachusetts 911 Outage Caused by Errant Firewall securityweek.com · “The firewall prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers, also known as Public Safety Answer Points (PSAPs).”
Jun 21
EU Council has withdrawn the vote on Chat Control stackdiary.com · “Belgium’s draft law, which was supposed to be adopted as the Council’s negotiating position, was instead postponed indefinitely.”
Jun 20
This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed practical.engineering · “Since 2007, every single inspection report that included recommendations said to repair the stiffener plates in the legs that were heavily corroded.”
Jun 19
FTC Takes Action Against Adobe and Executives for Hiding Fees, Preventing Consumers from Easily Cancelling Software Subscriptions ftc.gov · “Adobe trapped customers into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and numerous cancellation hurdles”
Jun 17
DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate dronedj.com · “The bill as it stands does not provide any compensation to those that could be affected by this ban, if it is retroactive.”
Jun 17
In First Case of its Kind, NLRB Judge Declares Non-Compete Clause Is an Unfair Labor Practice nlrbedge.com · “Despite all the discussion about the FTC banning non-competes, there still seems to be little recognition that non-competes for non-supervisory workers are effectively impossible to enforce at the moment due to the policies of the NLRB GC.”
Jun 16
The censorship circumvention extension has disappeared from the Russian version of Mozilla Addons discourse.mozilla.org · “We have not changed any visibility settings, nor have we received any emails regarding this action.”
Jun 9
Majority for chat control possible: Users who refuse scanning to be prevented from sharing photos and links patrick-breyer.de · “If a user refuses the scanning, they would be blocked from sending or receiving images, photos, videos and links (Article 10).”
Jun 3
Goldfish Memories chinamediaproject.org · “Within the selected date range of “May 22, 1998 to May 22, 2005” on Baidu, there is just one positive result for “Jack Ma” (dated May 22, 2024).”
Jun 1

May 2024 8 posts

Treasury Sanctions Creators of 911 S5 Proxy Botnet krebsonsecurity.com · “911 built its proxy network mainly by offering “free” virtual private networking (VPN) services.”
May 29
The Lunacy of Artemis idlewords.com · “Each SLS booster is now projected to cost $266 million, or about twice the launch cost of a Falcon Heavy.”
May 19
Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead" eff.org · “Apple charges app vendors a whopping 30 percent commission on most transactions”
May 19
For self-driving cars, the free ride is over theverge.com · “Tesla, Ford, Waymo, Cruise, and Zoox are all being probed for alleged safety lapses, with the agency examining hundreds of crashes, some of which have been fatal.”
May 16
UK confirms Ministry of Defence payroll data exposed in data breach bleepingcomputer.com · “It is estimated that 270,000 payroll records have been exposed.”
May 8
Boeing faces new US investigation into 'missed' 787 inspections theguardian.com · “The memo said the company concluded that “several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed”.”
May 7
An Oil Price-Fixing Conspiracy Caused 27% of All Inflation Increases in 2021 thebignewsletter.com · “Even if oil gets to $200/barrel, the independent producers are going to be disciplined.”
May 3
Apple adds more carve-outs to its EU core tech fee after criticism from devs techcrunch.com · “Developers will need to certify their non-commercial status annually to Apple to keep qualifying for the fee exemption.”
May 3

April 2024 24 posts

Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint theverge.com · “That night, while at dinner, he got an email from Google saying he had been terminated.”
Apr 30
FCC Fines AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Nearly $200 Million for Illegally Sharing Access to Customers' Location Data docs.fcc.gov · “Yet, even after being made aware of this unauthorized access, all four carriers continued to operate their programs without putting in place reasonable safeguards”
Apr 29
The Czech illegals: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe theins.ru · “For the last fifteen years, it has served as the Greek safehouse for members of GRU Unit 29155, Vladimir Putin’s most grimly accomplished assassination and sabotage squad”
Apr 29
Williams-Sonoma fined $3.18 million for falsely labeling products as 'Made in USA' scrippsnews.com · “The federal body said in numerous instances, those products were actually ‘wholly imported’ from China.”
Apr 28
How TfL's simple pop-up message led to a significant drop in paper ticket sales ianvisits.co.uk · “To pick a random example, an off-peak trip from Paddington to Canary Wharf would cost £6.70 if buying a paper ticket but £2.80 if using contactless payments.”
Apr 28
UK's Investigatory Powers Bill approved to become law theregister.com · “Other key concerns revolve around the IPB’s amendment that would force tech companies to consult the UK government before rolling out security updates to software.”
Apr 26
Cyber-attack leaves Leicester street lights permanently on bbc.co.uk · “It means we are currently not able to remotely identify faults in the street lighting system.”
Apr 26
Airlines required to refund passengers for canceled, delayed flights abcnews.go.com · “Airlines can no longer issue refunds in forms of vouchers or credits when consumers are entitled to receive cash.”
Apr 24
U.S. bans noncompete agreements for nearly all jobs npr.org · “The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes.”
Apr 23
Microsoft is a national security threat, says ex-White House cyber policy director theregister.com · “If you go back to the SolarWinds episode from a few years ago … [Microsoft] was essentially up-selling logging capability to federal agencies.”
Apr 21
Russian Sandworm hackers pose as hacktivists in water utility breaches bleepingcomputer.com · “At one point, an error on APT44’s part resulted in Cyber Army of Russia Reborn claiming on their channel an attack that APT44 had not yet carried out.”
Apr 19
CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred for Deceiving Students and Hiding Loan Costs consumerfinance.gov · “Allred tweeted that the school achieved a 100 percent job-placement rate in one of its cohorts, and later acknowledged in a private message that the sample size was just one student.”
Apr 17
FTC Fines Mental Health Startup Cerebral $7 Million for Major Privacy Violations thehackernews.com · “Cerebral sent out promotional postcards, which were not in envelopes, to over 6,000 patients that included their names and language that appeared to reveal their diagnosis and treatment to anyone who saw the postcards”
Apr 17
Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes statnews.com · “According to public tax records, Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills had an income surplus of $750 million in 2022 and paid no federal taxes.”
Apr 14
Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets theverge.com · “The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.”
Apr 12
End of the Line? Saudi Arabia ‘forced to scale back’ plans for desert megacity theguardian.com · “Now, however, plans for the mirror-clad desert metropolis called the Line have been scaled down and the project, which was envisaged to stretch 105 miles (170km) is expected to reach just a mile and a half by 2030.”
Apr 11
Alternative browsers report uplift after EU's DMA choice screen mandate techcrunch.com · “Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, told us it estimates that less than a fifth of iOS users have been shown a choice screen so far.”
Apr 11
FCC looks to limit how domestic violence abusers use connected cars cyberscoop.com · “No survivor of domestic violence and abuse should have to choose between giving up their car and allowing themselves to be stalked and harmed by those who can access its connectivity and data”
Apr 10
After years of trying, the U.S. government may finally mandate safer table saws npr.org · “Sales of table saws will decrease, resulting in unemployment, and the government could be creating a monopoly.”
Apr 9
German State Ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice theregister.com · “Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s most northern state, is starting its switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and is planning to move from Windows to Linux on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions.”
Apr 8
Online porn restrictions are leading to a VPN boom popsci.com · “Leading VPN provider Top10 VPN claims demand from VPN services jumped 275% on March 15, the same day Pornhub cut off access in Texas.”
Apr 6
Top Israeli spy chief exposes his true identity in online security lapse theguardian.com · “An electronic version of the book included an anonymous email address that can easily be traced to Sariel’s name and Google account.”
Apr 5
Apple Updates App Store Guidelines to Permit Game Emulators, Website Links in EU Music Apps macrumors.com · “In all other storefronts, streaming music apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.”
Apr 5
'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza 972mag.com · “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day.”
Apr 3

March 2024 16 posts

US offers $10M to help catch Change Healthcare hackers techcrunch.com · “The affiliate group went public after accusing the main ALPHV/BlackCat gang of swindling the contract hackers out of $22 million in ransom that Change Healthcare allegedly paid to prevent the mass leak of patient records.”
Mar 29
Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks techcrunch.com · “For Amazon, the conclusion of a sales contract only occurs once it has sent information about the actual shipment.”
Mar 28
Commission opens non-compliance investigations against Alphabet, Apple and Meta under the Digital Markets Act ec.europa.eu · “In case of an infringement, the Commission can impose fines up to 10% of the company’s total worldwide turnover.”
Mar 25
Section 174 and its Impact on Tech Startups tanayj.com · “They now have to somehow find $57K in cash to pay the govt, despite not making a real profit.”
Mar 20
White House, EPA warn water sector of cybersecurity threats cyberscoop.com · “In the absence of the EPA rules, the water sector continues to have no binding cybersecurity rules.”
Mar 20
Tech support firms Restoro, Reimage fined $26 million for scare tactics bleepingcomputer.com · “While the devices used to test the purchased software and services had no performance or security issues and were also running antivirus software, scanning them “revealed” hundreds of issues requiring repair, including “PC Privacy issues,” “Junk files,” “Crashed Programs,” and “Broken Registry issues.””
Mar 15
FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric From 25Mbps to 100Mbps pcmag.com · “On Thursday, the commission voted 3-2 to raise its broadband metric from 25Mbps for downloads and 3Mbps for uploads.”
Mar 14
Direct File officially opens in 12 pilot states following positive early reviews: eligible taxpayers can file online directly with the IRS for free irs.gov · “Many taxpayers we’ve heard from filed their taxes in less than 30 minutes using Direct File and praised it as an easy, no cost tax filing experience.”
Mar 13
Apple Announces Ability to Download iPhone Apps From Websites in EU macrumors.com · “having an app with more than one million first installs on iOS in the EU in the prior year”
Mar 12
Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account, clearing path for Epic Games Store on iPhone 9to5mac.com · “Apple has told us and committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account.”
Mar 8
PFAS 'forever chemicals' to officially be removed from food packaging, FDA says livescience.com · “The FDA’s announcement marks the completion of a voluntary phase-out of the materials by U.S. food packaging manufacturers.”
Mar 7
To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol techcrunch.com · “Meta says that third-party providers will need to sign an agreement with Meta or WhatsApp before it will enable interoperability.”
Mar 7
Boeing is withholding key details about door plug on Alaska 737 Max 9 jet, NTSB says npr.org · “The NTSB has asked Boeing to provide documentation of when it was performed and by whom, Homendy said. But Boeing has told investigators that “they can’t find it,” she said.”
Mar 6
Apple terminates Epic Games developer account calling it a 'threat' to the iOS ecosystem techcrunch.com · “More recently, you have described our DMA compliance as ‘hot garbage,’ a ‘horror show,’ and a ‘devious new instance of Malicious Compliance.’”
Mar 6
Products on your perimeter considered harmful (until proven otherwise) ncsc.gov.uk · “Attackers have realised that the majority of perimeter-exposed products aren’t ‘secure by design’, and so vulnerabilities can be found far more easily than in popular client software.”
Mar 4
A most wanted man: Fugitive Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek exposed as decade-long GRU spy theins.press · “For nearly four years, Austrian national Jan Marsalek has been living in Russia under the assumed identity of Konstantin Baiazov, the real-life Orthodox priest.”
Mar 1

February 2024 11 posts

After decades of memory-related software bugs, White House calls on industry to act therecord.media · “The report mentions C and C++ as examples of programming languages that lack “traits associated with memory safety and also have high proliferation across critical systems.””
Feb 28
FTC to ban Avast from selling browsing data for advertising purposes bleepingcomputer.com · “The FTC also said Avast stored this information indefinitely and sold it to over 100 third parties between 2014 and 2020 through their Jumpshot subsidiary.”
Feb 26
Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero saveflipper.ca · “This policy fails to recognize that these tools are not the enemy, rather, insecure products are.”
Feb 21
Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com · “And so, to comply with the DMA’s requirements, we had to remove the Home Screen web apps feature in the EU”
Feb 15
Police intelligence services unlawfully spied on whole population groups nltimes.nl · “According to the CTIVD, these intelligence services sometimes receive a signal “about a person or a few persons” and then decide to investigate an entire community based on that.”
Feb 8
Federal action on combatting auto theft canada.ca · “such as the Flipper Zero, which would allow for the removal of those devices from the Canadian marketplace”
Feb 8
PAPERWALL: Chinese Websites Posing as Local News Outlets Target Global Audiences with Pro-Beijing Content citizenlab.ca · “A central feature of PAPERWALL, observed across the network of websites, is the ephemeral nature of its most aggressive components, whereby articles attacking Beijing’s critics are routinely removed from these websites some time after they are published.”
Feb 7
Final Decision on Chromebook Case in Denmark theprivacydad.com · “From 1 August 2024 onwards, Danish schools will no longer be allowed to enable Chromebooks and Google platforms to collect students’ personal data for processing.”
Feb 7
WA House bill would make it illegal for police to lie during interrogations seattletimes.com · “Sometimes, it’s an unfortunate reality, we have to lie to people to get them to tell the truth,”
Feb 5
Plastic bans work. Billions of plastic bags were avoided in the US alone zmescience.com · “Grocery stores, restaurants and retail shops should not be permitted to distribute plastic film bags of any thickness at checkout.”
Feb 4
The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances npr.org · “The survey tested for 32 types of PFAS, though there are more than 12,000, the USGS said, and they can pose a health threat even at very small amounts.”
Feb 2

