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Reddit will block the Internet Archive because AI MONEY

Reddit says that it has caught AI companies scraping its data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, so it’s going to start blocking the Internet Archive from indexing the vast majority of Reddit. The Wayback Machine will no longer be able to crawl post detail pages, comments, or profiles; instead, it will only be able to index the Reddit.com homepage, which effectively means Internet Archive will only be able to archive insights into which news headlines and posts were most popular on a given day.

”Internet Archive provides a service to the open web, but we’ve been made aware of instances where AI companies violate platform policies, including ours, and scrape data from the Wayback Machine,” spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt tells The Verge.

The Internet Archive’s mission is to keep a digital archive of websites on the internet and “other cultural artifacts,” and the Wayback Machine is a tool you can use to look at pages as they appeared on certain dates, but Reddit believes not all of its content should be archived that way. “Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies (e.g., respecting user privacy, re: deleting removed content) we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors,” Rathschmidt says.

[…]

Source: Reddit will block the Internet Archive | The Verge

The privacy argument does not hold – the Reddit content is freely viewable to anyone with a web browser. And Reddit is making content deals with AI companies. So it looks like Reddit is a kettle calling the pot black there.

Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers

[…] After months of worsening symptoms, Chesson was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and permanent damage to her peripheral nervous system caused by the fumes she inhaled. Her doctor, Robert Kaniecki, a neurologist and consultant to the Pittsburgh Steelers, said in an interview that the effects on her brain were akin to a chemical concussion and “extraordinarily similar” to those of a National Football League linebacker after a brutal hit. “It’s impossible not to draw that conclusion,” he said.

Kaniecki said he has treated about a dozen pilots and over 100 flight attendants for brain injuries after exposure to fumes on aircraft over the last 20 years. Another was a passenger, a frequent flier with Delta’s top-tier rewards status who was injured in 2023.

Chesson’s experience is one dramatic instance among thousands of so-called fume events reported to the Federal Aviation Administration since 2010, in which toxic fumes from a jet’s engines leak unfiltered into the cockpit or cabin. The leaks occur due to a design element in which air you breathe on an aircraft is pulled through the engine. The system, known as “bleed air,” has been featured in almost every modern commercial jetliner except Boeing’s 787.

The rate of incidents is accelerating in recent years, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found, driven in large part by leaks on Airbus’s bestselling A320 family of jets—the aircraft Chesson was flying.

The Journal’s reporting—based on a review of more than one million FAA and National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports, thousands of pages of documents and research papers and more than 100 interviews—shows that aircraft manufacturers and their airline customers have played down health risks, successfully lobbied against safety measures, and made cost-saving changes that increased the risks to crew and passengers.

The fumes—sometimes described as smelling of “wet dog,” “Cheetos” or “nail polish”—have led to emergency landings, sickened passengers and affected pilots’ vision and reaction times midflight, according to official reports.

Most odors in aircraft aren’t toxic, and neither are all vapors. The effects are often fleeting, mild or present no symptoms.

But they can also be longer-lasting and severe, according to doctors, medical records and affected crew members.

The cause of fume events isn’t a mystery. Airbus and Boeing, the two biggest aircraft manufacturers, have acknowledged that malfunctions can lead to oil and hydraulic fluid leaking into the engines or power units and vaporizing at extreme heat. This results in the release of unknown quantities of neurotoxins, carbon monoxide and other chemicals into the air.

[…]

Manufacturers, regulators and airlines have said these types of incidents are too infrequent, levels of contamination too low and scientific research on lasting health risks too inconclusive to warrant a comprehensive fix. In some cases, they have attributed reported health-effects from fume exposure to factors including hyperventilation, jet lag, psychological stress, mass hysteria and malingering.

Internally, industry staffers have flagged their own fears about the toxic makeup of engine oils.

[…]

The individual airlines mentioned in this article noted their commitment to the safety of their passengers and crew, and said they follow the protocols established by the FAA and the manufacturers of their planes.

[…]

The FAA on its website says the incidents are “rare” and cites a 2015 review that estimated a rate of “less than 33 events per million aircraft departures.” That rate would suggest a total of about 330 fume events on U.S. airlines last year.

In reality, the FAA received more than double that number of reports of fume events in 2024 from the 15 biggest U.S. airlines alone, according to the Journal’s analysis of service difficulty reports for flights between 2010 and early 2025. The rate has soared in recent years. In 2014, the Journal found about 12 fume events per million departures. By 2024, the rate had jumped to nearly 108. (Read more about how the Journal conducted its analysis.)

In a statement, the FAA attributed the increase in part to a change in its guidance for reporting fume events, although that revision was only implemented in November of last year.

[…]

The FAA doesn’t have a formal definition of a fume event and the service reports often don’t indicate the severity. In its review, the Journal mirrored the industry’s practice of relying on crew reports of specific odors and associated maintenance reports. Changes in crew awareness could impact reporting rates.

The actual rate is likely far higher, as crews don’t always report incidents to their airlines, which likewise don’t report all instances to the FAA. A review of internal data by the airline lobby International Air Transport Association, calculated a total rate of 800 per million departures in the U.S., according to an internal document from a member carrier.

The Journal’s analysis suggests that the growth is driven by the world’s bestselling aircraft: the Airbus A320. In 2024, among the three largest U.S. airlines with mixed fleets, the rate of reports on A320s had increased to more than seven times the rate on their Boeing 737 aircraft.

[…]

The Journal’s analysis shows incidents began climbing in 2016, the year Airbus started delivering its new A320neo, what would become the world’s fastest-selling model. It boasted a new generation of fuel-efficient engines, including one that was plagued by rapidly degrading seals meant to keep oil from leaking into the air supply.

Under pressure from airlines who complained that fume events were keeping aircraft out of service for up to days at a time, Airbus loosened maintenance rules, according to a review of internal documents and people familiar with the changes.

For example, under the old guidelines, Airbus typically required an inspection and deep-clean after a fume event. Under the revised rules, if the smell wasn’t strong and hadn’t occurred in the last 10 days, airlines wouldn’t need to take immediate action.

[…]

Source: Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers

This sounds like the kind of health risk ignoring that went / goes on in Tobacco companies and impact sport head injury risk

US, CA and EU Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching

A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including American Airlines, United, and Delta, [and Air France, Lufthansa, JetBlue] is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples’ movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and other records reviewed by 404 Media.
The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers’ data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC’s data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples’ names, full flight itineraries, and financial details.
“Americans’ privacy rights shouldn’t depend on whether they bought their tickets directly from the airline or via a travel agency. ARC’s sale of data to U.S. government agencies is yet another example of why Congress needs to close the data broker loophole by passing my bipartisan bill, the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act,” Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.
ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major U.S. airlines, publicly released documents show. Its board of directors includes representatives from American Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Air France and Lufthansa, and Canada’s Air Canada. ARC acts as a bridge between airlines and travel agencies, in which it helps with fraud prevention and finds trends in travel data. ARC also sells passenger data to the government as part of what it calls the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP).
TIP is updated every day with the previous day’s ticket sales and can show a person’s paid intent to travel. Government agencies can then search this data by name, credit card, airline, and more.
The new contract shows that ARC has access to much more data than previously reported. Earlier coverage found TIP contained more than one billion records spanning more than 3 years of past and future travel. The new contract says ARC provides the government with “5 billion ticketing records for searching capabilities.”
Gallery Image
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Screenshots of the documents obtained by 404 Media.
404 Media obtained the contract through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Secret Service. The contract indicates the Secret Service plans to pay ARC $885,000 for access to the data stretching into 2028.
[…]
An ARC spokesperson told 404 Media in an email that TIP “was established by ARC after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has since been used by the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community to support national security and prevent criminal activity with bipartisan support. Over the years, TIP has likely contributed to the prevention and apprehension of criminals involved in human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, sex trafficking, national security threats, terrorism and other imminent threats of harm to the United States.”
The spokesperson added “Pursuant to ARC’s privacy policy, consumers may ask ARC to refrain from selling their personal data.”
After media coverage and scrutiny from Senator Wyden’s office of the little-known data selling, ARC finally registered as a data broker in the state of California in June. Senator Wyden previously said it appeared ARC had been in violation of Californian law for not registering while selling airline customers’ data for years.

