Destroying Autocracy – July 31, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

Drew Lyton

The Future is NOT Self-Hosted

Great stuff that ties in nicely with what we are advocating here on Battalion.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

TechCrunch reports:

Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication

Flights grounded as Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot hacked and systems ‘destroyed’

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Non-EU countries, including Ukraine, can join Europe’s new satellite network rivaling Starlink, commissioner says

The Register reports:

Europe’s AI crackdown starts this week and Big Tech isn’t happy

Italy says Meta may be violating law with AI in WhatsApp

Edge case: Opera claims Microsoft still playing dirty with defaults

US Navy won’t torpedo hurricane forecast satellite feed after all

Open Future opines:

A Step Forward, But Not Far Enough: the EU’s AI Transparency Template

The European Commission reports:

Commission preliminarily finds Temu in breach of the Digital Services Act in relation to illegal products on its platform

The Cradle reports:

Netherlands labels Israel ‘threat to national security’ for first time

They are a threat to every nation on Earth’s national security, as are all pariah surveillance states.

The European Commission announces:

Commission proposes partial suspension of Israel’s association to Horizon Europe

Unfortunately, the German and Italian pseudo-fascists blocked it.

EuroNews reports:

EU fails to agree Israeli suspension from research fund over Gaza

Ars Technica reports:

Google confirms it will sign the EU AI Code of Practice

Bleeping Computer reports:

Internet Archive is now a US federal depository library

CISA open-sources Thorium platform for malware, forensic analysis

W3C announces:

Vision for W3C is a W3C Statement

Media Revolution announces:

The Media Revolution countdown campaign is LIVE!

IMHO, this ties in with the Open Media Network idea featured in our Techno Anarchist Manifesto.

Murena shares:

What is a VPN (virtual private network)?

Nextcloud reports:

The Nextcloud Include initiative: How Nextcloud supports diversity in open source

Cory Doctorow has:

You can’t fight enshittification (But we can.)

In addition to the tactics in the Techno Anarchist Manifesto, we have to fight in the political realm as well.

Neutral

Bert Hubert looks at:

Europe’s Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis

The Guardian reports:

Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Breach Media reports:

Mark Carney’s AI agenda is a gift to Big Tech

Canada is 1,010 times better than the U.S. but it ain’t perfect.

404 Media reports:

UK Users Need to Post Selfie or Photo ID to View Reddit’s r/IsraelCrimes, r/UkraineWarFootage

The United Kuntsdumb is now only 1.46 times better than the United States of Assholes and getting worse by the minute.

The MIT Technology Review reports:

What you may have missed about Trump’s AI Action Plan

TechDirt reports:

Trump Threatens To Withold Billions From States That Try To Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People

Pariah States

So-called newspaper, The Washington Times reports:

Hackers breach intelligence website used by CIA

BleepingComputer reports:

French telecom giant Orange discloses cyberattack

Microsoft: Russian hackers use ISP access to hack embassies in AiTM attacks

DarkReading reports:

Russia’s Secret Blizzard APT Gains Embassy Access via ISPs

The Register reports:

Silk Typhoon spun a web of patents for offensive cyber tools, report says

Big Media

404 Media reports:

Journalist Discovers Google Vulnerability That Allowed People to Disappear Specific Pages From Search

Patreon reports:

Substack sent a push alert promoting a Nazi blog

I am sorry, but if you are on SubStack at this point you are either an uninformed amoral moron or a c^nt. Thankfully, you can still avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach by moving to Ghost or Buttondown.

ArsTechnica reports:

Substack’s “Nazi problem” won’t go away after push notification apology

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

Traffic Apocalypse: Google’s AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.

Big Tech

The Register reports:

‘Impossible hill to climb’: US clouds crush European competition on their home turf

Publishers cry foul over W3C crusade to rid web of third-party cookies

Ars Technica reports:

Meta pirated and seeded porn for years to train AI, lawsuit says

TechCrunch reports:

Zuckerberg signals Meta won’t open source all of its ‘superintelligence’ AI models

BTW, their current ones are in no way opensource.