January 2024 11 posts

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's online rant spurs threat to supe, police reports missionlocal.org · “Threats to one’s life or safety have no place in political discourse.”
Jan 31
Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids under 16 abcnews.go.com · “Legislators in Florida are considering what could be the strictest regulation on social media and kids in the country.”
Jan 29
Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union apple.com · “Inevitably, the new options for developers’ EU apps create new risks to Apple users and their devices.”
Jan 25
FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls it deceptive cnn.com · “Intuit cannot advertise or market any goods or services as free unless it’s free for all customers, the FTC ordered.”
Jan 23
Czech Republic sets IPv4 end date konecipv4.cz · “On the basis of this decision, the Czech state administration will stop providing its services over IPv4 on 6 June 2032.”
Jan 22
Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections news.ycombinator.com · “For the past three days Russians have been unable to use their VPN services working via OpenVPN/WireGuard protocols, and some even have reported that in certain situations SSH connections have stopped working.”
Jan 20
OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with the Pentagon semafor.com · “Last week, OpenAI removed language in its usage policy that would ban its AI from being used in “military and warfare” applications, sparking alarm among AI safety advocates.”
Jan 16
Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower bbc.co.uk · “The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in a failed effort to suppress key evidence that helped clear postmasters in the Horizon scandal.”
Jan 12
Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC cointelegraph.com · “The SEC had consistently denied all spot Bitcoin ETF requests, citing concerns over potential market manipulation and fraud.”
Jan 10
FAA grounds more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s after section of Alaska Airlines plane blows out cnbc.com · “The section of the fuselage missing appeared to correspond to an exit not used by Alaska Airlines, or other carriers that don’t have high-density seating configurations, and was plugged.”
Jan 6
Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air seattletimes.com · “However, without an exemption from current safety regulations, the FAA cannot approve the final two MAX models, the MAX 7 and MAX 10, to fly passengers.”
Jan 5

2023 224 posts

December 2023 18 posts

Update: Maersk Ship Hit by Missile, Avoids Boarding in the Red Sea gcaptain.com · “U.S. Navy helicopters responded to the distress call and engaged with the small boats, sinking three of them and killing the crews.”
Dec 31
Tether Reveals Partnerships With Secret Service, FBI in Letter to U.S. Senate finance.yahoo.com · “Tether seeks to be a world class partner to the U.S. as we continue to assist law enforcement and expand dollar hegemony globally.”
Dec 30
Korea to welcome 'digital nomads' with new visa starting Jan. 1 koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · “The visa requires applicants to have an annual income double the amount of Korea’s gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year.”
Dec 29
Amazon.com, Inc. - 662503 - 12/20/2023 fda.gov · “FDA purchased on your website, www.amazon.com, products that are labeled as energy enhancing supplements or food, but laboratory analyses confirmed that they contained undeclared and potentially harmful active pharmaceutical ingredients.”
Dec 28
NY Gov. Hochul vetoes ban on noncompete clauses, waters down LLC transparency bill gothamist.com · “Major business interests, including Wall Street firms and the state Business Council, lobbied Hochul to reject the ban on noncompete clauses, arguing they are necessary to protect trade secrets and retain talent.”
Dec 23
Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims theguardian.com · “Even HRW’s own posts seeking examples of online censorship were flagged as spam, the report said.”
Dec 23
This weed killer is banned in 58 countries. U.S. workers say it's giving them Parkinson's latimes.com · “Despite Marks’ concerns, Syngenta publicized her original findings at an annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in 2004, Botham testified.”
Dec 21
Rite Aid Banned from Using AI Facial Recognition After FTC Says Retailer Deployed Technology without Reasonable Safeguards ftc.gov · “Rite Aid will be prohibited from using facial recognition technology for surveillance purposes for five years”
Dec 20
Figma and Adobe are abandoning our proposed merger figma.com · “despite thousands of hours spent with regulators around the world detailing differences between our businesses, our products, and the markets we serve, we no longer see a path toward regulatory approval of the deal.”
Dec 18
Australia makes world-first decision to ban engineered stone following surge in silicosis cases abc.net.au · “The report found there was no safe level of silica, concluding: "The use of all engineered stone should be prohibited."”
Dec 13
House Intelligence Committee FISA "Reform" Bill Would Greatly Expand the Class of Businesses and Other Entities Required to Assist in FISA 702 Surveillance zwillgen.com · “the expanded definition would appear to cover data centers, colocation providers, business landlords, shared workspaces, or even hotels where guests connect to the Internet.”
Dec 11
Spain expels two US spies for infiltrating secret service english.elpais.com · “What do Americans have to pay for if we give them everything they ask for?”
Dec 9
How we investigated France's mass profiling machine lighthousereports.com · “Those flagged as high risk are subject to special investigations where fraud controllers are empowered to visit people’s homes unannounced, count toothbrushes to guess how many people live there, question their neighbours and scour bank records.”
Dec 8
Apple Confirms Governments Using Push Notifications to Surveil Users macrumors.com · “In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information.”
Dec 8
Tesla is officially losing half $7,500 tax credit on two Model 3 trims electrek.co · “Tax credit will reduce to $3,750 for Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive and Model 3 Long Range on Jan 1, 2024. Take delivery by Dec 31 for full tax credit.”
Dec 5
An Update On The DoorDash Experience in NYC about.doordash.com · “In order to better balance the impact of these new costs, we’re moving the option to tip in the DoorDash app to after checkout.”
Dec 4
No new top boss at NSA until it answers questions about buying up location, browsing data theregister.com · “The administration is abusing the CUI designation to keep this unclassified information from the American public,” Wyden continued.
Dec 2
Anduril unveils Roadrunner, 'a fighter jet weapon that lands like a Falcon 9' techcrunch.com · “Because the product is reusable and recoverable, operators can act without the fear that they could lose an expensive asset.”
Dec 1

November 2023 16 posts

CSAR: European Parliament rejects mass scanning of private messages. Here is why edri.org · “On this basis, the Parliament firmly rejected rules which would force companies to scan huge volumes of people’s private messages – instead now requiring there to be reasonable suspicion.”
Nov 30
Iranian hacker group Cyber Av3ngers hacked the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in Pennsylvania securityaffairs.com · “During the weekend, Iranian threat actors hacked the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa (MWAA) and took control of one of their booster stations.”
Nov 29
Massachusetts becomes fifth state in nation to make prison calls free wgbh.org · “The Department of Correction currently charges 12 cents per minute, and most county sheriffs charge 14 cents per minute”
Nov 29
The Feds' Vehicle 'Kill Switch' Mandate Is a Gross (and Dangerous) Violation of Privacy fee.org · “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles”
Nov 24
US govt pays AT&T to let cops search Americans' phone records – 'usually' without a warrant theregister.com · “Under Hemisphere, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) pays telco AT&T to provide all federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies with the ability to request searches of trillions of domestic phone records dating back to at least 1987, plus the four billion call records added every day.”
Nov 23
Third-party data breach affecting Canadian government could involve data from 1999 theregister.com · “The government of Canada has confirmed its data was accessed after two of its third-party service providers were attacked.”
Nov 22
Ransomware gang files SEC complaint over victim's undisclosed breach bleepingcomputer.com · “The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware operation has taken extortion to a new level”
Nov 20
New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy fortune.com · “About 1 in 5 American workers, nearly 30 million people, are bound by noncompete agreements, according to the Federal Trade Commission.”
Nov 18
U.S. Reenters the Nuclear Fuel Game spectrum.ieee.org · “The specialized fuel these advanced reactors will need is currently made on a commercial scale only in Russia.”
Nov 15
Child sexual abuse online: effective measures, no mass surveillance europarl.europa.eu · “In the adopted text, MEPs excluded end-to-end encryption from the scope of the detection orders to guarantee that all users’ communications are secure and confidential.”
Nov 14
Are we doing this again? Yes, we’re doing this again. webdevlaw.uk · “Force technology companies to inform the Home Office in advance of security and privacy features they want to add, including encryption, and force them to disable features which the government objects to”
Nov 9
Ombudsman: European Commission’s concealment of secret ‘expert list’ on CSAM regulation constitutes ‘maladministration’ iccl.ie · “After the Commission acknowledged to the EU Ombudsman that it, in fact, had such a list, but failed to disclose its existence to Dr Kris Shrishak, the Ombudsman held the Commission’s behaviour constituted “maladministration”.”
Nov 8
Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated neighbor, study finds theguardian.com · “Despite increasing its own oil production in recent years, New Mexico has no site with repeated methane leaks, unlike in Texas, which Kayrros said is likely due to a 2021 state law aimed at curtailing methane emissions from industry.”
Nov 8
Article 45 Will Roll Back Web Security by 12 Years eff.org · “Article 45 forbids browsers from enforcing modern security requirements on certain CAs without the approval of an EU member government.”
Nov 7
Dozens of countries will pledge to stop paying ransomware gangs bleepingcomputer.com · “An alliance of 40 countries will sign a pledge during the third annual International Counter-Ransomware Initiative summit in Washington, D.C., to stop paying ransoms demanded by cybercriminal groups.”
Nov 3
FCC Launches Inquiry to Increase Minimum Broadband Speed Benchmark, Set Gigabit Future Goal docs.fcc.gov · “This standard is not only outdated, it masks the extent to which low-income neighborhoods and rural communities are being left offline and left behind.”
Nov 1

October 2023 17 posts

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority's decision against Meta is extended to the EU/EEA and made permanent datatilsynet.no · “Meta has stated that they will ask users for consent to use their data for behavioural marketing in the future. However, the company has not introduced any actual changes yet, and thus the illegal activities continue to this very day.”
Oct 31
FCC Wants to Bolster Amateur Radio radioworld.com · “The current baud rate limits were adopted in 1980.”
Oct 28
Finding That Lead Emissions From Aircraft Engines That Operate on Leaded Fuel Cause or Contribute to Air Pollution That May Reasonably Be Anticipated To Endanger Public Health and Welfare federalregister.gov · “From this analysis, the EPA estimates that approximately 5.2 million people live within 500 meters of an airport runway, 363,000 of whom are children aged five and under.”
Oct 27
California DMV immediately suspends Cruise's robotaxi permit techcrunch.com · “The AV traveled about 20 feet and reached a speed of 7 miles per hour before coming to a complete and final stop, the order reads.”
Oct 25
A Controversial Plan to Scan Private Messages for Child Abuse Meets Fresh Scandal wired.com · “Mekić then found out that the ads, which have garnered at least 4 million views, were only displayed in seven EU countries: the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Slovenia, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.”
Oct 24
UK Government Caught Surveilling Social Media of Teaching Assistants and Librarians reclaimthenet.org · “These educators found file lengths spanning up to 60 pages, documenting their tweets and comments opposing the government’s policies and criticizing the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.”
Oct 23
Breyer on chat control investigative research: EU Commissioner as double agent of foreign interference patrick-breyer.de · “Research published yesterday by several European media outlets has revealed that an international campaign in support of the EU’s proposed child sexual abuse regulation has been largely orchestrated and financed by a network of organisations with links to the tech industry and security services.”
Oct 20
Equifax Fined $13.5 Million Over 2017 Data Breach securityweek.com · “Furthermore, the FCA points out that Equifax Ltd learned that UK consumer data had been compromised only 6 weeks after the hack was discovered, minutes before the American parent company made the incident public”
Oct 18
IRS advances innovative Direct File project for 2024 tax season: free IRS-run pilot option projected to be available for eligible taxpayers in 13 states irs.gov · “Taxpayers who fall outside the pilot’s eligibility limits will be unable to participate in the pilot in 2024.”
Oct 17
Iowa Man Files Lawsuit After Being Arrested Twice for Criticizing the Police at a Public Meeting reason.com · “The mayor and police chief had Noah arrested, jailed, strip-searched, and criminally prosecuted simply because they didn’t like what Noah had to say,”
Oct 17
AT&T Moves to Disrupt Test of SpaceX's Starlink Cellular Service pcmag.com · “AT&T now argues that SpaceX is trying to conduct the Starlink cellular test under the wrong regulatory process.”
Oct 17
Microsoft reveals IRS notice asking for $28.9 billion in back taxes engadget.com · “Microsoft owes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) $28.9 billion in back taxes, not including penalties and interest, at least according to the tax authority.”
Oct 12
Transcript Dutch parliamentary hearing on EU Chat Control and Client Side Scanning berthub.eu · “What we are talking about now is that in all our WhatsApp groups, our Signal groups, our Telegram groups, a new participant will join the conversation, namely an EU logo.”
Oct 12
Attorney General Bonta's Sponsored Bill to Ban Hidden Fees in California Signed into Law oag.ca.gov · “Hidden fees are fees in which a seller uses an artificially low headline price to attract a customer and usually either discloses additional required fees in smaller print, or reveals additional unavoidable charges later in the buying process.”
Oct 9
US government issues first-ever space debris penalty to Dish Network theguardian.com · “Dish Network has to pay $150,000 to the commission over its failure to deorbit its EchoStar-7 satellite, which has been in space for more than two decades.”
Oct 5
The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens wired.com · “Perhaps most controversially, the report states that the government believes it can “persistently” track the phones of “millions of Americans” without a warrant, so long as it pays for the information.”
Oct 4
The inability to count correctly: Debunking NIST's calculation of the Kyber-512 security level blog.cr.yp.to · “NIST’s underlying calculation of the security level was a severe and indefensible miscalculation.”
Oct 3