Source: Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching

Supposedly you can opt out by emailing them at privacy@arccorp.com

Danish Minister of Justice and chief architect of the current Chat Control proposal, Peter Hummelgaard:

Danish Minister of Justice, Peter Hummelgaard.

“We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone’s civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services.”

Share your thoughts via https://fightchatcontrol.eu/, or to jm@jm.dk directly.

Source: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/almdel/REU/spm/1426/index.htm

In the answers he cites “but we must protect the children” – as soon as that argument is trotted out have a good look at what they are taking away from you. After all, who can be against the safety of children? But blanket surveillance is bad for children and awful for society. If you know you are being watched, you can’t speak freely, you can’t voice your opinion and democracy cannot function. THAT is bad for the children.

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Big Brother, 1984, they were warnings, not manuals.

Source: https://mastodon.social/@chatcontrol/115204439983078498

More discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1nhdtoz/danish_minister_of_justice_we_must_break_with_the/

PS I would not buy a used camel from this creep.

The Stop Killing Games movement is nearing an official meeting with EU lawmakers

The Stop Killing Games campaign is continuing to gain momentum after hitting more than a million signatures in July. After a July 31st deadline, the movement secured around 1.45 million signatures, which the organizers are currently in the process of verifying. The initiative aims to enact legislation that preserves access to video games, even when developers decide to end support, as seen with Ubisoft when it delisted The Crew and revoked access to players who already purchased the game. There were some early concerns about the potential for falsely-submitted signatures, but the latest update from organizers said that early reports show around 97 percent of the signatures are valid.

According to the European Commission’s website, EU authorities have three months to verify the signatures once they are submitted. After that, the organizers said they will personally deliver the petition to the European Commission. With initial estimates clearing the threshold of one million verified signatures, the following steps involve getting meetings with both the European Commission and the European Parliament.

From the date of the initiative’s submission, the European Union will get six months to decide what to do regarding the Stop Killing Games movement. There is the possibility of the governing bodies not taking any action at all, but the organizers said they are “preparing to ensure our initiative cannot be ignored.” To prepare for the meetings, the organizers said they will be reaching out to members of Parliament and the Commission, while also trying to counter any misinformation or industry lobbying. For now, the campaign will post more frequent updates on its Discord community and social media channels.

Source: The Stop Killing Games movement is nearing an official meeting with EU lawmakers

Newly Granted Nintendo Patents An ‘Embarrassing Failure’ By The USPTO, Says Patent Attorney

As you will hopefully recall, that very strange patent lawsuit between Nintendo and PocketPair over the latter’s hit game, Palworld, is ongoing. At the heart of that case is a series of overly broad patents for what are generally considered generic game mechanics that also have a bunch of prior art from before their use by Nintendo in its Pokémon games. These include concepts like throwing a capture item at an NPC to collect a character, as well as riding and mounting/dismounting NPCs in an open world setting. The result, even as the litigation is ongoing, has been PocketPair patching out several of these game mechanics from its game in order to protect itself. That it feels this is necessary as a result of these broad patents is unfortunate.

And, because of the failure of the USPTO to do its job, it seems things will only get worse. Nintendo was awarded two additional patents in just the past couple of weeks and those patents are being called an “embarrassing failure” by patent attorney Kirk Sigmon.

The last 10 days have brought a string of patent wins for Nintendo. Yesterday, the company was granted US patent 12,409,387, a patent covering riding and flying systems similar to those Nintendo has been criticized for claiming in its Palworld lawsuit (via Gamesfray). Last week, however, Nintendo received a more troubling weapon in its legal arsenal: US patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning and battling characters that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted with alarmingly little resistance.

According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law.

[…]

Sigmon notes that both patents are for mechanics and concepts that ought to be obvious to anyone with a reasonable amount of skill in this industry, which ought to have made them ineligible to be patented. That standard of patent law only works, however, if the USPTO acts as a true interlocutor during the filing process. In both of these cases, though, the USPTO appears to have not been in the mood to do their jobs.

Sigmon notes that it is common for patent applications like this to show some amount of questioning or pushback from the examiner. In both of these cases, that seemed almost entirely absent from the process, especially for patent ‘397.

[…]

When the claims were ultimately allowed, the only reasoning the USPTO offered was a block quote of text from the claims themselves.

The ‘397 patent granted last week is even more striking. It’s a patent on summoning and battling with “sub-characters,” using specific language suggesting it’s based on the Let’s Go! mechanics in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games. Despite its relevance to a conceit in countless games—calling characters to battle enemies for you—it was allowed without any pushback whatsoever from the USPTO, which Sigmon said is essentially unheard of.

“Like the above case, the reasons for allowance don’t give us even a hint of why it was allowed: the Examiner just paraphrases the claims (after block quoting them) without explaining why the claims are allowed over the prior art,” Sigmon said. “This is extremely unusual and raises a large number of red flags.”

[…]

with the Palworld example fresh in our minds, we do certainly know what the granting of patents like this will result in: more patent bullying by Nintendo.

“Pragmatically speaking, though, it’s not impossible to be sued for patent infringement even when a claim infringement argument is weak, and bad patents like this cast a massive shadow on the industry,” Sigmon said.

For a company at Nintendo’s scale, the claims of the ‘397 patent don’t need to make for a strong argument that would hold up in court. The threat of a lawsuit can stifle competition well enough on its own when it would cost millions of dollars to defend against.

And in the current environment, where challenging bad patents has become essentially pointless, you can bet we’ll see Nintendo wielding these patents against competitors in the near future.

Source: Newly Granted Nintendo Patents An ‘Embarrassing Failure’ By The USPTO, Says Patent Attorney | Techdirt

Kodak’s mini camera fits on your keyring and is smaller than an AirPods case. Annoyingly like a lootbox and sold out already.

Kodak has shrunk a camera to fit onto a keyring, but it still manages to shoot both photo and video. It’s hard not to compare the Kodak Charmera to the ubiquitous Labubu craze, considering the highly collectible nature of Reto Pro selling these officially licensed mini cameras as a single blind box for $29.99 or a full set of six for $179.94. The keyring cameras, which only weigh 30 grams, are already sold out on the Reto Pro website, but are expected to be restocked.

The blind box can be unwrapped for one of seven designs, including one secret version that has a transparent shell to show off the tiny camera’s internals. According to the website, the basic style odds are one out of six, while the secret edition has a probability of one out of 48.

[…]

Source: Kodak’s mini camera fits on your keyring and is smaller than an AirPods case

Swiss government may disable privacy tech, stoking fears of mass surveillance

The Swiss government could soon require service providers with more than 5,000 users to collect government-issued identification, retain subscriber data for six months and, in many cases, disable encryption.

The proposal, which is not subject to parliamentary approval, has alarmed privacy and digital-freedoms advocates worldwide because of how it will destroy anonymity online, including for people located outside of Switzerland.

A large number of virtual private network (VPN) companies and other privacy-preserving firms are headquartered in the country because it has historically had liberal digital privacy laws alongside its famously discreet banking ecosystem.

Proton, which offers secure and end-to-end encrypted email along with an ultra-private VPN and cloud storage, announced on July 23 that it is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland due to the proposed law.

The company is investing more than €100 million in the European Union, the announcement said, and plans to help develop a “sovereign EuroStack for the future of our home continent.” Switzerland is not a member of the EU.

Proton said the decision was prompted by the Swiss government’s attempt to “introduce mass surveillance.”

Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen told Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) that the suggested regulation would be illegal in the EU and United States.

“The only country in Europe with a roughly equivalent law is Russia,” Yen said.

[…]

Internet users would no longer be able to register for a service with just an email address or anonymously and would instead have to provide their passport, drivers license or another official ID to subscribe, said Chloé Berthélémy, senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights (eDRI), an association of civil and human rights organizations from across Europe.

The regulation also includes a mass data retention obligation requiring that service providers keep users’ email addresses, phone numbers and names along with IP addresses and device port numbers for six months, Berthélémy said. Port numbers are unique identifiers that send data to a specific application or service on a computer.

All authorities would need to do to obtain the data, Berthélémy said, is make a simple request that would circumvent existing legal control mechanisms such as court orders.

“The right to anonymity is supporting a very wide range of communities and individuals who are seeking safety online,” Berthélémy said.