Bikepacking shares:

When We Get Komooted

Terror

The Guardian reports:

Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns

Cybersecurity/Privacy

TechPolicy asks:

Is There Any Way Forward for Privacy Legislation in the United States?

BleepingComputer reports:

Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K WordPress sites to hijacking attacks

DarkReading shows us:

How to Spot Malicious AI Agents Before They Strike

ChatGPT, GenAI Tools Open to ‘Man in the Prompt’ Browser Attack

Tuta reports:

Switzerland plans surveillance worse than U.S.

BitDefender reports:

French submarine secrets surface after cyber attack

Platformer reports:

Trust and safety workers on why they’re not speaking out

And here’s the previous post he referenced.

404 Media reports:

Tea App Turns Off DMs After Exposing Messages About Abortions, Cheating

FYI, Platformer and 404 Media are on Ghost and thus part of the Open Media Network.

RSS

The wonderful Citation Needed reports:

Curate your own newspaper with RSS

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – 127

For Better has:

Mastodon Defence Command: The Scam Wave

Fedify announces:

Implementing custom collection dispatchers

QCB asks:

So Your Black Ass Still Wants to Get on Mastodon

ActivityPub for WordPress announces:

7.2.0 – Follow ups

Slightly Federated Social Media

Connected Places has:

Bluesky Report – 127

Blacksky has:

Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power

Blacksky is what Bluesky would be if it wasn’t created and run by tech bros.

404 Media reports:

This Company Wants to Bring End-to-End Encrypted Messages to Bluesky’s AT Protocol

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Nextcloud #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2230

Destroying Autocracy – July 24, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

TechDirt writes:

Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train.

Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation.

Fascism For First Time Founders

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

BleepingComputer reports:

Ukraine arrests suspected admin of XSS Russian hacking forum

Radio Free Europe reports:

Drone Attacks Even The Odds For Ukrainian Frontline Units

BitDefender reports:

Europol targets Kremlin-backed cybercrime gang NoName057(16)

Bruce Lawson reports:

CMA designates Google and Apple, proposes measures

TechCentral reports:

Italy takes Meta, X and LinkedIn to court over unpaid tax

404 Media reports:

Hacker Plants Computer ‘Wiping’ Commands in Amazon’s AI Coding Agent

Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe

The Register reports:

Radio geeks reveal how to access crucial hurricane data after US Department of Defense cut it off

The Register reports:

AI data-suckers would have to ask permission first under new bill

Laptop farmer behind $17M North Korean IT worker scam locked up for 8.5 years

TechPolicy reports:

The Case for Europe’s Backing of Digital Civil Society Groups

Open_Future shares:

Licensing, Levies, and the Limits of Copyright

Open Forum Europe announces:

OFE Publishes Landmark Study Calling on Funding Europe’s Open Digital Infrastructure through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)

DarkReading reports:

Stop AI Bot Traffic: Protecting Your Organization’s Website

Speaking of your websites, LocalGhost has:

This page is under construction: a love letter to the personal website

Hamish Campbell has:

The Open Media Network: More Than Just a Tech Project

This is what your site could be a part of.

Neutral

TechPolicy reports:

Brazil Has a Bridge to Defending the Internet

The Financial Times:

UK government seeks way out of clash with US over Apple encryption

When you have three sets of c^nts involved, it’s hard to know who to route for.

TechPolicy opines:

Enforcement of EU’s Tech Laws Should Not Be Traded Away

And they are right.