September 2023 17 posts

Europol Sought Unlimited Data Access in Online Child Sexual Abuse Regulation balkaninsight.com · “All data is useful and should be passed on to law enforcement, there should be no filtering by the [EU] Centre because even an innocent image might contain information that could at some point be useful to law enforcement”
Sep 30
Every single Onewheel is being recalled after four deaths theverge.com · “At the time, the company issued a press release in objection to the CPSC and called the agency’s statements “unjustified and alarmist.””
Sep 30
Government Shutdown Could Bench 80% of CISA Staff securityweek.com · “In the case of CISA, which had 3,117 employees as of June 17, only 571 would remain during a lapse in appropriations.”
Sep 29
Google claims to support privacy while lobbying against it proton.me · “Since 2019, Alphabet and its subsidiaries have spent more than $125 million on federal lobbying, campaign contributions, and trade associations”
Sep 29
Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users eff.org · “As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.”
Sep 21
British journalist held by police at Luton airport for five hours without arrest theguardian.com · “Police told Broomfield they were engaged in “a mopping up operation”. They seized his phone and laptop and have since refused to return them.”
Sep 20
FAA Authorizes Zipline International, Inc. to Deliver Commercial Packages Using Drones That Fly Beyond Operator's Line of Sight faa.gov · “The FAA authorized Zipline International, Inc., to deliver commercial packages around Salt Lake City using drones that fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight without visual observers.”
Sep 20
Facebook is Blocking Canadians’ Posts About the Assassination of a BC Sikh Leader. Their Posts Were Targeted by India’s Government. pressprogress.ca · “Access to your photo has been restricted within India because Facebook has been notified by the authorities under an emergency order pursuant to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000”
Sep 19
TikTok fined €345m for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts theguardian.com · “It also found that the “family pairing” scheme, which gives an adult control over a child’s account settings, did not check whether the adult “paired” with the child user was a parent or guardian.”
Sep 15
Temporary withdrawal from the market of the iPhone 12 for non-compliance with EU regulation anfr.fr · “The ANFR’s measures show that the limb-SAR values exceed the limit, being at 5,74 W/kg. However, the body-SAR complies with the regulation.”
Sep 13
Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs: report moneycontrol.com · “Just a month after Sundar Pichai announced Google’s plan to cut 12,000 jobs around the world in January, the company filed applications for H1B visas to hire software engineers, analytical consultants, user experience researchers and other roles from outside the United States”
Sep 9
NYPD spent millions to contract with firm banned by Meta for fake profiles theguardian.com · “New York police are legally permitted to use fake social media profiles and if someone unknowingly accepts a friend request from a cop it counts as consent, according to Stop legal director David Siffert.”
Sep 8
UK 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages... can't theregister.com · “The government saying ’no scanning until it’s technically feasible’ is nonsense. Scanning is fundamentally incompatible with end-to-end encrypted messaging apps.”
Sep 8
Ask HN: I'm an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of IoT security updates news.ycombinator.com · “Many manufacturers oppose making any commitments about security updates, even voluntary ones. These manufacturers are heavily engaged at the FCC and represented by sophisticated regulatory lawyers.”
Sep 5
GSA Announces Sale of Federal Helium System Assets - Updated gsa.gov · “The reservoir has historically held up to 44 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of helium, which includes both federally owned stored helium and native helium commingled with natural gas.”
Sep 5
Pesticide safety limit watered down after industry lobbying theferret.scot · “Permitted concentrations of the lice-killing chemical, emamectin, in the sediment of sea lochs have increased from 12 to 272 nanograms per kilogram between 2017 and 2023.”
Sep 3
Japan's cybersecurity agency admits it was hacked for months bitdefender.com · “The hack is thought to have commenced in October 2022, but the first traces of a problem were not spotted until the middle of June this year.”
Sep 1

August 2023 16 posts

IBM promised to back off facial recognition: then it signed a $69.8 million contract to provide it theverge.com · “In September 2020, IBM described such "one-to-many" matching systems as "the type of facial recognition technology most likely to be used for mass surveillance, racial profiling, or other violations of human rights."”
Aug 31
ISPs Should Not Police Online Speech: No Matter How Awful It Is. eff.org · “When a person uses a room in a house to engage in illegal or just terrible activity, we don’t call on the electric company to cut off the light and heat to the entire house, or the post office to stop delivering mail.”
Aug 29
Mother is arrested in Bangladesh after son in the U.S. criticizes government online nbcnews.com · “I’m not a famous columnist or not a very known person. So, I did not expect that this would happen to my family.”
Aug 27
Experian fined $650,000 for not letting you opt out of its spammy emails theverge.com · “Text at the bottom of emails shown in court docs reads, "This is not a marketing email," and claims the messages were notifications of recent account changes.”
Aug 22
Iraq Blocks Telegram, Leaks Blackhole BGP Routes kentik.com · “However, despite this technical error, no Telegram disruption was reported outside of Iraq, in part, due to the fact that Telegram had created Route Origin Authorizations (ROAs) for its routes allowing ASes outside of Iraq to automatically reject the hijacks.”
Aug 19
IP Address Blocking Banned After Anti-Piracy Court Order Hit Cloudflare torrentfreak.com · “With regard to the blocking of access to the IP address 190.115.18.20, the Telekom Control Commission found a violation of Article 3 Paragraph 3 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120, because the IP access block poses the risk of ‘overblocking’ any website content.”
Aug 19
Amsterdam to use "noise cameras" against too loud cars nltimes.nl · “The noise camera consists of a box containing four microphones that can detect precisely where a sound is coming from. The box is connected to a regular speed camera, which takes a photo of the license plate to issue a fine.”
Aug 19
A police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom npr.org · “It’s very rare because it’s illegal,” Oberlander said. “It doesn’t happen very often because most organizations understand that it’s illegal.”
Aug 14
WVU recommends dropping 32 majors, including all world language programs wvgazettemail.com · “The preliminary recommendations also included 169 faculty reductions, or 7% of the total faculty in Morgantown.”
Aug 12
U.S. Bans Future Investments in Chinese AI, Semiconductor, and Quantum Computing tomshardware.com · “While the administration mentioned restrictions would concern only "narrow subsets" of these areas, precise details remain unspecified.”
Aug 11
Seattle becomes first in U.S. to protect gig workers from sudden 'deactivation' kuow.org · “Often, there’s an algorithm that makes the decision so it’s not even a real person who’s making the decision to deactivate the worker.”
Aug 10
Banks hit with $549 million in fines for use of Signal, WhatsApp to evade regulators' reach cnbc.com · “An analysis of 13 Wells Fargo employees, for instance, found that all had violated the bank’s communications policies by using text messages to communicate with co-workers and market participants.”
Aug 8
Police raid WorldCoin cryptocurrency warehouse in Nairobi capitalfm.co.ke · “The officers went to the offices along Mombasa Road armed with a search warrant and left with machines they believe stores data gathered by the firm.”
Aug 7
The Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose Bill C-18 Outcome: Meta Blocking News Links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada michaelgeist.ca · “Sylvain Poisson of Hebdos Quebec confidently said “they made those threats in Australia and elsewhere and every time they back down.””
Aug 6
FCC fines robocaller a record $300M after blocking billions of their scam calls techcrunch.com · “The FCC is limited to investigating, taking counter-actions (like asking phone companies to stop carrying certain callers), and documenting the extent of the alleged criminal activity. But their recommendation of a $300 million fine must be evaluated and prosecuted by the Justice Department.”
Aug 3
Senate Votes To Let People Who've Used Marijuana Work At Intelligence Agencies Like CIA And NSA As Part Of Defense Bill marijuanamoment.net · “A newly published Senate Intelligence Committee report on the larger legislation shows that the panel approved the marijuana provision by a party-line vote of 10 to 7 last month.”
Aug 1

July 2023 25 posts

How the Ultrawealthy Use Private Foundations to Bank Millions in Tax Deductions While Giving the Public Little in Return propublica.org · “That allowed the Johnsons to collect more than $38 million in tax savings from the estate over five years, confidential tax records show.”
Jul 30
If We Want a Shift to Walking, We Need to Prioritize Dignity streets.mn · “But to improve ADA compliance, Edina removed the north crosswalk in 2014. Now, you would have to cross the busy signalized intersection three times just to continue on the north sidewalk.”
Jul 29
The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide eff.org · “In response to this outpouring of resistance, the U.K. government’s response has been to wave its hands and deny reality.”
Jul 28
California’s free prison calls are repairing estranged relationships and aiding rehabilitation latimes.com · “Since the California law took effect in January, call volume in state prisons surged from 1.4 million minutes per day in December 2022 to more than 3.5 million minutes in June, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”
Jul 28
EU passes law to blanket highways with fast EV chargers by end of 2025 theverge.com · “The regulation also requires that ad-hoc charging payments can be made via cards or contactless devices, without requiring a subscription.”
Jul 26
Senate bill crafted with DEA targets end-to-end encryption, requires online companies to report drug activity therecord.media · “Many privacy advocates caution that, if passed in its current form, the bill could be a death blow to end-to-end encryption services because it includes particularly controversial language holding companies accountable for conduct they don’t report if they “deliberately blind” themselves to the violations.”
Jul 24
Seven AI companies commit to safeguards at the White House's request engadget.com · “The companies will voluntarily agree to abide by a number of principles though the agreement will expire when Congress passes legislation to regulate AI.”
Jul 21
Apple says it would remove iMessage and FaceTime in the UK rather than break end-to-end encryption 9to5mac.com · “It strongly objects to requirements such as backdoors for end-to-end encryption, reporting changes to product security features before they are released and being forced to disable security features before an appeals process can take place.”
Jul 20
Federal Reserve announces that its new system for instant payments, the FedNow® Service, is now live federalreserve.gov · “To start, 35 early-adopting banks and credit unions, as well as the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, are ready with instant payments capabilities via the FedNow Service.”
Jul 20
IRS moves forward with a new free-file tax return system, supporters and critics mobilize pbs.org · “A Government Accountability Report in April 2022 found that 70 percent of taxpayers were eligible to use an existing free-file program but just 3 percent actually used the service.”
Jul 20
Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked techcrunch.com · “But, Microsoft found that the hackers were using that consumer MSA key to forge tokens that allowed them to break into enterprise inboxes.”
Jul 18
Temporary ban on behavioural advertising on Facebook and Instagram datatilsynet.no · “Should Meta not comply with the decision, the company risks a coercive fine of up to one million NOK per day.”
Jul 17
Signal president says company will not comply with proposed U.K. 'mass surveillance' law requiring mandatory message scanning before encryption fortune.com · “You cannot create a back door that only the good guys can go through.”
Jul 15
S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are 'skyrocketing.' What is the city's plan? sfchronicle.com · “The Fire Department has tallied 44 incidents so far this year in which robotaxis entered active fire scenes, ran over fire hoses or blocked fire trucks from responding to emergency calls.”
Jul 14
How Disney, Netflix, and more streaming companies are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal businessinsider.com · “The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment.”
Jul 13
The FCC Responds to my ATSC 3 Encryption Complaint: They Want To Hear From You! blog.lon.tv · “With ATSC 3 only equipment blessed by the broadcasters through an arduous, opaque and expensive process will be allowed to tune content.”
Jul 13
B.C. government hit tweet limit amid wildfire evacuations vancouverisawesome.com · “We’ve been trying to use private infrastructure as public infrastructure for communications.”
Jul 13
It's official: Smartphones will need to have replaceable batteries by 2027 androidauthority.com · “This new law states, specifically, that users should be able to replace a battery in their phone without any special expertise or tools.”
Jul 13
Democrats call on DOJ to investigate tax sites for sharing financial information with Meta theverge.com · “TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and TaxAct all confirmed that they shared “extensive taxpayer data” through Meta’s pixel in the senators’ report.”
Jul 12
A petabyte of health insurance prices per month blog.turquoise.health · “For example, an insurance company may have a contract that says they pay $180,000 for a heart transplant. The payer follows the rules and publishes that price for the list of “all doctors in this hospital.” That means including a heart transplant rate for podiatrists, pediatricians, urologists, and neurologists.”
Jul 11
US Spies Are Buying Americans' Private Data. Congress Has a New Chance to Stop It wired.com · “The bipartisan duo is seeking stronger warrant requirements for the surveillant data constantly accumulated by people’s cellphones. They argue that it shouldn’t matter whether a company is willing to accept payment from the government in lieu of a judge’s permission.”
Jul 9
France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone, spy on people gazettengr.com · “But lawmakers agreed to the bill late Wednesday as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insisted the bill would affect only “dozens of cases a year.””
Jul 6
Open Letter from Security and Privacy Researchers in relation to the Online Safety Bill haddadi.github.io · “There is no technological solution to the contradiction inherent in both keeping information confidential from third parties and sharing that same information with third parties.”
Jul 5
Four companies must stop using Google Analytics imy.se · “IMY issues an administrative fine of 12 million SEK against Tele2 and 300,000 SEK against CDON, which has not taken the same extensive protective measures as Coop and Dagens Industri.”
Jul 4
Dutch rules will soon prevent schoolchildren from having a phone in the classroom nltimes.nl · “Due to persistent signals from teachers that they are unable to keep smartphones out of the classroom on their own, Wiersma left the door open at the beginning of this year to examine the policy.”
Jul 4