“In a world where we have increasing attacks from governments on specific minority groups, on human rights defenders, journalists, any kind of watchdogs and anyone who holds those in power accountable, it’s very crucial that we … preserve our privacy online in order to do those very crucial missions.”

Source: Swiss government looks to undercut privacy tech, stoking fears of mass surveillance | The Record from Recorded Future News

Samsung patches Android WhatsApp vuln exploited in the wild on Apple devices

Samsung has fixed a critical flaw that affects its Android devices – but not before attackers found and exploited the bug, which could allow remote code execution on affected devices.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-21043, affects Android OS versions 13, 14, 15, and 16. It’s due to an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in libimagecodec.quram.so, a parsing library used to process image formats on Samsung devices, which remote attackers can abuse to execute malicious code.

“Samsung was notified that an exploit for this issue has existed in the wild,” the electronics giant noted in its September security update.

The Meta and WhatsApp security teams found the flaw and reported it to Samsung on August 13. Apps that process images on Samsung kit, potentially including WhatsApp, may trigger this library, but Samsung didn’t name specific apps.

The warning is interesting, because Meta shortly thereafter issued a security advisory warning that attackers may have chained a WhatsApp bug with an Apple OS-level flaw in highly targeted attacks.

The WhatsApp August security update included a fix for CVE-2025-55177 that, as Meta explained, “could have allowed an unrelated user to trigger processing of content from an arbitrary URL on a target’s device.”

That security advisory went on to say, “We assess that this vulnerability, in combination with an OS-level vulnerability on Apple platforms (CVE-2025-43300), may have been exploited in a sophisticated attack against specific targeted users.”

CVE-2025-43300 is an out-of-bounds write issue that Apple addressed on August 20 with a patch that improves bounds checking in the ImageIO framework. “Processing a malicious image file may result in memory corruption,” the iThings maker said at the time. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”

While Meta didn’t mention the newer Android OS-level flaw in its August WhatsApp security update, it seems that CVE-2025-21043 could also be chained to CVE-2025-55177 for a similar attack targeting WhatsApp users on Samsung Android devices instead of Apple’s.

[…]

Source: Samsung patches Android 0-day exploited in the wild • The Register

Spotify pissy after 10,000 users sold their own data to build AI tools

For millions of Spotify users, the “Wrapped” feature—which crunches the numbers on their annual listening habits—is a highlight of every year’s end, ever since it debuted in 2015. NPR once broke down exactly why our brains find the feature so “irresistible,” while Cosmopolitan last year declared that sharing Wrapped screenshots of top artists and songs had by now become “the ultimate status symbol” for tens of millions of music fans.

It’s no surprise then that, after a decade, some Spotify users who are especially eager to see Wrapped evolve are no longer willing to wait to see if Spotify will ever deliver the more creative streaming insights they crave.

With the help of AI, these users expect that their data can be more quickly analyzed to potentially uncover overlooked or never-considered patterns that could offer even more insights into what their listening habits say about them.

Imagine, for example, accessing a music recap that encapsulates a user’s full listening history—not just their top songs and artists.

[…]

In pursuit of supporting developers offering novel insights like these, more than 18,000 Spotify users have joined “Unwrapped,” a collective launched in February that allows them to pool and monetize their data.

Voting as a group through the decentralized data platform Vana—which Wired profiled earlier this year—these users can elect to sell their dataset to developers who are building AI tools offering fresh ways for users to analyze streaming data in ways that Spotify likely couldn’t or wouldn’t.

In June, the group made its first sale, with 99.5 percent of members voting yes. Vana co-founder Anna Kazlauskas told Ars that the collective—at the time about 10,000 members strong—sold a “small portion” of its data (users’ artist preferences) for $55,000 to Solo AI.

While each Spotify user only earned about $5 in cryptocurrency tokens—which Kazlauskas suggested was not “ideal,” wishing the users had earned about “a hundred times” more—she said the deal was “meaningful” in showing Spotify users that their data “is actually worth something.”

“I think this is what shows how these pools of data really act like a labor union,” Kazlauskas said. “A single Spotify user, you’re not going to be able to go say like, ‘Hey, I want to sell you my individual data.’ You actually need enough of a pool to sort of make it work.”

[…]

Spotify is not happy about Unwrapped, which is perhaps a little too closely named to its popular branded feature for the streaming giant’s comfort. A spokesperson told Ars that Spotify sent a letter to the contact info listed for Unwrapped developers on their site, outlining concerns that the collective could be infringing on Spotify’s Wrapped trademark.

Further, the letter warned that Unwrapped violates Spotify’s developer policy, which bans using the Spotify platform or any Spotify content to build machine learning or AI models. And developers may also be violating terms by facilitating users’ sale of streaming data.

“Spotify honors our users’ privacy rights, including the right of portability,” Spotify’s spokesperson said. “All of our users can receive a copy of their personal data to use as they see fit. That said, UnwrappedData.org is in violation of our Developer Terms which prohibit the collection, aggregation, and sale of Spotify user data to third parties.”

But while Spotify suggests it has already taken steps to stop Unwrapped, the Unwrapped team told Ars that it never received any communication from Spotify. It plans to defend users’ right to “access, control, and benefit from their own data,” its statement said, while providing reassurances that it will “respect Spotify’s position as a global music leader.”

Unwrapped “does not distribute Spotify’s content, nor does it interfere with Spotify’s business,” developers argued. “What it provides is community-owned infrastructure that allows individuals to exercise rights they already hold under widely recognized data protection frameworks—rights to access their own listening history, preferences, and usage data.”

“When listeners choose to share or monetize their data together, they are not taking anything away from Spotify,” developers said. “They are simply exercising digital self-determination. To suggest otherwise is to claim that users do not truly own their data—that Spotify owns it for them.”

Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a senior staff technologist for the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars that—while EFF objects to data dividend schemes “where users are encouraged to share personal information in exchange for payment”—Spotify users should nevertheless always maintain control of their data.

“In general, listeners should have control of their own data, which includes exporting it for their own use,” Hoffman-Andrews said. “An individual’s musical history is of use not just to Spotify but also to the individual who created it. And there’s a long history of services that enable this sort of data portability, for instance Last.fm, which integrates with Spotify and many other services.”

[…]

“This is the heart of the issue: If Spotify seeks to restrict or penalize people for exercising these rights, it sends a chilling message that its listeners should have no say in how their own data is used,” the Unwrapped team’s statement said. “That is out of step not only with privacy law, but with the values of transparency, fairness, and community-driven innovation that define the next era of the Internet.”

Unwrapped sign-ups limited due to alleged Spotify issues

There could be more interest in Unwrapped. But Kazlauskas alleged to Ars that in the more than six months since Unwrapped’s launch, “Spotify has made it extraordinarily difficult” for users to port over their data. She claimed that developers have found that “every time they have an easy way for users to get their data,” Spotify shuts it down “in some way.”

Supposedly because of Spotify’s interference, Unwrapped remains in an early launch phase and can only offer limited spots for new users seeking to sell their data. Kazlauskas told Ars that about 300 users can be added each day due to the cumbersome and allegedly shifting process for porting over data.

Currently, however, Unwrapped is working on an update that could make that process more stable, Kazlauskas said, as well as changes to help users regularly update their streaming data. Those updates could perhaps attract more users to the collective.

[…]

Source: Spotify peeved after 10,000 users sold data to build AI tools – Ars Technica

The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Code

Freelance developers and entire companies are making a business out of fixing shoddy vibe coded software.

I first noticed this trend in the form of a meme that was circulating on LinkedIn, sharing a screenshot of several profiles who advertised themselves as “vibe coding cleanup specialists.”

[…]

“I’ve been offering vibe coding fixer services for about two years now, starting in late 2023. Currently, I work with around 15-20 clients regularly, with additional one-off projects throughout the year,” Hamid Siddiqi, who offers to “review, fix your vibe code” on Fiverr, told me in an email. “I started fixing vibe-coded projects because I noticed a growing number of developers and small teams struggling to refine AI-generated code that was functional but lacked the polish or ‘vibe’ needed to align with their vision. I saw an opportunity to bridge that gap, combining my coding expertise with an eye for aesthetic and user experience.”