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

So-called newspaper, The Wall Street Journal reports:

White House Prepares Executive Order Targeting ‘Woke AI’

MIT Technology Review reports:

America’s AI watchdog is losing its bite

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Axon’s Draft One is Designed to Defy Transparency

EuroNews reports:

UK online legislation could threaten Wikipedia volunteer safety, group to argue in court

Pariah States

The Register reports:

UK uncovers novel Microsoft snooping malware, blames and sanctions GRU cyberspies

Silicon Valley engineer admits theft of US missile tech secrets

Four new Android spyware samples linked to Iran’s intel agency

TechCrunch reports:

A surveillance vendor was caught exploiting a new SS7 attack to track people’s phone locations

Hackers exploiting SharePoint zero-day seen targeting government agencies

BleepingComputer reports:

Microsoft links Sharepoint ToolShell attacks to Chinese hackers

Big Media

Today in Tabs reports:

Billionaires Destroyed American News Media On Purpose

Mother Jones reports:

Colbert’s Cancellation Is a Dark Warning

Akademie shares:

Investigating AI datasets: A journalist’s guide

Big Tech

Where’s Your ‘Ed shares:

The Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble

The Next Web reports:

ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds

404 Media reports:

A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors

Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission

Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain

Grindr Won’t Let Users Say ‘No Zionists’

EuroNews reports:

Meta ran ads that fundraised for Israeli Defence Forces, analysis shows

Meta won’t sign EU’s AI Code, but who will?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance

Ars Technica reports:

Researcher threatens X with lawsuit after falsely linking him to French probe

xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show

TechCrunch reports:

Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense work

For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal data

Terror

The Register reports:

IRL Com recruits teens for real-life stabbings, shootings, FBI warns

Cybersecurity/Privacy

TechCrunch reports:

Serial spyware founder Scott Zuckerman wants the FTC to unban him from the surveillance industry

BleepingComputer reports:

CISA and FBI warn of escalating Interlock ransomware attacks

DarkReading reports:

Translating Cyber-Risk for the Boardroom

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – #126 July 22, 2025

Bonfire is:

Exploring a Bonfire Geosocial Extension

MarkWrites reflects on:

Being a Mastodon Moderator

Mastodon announces:

A nudge to fund our future

If you are on the Fediverse please donate to your instance’s maintainers. Especially if they ask nicely.

Aphyr opines:

The Future of Forums is Lies, I Guess

Fediverse favorite, Elena Rossini shares:

The Future is Federated: Year 2

ActivityPub for WordPress has an update:

7.1.0 — Polishing Tables

We Distribute has details:

WordPress-ActivityPub v 7.1.0 Introduces Following Capabilities

Randall Black show us:

How to Install and Set Up Castopod for Your Podcast

TechCrunch reports:

Threads adds improved content performance metrics for creators

Slightly Federated Social Media

The Register reports:

Selling your digital soul to use Bluesky’s DMs isn’t just a bad idea, it’s the law

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#126 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2151

Destroying Autocracy – July 17, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

We are back from holiday and brief respite from Fascism Friendly Florida.

Featured Item

Hamish Campbell writes:

Capitalism’s invisible hand has always relied on hidden data. In the digital age, that data is metadata the overlooked, under-the-hood information that tells us who, where, when, how often, and what next. It doesn’t matter what you say or do if someone else controls the context around it. That’s where the power lies. Let’s be clear: the battle for metadata is the battle for the future.

Capitalism: Metadata is hoarded by the dotcons. This is the tech-feudalism of today—soft fascism in algorithmic form.

Chinese Communism: Here, the state doesn’t outsource metadata – it owns it. Surveillance is centralised. Social credit systems reduce people to patterns and can be used to penalise deviation.

Liberalism: Wants to privatise metadata to the individual, to revive the mythical free market of rational actors with perfect information. But this is a fantasy—metadata’s power comes from aggregation, and no individual can match corporate or state capacity to hoard it. The liberal path leads to a slightly less abusive cage.

Anarchism and the Commons: A Fourth Way

What does anarchism want? It wants the social conditions for free association. It wants autonomy, not just individual, but community autonomy.

In commons vs. the market, capitalism uses metadata to target, extract, and sell. We use metadata to share, trust, and build. The Open Media Network proposes a radical shift to replace the market with metadata commons. In capitalism, knowledge is hoarded for advantage. In the commons, it is shared for coordination. The market’s “invisible hand” becomes the commons’ visible knowledge, messy, partial, human, but rooted in mutual aid, not profit.