June 2023 25 posts

How the Great Firewall of China Detects and Blocks Fully Encrypted Traffic gfw.report · “GFW exempts a connection if its first payload has more than 50% printable ASCII.”
Jun 30
Apple joins opposition to encrypted message app scanning bbc.com · “The UK could become the first liberal democracy to require the routine scanning of people’s private chat messages, including chats that are secured by end-to-end encryption.”
Jun 28
Canada plans brain drain of H-1B visa holders, with no-job, no-worries work permits theregister.com · “Canada has created 10,000 places for H-1B holders, which must be filled within a year as of July 16.”
Jun 28
Hugging Face CEO tells US House open-source AI is 'extremely aligned' with American interests venturebeat.com · “Hugging Face, a fast-growing New York-based startup that enjoyed a $2 billion valuation last year, has become a hub for open-source code and models and emerged as a leading voice in the open-source AI community.”
Jun 27
JP Morgan accidentally deletes evidence in multi-million record retention screwup theregister.com · “In at least 12 civil securities-related regulatory investigations, eight of which were conducted by the Commission staff, JPMorgan received subpoenas and document requests for communications which could not be retrieved or produced because they had been deleted permanently”
Jun 26
North Korean Market Prices Suggest Serious Food Shortages 38north.org · “In the past few years, when reports of food scarcity have surfaced from North Korea, market prices have given remarkably little credence to the claims.”
Jun 24
The Pentagon’s $52,000 trash can responsiblestatecraft.org · “In 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four of the trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit.”
Jun 23
According to Advocate General Medina European Harmonised Technical Standards must be freely available without charge because of their particular legal nature as acts that form part of EU law curia.europa.eu · “In that context, the Advocate General concludes that the rule of law requires access to HTS that is freely available without charge.”
Jun 23
FDA Approves First Gene Therapy for Treatment of Certain Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy fda.gov · “A clinical benefit of Elevidys, including improved motor function, has not been established.”
Jun 23
California will begin backing intentional burns to control wildfire freethink.com · “The “Prescribed Fire Liability Claims Fund Pilot” will allocate $20 million to cover losses that may occur if a prescribed or cultural burn ends up slipping control.”
Jun 23
FTC sues Amazon over 'deceptive' Prime sign-up and cancellation process cnbc.com · “Amazon used an internal term called "Iliad" to describe the process, referencing Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan War, the agency said, citing a report by Insider.”
Jun 21
Trapped Under Trucks: The Inside Story of the Government’s Failure to Prevent Underride Crashes propublica.org · “The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates.”
Jun 14
New York State Senate Passes Prohibitions on Non-Competes ogletree.com · “Covered individuals would have a private cause of action against employers that violate the law and, if found liable, employers would be subject to up to $10,000 in liquidated damages for each violation, as well as payment for lost compensation, damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs.”
Jun 14
OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic to give UK early access to foundational models for AI safety research techcrunch.com · “It’s also notable that AI giants have been bending Sunak’s ear in person in recent weeks, with meetings taking place between the PM and the CEOs of OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic shortly before the government mood music on AI changed.”
Jun 13
The Dutch government wants to automatically and administratively gain permission to target victims of hackers berthub.eu · “Or, more concretely, if your computer gets hacked by group X and there was a warrant to intercept the traffic of group X, the Dutch services now gain automatic approval to also intercept your communications or hack you.”
Jun 11
CIA 2010 covert communication websites cirosantilli.com · “The discovery of these websites by Iranian and Chinese counterintelligence led to the imprisonment and execution of several assets in those countries, and subsequent shutdown of the channel by the CIA when they noticed that things had gone wrong.”
Jun 11
Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California theregister.com · “It can only operate during the day on certain limited roads, and only at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.”
Jun 10
How charging drivers to go downtown would transform American cities cnn.com · “New Yorkers lose 117 hours on average each year sitting in traffic, costing them nearly $2,000 in lost productivity and other costs, according to one estimate.”
Jun 10
NASA spends $45M to seed tech from hundreds of space businesses techcrunch.com · “Each award includes $150,000 for a total investment of $45 million.”
Jun 8
10 years after Snowden's first leak, what have we learned? theregister.com · “If you ask the government – if you caught them in a room, and they were talking off the record – they would say the biggest impact for us from the Snowden disclosures is that it made big tech companies less cooperative.”
Jun 7
Royal Navy Says Quantum Navigation Test a Success thequantuminsider.com · “Although specific details about the applications of this technology remain undisclosed by the Royal Navy, certain hints suggest potential uses.”
Jun 7
US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles theguardian.com · “In the Debrief article, Grusch does not say he has personally seen alien vehicles, nor does he say where they may be being stored.”
Jun 6
Our Right To Challenge Junk Patents Is Under Threat eff.org · “The USPTO would prohibit anyone from challenging the patents of “small entities” and “under-resourced inventors.””
Jun 5
Traffic cop sues city over 'get-out-of-jail-free' cards for NYPD friends and family theguardian.com · “Bianchi’s service as a traffic cop ended last summer when he wrote a ticket to a friend of the NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, the lawsuit states.”
Jun 4
Maryland License Plates Now Inadvertently Advertising Filipino Online Casino vice.com · “Roughly 800,000 Maryland drivers with license plates designed to commemorate the War of 1812 are now inadvertently advertising a website for an online casino based in the Philippines.”
Jun 1

May 2023 17 posts

Wrestlers detained in Delhi: AI image of 'smiling' Vinesh & Sangeeta Phogat viral altnews.in · “Coming to the details of the viral image itself, we found that the image had been morphed using Artificial Intelligence app called FaceApp.”
May 29
FBI abused surveillance law to snoop on protesters, donors theregister.com · “The FBI misused controversial surveillance powers more than 278,000 times between 2020 and early 2021 to conduct warrantless searches on George Floyd protesters, January 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, and donors to a Congressional campaign”
May 23
OpenAI leaders propose international regulatory body for AI techcrunch.com · “And although the company’s leaders say they support tapping the brakes, there are no plans to do so just yet”
May 23
Leaked Government Document Shows Spain Wants to Ban End-to-End Encryption wired.com · ““Ideally, in our view, it would be desirable to legislatively prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption,” Spanish representatives said in the document.”
May 22
U.S. Universities Are Building a New Semiconductor Workforce spectrum.ieee.org · “There were around 20,000 job openings in the semiconductor industry at the end of 2022, according to Peter Bermel, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Purdue University.”
May 20
Another issue with the Cyber Resilience Act: European standards bodies are inaccessible to Open Source projects blog.opensource.org · “EU policy experts say not to worry about CRA compliance because the EU standards bodies will streamline it. But the European Standardisation Organizations (ESO) are corporate-controlled, patent-loving and expensive to engage.”
May 18
Controlled burns help prevent wildfires. Regulations make them nearly impossible. boulderbeat.news · “In 2020, firefighters proposed burning 312,943 piles of branches and logs throughout the state but were able to do only about 18% of that work, records show.”
May 17
Here's what happened during OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's first congressional hearing on artificial intelligence cnbc.com · “Durbin said it was refreshing to hear industry executives calling for regulation, saying he couldn’t remember other companies so strongly asking for their industry to be regulated.”
May 17
Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs leefang.com · “Just one month later, Pichai’s firm filed applications for low-paid foreign workers to come to America and take highly specialized tech jobs.”
May 16
Mormon who left Wall St. to work for charity blows whistle on what he says is his church's "clandestine hedge fund" cbsnews.com · “SEC investigators found the church "went to great lengths" to hide $32 billion in securities over nearly 20 years. It created 13 shell companies that were "…assigned a local phone number that would go directly to voicemail" in case regulators checked in.”
May 15
Attorney General James Secures $615,000 from Companies that Supplied Fake Comments to Influence FCC’s Repeal of Net Neutrality Rules ag.ny.gov · “However, nearly every lead generator that was hired to enroll consumers in the campaign instead simply fabricated consumers’ responses. As a result, more than 8.5 million fake comments that impersonated real people were submitted to the FCC, and more than half a million fake letters were sent to Congress.”
May 14
IRS Files $44 Billion Claims Against Bankrupt FTX unchainedcrypto.com · “According to bankruptcy filings on April 27 and 28, the IRS filed claims worth nearly $44 billion against the firms, including FTX.US and Alameda Research.”
May 11
Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan netblocks.org · “However, the mobile broadband disruptions cannot be circumvented and will be experienced as a total internet shutdown by those affected.”
May 9
Belgium legalises ethical hacking: a threat or an opportunity for cybersecurity? law.kuleuven.be · “A natural or legal person is now authorised to investigate organisations in Belgium for potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, even if they have not consented to such investigations.”
May 7
EU ready to back immediate open access without author fees researchprofessionalnews.com · “Commercial publishers have tended to impose such embargoes to protect their subscription fees.”
May 6
India bans flagship client for the Matrix network element.io · “As we understand it, Indian government officials claim to have approved the ban due to Element (and other apps) not having representatives in India.”
May 5
No, the money you spend on lotteries doesn't go to the park outdoorstatus.com · “From January to September 2022, permit fees for The Wave amounted to $958,020. Of this amount, Recreation.gov made $487,180. The park? $470,840.”
May 4

April 2023 14 posts

Microsoft quietly supported legislation to make it easier to fix devices. Here's why that's a big deal. grist.org · “It was also important to Microsoft that the bill only cover products manufactured after the bill’s implementation date, and that manufacturers be required to provide the public only the same parts and documents that their authorized repair providers already receive.”
Apr 30
Coinbase offers a fiery response to the SEC's threat of enforcement action cnbc.com · “To date, the SEC has never approved a crypto-asset entity as a national securities exchange, despite an extensive dialogue with Coinbase over the years.”
Apr 28
Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption globalencryption.org · “Recent media reports state that senior government officials in the US and EU agreed to cooperate on measures to shape public opinion with the goal of legitimising the demands of law enforcement agencies to access encrypted communications.”
Apr 24
How Russia killed its tech industry technologyreview.com · “In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, a record 14 million people a day headed to Yandex News. But instead of reading about civilian deaths and destruction, they were told that Russian liberators were “denazifying” Ukraine.”
Apr 23
iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe techradar.com · “Gurman says Apple won’t “shoot themselves in the foot” by adding it everywhere, and will probably introduce the feature quietly and without fanfare.”
Apr 22
The EARN IT Bill Is Back, Seeking To Scan Our Messages and Photos eff.org · “In 2020, the Irish police received 4,192 reports from NCMEC. Of those, only 852 (20.3%) were confirmed as actual CSAM. Only 9.7% of the reports were deemed to be “actionable.””
Apr 21
Seagate stung $300m for selling sanctioned storage to Huawei theregister.com · “Seagate persisted and between August 2020 and September 2021 sold 7.4 million hard drives to China, in 429 transactions worth a combined $1.1 billion.”
Apr 20
Software firms across U.S. facing massive tax bills that threaten tech startup world survival cnbc.com · “Landsman said he is able to tap lines of credit for now, but is paying 9% interest, and he says many other founders he knows don’t have that option.”
Apr 19
French publisher arrested in London on terrorism charge theguardian.com · “He was questioned for six hours and then arrested for alleged obstruction in refusing to disclose the passcodes to his phone and computer.”
Apr 18
'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco joannejacobs.com · “Families with resources turn to fee-required online algebra 1 courses in eighth grade, outside the public school system, or enroll their kids in private schools”
Apr 16
Colorado Approves First-Ever Agricultural Right to Repair Bill ifixit.com · “We could have a dozen pinky swears from a dozen tractor manufacturers, but we still wouldn’t have comprehensive repair materials. I’m running out of pinkies and I still can’t fix my damn tractor.”
Apr 11
Dutch journalist who writes critically on China targeted in “bizarre” intimidation scheme nltimes.nl · ““It sounds crazy, but the Chinese embassy has actually called the police about a bomb and mentioned our names,” Jingyu told Vlaskamp after he spent a day going over his story with police.”
Apr 9
This USPS facility in Utah does nothing but decipher your bad handwriting on mail kutv.com · “Our keyers key about a thousand images an hour, so they’re spending about 2 seconds on an image”
Apr 9
FCC Warns Portland Church To Shut Down Pirate FM Operating Under Its Steeple. insideradio.com · “Barnes then took to Facebook where he posted a video admitting he was operating a pirate station and that the FCC could not stop him unless it “locked him up.””
Apr 8

March 2023 18 posts

CDC team studying health impacts of East Palestine train derailment fell ill during investigation cbsnews.com · “Because the investigators’ symptoms improved soon after they left the area, the incident was not reported to the public, the official said, noting that reports of illnesses experienced by CDC personnel on the job wouldn’t ordinarily be disclosed.”
Mar 31
Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage bbc.co.uk · “Coldiretti and other agriculture lobbies have collected half a million signatures in recent months calling for protection of "natural food vs synthetic food", and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is among those who have signed.”
Mar 29
The European Commission does not understand what is written in its own Chat Control bill mullvad.net · “Above all, she continues to claim that it’s possible to scan end-to-end encrypted communication without breaking the encryption.”
Mar 28
Here is the FBI’s Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data vice.com · “Team Cymru, the company ultimately selling this data to the FBI, obtains it from deals with ISPs by offering them threat intelligence in return.”
Mar 28
Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access bbc.com · “Utah has become the first US state to require social media firms get parental consent for children to use their apps and verify users are at least 18.”
Mar 25
The FTC wants to ban those tough-to-cancel gym and cable subscriptions theverge.com · “The agency can recover around $50,000 per individual violation of a consumer’s rights, and consumer lawsuits can recover damages for lost funds and potentially wasted time.”
Mar 23
Leaving China persuasion.community · “From 2010 to 2020, Shanghai’s expat population dropped from 208,000 to 163,000.”
Mar 19
Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence federalregister.gov · “When an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship.”
Mar 17
Why We’re Suing to Protect the Right of Incarcerated People to Receive Physical Mail eff.org · “Instead, family and friends were required to mail their letters to Smart Communications, a private for-profit company based in Florida that would scan and destroy those letters so that incarcerated people would be required to access them digitally through a limited number of shared tablets and kiosks in public spaces within the jails.”
Mar 15
Joint Statement by the Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC home.treasury.gov · “Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.”
Mar 12
FDIC Creates a Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara to Protect Insured Depositors of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California fdic.gov · “As of December 31, 2022, Silicon Valley Bank had approximately $209.0 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits.”
Mar 10
The FBI Just Admitted It Bought US Location Data wired.com · “Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged for the first time that it purchased US location data rather than obtaining a warrant.”
Mar 9
Risky Biz News: Canada's tax revenue agency tries to ToS itself out of hacking liability riskybiznews.substack.com · “After reviewing the HTTP responses from the CRA My Account login page, it’s clear the agency has not configured even some of the most basic security features.”
Mar 8
The decline of net neutrality activism neelc.org · “Why? because the telecom lobby fought tooth and nail, and even resorted to homophobia just to prevent themselves from being regulated.”
Mar 7
Secret Service and ICE break the law with fake phone towers theregister.com · “The phone surveillance report offers six recommendations to help the agencies comply with their legal and policy obligations. But annoyingly it redacts statistical data about the number of investigations utilizing CSS devices in 2020 and 2021.”
Mar 4
Q&A About FTC Proposed Rule to Ban Non-Compete Restrictions jdsupra.com · “The non-compete agreement would be unlawful under the Proposed Rule, regardless of whether consideration was paid.”
Mar 3
"There is no prosecution at any cost." tuta.com · “Hartmann warned against weakening end-to-end encryption through client-based content scanning. “By doing so, the commission is in effect undermining the most important digital protection tool,” the investigator said, “because compromised encryption is not encryption in the end.””
Mar 2
U.S. Postal Service starts nationwide electric vehicle fleet, buying 9,250 EVs and thousands of charging stations cbsnews.com · “As such, a contract has also been awarded for the agency to acquire 9,250 commercial-off-the-shelf internal combustion engine vehicles “to fill the urgent need for vehicles.””
Mar 2