Siddiqi said common issues he fixes in vibe coded projects include inconsistent UI/UX design in AI-generated frontends, poorly optimized code that impacts performance, misaligned branding elements, and features that function but feel clunky or unintuitive. He said he also often refines color schemes, animations, and layouts to better match the creator’s intended aesthetic.

Siddiqi is one of dozens of people on Fiverr who is now offering services specifically catering to people with shoddy vibe coded projects. Established software development companies like Ulam Labs, now say “we clean up after vibe coding. Literally.”

“Built something fast? Now it’s time to make it solid,” Ulam Labs says on its site. “We know how it goes.
You had to move quickly, get that MVP [minimally viable product] out, and validate the idea. But now the tech debt is holding you back: no tests, shaky architecture, CI/CD [Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment] is a dream, and every change feels like defusing a bomb. That’s where we come in.”

Swatantra Sohni, who started VibeCodeFixers.com, a site for people with vibe coded projects who need help from experienced developers to fix or finish their projects, says that almost 300 experienced developers have posted their profiles to the site. He said so far VibeCodeFixers.com has only connected between 30-40 vibe code projects with fixers, but that he hasn’t done anything to promote the service and at the moment is focused on adding as many software developers to the platform as possible.

Sohni said that he’s been vibe coding himself since before Andrej Karpathy coined the term in February. He bought a bunch of vibe coding related domains, and realized a service like VibeCodeFixers.com was necessary based on how often he had to seek help from experts on his own vibe coding projects. In March, the site got a lot of attention on X and has been slowly adding people to the platform since.

Sohni also wrote a “Vibecoding Community Research Report” based on interviews with non-technical people who are vibe coding their projects that he shared with me. The report identified a lot of the same issues as Siddiqi, mainly that existing features tend to break when new ones are added.

“Most of these vibe coders, either they are product managers or they are sales guys, or they are small business owners, and they think that they can build something,” Sohni told me. “So for them it’s more for prototyping. Vibe coding is, at the moment, kind of like infancy. It’s very handy to convey the prototype they want, but I don’t think they are really intended to make it like a production grade app.”

Another big issue Sohni identified is “credit burn,” meaning the money vibe coders waste on AI usage fees in the final 10-20 percent stage of developing the app, when adding new features breaks existing features. In theory, it might be cheaper and more efficient for vibe coders to start over at that point, but Sohni said people get attached to their first project.

“What happens is that the first time they build the app, it’s like they think that they can build the app with one prompt, and then the app breaks, and they burn the credit. I think they are very emotionally connected to the app, because this act of vibe coding involves you, your creativity.”

In theory it might be cheaper and more efficient for vibe coders to start over if the LLM starts hallucinating and creating problems, but Sohni that’s when people come to VibeCodeFixers.com. They want someone to fix the bugs in their app, not create a new one.

Sohni told me he thinks vibe coding is not going anywhere, but neither are human developers.

“I feel like the role [of human developers] would be slightly limited, but we will still need humans to keep this AI on the leash,” he said.

Source: The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Coded Messes

The article writer is highly sceptical about vibe coding, but it’s not going anywhere and it empowers the actual commissioners of the software to build proof of concepts using elements they like, so they are not at the mercy of a software development company who may or may not see and understand the vision as they see it.

Proton Mail Suspended Journalist Accounts at Request of some Cybersecurity Agency without any process

The company behind the Proton Mail email service, Proton, describes itself as a “neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom.”

But last month, Proton disabled email accounts belonging to journalists reporting on security breaches of various South Korean government computer systems following a complaint by an unspecified cybersecurity agency. After a public outcry, and multiple weeks, the journalists’ accounts were eventually reinstated — but the reporters and editors involved still want answers on how and why Proton decided to shut down the accounts in the first place.

Martin Shelton, deputy director of digital security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, highlighted that numerous newsrooms use Proton’s services as alternatives to something like Gmail “specifically to avoid situations like this,” pointing out that “While it’s good to see that Proton is reconsidering account suspensions, journalists are among the users who need these and similar tools most.” Newsrooms like The Intercept, the Boston Globe, and the Tampa Bay Times all rely on Proton Mail for emailed tip submissions.

Shelton noted that perhaps Proton should “prioritize responding to journalists about account suspensions privately, rather than when they go viral.”

On Reddit, Proton’s official account stated that “Proton did not knowingly block journalists’ email accounts” and that the “situation has unfortunately been blown out of proportion.” Proton did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

The two journalists whose accounts were disabled were working on an article published in the August issue of the long-running hacker zine Phrack. The story described how a sophisticated hacking operation — what’s known in cybersecurity parlance as an APT, or advanced persistent threat — had wormed its way into a number of South Korean computer networks, including those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military Defense Counterintelligence Command, or DCC.

The journalists, who published their story under the names Saber and cyb0rg, describe the hack as being consistent with the work of Kimsuky, a notorious North Korean state-backed APT sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2023.

As they pieced the story together, emails viewed by The Intercept show that the authors followed cybersecurity best practices and conducted what’s known as responsible disclosure: notifying affected parties that a vulnerability has been discovered in their systems prior to publicizing the incident.

Saber and cyb0rg created a dedicated Proton Mail account to coordinate the responsible disclosures, then proceeded to notify the impacted parties, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the DCC, and also notified South Korean cybersecurity organizations like the Korea Internet and Security Agency, and KrCERT/CC, the state-sponsored Computer Emergency Response Team. According to emails viewed by The Intercept, KrCERT wrote back to the authors, thanking them for their disclosure.

A note on cybersecurity jargon: CERTs are agencies consisting of cybersecurity experts specializing in dealing with and responding to security incidents. CERTs exist in over 70 countries — with some countries having multiple CERTs each specializing in a particular field such as the financial sector — and may be government-sponsored or private organizations. They adhere to a set of formal technical standards, such as being expected to react to reported cybersecurity threats and security incidents. A high-profile example of a CERT agency in the U.S. is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, which has recently been gutted by the Trump administration.

A week after the print issue of Phrack came out, and a few days before the digital version was released, Saber and cyb0rg found that the Proton account they had set up for the responsible disclosure notifications had been suspended. A day later, Saber discovered that his personal Proton Mail account had also been suspended. Phrack posted a timeline of the account suspensions at the top of the published article, and later highlighted the timeline in a viral social media post. Both accounts were suspended owing to an unspecified “potential policy violation,” according to screenshots of account login attempts reviewed by The Intercept.

The suspension notice instructed the authors to fill out Proton’s abuse appeals form if they believed the suspension was in error. Saber did so, and received a reply from a member of Proton Mail’s Abuse Team who went by the name Dante.

In an email viewed by The Intercept, Dante told Saber that their account “has been disabled as a result of a direct connection to an account that was taken down due to violations of our terms and conditions while being used in a malicious manner.” Dante also provided a link to Proton’s terms of service, going on to state, “We have clearly indicated that any account used for unauthorized activities, will be sanctioned accordingly.” The response concluded by stating, “We consider that allowing access to your account will cause further damage to our service, therefore we will keep the account suspended.”

On August 22, a Phrack editors reached out to Proton, writing that no hacked data was passed through the suspended email accounts, and asked if the account suspension incident could be deescalated. After receiving no response from Proton, the editor sent a follow-up email on September 6. Proton once again did not reply to the email.

On September 9, the official Phrack X account made a post asking Proton’s official account asking why Proton was “cancelling journalists and ghosting us,” adding: “need help calibrating your moral compass?” The post quickly went viral, garnering over 150,000 views.

Proton’s official account replied the following day, stating that Proton had been “alerted by a CERT that certain accounts were being misused by hackers in violation of Proton’s Terms of Service. This led to a cluster of accounts being disabled. Our team is now reviewing these cases individually to determine if any can be restored.” Proton then stated that they “stand with journalists” but “cannot see the content of accounts and therefore cannot always know when anti-abuse measures may inadvertently affect legitimate activism.”

Proton did not publicly specify which CERT had alerted them, and didn’t answer The Intercept’s request for the name of the specific CERT which had sent the alert. KrCERT also did not reply to The Intercept’s question about whether they were the CERT that had sent the alert to Proton.