Metadata and the OMN Path: Who Controls the Invisible Hand?

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

TechCrunch reports:

Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed servers of Russian drone maker

The Kyiv Independent reports:

EU slaps new sanctions on Russia over hybrid threats, disinformation

BleepingComputer reports:

Europol disrupts pro-Russian NoName057(16) DDoS hacktivist group

ETH Zurich announces:

A language model built for the public good

Open Future reports on:

Our Work/ Public AI

It’s FOSS reports:

Europe on a Roll: Plans Open Source Alternative to Confluence and Jira

OpenProject shares:

Empowering the Public Sector with OpenProject: An Open Source alternative for project management

Bloomberg Law reports:

States Target AI Hiring Tools as Federal Freeze Attempt Fails

404 Media has:

The Open-Source Software Saving the Internet From AI Bot Scrapers

Immigration Raid Tracking App ‘ICE Block’ Keeps Your Data Private, Researcher Finds

Open Ice is a new resource:

OpenIce

TechPolicy reports:

States Are Fighting Back To Defend Medical Privacy and Safeguard Democracy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Despite Supreme Court Setback, EFF Fights On Against Online Age Mandates

Neutral

TechPolicy reports:

How the EU’s Voluntary AI Code is Testing Industry and Regulators Alike

Making Media Pluralism Work in the Age of Algorithms

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

EFF’s Guide to Getting Records About Axon’s Draft One AI-Generated Police Reports

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Platformer reports:

The campaign to make it illegal for ChatGPT to criticize Trump

Krebs on Security reports:

DOGE Denizen Marko Elez Leaked API Key for xAI

404 Media reports:

ICE Is Searching a Massive Insurance and Medical Bill Database to Find Deportation Target

TechPolicy reports:

The US Just Logged Off from Internet Freedom

ProPublica has:

The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE

A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Chinese Hackers

Ars Technica reports:

Trump sues Corporation for Public Broadcasting directors who refused to be fired

Pariah States

BleepingComputer reports:

North Korean XORIndex malware hidden in 67 malicious npm packages

DarkReading reports:

China-Backed Salt Typhoon Hacks US National Guard for Nearly a Year

4 Chinese APTs Attack Taiwan’s Semiconductor Industry

Noyb has:

How TikTok, AliExpress & WeChat ignore your GDPR rights

Big Media

404 Media reports:

The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work

TechPolicy reports:

Old Tricks, New Tech: How Legacy Media Capture Fuels Today’s Digital Authoritarianism

Mediations in an Emergency reports:

Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning

Big Tech

Ars Technica reports:

New Grok AI model surprises experts by checking Elon Musk’s views before answering

TechCrunch reports:

Of course, Grok’s AI companions want to have sex and burn down schools

OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI

The Verge asks:

Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?

Pluralistic by Cory Doctorow has:

Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?

404 Media reports:

a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise

The Markup reports:

AI is helping students be more independent, but the isolation could be career poison

This times 1,000.

Terror

404 Media reports:

3D Printing Patterns Might Make Ghost Guns More Traceable Than We Thought

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Bleeping Computer has:

Google Gemini flaw hijacks email summaries for phishing

Malicious VSCode extension in Cursor IDE led to $500K crypto theft

Sounds like a win-win.

Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices

Ars Technica reports:

Hackers exploit a blind spot by hiding malware inside DNS records

DarkReading reports:

Military Veterans May Be What Cybersecurity Is Looking For

Beats being in the National Guard.

Women Who ‘Hacked the Status Quo’ Aim to Inspire Cybersecurity Careers

The Next Web reports:

Whisper emerges from stealth with ‘God Mode’ to tackle cybercrime

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – #125

Age Verification Laws: Are the New Social Networks Different, Or Not At All?