February 2023 23 posts

This selfie above China's balloon was taken over Missouri. Here's how we know that npr.org · “In an email to NPR, the Pentagon declined to confirm the location of the selfie, saying only that it was taken "over the central continental United States."”
Feb 25
Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption bbc.com · “Encryption is either protecting everyone or it is broken for everyone.”
Feb 24
Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills letgrow.org · “She hadn’t even gotten her coat off when four cops came to the house.”
Feb 23
Board Rules that Employers May Not Offer Severance Agreements Requiring Employees to Broadly Waive Labor Law Rights nlrb.gov · “Today’s decision, in contrast, explains that simply offering employees a severance agreement that requires them to broadly give up their rights under Section 7 of the Act violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.”
Feb 22
EPA Orders Norfolk Southern to Conduct All Cleanup Actions Associated with the East Palestine Train Derailment epa.gov · “If the company fails to complete any actions as ordered by EPA, the Agency will immediately step in, conduct the necessary work, and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost.”
Feb 21
Attorney General Bonta, Senator Dodd, Senator Skinner Introduce Bill Prohibiting Hidden Fees in California oag.ca.gov · “Sellers often hide these additional, mandatory charges by using small type, vague descriptions or misleading wording such as “service fees,” by bundling them with legitimate charges like taxes, or revealing them clearly only after the consumer has invested time in the transaction.”
Feb 20
IRIS²: the EU’s response to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites project reneweuropegroup.eu · “With the war, Ukraine needed satellite telecommunications, but the EU didn’t have something to offer.”
Feb 19
Tesla recalls 362,758 vehicles, says Full Self-Driving Beta software may cause crashes cnbc.com · “The word ‘recall’ for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!”
Feb 16
This Bay Area man has become the face of California’s latest housing drama sfchronicle.com · “Only five of 109 jurisdictions had their housing plans approved by the state by the Jan. 31 deadline.”
Feb 16
Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment npr.org · “On Sunday, the EPA released a list, written by Norfolk Southern, of the toxic chemicals that were in the derailed cars.”
Feb 14
BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout theguardian.com · “Documents and phones of several journalists were taken and the offices sealed.”
Feb 14
Let Teenagers Sleep scientificamerican.com · “Despite decades of research, thousands of publications and clear science, schools in only a few states and the District of Columbia have pushed their start times to 8:30 A.M. on average, which researchers say is a compromise.”
Feb 13
IRS builds out task force to explore running its own free e-file system federalnewsnetwork.com · “A Government Accountability Office report from April 2022 found that only 4 million individuals, or about 4% of all eligible taxpayers, used the program to file their federal tax returns.”
Feb 12
Hackers interrupt Iran president’s TV speech on anniversary of revolution cnn.com · “His live televised speech was interrupted on the internet for about a minute, with a logo appearing on the screen of a group of anti-Iranian government hackers that goes by the name of “Edalate Ali (Justice of Ali).””
Feb 12
New Hampshire once again on the cusp of enshrining Software Freedom into law. YOUR HELP IS NEEDED. libreboot.org · “16 February 2023, 1PM : prohibiting, with limited exceptions, state agencies from requiring use of proprietary software in interactions with the public (house bill: HB 617-FN)”
Feb 12
Amazon secures key FCC approval to deploy its Project Kuiper broadband satellites engadget.com · “If Amazon experiences disposal failure with satellites within a single year, it has to report that fact to the FCC, as well.”
Feb 10
The Online Safety Bill: An attack on encryption element.io · “The bill takes a wrecking ball to the very fabric of encryption, by requiring encrypted messaging apps to scan for abusive content within the app (or the app’s underlying operating system).”
Feb 9
‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’ fallows.substack.com · “It appears that quick action and situational awareness by the FedEx crew prevented a mass-casualty disaster.”
Feb 8
Mozilla, Google looking ahead to the end of Apple's WebKit theregister.com · “Under the current Apple App Store Guidelines, iOS browser apps must use WebKit.”
Feb 7
MDMA and Psilocybin Are Approved as Medicines for the First Time wired.com · “The treatments won’t be covered by health insurance, “so it’s probably initially going to be a therapy for relatively well-off people who have these conditions,” Perkins says.”
Feb 4
U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon cnbc.com · “Moreover, any information the balloon collects would have "limited additive value" compared with China’s spy satellites.”
Feb 4
Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search abc.net.au · “The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, this morning joined those disappointed to learn the maximum penalty for mishandling radioactive material in such a manner was $1,000.”
Feb 1
EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems mullvad.net · “To comply with the law all of it would have to shut down, globally, as the servers providing software and security updates can’t tell the difference between a web server, a Japanese software developer, a refrigerator and an EU teenager.”
Feb 1

January 2023 18 posts

Bay Area Cities To Lose ALL Housing Zoning Powers in 2 Days darrellowens.substack.com · “But since the HAA’s passage in 1990, this policy was entirely hypothetical and obscure because HCD never invoked it via declaring a city out of compliance.”
Jan 31
Firefighters Forced to Smash Window of Driverless Cruise Taxi to Stop It businessinsider.com · “Firefighters on the scene made efforts to prevent the Cruise AV from driving over their hoses and were not able to do so until they shattered a front window of the Cruise AV”
Jan 30
FCC Threatens to Disconnect Twilio for Illegal Robocalls commsrisk.com · “Twilio told the Traceback Consortium that PhoneBurner had obtained called parties’ consent for the robocalls. Neither Twilio nor PhoneBurner provided the Traceback Consortium with evidence of consent.”
Jan 29
Surgeon General says 13 is ‘too early’ to join social media cnn.com · “If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early”
Jan 29
NYC Jails Want to Ban Physical Mail, Then Privatize Scanning of Digital Versions theintercept.com · “The main source of contraband inside city jails, though, has been corrections staff, not mail, critics of the policy change said.”
Jan 24
The US certifies the first small modular nuclear reactor design theverge.com · “The target price per megawatt of power from the plant jumped 53 percent this month to $89 per megawatt hour”
Jan 24
China’s version of Starlink is government-backed, and has global ambitions restofworld.org · “The request, which sought approval for nearly 13,000 satellites on behalf of a Chinese company listed as “GW,” revealed the Chinese space industry’s global vision for a broadband satellite internet network that could stretch worldwide.”
Jan 16
What We Know Now About Friday Night’s Near-Disaster At JFK Airport viewfromthewing.com · “The Delta flight stopped less than 1000 feet from where it would have intersected with American’s plane.”
Jan 15
NSA asks Congress to let it get on with that warrantless data harvesting, again theregister.com · “"Section 702 cannot be used to target Americans anywhere in the world or any person inside the United States regardless of nationality. No exceptions," Nakasone said.”
Jan 15
A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage. It was also found in the backup system cnn.com · “Officials ultimately found a corrupt file in the main NOTAM system, the source told CNN. A corrupt file was also found in the backup system.”
Jan 12
England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes theverge.com · “Broadband companies estimate that around 40 percent of these requests are ignored by landlords, leaving tenants unable to upgrade their services even if they’re unfit for use.”
Jan 9
Apple Fined $8.5 Million for Illegally Collecting iPhone Owners' Data for Ads gizmodo.com · “With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple’s Personalized Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to protect their information.”
Jan 8
Here's how much top tech jobs in California pay, according to job ads cnbc.com · “However, the new law doesn’t require employers to post total compensation, or a measure of pay that includes equity, stock options, benefits and bonuses in addition to salary.”
Jan 6
FTC Cracks Down on Companies That Impose Harmful Noncompete Restrictions on Thousands of Workers ftc.gov · “Prudential’s security guards typically earned hourly wages at or near minimum wage”
Jan 5
BREAKING: Meta prohibited from use of personal data for advertising noyb.eu · “The alleged switch of legal basis happened exactly on 25 May 2018 at midnight when the GDPR came into force.”
Jan 4
Snow go for NYC's electric garbage trucks that can't handle winter weather gothamist.com · “We found that they could not plow the snow effectively – they basically conked out after four hours. We need them to go 12 hours”
Jan 4
Canada Bans Most Foreigners From Buying Homes voanews.com · “In late December, Ottawa also clarified that the ban would apply only to city dwellings and not to recreational properties such as summer cottages.”
Jan 2
How China is building a parallel generative AI universe techcrunch.com · “As with other types of internet services in China, from games to social media, users are asked to verify their names before using generative AI apps.”
Jan 2

2022 141 posts

December 2022 15 posts

I am not a supplier softwaremaxims.com · “And then why attempts at bringing FOSS under that definition are deeply misguided.”
Dec 31
Croatia to switch to euro, enter passport-free Schengen zone aljazeera.com · “At midnight on January 1, 2023, the Balkan nation of some four million people will bid farewell to its kuna currency and become the 20th member of the eurozone.”
Dec 31
Taxpayers paying billions for the renovations and construction of NFL stadiums cnbc.com · “Since 2000, public funds diverted to helping build professional sports stadiums and arenas have cost taxpayers $4.3 billion.”
Dec 25
TikTok banned on government devices under spending bill passed by Congress cnbc.com · “Congress failed to pass many of the most aggressive bills targeting tech, including antitrust legislation opposed by the industry.”
Dec 24
California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD teslarati.com · “The bill was sponsored after the California Department of Motor Vehicles claimed that Tesla’s FSD was “false advertising.”
Dec 24
How we slowed the subway down homesignalblog.wordpress.com · “The system of 2016-2018 was in crisis; on-time performance had plunged below 75 percent and ridership had begun to fall.”
Dec 23
BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany's public administration element.io · “BundesMessenger is a modified version of Element which we’re working with BWI to develop and maintain.”
Dec 16
NIST is announcing that SHA-1 should be phased out by Dec. 31, 2030 nist.gov · “Modules that still use SHA-1 after 2030 will not be permitted for purchase by the federal government,” Celi said.”
Dec 15
Apple considering dropping requirement for iPhone web browsers to use WebKit macrumors.com · “Gurman said this potential change comes in response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act.”
Dec 14
FTC seeks to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard ftc.gov · “The Commission vote to issue the complaint was 3-1, with Commissioner Christine S. Wilson voting no.”
Dec 8
Neuralink faces federal inquiry after killing 1,500 animals in testing theguardian.com · “The sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed.”
Dec 6
Iran abolishes morality police hindustantimes.com · “The attorney general commented at a religious conference where he responded to a participant who asked "why the morality police were being shut down", the report said.”
Dec 4
Administrators Have Seized the Ivory Tower jamesgmartin.center · “Universities are in the midst of a full-blown administrative spending spree that shows no signs of abating.”
Dec 4
New Zealand admits it has access to Facebook takedown portal to censor content reclaimthenet.org · “The OIA response didn’t detail how much content had been censored via this Facebook takedown portal.”
Dec 3
Why is Booz Allen renting us back our own national parks? mattstoller.substack.com · “Booz Allen and 13 government agencies have been renting back to the public access to our own lands by forcing us to pay junk fees to use national parks.”
Dec 2

November 2022 10 posts

Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says smithsonianmag.com · “Upside Foods’ lab-grown meat is biologically identical to standard meat, but it doesn’t require killing animals.”
Nov 28
Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry into FTX prospect.org · “Emmer and Gottheimer led the Blockchain Eight in donations from FTX with each receiving $11,600.”
Nov 25
Draft policy proposal would authorize SF Police to use deadly force with robots missionlocal.org · “Robot use-of-force has never before been approved, nor has it ever been prohibited, in San Francisco.”
Nov 24
Where has the passive radar code gone? forum.krakenrf.com · “This really sucks to say after putting so much effort into it, but for regulatory reasons that have just come to light we’ve had to remove the open source passive radar code that we previously provided.”
Nov 13
NSA urges orgs to use memory-safe programming languages theregister.com · “Rust, while powerful, has a fairly steep learning curve, for example.”
Nov 11
Indian ISPs: We already give govt full access to web traffic entrackr.com · “The CMS, however, undercuts these requests by letting the government access data in real time without individual requests.”
Nov 10
FTC restores rigorous enforcement of law banning unfair methods of competition ftc.gov · “When Congress created the FTC, it clearly commanded us to crack down on unfair methods of competition.”
Nov 10
Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable quillette.com · “At Yale University, for instance, there are now as many administrative staff as undergraduates.”
Nov 6
UK Government scans all web servers hosted in the UK for vulnerabilities ncsc.gov.uk · “We also limit how often we run scans to ensure we don’t risk disrupting the normal operation of systems.”
Nov 4
Laws barring noncompete clauses spreading businessinsurance.com · “Observers say insurance brokers are among the types of business most likely to be affected by the laws.”
Nov 1

October 2022 13 posts

NY could be first state with a 'Right to Repair' law for electronic devices spectrumlocalnews.com · “The bill has not been sent to the governor for her signature or veto but Fahy said her and her office have been in contact with the governor’s staff on the issue.”
Oct 31
Iran's Secret Manual for Controlling Protesters' Mobile Phones theintercept.com · “The tools can slow their data connections to a crawl, break the encryption of phone calls, track the movements of individuals or large groups, and produce detailed metadata summaries of who spoke to whom, when, and where.”
Oct 30
The Iran Firewall - A preliminary report blog.thc.org · “IP addresses are rarely fully blocked.”
Oct 28
Nearly half of San Franciscans have been victims of theft, new poll says sfstandard.com · “Nearly half of San Franciscans have been a victim of theft in the past five years and a quarter have been threatened or physically attacked, according to a new poll.”
Oct 21
The Israeli Books End of Life lifemichael.com · “The Israeli accessibility law is very vague.”
Oct 21
An accident at SpaceX semafor.com · “SpaceX was fined $18,475 by OSHA for two safety violations, one of which was rated the highest penalty level of "serious" and a maximum gravity of 10.”
Oct 18
Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants dw.com · “Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday ordered Germany’s three remaining nuclear plants to remain in operation until April to fend off a possible energy crunch.”
Oct 17
California Man Fined $1,000 for Drawing Lines on Maps vice.com · “Local officials encouraging people to create their own site drawings contradicts the board’s claim that anyone who depicts a site map needs a license.”
Oct 12
Why an 'everything app' is bad news for liberal democracies and free markets nitinpai.in · “It is practically impossible for person in China to opt out of WeChat.”
Oct 10
Protests in Iran: State-run live TV hacked by protesters bbc.co.uk · “Rights groups say more than 150 people have been killed since the protests in the Islamic Republic began on 17 September.”
Oct 9
FCC Plans to Remove Companies From Key Database for Non-Compliance With Anti-Robocall Rules docs.fcc.gov · “Removal from the database would require all intermediate providers and terminating voice service providers to cease carrying the companies’ traffic.”
Oct 5
EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024 macrumors.com · “The directive received 602 votes in favor, 13 votes against, and eight abstentions.”
Oct 4
110 Overseas: 230,000 Chinese "persuaded to return" safeguarddefenders.com · “Police further admitted they did not actually have evidence that all those targeted had committed any crimes.”
Oct 1