Later in the day, Proton’s founder and CEO Andy Yen posted on X that the two accounts had been reinstated. Neither Yen nor Proton explained why the accounts had been reinstated, whether they had been found to not violate the terms of service after all, why had they been suspended in the first place, or why a member of the Proton Abuse Team reiterated that the accounts had violated the terms of service during Saber’s appeals process.

Phrack noted that the account suspensions created a “real impact to the author. The author was unable to answer media requests about the article.” The co-authors, Phrack pointed out, were also in the midst of the responsible disclosure process and working together with the various affected South Korean organizations to help fix their systems. “All this was denied and ruined by Proton,” Phrack stated.

Phrack editors said that the incident leaves them “concerned what this means to other whistleblowers or journalists. The community needs assurance that Proton does not disable accounts unless Proton has a court order or the crime (or ToS violation) is apparent.”

Source: Proton Mail Suspended Journalist Accounts at Request of Cybersecurity Agency

If Proton can’t view the content of accounts, how did Proton verify some random CERTs claims to make the decision to close the accounts? And how did Proton review to see if they could be restored? Is it Proton policy to decide that people are guilty before proven innocent? This attitude justifies people blowing up about this incident – because it shows how vulnerable they are to random whims of Proton instead of any kind of transparent diligent process.

Which games are used to fund Russia’s wars?

Escape from Tarkov, a popular multiplayer extraction shooter created by Russia’s Battlestate Games, is set for release on Steam, the world’s largest PC gaming platform. The launch comes despite glaring evidence that the studio’s leadership, including head developer Nikita Buyanov, has maintained ties to Russia’s arms industry and associates who joined Moscow-backed forces in eastern Ukraine during Russia’s invasion in 2014.

[…]

Before the full-scale war, Buyanov and his team collaborated repeatedly with Kalashnikov, Russia’s weapons giant, recording promotional videos. He appeared alongside Dmitry “Goblin” Puchkov, a Kremlin-aligned blogger who called for the genocide of all Ukrainians. Other members of Battlestate’s circle openly fundraise for Russian troops and post invasion symbols on their pages.

Battlestate also maintained close ties with the 715 Team, a Kaliningrad-based crew of gun enthusiasts and “tactical trainers” with a massive YouTube following, where Buyanov was a frequent guest. The group built its brand through weapons tests and collaborations with Kalashnikov, but after the full-scale invasion, its leader, Roman “Khors” Chernov, began appearing in occupied Donetsk, declaring support for Russia’s war. At minimum, the crew provided material support in the form of fundraisers for Russian troops, blurring the line between hobbyist content and active participation in the invasion.

Their presence bled into Tarkov itself: players on Reddit—among them Georgian YouTuber Gattsu—noted pro-Kremlin graffiti and 715 references inside the game, along with official merchandise tied to the group. For a time, one playable character type in Tarkov was even labeled “hohol,” a derogatory Russian slur for Ukrainians. The overlap between Battlestate’s in-game world and its real-world circle of collaborators shows how deeply entwined the studio became with figures who went from gaming culture to fighting in Russia’s war.

[Note: here War Thunder is mentioned for filming with Russian bloggers and Russian weapons. This argument seems weak, as War Thunder is about all kinds of weapons and can hardly work without using Russian ones]

Squad 22: ZOV

The most brazen example is Squad 22: ZOV, released on Steam in May 2025 and openly endorsed by Russia’s Defense Ministry. Developed by SPN Studio, the game reframes the invasion of Ukraine as a “liberation” and packages war crimes as playable missions: the first free campaign is the “liberation of Mariupol,” where more than 10,000 civilians were killed, with further missions available for purchase to reenact Russia’s 2014 invasion of Donbas and Crimea. On Steam, the title is advertised as “recommended by the Russian military” for cadet training, and its ZOV branding deliberately echoes the extremist symbols painted on Russian tanks and missiles.

Russia’s War Crimes Simulator? What Squad 22 ZOV Game Was Really Made For
Read more

Behind the project is Alexander Tolkach, a former Russian diplomat with a background in behavioral “influence games” and suspected intelligence ties. His work is backed by RVKO, a Kremlin-linked foundation that supports Russian soldiers, raising fears that in-game purchases could funnel directly into the war effort

[…]

Steam continues to operate in Russia despite sanctions, allowing Russian players to access and pay for games through workarounds. At the same time, Steam has complied with Russian censorship demands—removing titles or restricting access when ordered by state agencies.

[…]

Russia’s war in Ukraine has already forced major publishers to act. Ubisoft, EA, and Rockstar pulled sales from Russia and Belarus. Steam, Epic, and GOG stopped accepting ruble payments. But Russian developers remain adept at evading scrutiny—registering companies in Cyprus, Hungary, or the UK while continuing to sell to Western audiences. Western platforms, eager for content, rarely ask questions.

[…]

Gamers don’t need to be told what to play—but they deserve to know where their money goes.

[…]

 

Source: Escape from Tarkov’s Release Raises Questions About Ties to Russia’s War Efforts — UNITED24 Media

I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.

In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counter-examples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections.

Here’s what I found: Once fascists win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once. Ever.

I know that sounds impossible. I kept digging, thinking surely someone, somewhere, stopped them. The actual record is so much worse than you think.

Let’s start with Germany because everyone thinks they know this story. Franz von Papen, the conservative politician who convinced President Hindenburg to make Hitler Chancellor, said “We’ve hired him” in January 1933. He thought he was so clever. Within 18 months, the Nazis were machine-gunning von Papen’s allies in their homes during the Night of Long Knives. Von Papen himself barely escaped to Austria with his life. Every single conservative who thought they could “control” or “moderate” Hitler was either dead, in exile, or groveling for survival by 1934.

Italy was even dumber, if that’s possible. October 1922, Mussolini announces he’s marching on Rome with 30,000 blackshirts. Except here’s the thing: they were poorly armed, disorganized, and the Italian military could have crushed them in about three hours. The King had his generals ready. He had martial law papers drawn up. The military was waiting for the order. Instead, he invited Mussolini to form a government. Just handed him power. Twenty-three years later, partisans hung Mussolini’s corpse upside down at a gas station while crowds beat it with sticks. The king died in exile. Hundreds of thousands of Italians died for that moment of cowardice.

Spain might be the worst because everyone saw it coming. Three years of escalating fascist violence. Actual assassination attempts. Then in 1936, Franco and his generals launch a straight-up military coup. The Spanish Republic begged for help. France said “not our problem.” Britain said “both sides are bad.” America declared neutrality. The result? Franco ruled for 39 years. He died peacefully in his bed in 1975. They’re still finding mass graves in Spain. Still. In 2025.

Want something more recent? Look at Hungary. Orbán won democratically in 2010. By 2011 he’d rewritten the constitution. By 2012 he controlled the media. By 2013 he’d gutted the judiciary. It’s 2025 and he’s still in power. The EU has been “very concerned” for fourteen fucking years. They’ve written strongly worded letters. They’ve held meetings. Hungary is now a one-party state in the middle of Europe and everyone just… accepts it.

Okay, but surely someone, somewhere, stopped them?

Finland 1932 is the only clean win I can find. The fascist Lapua Movement tried an armed coup before they’d secured government power. The military stayed loyal to democracy, crushed the rebellion, and banned the movement. That’s it. That’s the success story. One time out of roughly fifty attempts, fascists were stopped because they were stupid enough to try violence before winning elections.

France in 1934 looked like a victory for about five minutes. Fascist leagues tried to storm parliament on February 6th. Six days later, twelve million workers went on general strike. Twelve million. The entire country stopped. No trains, no factories, no shops, nothing. The fascists backed down. Great victory, right? Except those exact same fascists enthusiastically collaborated when the Nazis invaded six years later. They just waited.

Portugal’s fascist regime finally fell in 1974. After 48 years. How? Military officers launched a coup. Democratic resistance had been crushed for five decades. International pressure meant nothing. The dictator Salazar died in 1970 and his successor just kept going until the military said enough. That’s your success story: wait half a century and hope the military gets tired.

The pattern is so consistent it’s almost funny if it weren’t so terrifying. Every single time it goes like this: Conservatives panic about socialism or progressives or whatever. They ally with fascists as the “lesser evil.” Fascists take power. Fascists immediately purge the conservatives who helped them. Then it’s 30-50 years of dictatorship. This happened in Germany, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Romania, and Hungary.