Steve Bate has:

ActivityPub Client API: A Way Forward

The Social Web Foundation has:

Seeking interop testing for geosocial ActivityPub client

Mastodon has:

Trunk & Tidbits, June 2025

Privacy Guides has:

Privacy and Security on Mastodon

Bandwagon has an update:

July 2025

Elena Rossini has:

My adventures in self-hosting: day 211 (CDN edition)

Forgejo announces:

Forgejo v12.0 is available

TechCrunch reports:

Meta appoints generative AI VP to run Threads

I guess it wasn’t shitty enough.

Slightly Federated Social Media

Connected Places has:

Bluesky Report – #125

Reuters reports:

European project Eurosky aims to reduce reliance on US tech giants

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#125 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #Bandwagon #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2105

Destroying Autocracy – July 3, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Next week I will be on holiday so there won’t be an issue. I will probably boost some things on the Fediverse though.

Featured Item

DevCollaborative writes:

The Trump administration and its supporters are attacking dissenting views on a terrifying scale. With so much of online communications compromised and censored, independent websites are a critical piece of social movement infrastructure that we need to promote and defend.

If your nonprofit has a website, you are part of this essential communications work.

There are looming threats of financially independent nonprofits being censored under the guise of fighting “terrorism” or “sedition.”

Protecting Nonprofit Websites from a Hostile Government

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

Time has a profile:

How Signal President Meredith Whittaker Took on Signal-Gate

The Register reports:

Proton bashes Apple and joins antitrust suit that seeks to throw the App Store wide open

The Register reports:

Huawei can’t wriggle out of Iran sanctions trial, judge rules

Tara Tarakiyee explores:

Digital Sovereignty in Practice: Web Browsers as a Reality Check

TechPolicy reports:

EU Disinformation Code Takes Effect Amid Censorship Claims and Trade Tensions

Politico reports:

The first American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France

BleepingComputer reports:

Hikvision Canada ordered to cease operations over security risks

Germany asks Google, Apple to remove DeepSeek AI from app stores

Raconteur has:

‘You need to be a little bit crazy’: Nextcloud CEO on confronting the hyperscalers

Nextclound reports on:

Why organizations migrate from Microsoft 365 in 2025

TechCrunch reports:

ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings, goes viral overnight after Bondi criticism

Ars Technica reports:

Meta, TikTok can’t toss wrongful death suit from mom of “subway surfing” teen

Ted Cruz plan to punish states that regulate AI shot down in 99-1 vote

The Markup has more:

State AI regulations safe after Senate strips moratorium from ‘big, beautiful bill’

MIT Technology Review reports:

Cloudflare will now, by default, block AI bots from crawling its clients’ websites

Cloudfare has the details:

Control content use for AI training with Cloudflare’s managed robots.txt and blocking for monetized content

The crawl before the fall… of referrals: understanding AI’s impact on content providers

Neutral

CNBC reports:

The AI-boom’s multi-billion dollar blind spot: Reasoning models hitting a wall

Dries Buyaert (of Drupal fame) writes:

The web’s broken deal with AI companies

Dries, you say you may be naive. You are if you think anything other than politics (regulation or huge boycotts) are going to fix the problem.

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

The Guardian opines:

Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat to Americans

TechDirt reports:

Supreme Court Cripples FCC Further, Making Robocall Enforcement Likely Impossible

The Supreme C^nts strike again.

The Guardian reports:

Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database

TechPolicy reports:

Countering the Politics of Deservingness in the Fight for Digital Equity

How US Firms Are Weakening the EU AI Code of Practice

Pariah States

TechCrunch reports:

US government takes down major North Korean ‘remote IT workers’ operation

DarkReading reports:

Scope, Scale of Spurious North Korean IT Workers Emerges

Silver Fox Suspected in Taiwanese Campaign Using DeepSeek Lure

Russian APT ‘Gamaredon’ Hits Ukraine With Fierce Phishing

The Kyiv Independent reports:

US sanctions Russian IT company Aeza Group over ransomware operations

Big Media

The PressGazette reports:

How SFGATE is making local news pay and filling California’s news gaps

Ars Technica reports:

NYT to start searching deleted ChatGPT logs after beating OpenAI in court

Torment Nexus reports:

Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing

CNN reports:

After settling with Trump, CBS News staffers fear what comes next

There are cowards, and then there are cowardly c^nts.