September 2022 11 posts

House Democrats debut new bill to limit US police use of facial recognition techcrunch.com · “Some cities, states and police departments have limited their use of facial recognition in recent years.”
Sep 30
Gas leak in the Baltic Sea forsvaret.dk · “The Danish Defense has no further comments at this time.”
Sep 27
FTC to Crack Down on Companies Taking Advantage of Gig Workers ftc.gov · “Technological advances and novel business models are no license to commit unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices.”
Sep 17
US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years engadget.com · “CBP keeps any information it takes from people’s devices for 15 years.”
Sep 16
An F-16 pilot died when his ejection seat failed. Was it counterfeit? airforcetimes.com · “Plaintiffs hope to learn through the legal discovery process whether the components were proven fake.”
Sep 14
Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as the 'Not My King' tag grows text.npr.org · “I doubt most of the people in the crowd even heard me.”
Sep 12
On my resignation as regulator of the Dutch intelligence and security services berthub.eu · “Under this new law, my specific role (technical risk analysis) would mostly be eliminated.”
Sep 10
Meet the woman stockpiling cash to sue San Francisco over housing deadlock sfstandard.com · “It’s to try to deter the city from messing around,” she said.
Sep 10
San Francisco Decriminalizes Psychedelics doubleblindmag.com · “San Francisco officials have been bullish on drug policy reform, including promoting harm reduction services.”
Sep 8
AG Ferguson: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws atg.wa.gov · “The judge concluded that Meta repeatedly and intentionally violated the law and must pay penalties.”
Sep 6
GA moves closer to unleaded future aopa.org · “Pilots in America will not be paying what they’re paying for avgas in Europe today.”
Sep 1

August 2022 8 posts

NVIDIA Corporation Form 8-K sec.gov · “The Company is engaged with the USG and is seeking exemptions for the Company’s internal development and support activities.”
Aug 31
The Big [Censored] Theory pudding.cool · “77 of the first 100 episodes had at least one edit, amounting to 206 removed scenes.”
Aug 29
Ghana Bans A Delta Boeing 767 (Yes, Just One) onemileatatime.com · “So the same Boeing 767 diverted to New York two days in a row on transatlantic flights due to mechanical issues.”
Aug 26
EPB Launches America’s First Community-wide 25 Gig Internet Service epb.com · “EPB is an independent board of the City of Chattanooga which began serving customers in 1939.”
Aug 24
Hostage standoff at Beirut bank ends with gunman's surrender aljazeera.com · “He did not receive any of the money, according to a lawyer who took part in the negotiations.”
Aug 13
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Notorious Virtual Currency Mixer Tornado Cash home.treasury.gov · “The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior.”
Aug 8
The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved by US Regulators singularityhub.com · “SMRs could cost more than bigger nuclear plants, he adds, because they don’t have the same economy of scale.”
Aug 6
NSA, NIST, and post-quantum cryptography: Announcing my second lawsuit against the U.S. government blog.cr.yp.to · “NIST has produced zero records in response to this FOIA request.”
Aug 5

July 2022 13 posts

FBI is hiding details about a raid on Americans' safe deposit boxes reason.com · “Those details matter, and not just to the victims of the FBI’s raid.”
Jul 28
UK intelligence recycles "think of the children" argument for borking encryption theregister.com · “This is an old, old argument – as old as encryption itself.”
Jul 22
Why we ignore thousands of daily car crashes strongtowns.org · “I was reminded of this in an article about last week’s Amtrak derailment.”
Jul 21
New documents reveal scale of US Government's cell phone location data tracking aclu.org · “The 6,168 pages of location records we reviewed contain approximately 336,000 location points obtained from people’s phones.”
Jul 18
Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes noahpinion.substack.com · “In April of 2021 the government banned the import and use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.”
Jul 13
The Uber leak exposes the global war on workers tribunemag.co.uk · “Ontario’s recent gig work law closely mirrors what Uber has been pushing for.”
Jul 12
Your compliance obligations under the UK's Online Safety Bill webdevlaw.uk · “And don’t forget that this regulatory regime is expected to be extraterritorial.”
Jul 11
The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe shingetsunewsagency.com · “He initially prepared to kill a church leader, but gave up after deciding it was too difficult.”
Jul 10
Switzerland moves ahead with underground autonomous cargo delivery spectrum.ieee.org · “Like so many concepts of this kind, six years ago it seemed like it was highly unlikely to ever happen.”
Jul 8
I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to dolthub.com · “Hospitals are willing to spend $1M just to avoid publishing these things.”
Jul 7
EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms macrumors.com · “So far, Apple has heavily resisted attempts by governments to enforce changes to its operating systems and services.”
Jul 5
Mendon, Missouri seandietrich.com · “The Chief was traveling 87 mph, bound for Chicago.”
Jul 4
Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months propublica.org · “Of particular concern, the analysis showed that Google shared data with RuTarget about users browsing websites based in Ukraine.”
Jul 1

June 2022 9 posts

Cryptocurrency Titan Coinbase Providing "Geo Tracking Data" to ICE theintercept.com · “An email released through the FOIA request shows that Coinbase didn’t require ICE to agree to an End User License Agreement, standard legalese that imposes limits on what a customer can do with software.”
Jun 30
EU Commission says it cannot find messages with Pfizer CEO euobserver.com · “The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of “short-lived and ephemeral” communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents.”
Jun 29
Massive Trove of Gun Owners' Private Information Leaked by California Attorney General thereload.com · “The leaked information includes the person’s full name, race, home address, date of birth, and date their permit was issued.”
Jun 28
Why America Can't Build palladiummag.com · “Protecting just one undocumented drainage culvert on the project cost nearly $30 million.”
Jun 27
Google: Italian SA stops use of Google Analytics gpdp.it · “In determining that the processing was unlawful, the Italian SA reiterated that an IP address is a personal data and would not be anonymised even if it were truncated – given Google’s capabilities to enrich such data through additional information it holds.”
Jun 23
Pop-ups are dead, long live pop-ups: or, the bait-and-switch hidden in today's cookie announcement webdevlaw.uk · “As we’ve known for a good while now, and as the announcement states, the Data Reform Bill will shift the responsibility for consent popups from service providers to browsers.”
Jun 17
EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices engadget.com · “The biggest odd one out is Apple’s Lightning iPhone port that’s used by around 20 percent of devices sold in Europe.”
Jun 7
Germany paying $5.5bn for Intel fab electronicsweekly.com · “Intel says it expects 30% subsidies when it builds a fab, and CEO Pat Gelsinger says it costs 30-40% more to build a fab in Europe than in Asia.”
Jun 7
Tim Hortons app violated privacy laws in collection of 'vast amounts' of sensitive location data priv.gc.ca · “The investigation uncovered that Tim Hortons continued to collect vast amounts of location data for a year after shelving plans to use it for targeted advertising, even though it had no legitimate need to do so.”
Jun 1

May 2022 9 posts

Big Tech talks up privacy while trying to kill privacy laws theregister.com · “The report examined 31 states when state legislatures were considering privacy legislation and identified 445 lobbyists and lobbying firms working on behalf of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, along with industry groups like TechNet and the State Privacy and Security Coalition.”
May 29
Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power allianceforscience.cornell.edu · “Finland’s is the first Green Party to adopt such a position.”
May 23
Michigan Couple Says Town Seized Their Building and Offered To Return It if They Bought Two Cars for Police reason.com · “The Kozbials, immigrants from Poland, say they had a state license to grow medical marijuana, but the city seized the building anyway and held on to it for 17 months without charging them with a crime.”
May 20
Pirate Site Blocking is Making its Way Into Free Trade Agreements torrentfreak.com · “The new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK includes a site blocking paragraph.”
May 14
Former employee blows whistle on baby formula production plant tied to outbreak foodsafetynews.com · “The FDA did not interview the whistleblower until late December 2021.”
May 14
Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11 patrick-breyer.de · “According to a poll 72% of citizens oppose the indiscriminate scanning of their private communications.”
May 10
I Saw a Cool Truck Today theap.substack.com · “53-foot semi-trailers are prohibited on the vast majority of the streets of New York City.”
May 9
CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders vice.com · “SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors.”
May 3
I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government beanlog.vercel.app · “Slowly it dawned on me that not only did I just loan $19,975 to the government for 2 months with zero interest, but I’d locked myself out of the golden window for buying I-bonds.”
May 1

April 2022 14 posts

Internet Archive joins opposition to the “SMART Copyright Act” blog.archive.org · “If the SMART Copyright Act were to pass, the Copyright Office would select a “technical measure” every three years that online service providers would be required to implement.”
Apr 30
Public Money, Public Code publiccode.eu · “If it is public money, it should be public code as well.”
Apr 27
Google gives Europe a ‘reject all’ button for tracking cookies theverge.com · “Previously, Google allowed users to accept all tracking cookies with a single click, but forced people to click through various menus to reject them all.”
Apr 24
Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation theverge.com · “Companies face fines of up to 6 percent of their annual turnover for noncompliance.”
Apr 23
The unreasonable fight for municipal broadband tylercipriani.com · “And, even better, the city insists I’ll pay $49.95 forever.”
Apr 20
TurboTax’s fight against free tax filing slate.com · “For the vast majority of Americans, the IRS already knows what we owe in taxes.”
Apr 18
UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus citizenlab.ca · “The suspected infection at the UK Prime Minister’s Office was associated with a Pegasus operator we link to the UAE.”
Apr 18
Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones insidenova.com · “Police never described Durvin as a suspect in the search warrant application they submitted seeking permission to track him and court records show he has not been charged with any crimes in Virginia since police took out the warrant.”
Apr 16
Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com · “In summary, about 80% of Germany’s energy comes from fossil fuels, and about 50% of that comes from Russia.”
Apr 14
FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood' reason.com · “When it became clear that a forced entry was necessary, an FBI agent testified, “the decision was made, since it was an affluent neighborhood,” to do it inconspicuously.”
Apr 11
An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown jaapgrolleman.com · “The city is sending rations, but we got one small package of vegetables once during nine days.”
Apr 9
The United States Digital Corps digitalcorps.gsa.gov · “What started as an idea and grassroots effort evolved into the U.S. Digital Corps.”
Apr 8
One App – Two Worlds: This Is TikTok in Russia and Ukraine nrk.no · “As a result TikTok turned off the ability to upload new content in Russia.”
Apr 5
The GOV.UK Design System is now live gds.blog.gov.uk · “In fact, pages on GOV.UK built with the Design System download about twice as fast as those that haven’t, as they use about half as much code.”
Apr 1

March 2022 15 posts

FTC Sues Intuit for Its Deceptive TurboTax "free" Filing Campaign ftc.gov · “In spite of this advertising, many consumers who took the time to gather their documents, entrust their personal information to Intuit, and begin the filing process found that they could not file their taxes for free.”
Mar 29
We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles mitadmissions.org · “Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants, and also help us identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT.”
Mar 28
Countering threats from North Korea blog.google · “We observed the campaigns targeting U.S. based organizations spanning news media, IT, cryptocurrency and fintech industries.”
Mar 27
Why America can't build quickly anymore fullstackeconomics.com · “By contrast, the 2017 Second Avenue subway opening, with just three stations, took seventeen years.”
Mar 19
Arizona House approves ban on close-up videotaping of police officers fox10phoenix.com · “The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission.”
Mar 19
US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018 theguardian.com · “The Fed raised rates by a quarter percentage point from near zero, in what is expected to be the first in a series of raises in the coming months.”
Mar 16
Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest tchrd.org · “A Tibetan inside Tibet confirmed that as soon as Norbu set himself on fire, Chinese security officers sprang into action and took him away.”
Mar 15
CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach interrogators torture techniques theguardian.com · “The details of the torture of Ammar al-Baluchi are in a 2008 report by the CIA’s inspector general, newly declassified as part of a court filing by his lawyers aimed at getting him an independent medical examination.”
Mar 15
Not dodgy at all and long overdue - user replaceable batteries eevblog.com · “Industry is not too happy about this.”
Mar 13
EARN-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom fsf.org · “Once a backdoor is made, we don’t get to specify how it’s used, or by whom.”
Mar 11
Appeal to Ruby community from Kharkiv Rubyist zverok.space · “I am no hero.”
Mar 10
Just Say No to CBDCs theupheaval.substack.com · “But you can’t, since these FedCoins are coded as usable for consumer purchases only, and will expire and vanish in seven days.”
Mar 10
An update on the threat landscape blog.google · “All known attacker-controlled Blogspot domains have been taken down.”
Mar 7
BBC resurrects WWII-era shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion theverge.com · “The BBC World Service ended its use of the technology in Europe in 2008 after 76 years.”
Mar 4
ICANN's rejection of Ukraine's request to sever Russia from the internet icann.org · “Essentially, ICANN has been built to ensure that the Internet works, not for its coordination role to be used to stop it from working.”
Mar 3