Want to know how many times conservatives successfully “controlled” the fascists they allied with? Zero. Want to know how many times fascists purged the conservatives after taking power? All of them. Every single time.

And here’s the part that breaks your heart. Violence works. For them. Fascists use violence while claiming to be victims. They create chaos that “requires” their authoritarian solution. Then they purge anyone who opposes them. Meanwhile, democrats keep insisting on following rules that fascists completely ignore. They file lawsuits. They write editorials. They vote on resolutions. And fascists just laugh and keep consolidating power.

The statistics are brutal. Fascist takeovers prevented after winning power democratically: zero. Average length of fascist rule once established: 31 years. Fascist regimes removed by voting: zero. Fascist regimes removed by asking nicely: zero. Most were removed by war or military coups, and tens of millions died in the process.

I’m not allowed to make the obvious contemporary comparisons, but you’re already making them in your head. “We can control him” is being said right now, in 2025, by people who apparently never cracked a history book.

Based on the historical record, there are exactly three ways this goes. Option one: Stop them before they take power. Option two: War. Option three: Wait for them to die of old age.

[…]

Source: I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.

Small Businesses Face a New Threat: Pay Up or Be Flooded With Bad Reviews

Scammers are extorting small businesses worldwide by threatening to flood their Google Maps profiles with fake one-star reviews or demanding payment to remove reviews already posted, according to The New York Times. Fraudsters target service businesses dependent on online ratings — movers, roofers, contractors — demanding hundreds of dollars per incident. The Times story documents many cases, including of one Los Angeles contractor Natalia Piper, who paid $250 to multiple scammers after her rating plummeted from 5.0 to 3.6 stars.

Industry watchdog Fake Review Watch documented over 150 affected businesses globally. The scammers typically operate from Pakistan and Bangladesh using WhatsApp to contact victims.

Source: Small Businesses Face a New Threat: Pay Up or Be Flooded With Bad Reviews

NB The article says that Google will remove fake reviews, but my experience is that there is a non-transparent review process that takes over half a year and then ends up with no removal (despite all the reviews placed by the reviewers being negative and repetitive, eg. saying things like “does not pay bills”) with absolutely no recourse.

Outlook out in North America, Microsoft scrambles for a fix

Microsoft confirmed a major email service outage across North America that is stopping inboxes from filling up and may be hitting other apps when logging in.

“We’re investigating an issue affecting a portion of infrastructure in North America, where users may be unable to access their mailbox via any Exchange Online connection method,” it stated in a notice at 0936 in its home time zone (1636 UTC for the rest of customers.)

Outlook outage on the map

The usual suspects are out, but no word on a fix yet – Click to enlarge

The problem is more than just the standard stutter – two hours later, Microsoft was still baffled. Microsoft has been digging through its data banks without success and blocked inboxes and unstable traffic persist. There have been unconfirmed reports of OneDrive being affected too.

“We’re continuing to evaluate service telemetry for potential system irregularities contributing to impact, and in parallel we’re applying some changes to optimize affected mailbox infrastructure,” it added two hours later.

Redmond has said it’ll update us as new information comes in, but Downdetector reports a big surge of problems for Outlook online and Microsoft 365 users starting around four hours after Microsoft said there are issues with its code. On its public support page, it was reporting “Service degradation on Microsoft consumer products.”

Things have been a bit rocky for Microsoft of late, and Outlook in particular. In July, users of the service got an 11-hour break from email when the app wasn’t “performing as efficiently as expected.” That was a software fix that went wrong, which looks very likely in this case too.

It’s in the clear on Azure problems in the Middle East; however, that’s looking like a cable break on land or sea.

[…]

Source: Outlook out in North America, Microsoft scrambles for a fix • The Register

Revanced looking for legal help from Spotify

ReVanced has received a DMCA takedown notice from Spotify regarding the Unlock Premium patch.

Spotify claims that

  • The patch is a derivative of their copyrighted works, and
  • It circumvents Spotify’s technological protection measures under DMCA 1201(a) (such as encryption and transfer key protocols).

Find the full DMCA notice here.

Their arguments

    • They say the patch enables access to copyrighted content by bypassing encryption, transfer key protocols, and premium feature restrictions (like skipping).
    • They argue this is circumvention, even though the patch does not enable downloads or give access to songs that are otherwise unavailable on free Spotify.

Our understanding

      • The patch does not copy Spotify’s code.
      • Songs on Spotify Free remain accessible without the patch; premium-only features mainly affect convenience (e.g., skipping).
      • The app requires attestation to prevent it from becoming unusable if modified.
      • However, legal precedent (e.g., 321 Studios v. MGM, MDY v. Blizzard) shows courts sometimes view bypassing software restrictions as circumvention, even when it’s about features and not direct access to copyrighted works.

Why this matters

    • If attestation bypass alone constitutes a DMCA 1201 violation, then not only premium but also the “make the app work when patched” functionality could be affected.

We are seeking legal expertise to better understand our position and risks until our deadline of one business day.

    If you have legal knowledge in copyright/DMCA or know someone who does, to guide us in this matter, please reach out to us:

    • (Preferred) Directly on social media sites (Discord preferred), you can find on the footer of this page.
    • Via mail at spotify-dmca@revanced.app.

Study Directly Links Emissions from Fossil Fuel Producers to Devastating Heatwaves

A new study directly links hundreds of major heatwaves since 2000 to the emissions from fossil fuel and cement producers. Among its fundings, the researchers conclude that as many as a quarter of all heatwaves since the start of this century would have been “virtually impossible” without emissions from any of the world’s 14 largest fossil fuel and cement producers.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, shows that greenhouse gas emissions from 180 of the world’s biggest cement, oil, and gas producers have significantly contributed to climate change over the last two decades.

They linked the emissions to 213 heatwaves, finding the pollution made the extreme heat more likely and intense. Of those 213 events, 53 were made 10,000 times more likely as a result of the emissions, according to the researchers.

The fight for climate accountability

The findings could bolster legal efforts to hold the world’s biggest polluters responsible for the consequences of their emissions, experts said. In July, the International Court of Justice ruled that states that fail to prevent climate harm may have to pay compensation, and in May, a German high court ruled that major emitters can be held liable for climate impacts. And some U.S. states have passed similar laws.

Still, despite dozens of lawsuits filed since 2004, no court has penalized emitters for causing climate change, researchers wrote in an accompanying viewpoint.

[…]

Quilcaille and his colleagues assessed the historical greenhouse gas emissions from 180 “carbon majors,” a group that includes fossil fuel companies, state-owned entities, and fossil fuel and cement emissions produced by nation states.

In all, these sources were responsible for nearly 57% of historical global emissions between 1850 and 2023, the analysis revealed.

The researchers then used climate models to compare global temperature trends in a world with greenhouse gas emissions to temperatures in a world without those emissions. Then, they estimated the impact of human-driven global warming on 213 heatwaves recorded between 2000 and 2023, finding direct links to top emitters and these extreme weather events.

“For a while, it was argued that any individual contributor to climate change was making too small or too diffuse a contribution to ever be linked to any particular impact. And this emerging science, both this paper and others, is showing that that’s not true,” Chris Callahan, a climate scientist at Indiana University who was not involved in the study, told The Associated Press.

Source: Study Directly Links Emissions from Fossil Fuel Producers to Devastating Heatwaves

Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption

PRISTINA – A new minister in Albania charged to handle public procurement will be impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour.

That is because Diella, as she is called, is an AI-generated bot.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is about to begin his fourth term, said on Sept 11 that Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, will manage and award all public tenders in which the government contracts private companies for various projects.

“Diella is the first Cabinet member who isn’t physically present, but is virtually created by AI,” Mr Rama said during a speech unveiling his new Cabinet. She will help make Albania “a country where public tenders are 100 per cent free of corruption”.

The awarding of such contracts has long been a source of corruption scandals in Albania, a Balkan country that experts say is a hub for gangs seeking to launder their money from trafficking drugs and weapons across the world, and where graft has reached the corridors of power.

That image has complicated Albania’s accession to the European Union, which Mr Rama wants to achieve by 2030 but which political analysts say is ambitious.

The government did not provide details of what human oversight there might be for Diella, or address risks that someone could manipulate the artificial intelligence bot.