Big Tech

TechPolicy reports:

Tech Oligarchs and the Rise of Silicon Valley Pronatalism

The Guardian reports:

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

Ars Technica reports:

Everything that could go wrong with X’s new AI-written community notes

TikTok is being flooded with racist AI videos generated by Google’s Veo 3

Android Authority reports:

You’re not alone: This email from Google’s Gemini team was concerning (Updated: Google statement)

Tuta asks:

“Sovereign cloud” or “sovereign washing”? A Trojan Horse at Europe’s digital gates.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Flock Safety’s Feature Updates Cannot Make Automated License Plate Readers Safe

The Register reports:

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren’t AI at all

AI models just don’t understand what they’re talking about

The Verge reports:

Facebook is starting to feed its AI with private, unpublished photos

TechCrunch reports:

Meta users say paying for Verified support has been useless in the face of mass bans

TechCrunch reports:

Meta has found another way to keep you engaged: Chatbots that message you first

I guess if you are amoral enough to use Meta products and you are a moron who talks to AI, this is what you deserve.

PC Gamer reports:

‘AI is no longer optional’: Microsoft is allegedly pressuring employees to use AI tools through manager evaluations

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Verge asks:

How vulnerable is critical infrastructure to cyberattack in the US?

Bleeping Computer reports:

FBI: Cybercriminals steal health data posing as fraud investigators

BleepingComputer reports:

Spain arrests hackers who targeted politicians and journalists

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – #123

Mastodon has:

Mastodon 4.4 for Developers

Dead Superher looks at:

Mitigating the “7 Deadly Fediverse UX Sins”

Jaz-Michael King shares:

Digital Belonging: Why Language and Locality Matter

Viger has:

Flipboard Surf

TechCrunch reports:

Automattic puts Tumblr migration to WordPress on hold

Ghost has:

The Longformers: Ghost, WordPress, Flipboard, Fediverse

NodeBB asks:

What drew you to ActivityPub?

Longform content has the best chance to grow the Fediverse, IMHO.

IT Notes shares:

FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands

Forgejo has its:

Forgejo monthly report – June 2025

ActivityPub for WordPress announces:

HTTP Signature Upgrades Coming Soon

TechCrunch reports:

Not everyone is thrilled with Threads’ DMs

RSS

Preslav Rachev shares:

From Outbound to Inbound and Back Again: The Hidden Power of RSS Feeds

Great stuff. RSS is still my main curation source. So, get an RSS feed on your blog, handle, etc.

Slightly Federated Social Media

Connected Places has:

Bluesky Report – #123

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#123 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #RSS #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2072

Destroying Autocracy – June 26, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

Hamish Campbell writes:

It’s good to see events like NGIFORUM2025 as it’s trying to be on the path of the Fediverse and the wider Open Web reboot which are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, which we do need to support. BUT, we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.

Too often, they are co-opted by NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this clearly at NGIFORUM and similar NGO events.

NGIFORUM2025 is timidly touching sense

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

Numerique reports:

Le Cigref soutient la démarche de résilience numérique portée par la France, l’Allemagne et les Pays-Bas pour construire une Europe numérique durable et de confiance dans le cadre d’Eurostack

C’est un grande headline.

The Conversation reviews:

Is AI a con? A new book punctures the hype and proposes some ways to resist

The U.K. governmnet announce:

CMA takes first steps to improve competition in search services in the UK

Le Monde reports:

Lyon délaisse la suite Office de Microsoft pour l’open source

Nextcloud reports:

A sovereign Microsoft 365 alternative: Nextcloud and IONOS join forces

Senator Blackburn announces:

Blackburn, Blumenthal, Lee, Klobuchar, and Durbin Introduce Bipartisan Antitrust Bill to Promote App Store Competition

The Verge reviews:

The smaller Fairphone 6 introduces swapable accessories

404 Media reports:

‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops

Ars Technica reports:

Media Matters sues FTC, says agency is retaliating on behalf of Elon Musk

Neutral

Politico reports:

Trump can pull the plug on the internet, and Europe can’t do anything about it

Ars Technica reports:

Judge denies creating “mass surveillance program” harming all ChatGPT users

TechCrunch reports:

A federal judge sides with Anthropic in lawsuit over training AI on books without authors’ permission

And another just sided with Meta. Fuck!