February 2022 13 posts

Namecheap: Russia Service Termination news.ycombinator.com · “If you hold any top-level domains with us, we ask that you transfer them to another provider by March 6, 2022.”
Feb 28
“O, so sorry. I need more time. my country defending Russian invasion” github.com · “Right now my country defending russian invasion, so I’m a little busy now.”
Feb 28
Miscellanea: Understanding the War in Ukraine acoup.blog · “This can be a confusing question in this context because Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Foreign Ministry have given multiple conflicting and in some cases mutually contradictory answers for why they are proceeding as they are.”
Feb 25
On the removal of Come Back Alive blog.patreon.com · “This morning, Patreon suspended a Ukrainian organization’s page from our site called “Come Back Alive” because it violated our policies.”
Feb 25
Subaru, Kia shut off some car features rather than adhere to 'right to repair' law ksdk.com · “About 75% of Massachusetts voters sided with the auto repair industry in 2020 by passing a ballot initiative that’s supposed to allow car owners and their preferred auto shops to more easily peek into a car’s trove of online data.”
Feb 23
Howard Anglin: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously thehub.ca · “The government doesn’t need to break down your door anymore to effectively remove you from society.”
Feb 22
New York Is Now Using Cameras With Microphones to Ticket Loud Cars roadandtrack.com · “Your vehicle was recorded by a camera that takes a pictures of the vehicle and the license plate.”
Feb 16
Prosecutor won't charge reporter who uncovered database flaw kshb.com · “But the state instead issued a news release calling the reporter a “hacker.””
Feb 13
Key Senators Have Voted For The Anti-Encryption EARN IT Act eff.org · “But the kind of abusive images they’re concerned about are already highly illegal under federal law.”
Feb 11
IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access krebsonsecurity.com · “ID.me says it has approximately 64 million users, with 145,000 new users signing up each day.”
Feb 7
The EARN IT Act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever cyberlaw.stanford.edu · “The only real change is the replacement of that bill’s already-tepid language attempting to protect encryption, with language from the September 2020 House version of the bill.”
Feb 5
Apple will charge 27% commission for app purchases made using alternative payment systems in the Netherlands 9to5mac.com · “Each month, developers will have to send a report to Apple that lists their sales.”
Feb 4
GDPR enforcer rules that IAB Europe’s consent popups are unlawful iccl.ie · “All data collected through the TCF must now be deleted by the more than 1,000 companies that pay IAB Europe to use the TCF.”
Feb 2

January 2022 11 posts

Smedley Butler on Interventionism man.fas.org · “I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers.”
Jan 29
I read the federal government's Zero-Trust Memo so you don't have to bastionzero.com · “It tells us to stop rotating passwords, and stop putting in those annoying special characters as requirements in password policies.”
Jan 27
MAKRO github.com · “The model is developed by the MAKRO model group at DREAM (Danish Research Institute for Economic Analysis and Modelling) for use by the Danish Ministry of Finance and others.”
Jan 21
Basic income would not reduce people's willingness to work universiteitleiden.nl · “The basic income did not cause a reduction in the participants’ willingness to work and efforts, say the psychologists.”
Jan 17
Why Galesburg has no money inlandnobody.substack.com · “This section of road is approximately 584 feet long and is going to cost around $350,000 to reconstruct.”
Jan 16
Revealed: UK Gov't Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Privacy of Your Chats rollingstone.com · “The same slide notes that the campaign “must not start a privacy vs safety debate.””
Jan 16
Nuclear startup Oklo gets thumbs-down from regulators. What does this mean for next-gen nuclear? canarymedia.com · “The advanced nuclear reactor industry, such as it is, suffered a setback last week when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo Power’s application to build and operate the company’s Aurora compact fast reactor at a site in Idaho.”
Jan 14
More than 1 million fewer students are in college. Here's how that impacts the economy npr.org · “That represents the largest two-year decrease in more than 50 years, Shapiro says.”
Jan 13
The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda worldbeyondwar.org · “In the original script for the first Iron Man movie, the hero went up against the evil weapons dealers.”
Jan 7
A Big Win For Workers: New York City Will Make It Mandatory For Companies To Disclose Salaries On Job Advertisements forbes.com · “Up until now, the overwhelming majority of companies conveniently left out the salary from their job advertisements.”
Jan 6
2021 letter danwang.co · “Beijing is therefore a desert steppe city with Stalinist characteristics.”
Jan 1

2021 124 posts

December 2021 14 posts

FAA Investigating Controversial Crash Video avweb.com · “There is commentary on the weather and reference to his deceased friend but no description of the circumstances of the alleged engine failure.”
Dec 29
Bill 27: Ontario bans non-competes and creates right to disconnect from work gowlingwlg.com · “While several US States have enacted legislation prohibiting non-competes, Ontario is the first of the Canadian Provinces to do so.”
Dec 27
The interview that disappeared josimarfootball.com · “No official reason for his arrest has been given by Qatari authorities.”
Dec 23
CFPB Shutters Lending by VC-Backed Fintech for Violating Agency Order consumerfinance.gov · “The order would also impose a $100,000 civil money penalty based on LendUp’s demonstrated inability to pay.”
Dec 22
The Belgian government has removed 'backdoor requirement' from new law after international protest tutanota.com · “This draft included a passage that would have forced companies such as WhatsApp and Signal to decrypt their encrypted chats upon request by the authorities for criminal investigation.”
Dec 21
MOFCOM Issues New Encryption Import Control Effective Immediately sanctionsnews.bakermckenzie.com · “Encryption technologies with encryption strength exceeding the specified threshold can no longer be freely transferred to a Chinese party.”
Dec 21
Boston Police Bought Spy Tech With a Pot of Money Hidden From the Public propublica.org · “A WBUR investigation with ProPublica found elected officials and the public were largely kept in the dark when Boston police spent $627,000 on this equipment by dipping into money seized in connection with alleged crimes.”
Dec 18
President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment purdueexponent.org · “Those seeking to deny those rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their education elsewhere.”
Dec 17
Pelosi defends stock trading by lawmakers and their spouses: 'We are a free-market economy' marketwatch.com · “Yet, in the nearly 10 years since it was enacted, no one has been prosecuted under it, even as many members continue to conspicuously trade.”
Dec 16
The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem audubon.org · “It contained 12 pounds of waxy pink seed-size pellets laced with brodifacoum, a chemical engineered to trigger massive internal bleeding and hemorrhaging when digested, whether by rat, dog, bird, or child.”
Dec 12
"Free PACER" Bill Advances Through Senate Judiciary Unanimously fixthecourt.com · “There’s no reason the American public should pay for public documents.”
Dec 9
Number of journalists behind bars reaches global high cpj.org · “China remains the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the third year in a row, with 50 behind bars.”
Dec 9
Apple CEO Tim Cook 'Secretly' Signed $275 Billion Deal With China in 2016 macrumors.com · “Other internal documents reportedly showed that Apple’s pledge amounted to more than $275 billion in spending over a period of five years.”
Dec 8
Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption' tutanota.com · “There will be a right to encryption, and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted communication.”
Dec 3

November 2021 13 posts

The American Prison System's War on Reading proteanmag.com · “This April, the Iowa Department of Corrections issued a ban on charities, family members, and other outside parties donating books to prisoners.”
Nov 30
SUCCESS! New German government calls for European ban on biometric mass surveillance reclaimyourface.eu · “The newly-agreed German government coalition has called for a Europe-wide ban on public facial recognition and other biometric surveillance.”
Nov 25
Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law following LSE report findings lse.ac.uk · “The review drew on over 300 existing scientific studies to evaluate evidence of sentience in cephalopods (including octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) and decapods (including crabs, lobsters and crayfish).”
Nov 22
German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice blog.documentfoundation.org · “By the end of 2026, Microsoft Office is to be replaced by LibreOffice on all 25,000 computers used by civil servants and employees (including teachers), and the Windows operating system is to be replaced by GNU/Linux.”
Nov 18
The end of "click to subscribe, call to cancel"? One of the news industry's favorite retention tactics is illegal, FTC says niemanlab.org · “If you can subscribe online, you should be able to cancel your subscription online.”
Nov 17
Space debris forces astronauts on space station to take shelter in return ships space.com · “Price noted that the anti-satellite test created more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris large enough to track, in addition to “hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris.””
Nov 15
Portugal bans bosses texting staff after-hours bbc.co.uk · “Companies with more than 10 staff could face fines if they contact employees outside their contracted hours.”
Nov 12
Blind People Won the Right to Break Ebook DRM. In 3 Years, They'll Have to Do It Again wired.com · ““To go every three years is burdensome,” says Mark Richert, executive director at the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired.”
Nov 8
IAB Europe warns of GDPR breach finding techcrunch.com · “Is this the beginning of the end for the hated tracking cookie consent pop-up?”
Nov 5
These Parents Built a School App. Then the City Called the Cops wired.co.uk · “The Skolplattform, which has cost more than 1 billion Swedish Krona, SEK, ($117 million), has failed to match its initial ambition.”
Nov 4
Our Self-Imposed Scarcity of Nice Places strongtowns.org · “In fact, our shortage of nice places is almost totally self-imposed.”
Nov 4
Reporter who notified Missouri officials of website flaw did 'nothing out of line,' emails show statescoop.com · “But rather than thank Renaud, Gov. Mike Parson responded Oct. 14 with accusations that the Post-Dispatch had “hacked” the state government as part of a perceived “political vendetta” against his administration.”
Nov 3
UF professors denied permission to testify in voting rights case npr.org · “Responding to McDonald and Austin’s request to testify, the university said that “litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests,” according to the documents the plaintiffs filed Friday.”
Nov 1

October 2021 9 posts

An Unexpected Victory: Container Stacking at the Port of Long Beach thezvi.wordpress.com · “There was a rule in the Port saying you could only stack shipping containers two containers high.”
Oct 28
Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks, restrict trading following controversy cnbc.com · “Officials will be restricted primarily to owning mutual funds, which they will have to hold for a year and will need permission to buy or sell.”
Oct 21
FDA moves to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter npr.org · “People with mild or moderate hearing loss could soon be able to buy hearing aids without a medical exam or special fitting, under a new rule being proposed by the Food and Drug Administration.”
Oct 19
Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting Security Vulnerability krebsonsecurity.com · “The newspaper said it found that teachers’ Social Security numbers were contained in the HTML source code of the pages involved.”
Oct 14
China again blocks Wikimedia Foundation's accreditation to World Intellectual Property Organization wikimediafoundation.org · “China was again the only country to object to the accreditation of the Wikimedia Foundation as an official observer.”
Oct 10
Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement gov.ie · “This 15% rate will apply to 56 Irish multinationals employing approximately 100,000 people, and 1500 foreign owned MNEs based in Ireland employed approximately 400,000 people.”
Oct 8
Facebook whistleblower renews scrutiny of the social media giant npr.org · “Haugen’s planned testimony this week, as well as the information she shared so far, suggests the company deceived the public and its investors about its ability to deal with hate speech and misinformation on its platform.”
Oct 5
Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful theguardian.com · “Branded the Pandora papers, the cache includes 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.”
Oct 3
Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill theguardian.com · “None of the companies contacted by the Guardian would rebuke the stance of the lobby groups they are part of and none said they would review their links to these groups.”
Oct 2

September 2021 14 posts

In 2019, Almost All of Facebook's Top Christian Pages Were Run By Foreign Troll Farms relevantmagazine.com · “In 2019, 19 of Facebook’s top 20 pages for American Christians were run by Eastern European troll farms overseas, internal documents leaked to MIT Technology Review reveal.”
Sep 29
Demonopolizing the internet with interoperability pluralistic.net · “A rule that requires Big Tech to throw everything at unsolvable problems will make the cost of entry into the tech sector so expensive that Big Tech will get to rule unchallenged, forever.”
Sep 25
The NSA and CIA Use Ad Blockers Because Online Advertising Is So Dangerous vice.com · “The IC, which also includes the parts of the FBI, DEA, and DHS, and various DoD elements, has deployed ad-blocking technology on a wide scale, according to a copy of a letter sent by Congress and shared with Motherboard.”
Sep 23
TikTokers Are Trading Stocks By Copying What Members Of Congress Do text.npr.org · “Last year, Josephs noticed that the trades, actually made by Pelosi’s investor husband and merely disclosed by the speaker, were performing well.”
Sep 21
FBI says fortune seized in Beverly Hills raid was criminals’ loot. Owners say: Where’s the proof? latimes.com · “But six months after the raid, the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles have produced no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the vast majority of box holders whose belongings the government is trying to keep.”
Sep 20
Russia restricts opposition election voting app from Apple App Store and Google Play Store netblocks.org · “On Friday, sources confirmed on background that at least one of the U.S.-based companies implementing the restriction felt compelled to comply for fear that local staff could face legal action upon receipt of a takedown order from the Russian Federation.”
Sep 19
Hong Kong: Police raid Tiananmen Square museum bbc.co.uk · “The national security unit had earlier requested that the Hong Kong Alliance hand over information, reportedly including personal details of all members since the group’s founding and financial records.”
Sep 9
20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking off our shoes at airports? ocregister.com · “Sorry travelers, it looks like the body scans and shoe removal are here to stay.”
Sep 8
Australia's new mass surveillance mandate digitalrightswatch.org.au · “The Australian government has new laws on the books to hack your computer, your online accounts, and just about any piece of technology and networks you come into contact with.”
Sep 7
'Red Roulette' Reveals The Inside Of China's Wealth-Making Machine npr.org · “The government never acknowledged they have taken her.”
Sep 7
Germany wants smartphone makers to offer 7 years of software updates xda-developers.com · “In addition, the Federal Government wants OEMs to publish the spare part prices and not increase them over time.”
Sep 6
Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods nltimes.nl · “Last year, a third of all homes sold in the four large cities were bought by investors.”
Sep 5
WhatsApp Ireland hit with record fine of €225m by DPC rte.ie · “However, eight of around 40 of those authorities disagreed with the draft conclusions, including the DPC’s proposed fine of up to €50m.”
Sep 2
More than 65,000 fake students applied for financial aid in wide community college scam latimes.com · “California Community Colleges officials declined to say whether any financial aid was disbursed to fake students and said they did not know of any confirmed Cal Grant fraud, but the investigation is continuing.”
Sep 1