[…]

Source: Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption | The Straits Times

Japanese Warship Fires Railgun At Target Vessel For The First Time

Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has released new pictures from testing of a prototype electromagnetic railgun aboard the testbed warship JS Asuka earlier this year. ATLA also asserts that it is the first time anyone has successfully fired a ship-mounted railgun at an actual target vessel. Japan continues to push ahead with railgun development, a technology the U.S. Navy notably halted work on in the early 2020s, despite showing promise, due to significant technological hurdles.

JS Asuka, a one-of-its-kind dedicated experimental vessel with a 6,200-ton-displacement belonging to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), was first spotted with the railgun in a turret installed on its stern flight deck in April, as TWZ reported on at the time. Additional views of the ship in this configuration emerged afterward.

A picture ATLA released yesterday of the turreted railgun installed on JS Asuka‘s flight deck earlier this year. ATLA
A picture of JS Asuka from around the time of the railgun testing that ATLA also released yesterday. White shipping containers associated with the weapon mounted on the ship’s stern flight deck are visible. ATLA
An earlier picture offering a clearer view of the railgun turret installed on JS Asuka’s stern flight deck. @HNlEHupY4Nr6hRM

“ATLA conducted the Ship-board Railgun Shooting Test from June to early July this year with the support of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force,” according to a post yesterday on the agency’s official Instagram page. “It’s the first time that a ship-mounted railgun was successfully fired at a real ship.”

One of the pictures accompanying ATLA’s Instagram post, seen at the top of this story, which was also shared on the agency’s other social media accounts, shows the railgun being fired. What looks to be a radar array and an electro-optical and/or infrared camera system are also seen in the image on a separate turret.

A close-up of what looks to be a turret with a radar array and an electro-optical and/or infrared camera system seen in the new picture of the railgun being test fired. ATLA

Another, seen below, shows a tug-like ship in the crosshairs of a targeting system. Additional pictures of the tug have now also emerged clearly showing target boards on the port and starboard sides of its funnel, as well as one facing the stern.

ATLA

So far, ATLA has not released any imagery of target vessels actually being struck by projectiles fired from the railgun mounted on Asuka. The agency says more details will be provided at its upcoming Defense Technology Symposium in November.

Back in 2023, ATLA said it had conducted the first-ever successful firing of a railgun from any ship. The agency did not name the vessel used in those tests.

[…]

Source: Japanese Warship Fires Railgun At Target Vessel For The First Time

We beat Chat Control but the fight isn’t over – another surveillance law that mandates companies to save user data for Europol is making its way right now and there is less than 24 hours to give the EU feedback!

Please follow this link to the questionnaire and help save our future – otherwise total surveillance like never seen before will strip you of every privacy and later fundamental rights you have as a EU citizen

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Information

The previous data retention law was declared illegal in 2014 by CJEU (EU’s highest court) for being mass surveillance and violating human rights.

Since most EU states refused to follow the court order and the EU commission refused to enforce it, CJEU recently caved in to political pressure and changed their stance on mass surveillance, making it legal.

And that instantly spawned this data retention law that is more far fetching than the original, that was deemed illegal. Here you can read the entire plan that EU is following. Briefly:

they want to sanction unlicensed messaging apps, hosting services and websites that don’t spy on users (and impose criminal penalties)

mandatory data retention, all your online activity must be tied to your identity

end of privacy friendly VPN’s and other services

cooperate with hardware manufacturers to ensure lawful access by design (backdoors for phones and computers)

prison for everybody who doesn’t comply

If you don’t know what the best options for some questions are, privacy wise, check out this answering guide by Edri(european digital rights organization)

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1neecov/we_beat_chat_control_but_the_fight_isnt_over/

Don’t forget the politicians when you look at who fucked up tech

The epigram for my forthcoming book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It is a quote from Ed Zitron: “I hate them for what they’ve done to the computer” (Ed even recorded a little cameo of this for the audiobook):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/enshittification-the-drm-free-audiobook/

Ed’s a smart and passionate guy, and this was definitely the quote to sum up the rage I felt as I wrote the book. Ed’s got a whole theory of who “they” are and “what they did to the computer,” which he calls “the Rot Economy”:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/

The Rot Economy describes the ideology of bosses, starting with monsters like GE’s Jack Welch, who financialized companies, optimizing them for making short term cash gains for investors, at the expense of their workers, their customers, their products and services, and, ultimately, their long-term health.

For Ed, these bosses (especially tech bosses) are the sociopaths who destroyed “the computer” (a stand-in for tech more generally). I don’t disagree at all. The there is a direct, undeniable line from the ideas and conduct of tech bosses and the tech hellscape we live in today. A good read on this subject is Anil Dash’s scorching post from yesterday, “How Tim Cook sold out Steve Jobs”:

https://www.anildash.com/2025/09/09/how-tim-cook-sold-out-steve-jobs/

I find the Rot Economy hypothesis entirely compelling, but also, incomplete. Ed’s explaining why we should hate the players and why we should hate the game, but the enshittification thesis goes even further and explains why we need to hate the umpires – the policymakers, enforcers, economists and legal theorists who created the enshittogenic environment in which the Rot Economy took hold.

Some early reviews of Enshittification have expressed dissatisfaction with book’s “solutions” section, complaining that all the solutions are policy oriented, and there’s nothing suggested for us to do in our capacity as individual consumers:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/31/unsatisfying-answers/#systemic-problems

Those criticisms are correct: there is nothing we can do as individual consumers. Agonizing about your consumption choices will not fight enshittification any more than conscientiously sorting your recycling will end the climate emergency. Enshittification isn’t caused by “lazy consumers” who choose “convenience” or are “too cheap to pay for online services”:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/12/give-me-convenience/#or-give-me-death

The wellspring of enshittification isn’t poor consumption choices, it’s poor policy choices. The reason monsters are able to destroy our online lives isn’t their personal moral failings, it’s the system that rewards predatory, deceptive and unfair commercial practices and elevates their foremost practitioners to positions of power within firms:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

And here’s the kicker: we know where those policy choices came from! The people who made these policy choices did so in living memory. They were warned at the time about the foreseeable consequences of their choices. They made those choices anyway. They faced zero consequences for doing so, even after every one of the prophesied horrors came to pass. Not only were they spared consequences for their actions, but they prospered as a result – they are revered as statesmen, lawyers, scholars and titans of economics.

As Trashfuture showrunner Riley Quinn often says, the curse of being a leftist is that you have object permanence – you actually remember the stuff that happened and how it happened. You don’t live in an eternal now that has no causal relationship to the past.

It’s not enough to hate the player, nor the game – we’ve got to remember the crooked umps who rigged the match. We have to say their names, because that’s how we root out their terrible ideas and ensure that our policy interventions make real change. If Elon Musk OD’ed on ketamine tomorrow, there’d be ten Big Balls who’d tear each others’ throats out in the ensuing succession fight, and the next guy would be just as stupid, racist, and authoritarian. Musk, Cook, Zuck, Pichai, Nadella, Larry Ellison – they’re just filling the monster-shaped holes that policy-makers installed in our society.

Start with Robert Bork, the jurist who championed the “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust, which promotes monopolies as efficient and counsels policymakers not to punish companies that take over markets, because the only way to really dominate a market is to be so good that everyone chooses your products and services. Wouldn’t it just be perverse to use public funds to shut down the public’s favorite companies? Bork was a virulent racist, a Nixonite criminal, and he was dead wrong about the law and the economics of monopoly:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

Bork’s legacy of pro-monopoly advocacy is, unsurprisingly, monopolies. Monopolies that make everything more expensive and worse: from athletic shoes to microchips, glass bottles to pharmaceuticals, pro wrestling to eyeglasses:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

These monopolies did not arise because of the iron laws of economics. They are not the product of the great forces of history. They are the direct and undeniable consequence of Robert Bork convincing the world’s governments to embrace his bullshit, pro-monopoly policies.