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

EFF to European Commission: Don’t Resurrect Illegal Data Retention Mandates

How Cops Can Get Your Private Online Data

Politico reports:

Top Pentagon spy pick rejected by White House

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Trump administration sends layoff notices to 600 Voice of America staff, NYT reports

The Gray Zone reports:

US Army appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI execs as Lt. Colonels

The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:

New Orleans’ Dragnet Facial Recognition Program Threatens Innocent People

404 Media reports:

Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed

Pariah States

DarkReading reports:

How Geopolitical Tensions Are Shaping Cyber Warfare

Bleeping Computer reports:

Russian hackers bypass Gmail MFA using stolen app passwords

APT28 hackers use Signal chats to launch new malware attacks on Ukraine

Canada says Salt Typhoon hacked telecom firm via Cisco flaw

The Register reports:

Typhoon-like gang slinging TLS certificate ‘signed’ by the Los Angeles Police Department

Big Media

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

AI Search Has A Citation Problem

Atoms vs. Bytes has:

Substack’s Secret

Fuck the Nerd Reich’s S.S.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

New Journalism Curriculum Module Teaches Digital Security for Border Journalists

Big Tech

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has:

Protect Yourself From Meta’s Latest Attack on Privacy

The BBC reports:

Musk’s X sues New York state over social media hate speech law

Frontiers reports:

Some of your AI prompts could cause 50 times more CO2 emissions than others

Zero prompts = zero emissions.

Neural Trust reports:

Echo Chamber: A Context-Poisoning Jailbreak That Bypasses LLM Guardrails

Computer Weekly reports:

Beyond the AI hype: How data laws quietly handed power to government and Big Tech

Axios has:

Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says

The Register reports:

The AIpocalypse is here for web sites as search referrals plunge

Hey you AI lovers, these are the sites you build. No traffic equals no money for you. Plus, the AI c^nts stole the info from the people whose traffic they are destroying. And maybe your code. Not to mention devastating the environment. Look in the fucking mirror. And avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach.

The Register reports:

Top AI models – even American ones – parrot Chinese propaganda, report finds

Psylo browser tries to obscure digital fingerprints by giving every tab its own IP address

If you want to do something about the next article.

Texas A&M University reports:

Websites Are Tracking You Via Browser Fingerprinting

noyb reports:

Bumble’s AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law

EuroNews reports:

Big Tech isn’t doing enough to fight disinformation, EU body says

Cybersecurity/Privacy

TechCrunch reports:

US House bans WhatsApp from staff devices

You’ve got to be clowns if these mofos ban you.

Dark Reading reports:

How the US Military Is Redefining Zero Trust

Hundreds of MCP Servers Expose AI Models to Abuse, RCE

BleepingComputer reports:

New FileFix attack weaponizes Windows File Explorer for stealthy commands

3 key takeaways from the Scattered Spider attacks on insurance firms

Earth reports:

China breaks RSA encryption with a quantum computer, threatening global data security

Tommy Mysk announces:

Introducing Psylo — A New Kind of Private Web Browser

Fediverse

Connected Places (rebrand) has:

Fediverse Report – #122

Welcome to Connected Places

Hamish Campbell has:

This is a story of power, plain and simple

And he’s correct.

Actors, Power, and Collective Publishing: Rethinking Fediverse Architecture for Grassroots Media

On a similar note, Jeremy Herve explores:

WordPress, WordLand, and the Open Web

Dave Winer has the details on WordLand:

WordPress and me

Timothy Chambers has:

The Seven Deadly Fediverse UX Sins Part 2: The Road To Redemption

Bless his soul.