August 2021 10 posts

Apple and Google must allow developers to use other payment systems, new Korean law declares theverge.com · “If tech companies fail to comply with the new law, they could face fines of up to 3 percent of their South Korea revenue.”
Aug 31
EU agency advises against using search & browsing history for credit scores therecord.media · “The European Union’s lead data protection supervisor has recommended on Thursday that personal data such as search queries & internet browsing history should not be used for the assessment of credit scores and creditworthiness.”
Aug 28
FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine fda.gov · “Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine.”
Aug 23
Bigger vehicles are directly resulting in more deaths of people walking smartgrowthamerica.org · “To put it simply, pickup trucks and SUVs are two to three times more likely than smaller personal vehicles to kill people walking in the event of a crash.”
Aug 22
FTC Alleges Facebook Resorted to Illegal Buy-or-Bury Scheme to Crush Competition After String of Failed Attempts to Innovate ftc.gov · “And to further moat its monopoly, Facebook lured app developers to the platform, surveilled them for signs of success, and then buried them when they became competitive threats.”
Aug 19
Stop using Zoom, Hamburg's DPA warns state government techcrunch.com · “Hamburg’s state government has been formally warned against using Zoom over data protection concerns.”
Aug 17
Costa Rica signs law to attract digital nomads ticotimes.net · “Remote workers can obtain a permit to stay for one year in Costa Rica, extendable for one additional year.”
Aug 14
A tweet cost him his doctorate: The extent of China’s influence on Swiss universities nzz.ch · “He had been tweeting for just 10 days, and had fewer than 10 followers.”
Aug 7
Vehicles Are Still Firmly in Control of City Streets governing.com · “Often, fixing a road is a Trojan horse for widening the road.”
Aug 6
The Cryptocurrency Surveillance Provision Buried in the Infrastructure Bill is a Disaster for Digital Privacy eff.org · “The mandate to collect names, addresses, and transactions of customers means almost every company even tangentially related to cryptocurrency may suddenly be forced to surveil their users.”
Aug 3

July 2021 14 posts

The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair wired.com · “During an open commission meeting Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously to enforce laws around the Right to Repair, thereby ensuring that US consumers will be able to repair their own electronic and automotive devices.”
Jul 21
Germany's national healthcare system adopts Matrix! matrix.org · “All servers in the Matrix-based private federation will be hosted within Germany.”
Jul 21
Right or Left, You Should Be Worried About Big Tech Censorship eff.org · “But it’s not just conservatives who have their political speech blocked by social media giants.”
Jul 18
The case for banning non-competes slowboring.com · “The question here is roughly something like “is innovation difficult, or is innovation expensive?””
Jul 16
Illinois Is The 1st State To Tell Police They Can't Lie To Minors In Interrogations npr.org · “They’ve also played a role in about 30% of all wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA.”
Jul 16
Soldiers speak out about being blocked from repairing equipment by contractors mattstoller.substack.com · “Now, most new equipment is under contract, and instead of being able to repair, we are required to contact a civilian technician and they have to come onboard to fix problems.”
Jul 15
EU withheld a study that shows piracy doesn't hurt sales engadget.com · “In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU.”
Jul 11
Do patents kill innovation? The US patent office is asking eenewseurope.com · “The study particularly wants to find examples of where a patent has been denied in the US but accepted in other jurisdictions, which will be a key area for European electronics companies.”
Jul 9
The Billionaire Playbook: How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Millions in Taxes propublica.org · “Records reviewed by ProPublica show his federal income tax rate was just 12%.”
Jul 8
Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising vivaldi.com · “These practices seriously undermine competition and take revenue away from content creators.”
Jul 7
Chatcontrol: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communications patrick-breyer.de · “In today’s vote, 537 Members of the European Parliament approved Chatcontrol, with 133 voting against and 24 abstentions.”
Jul 6
America's Growth Ponzi Scheme strongtowns.org · “Cities also assume the long-term liability for servicing and maintaining all the new infrastructure, a promise that won’t come fully due for decades.”
Jul 4
British right to repair law comes into force today, but excludes smartphones and computers 9to5mac.com · “However, while you would expect “other electronic displays” to include iPhones, iPads, and most Macs, Which? states that these product categories are excluded.”
Jul 1
Exxon Lobbyists Reveal in Secret Recordings How They Manipulate Politicians and the Public gizmodo.com · “Two lobbyists for Exxon have been caught on tape admitting how the company manipulates politicians and the public.”
Jul 1

June 2021 9 posts

OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations theguardian.com · ““There is not one reason for moving, but a multitude of paper cuts, most of which have been triggered or amplified by Brexit,” Guillaume Rischard, the organisation’s treasurer, told members of the foundation in an email sent earlier this month.”
Jun 30
What's Inside the EU Green Pass QR Code? gir.st · “What is not included is the date during which she is considered immune.”
Jun 22
North Carolina Board Tells Retired Engineer He Can’t Talk About Engineering ij.org · “In North Carolina, practicing without a license can result in criminal misdemeanor charges.”
Jun 19
Oregon Has Legalized Human Composting vice.com · “Gov. Kate Brown signed House Bill 2574 into law on Tuesday, adding natural organic reduction to the range of approved after-life options in the west coast state.”
Jun 18
Irish police to be given powers over passwords bbc.com · “Irish police will have the power to compel people to provide passwords for electronic devices when carrying out a search warrant under new legislation.”
Jun 14
Victory! New York Senate Passes Landmark Right to Repair Bill ifixit.com · “At a virtual session, the Senate approved S4104 by a margin of 51 to 12.”
Jun 11
Oceana Finds Hundreds of Vessels Vanishing Along Argentina’s Waters usa.oceana.org · “These vessels were invisible for more than 600,000 total hours, hiding fishing vessel locations and masking potentially illegal behavior, such as crossing into Argentina’s national waters to fish.”
Jun 6
G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals bbc.co.uk · “They also agreed in principle to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each other.”
Jun 5
Microsoft’s Irish subsidiary posted £220bn profit in single year theguardian.com · “The profit generated by Microsoft Round Island One is equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland’s gross domestic product – even though the company has no employees.”
Jun 3

May 2021 9 posts

Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid nltimes.nl · “The company also let go of thousands of people during the coronavirus pandemic.”
May 28
EU agrees new Belarus sanctions after plane arrest bbc.com · “At a meeting in Brussels, the leaders of the 27 member states also told EU airlines not to fly over Belarus, and promised further economic sanctions.”
May 25
Belarus 'diverts Ryanair flight to arrest journalist', opposition says bbc.co.uk · “Belarus media said a MiG-29 escorted the jet to Minsk because of a bomb scare but no explosives were found.”
May 23
How the UK's Online Safety Bill threatens Matrix matrix.org · “The bill itself does not actually provide a definition of harmful, instead relying on service providers to assess and decide on this.”
May 20
Israel-Gaza: Why is the region blurry on Google Maps? bbc.com · “In fact, much of both Israel and the Palestinian territories appear on Google Earth as low-resolution satellite imagery, even though higher-quality images are available from satellite companies.”
May 17
Pentagon Surveilling Americans Without a Warrant, Senator Reveals vice.com · “The Pentagon is carrying out warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to a new letter written by Senator Ron Wyden and obtained by Motherboard.”
May 13
'Champions League of tax avoidance:' Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on nearly $6 billion in revenue, report says businessinsider.com.au · “Despite earning $5.8 billion in global revenues in 2019, Uber claimed a $4.5 billion loss for tax purposes.”
May 12
Germany bans Facebook from handling WhatsApp data euronews.com · “The regulator suggested that the decision wasn’t just about protecting users’ privacy but also to avoid the use of data “to influence voters’ decisions to manipulate democratic choices,” citing the upcoming September 26 parliamentary elections in Germany.”
May 11
Dear EU: Please Don't Ruin the Root berthub.eu · “Surprisingly however, the European Commission version of the directive explicitly includes all the root servers, the infrastructure that keeps the internet alive.”
May 10

April 2021 9 posts

EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint cnbc.com · “European regulators said Friday that “Apple has a monopoly” in the distribution of music streaming apps to owners of Apple devices.”
Apr 30
Security firm Kaspersky believes it found new CIA malware therecord.media · “Lamberts is the internal codename that Kaspersky uses to track CIA hacking operations.”
Apr 28
Lambda School Reaches Settlement with DFPI, Agreeing to End Deceptive Educational Financing Practices dfpi.ca.gov · “Lambda is a coding school that offers its California students the option of financing the cost of the program through a contract by which students defer tuition until they begin working in a specified job earning a specific income.”
Apr 26
The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act wyden.senate.gov · “To amend section 2702 of title 18, United States Code, to prevent law enforcement and intelligence agencies from obtaining subscriber or customer records in exchange for anything of value, to address communications and records in the possession of intermediary internet service providers, and for other purposes.”
Apr 21
Luca App: CCC calls for an immediate moratorium ccc.de · “The unending series of security problems and the vendor’s heavy-handed responses are evidence of a fundamental lack of competence and care.”
Apr 16
WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal androidpolice.com · “The Hamburg commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, Johannes Caspar, is looking to stop Facebook from aggregating the data from WhatsApp, fearing that the company would use it to expand its marketing and advertising business.”
Apr 13
New Mexico Governor Signs Historic Legislation to End Qualified Immunity innocenceproject.org · “Today, New Mexico became the second state in the nation to abolish qualified immunity when Governor Lujan Grisham signed the New Mexico Civil Rights Act into law.”
Apr 8
I Refused to Become an FBI Informant, and the Government Put Me on the No Fly List aclu.org · “But the government won’t even give me its reason for putting me on the No Fly List, any evidence it thinks might justify an indefinite flying ban, or a hearing to clear my name.”
Apr 6
I thought I was dying: My apartment was built on toxic waste sfbayview.com · “I was living on a remediation site but didn’t know it until I was so sick that I thought I could be dying.”
Apr 4

March 2021 8 posts

Jump in cancer diagnoses at 65 implies patients wait for Medicare, according to Stanford study med.stanford.edu · “A quick exploratory analysis of their own practices showed a twofold increase in lung cancer surgeries in 65-year-old patients compared with 64-year-olds.”
Mar 31
Moore's Law for Everything moores.samaltman.com · “Even more power will shift from labor to capital.”
Mar 16
The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption and Tell Congress About All the Encrypted Phones It's Already Hacking Into eff.org · “Cellebrite can bypass lock screens on about 1,500 different devices.”
Mar 15
Minister hints at UK departure from GDPR lawgazette.co.uk · “Dowden said that under the regime ’too many businesses and organisations are reluctant to use data – either because they don’t understand the rules or are afraid of inadvertently breaking them’.”
Mar 12
U.S. senators reintroduce bill to make daylight saving time permanent fox8.com · “Florida enacted year-round DST in 2018, but for the change to apply, a change in the federal statute is required.”
Mar 10
Digital identity scheme shot down by voters over data privacy concerns swissinfo.ch · “Final results show 64.4% of voters coming out against the planned law on Sunday.”
Mar 7
Senators call on FCC to quadruple base high-speed internet speeds theverge.com · “The federal government’s definition of high-speed broadband has remained stagnant over the last six years, sitting at 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up since 2015.”
Mar 4
Killing Turbotax kunle.app · “Even the Justice Department recognizes TurboTax as a functional monopoly, and forced Intuit to sell CreditKarma Tax in order to complete the acquisition.”
Mar 3

February 2021 7 posts

The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed forbes.com · “The 25-ton stealth warplane has become the very problem it was supposed to solve.”
Feb 24
Whistleblowers: Software bug keeping hundreds of inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates kjzz.org · “As of 2019, the department had spent more than $24 million contracting with IT company Business & Decision, North America to build and maintain the software program, known as ACIS, that is used to manage the inmate population in state prisons.”
Feb 22
Statement: California State Legislator Introduces Bill to Decriminalize Psychedelics maps.org · “The bill would decriminalize MDMA, LSD, DMT, psilocybin, psilocyn, ibogaine, and mescaline and create a commission to recommend frameworks for legal psychedelic use.”
Feb 18
Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia about.fb.com · “In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.”
Feb 17
In the first six months of health care professionals replacing police officers, no one they encountered was arrested denverite.com · “In its first six months, the Support Team Assisted Response program, or STAR, has responded to 748 incidents.”
Feb 5
Google And Apple Have Caved To Pakistani Pressure To Take Down Apps Made By This Persecuted Religious Minority buzzfeednews.com · “Over the last two years, the government of Pakistan has forced Google and Apple to take down apps in the country created by developers based in other nations who are part of a repressed religious minority.”
Feb 5
Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal signal.org · “An inexpensive and tiny VPS can easily handle hundreds of concurrent users.”
Feb 4

January 2021 8 posts

What went wrong with America's $44 million vaccine data system? technologyreview.com · “In May, it gave the task to consulting company Deloitte, a huge federal contractor, with a $16 million no-bid contract to manage “covid-19 vaccine distribution and administration tracking.””
Jan 31
Statement of Acting Chair Lee and Commissioners Peirce, Roisman, and Crenshaw Regarding Recent Market Volatility sec.gov · “The Commission will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or otherwise unduly inhibit their ability to trade certain securities.”
Jan 29
The EU must protect the right to privacy and not attack end-to-end encryption protonmail.com · “We strongly oppose this resolution because it foreshadows an attack on encryption.”
Jan 28
'We are sending more foster kids to prison than college' kansascity.com · “For the past year, The Kansas City Star has examined what happens to kids who age out of foster care and found that, by nearly every measure, states are failing in their role as parents to America’s most vulnerable children.”
Jan 18
Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the "Right to Repair" reasonstobecheerful.world · “Although often all they need is a fresh battery or receiver, “Spare parts are hard to come by, and all the components are soldered, glued or riveted,” he says.”
Jan 11
Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England theguardian.com · “Following lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and British Sugar, a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was sanctioned for emergency use on sugar beet seeds this year because of the threat posed by a virus.”
Jan 9
Advancing developer freedom: GitHub is fully available in Iran github.blog · “Today we are announcing a breakthrough: we have secured a license from the US government to offer GitHub to developers in Iran.”
Jan 5
California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement leginfo.legislature.ca.gov · “A food delivery platform shall not arrange for the delivery of an order from a food facility without first obtaining an agreement with the food facility expressly authorizing the food delivery platform to take orders and deliver meals prepared by the food facility.”
Jan 1