Satan took Bork to hell in 2012, but you know who’s still with us? Bruce Lehman. Bruce Lehman was Bill Clinton’s copyright czar, the man who, in his own words, “did an end-run around Congress” by getting an UN treaty passed that obliged its signatories to ban reverse engineering:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16145640-ctrl-ctrl-ctrl

Lehman’s used the treaty to get Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and section 1201 of the DMCA made it a felony to break DRM. Bruce Lehman is why farmers can’t fix their own tractors, hospitals can’t fix their own ventilators, and your mechanic can’t fix your car. He’s why, when the manufacturer of your artificial eyes bricks a computer that is permanently wired to your nervous system, no one else can revive it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/12/unsafe-at-any-speed/

Bruce Lehman is why you can’t use the apps of your choosing on your phone or games console. He’s why we can’t preserve beloved old video games. He’s why Apple and Google get to steal 30 cents out of every dollar you send to a performer, software author, or creator through an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup

Yeah, Tim Cook is a venal billionaire who owes his wealth to the Chinese sweatshops of iPhone City, where they had to install suicide nets to catch the workers who’d rather end it all than work another day for Tim Apple, but Tim Cook’s power over those workers is owed to Bruce Lehman and Robert Bork.

Then there’s the ISP sector, whose Net Neutrality violations and underinvestment mean that people who live in the country where the internet was invented have some of the slowest, most expensive internet in the world. Big ISP bosses are some of the worst people on Earth. Take Thomas Rutledge, who CEO of Charter/Spectrum when covid broke out. At the time, Rutledge was America’s highest-paid CEO. He dictated that his back-office staff could not work from home (imagine a telco boss who doesn’t believe in telework!), and those back-offices all turned into super-spreader sites. Rutledge’s field workers – the people who came to our homes and upgraded our internet so we could work from home – did not get PPE or danger pay. Instead, they got vouchers exclusively redeemable at restaurants that had shut down during the pandemic:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/22/filternet/#thomas-rutledge-murderer

Fuck Thomas Rutledge and may his name be a curse forever. But the reason Thomas Rutledge – and all the other terrible telco bosses – were able to reap millions by supplying us with dogshit internet while literally murdering their employees was that Trump’s FCC chairman, an ex-Verizon lawyer named Ajit Pai, let them get away with it:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/12/ajit-pai/#pai

Ajit Pai engaged in some of the most flagrant cheating ever seen in American regulation (prior to Jan 20, 2025, at least). When he decided to kill Net Neutrality, he accepted obviously fraudulent comments into the official record, including one million identical comments from @pornhub.com email addresses, as well as millions of comments whose return addresses were taken from darknet data-dumps, including the email addresses of dead people and of sitting US senators who supported Net Neutrality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/10/digital-redlining/#stop-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts

Pai – and his co-conspirators – are the umps who rigged the game. Hate Thomas Rutledge to be sure, but to prevent people like Rutledge from gaining power over your digital life in future, you must remember Ajit Pai with the special form of white-hot rage that keeps people like him from ever making policy decisions again.

Then there’s Canada’s hall of shame, which is full of monsters. Two of my least favorite are James Moore and Tony Clement, who, as ministers under Stephen Harper, rammed through a Canadian version of the DMCA, 2012’s Bill C-11, despite their own consultation, which found that Canadians overwhelmingly rejected the idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

Clement (now a disgraced sex-pest) and Moore (still accepted into polite society as a corporate lawyer) are the reason that Canada’s Right to Repair and interop laws are dead on arrival. They’re also why Canada can’t retaliate against Trump’s tariffs by jailbreaking US products, making everything cheaper for Canadians and birthing new, global Canadian tech businesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

In Europe, there’s Axel Voss, the man behind 2019’s “filternet” proposal, which requires tech platforms to spend hundreds of millions of euros for copyright filters that use AI to process everything posted to the public internet in Europe and block anything the AI thinks is “copyrighted”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/03/26/article-13-will-wreck-the-internet-because-swedish-meps-accidentally-pushed-the-wrong-voting-button/

For years, Voss maintained that none of this was true, that there would be no filters, and dismissed his critics as hysterical fools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/04/03/after-months-of-insisting-that-article13-doesnt-require-filters-top-eu-commissioner-says-article-13-requires-filters/

But then, after his law passed, he admitted he “didn’t know what he was voting for”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/14/father-of-the-catastrophic-copyright-directive-reveals-he-didnt-know-what-he-was-voting-for/

Fuck the media lobbyists who spent hundreds of millions of euros to push this catastrophic law through:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/13/clash-of-the-corporate-titans-whos-spending-what-in-europes-copyright-directive-battle/

But especially and forever, fuck Axel Voss, the policymaker who helped turn those corporate bribes into policy.

Ed Zitron is right to hate the people who implement the Rot Economy for what they did to the computer. But those people are only doing what policymakers let them do. Corporate monsters thrive in an enshittogenic environment.

But political monsters are the ones create that enshittogenic environment. They’re the ones who are terraforming our planet to sideline human life and replace it with the immortal colony organisms we call “limited liability corporations.”

Source: Pluralistic: Hate the player AND the game (10 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

My blue is your blue: different people’s brains process colours in the same way

Is the colour you see the same as what I see? It’s a question that has puzzled both philosophers and neuroscientists for decades, but has proved notoriously difficult to answer.

Now, a study that recorded the brain activity of 15 participants suggests that colours are represented and processed in the same way across different people. The findings were published in the Journal of Neuroscience on 8 September1.

“Now we know that when you see red or green or whatever colour, that it activates your brain very similarly to my brain,” says study co-author Andreas Bartels, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Tübingen in Germany. “Even at a very low level, things are represented similarly across different brains, and that is a fundamentally new discovery.”

[…]

The pair used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare activity in the brains of a group of people while they viewed different colours.

Source: My blue is your blue: different people’s brains process colours in the same way

They could then predict what colour people were seeing based on the scans.

Launch Your Name Around Moon in 2026 on NASA’s Artemis II Mission

NASA is inviting the public to join the agency’s Artemis II test flight as four astronauts venture around the Moon and back to test systems and hardware needed for deep space exploration. As part of the agency’s “Send Your Name with Artemis II” effort, anyone can claim their spot by signing up before Jan. 21.

Participants will launch their name aboard the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“Artemis II is a key test flight in our effort to return humans to the Moon’s surface and build toward future missions to Mars, and it’s also an opportunity to inspire people across the globe and to give them an opportunity to follow along as we lead the way in human exploration deeper into space,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The collected names will be put on an SD card loaded aboard Orion before launch. In return, participants can download a boarding pass with their name on it as a collectable.

To add your name and receive an English-language boarding pass, visit: 

https://go.nasa.gov/artemisnames
 

To add your name and receive a Spanish-language boarding pass, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/TuNombreArtemis

 
As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, the approximately 10-day Artemis II test flight, launching no later than April 2026, is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign. It is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send the first astronauts – Americans – to Mars.

To learn more about the mission visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

Source: Launch Your Name Around Moon in 2026 on NASA’s Artemis II Mission  – NASA

Plex tells users to reset passwords after new data breach. Again.

Popular media streaming platform Plex has informed its users of yet another data breach, urging them to change their passwords as soon as possible. 

Criminals often target media streaming platforms because they deal with sensitive information. Plex has fallen victim to a similar intrusion in the past, and a couple of years ago went through a very similar situation.

Now, Plex has revealed that an unauthorized third party gained access to one of its databases, exposing information on a limited number of customers.

The compromised data may include email addresses, usernames, securely hashed passwords, and authentication information. The company underlines that no credit card information has been affected because that type of information is not stored on those kinds of servers.

It’s a relief that the passwords are hashed because it means they are not readable, but it’s still a good idea to change the Plex passwords as quickly as possible.

Containment and response

 

According to Plex, the breach was contained quickly, and the method the attacker used was identified and addressed.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause you. We take pride in our security systems, which helped us quickly detect this incident, and we want to assure you that we are working swiftly to prevent potential future incidents from occurring,” said the company.

Plex has outlined two actions users must take, depending on their sign-in methods:

Password-based login: Users have to reset their Plex account password immediately via ‘https://plex.tv/reset’. The company recommends checking the option to “Sign out connected devices after password change,” which will log out all devices and require reauthentication with the new password.

SSO login: Users should log out of all active sessions through ‘https://plex.tv/security’ and sign back in as normal.

Plex is also strongly encouraging users to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for added protection if they haven’t already done so.

Source: Plex tells users to reset passwords after new data breach