Jaz-Michael King introduces:

StartHereSocial

Ghost hosting platform, MagicPages shares:

ActivityPub Federation Issue (June 21, 2025)

Activity Pub for WordPress reports:

What we shipped so far in 2025

NLnet Foundation announces:

Mastodon for institutions

62 new projects contribute to digital commons

There are other Fediverse grants in this article including WordPress, Activity Pub, Funkwhale, and Node BB.

Slightly Federated Social Media

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report – #122

The Globe and Mail reports:

Tech leaders ready launch of Canadian social-media platform Gander to buck U.S. dominance

Basically Blacksky for Canadians.

TechDirt has:

Community And Choice Are Not Bubbles

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#122 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Funkwhale #Ghost #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2027

Destroying Autocracy – June 19, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

404 Media reports:

AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums

When you use AI, you contribute to this c^ntitry.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

Micah Flee explores:

Using Signal groups for activism

The Guardian reports:

Makers of air fryers and smart speakers told to respect users’ right to privacy

Spy ships, cyber-attacks and shadow fleets: the crack security team braced for trouble at sea

TechCrunch reports:

The ‘OpenAI Files’ push for oversight in the race to AGI

The Register reports:

LibreOffice adds voice to ‘ditch Windows for Linux’ campaign

Microsoft brings 365 suite on-prem as part of sovereign cloud push

France 24 reports:

‘We’re done with Teams’: German state hits uninstall on Microsoft

TechPolicy shares:

What the EU Needs to Do to Challenge Big Tech Cloud Dominance

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Apple to Australians: You’re Too Stupid to Choose Your Own Apps

BleepingComputer reports:

Police seizes Archetyp Market drug marketplace, arrests admin

The Register reviews:

/e/ OS 3.0: Slightly less clunky, slightly more private

Vox reports:

He’s the godfather of AI. Now, he has a bold new plan to keep us safe from it.

Neutral

The Register reports:

The launch of ChatGPT polluted the world forever, like the first atomic weapons tests

Euronews reports:

Dutch online platform watchdog struggling to connect with other EU member states

The Register reports:

MiniMax M1 model claims Chinese LLM crown from DeepSeek – plus it’s true open-source

Dems hyperventilate about Palantir’s work with the IRS in letter to CEO Karp

I would trust Palantir as far as I could kick their CEO.

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

404 Media reports:

Emails Reveal the Casual Surveillance Alliance Between ICE and Local Police

California Cops Investigate ‘Immigration Protest’ With AI-Camera System

The Markup reports:

California police are illegally sharing license plate data with ICE and Border Patrol

The Kyiv Independent reports:

US group designed to pressure Russia into peace in Ukraine disbanded by Trump administration, Reuters reports

Open Rights Group reports:

Police forces to get authoritarian powers to extract data from online accounts

False alarm: fake news and the right fuel attack on NGOs

EuroNews reports:

Ukrainian journalists fear USAID cuts opened up space for Russian disinformation campaigns

Pariah States

DarkReading reports:

‘HoldingHands’ Acts Like a Pickpocket With Taiwan Orgs

Iran-Israel War Triggers a Maelstrom in Cyberspace

Paragon Commercial Spyware Infects Prominent Journalists

The Register reports:

Amazon CISO: Iranian hacking crews ‘on high alert’ since Israel attack

404 Media reports:

The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel

EuroNews reports:

Israel’s spy agency used AI and smuggled-in drones to prepare attack on Iran, sources say

Bleeping Computer reports:

North Korean hackers deepfake execs in Zoom call to spread Mac malware

Telecom giant Viasat breached by China’s Salt Typhoon hackers

Citizen Lab reports:

Same Sea, New Phish: Russian Government-Linked Social Engineering Targets App-Specific Passwords

Big Media

The Guardian reports:

The mainstream media has enabled Trump’s war on universities

BleepingComputer reports:

Washington Post’s email system hacked, journalists’ accounts compromised

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting reports:

Working Hard to Justify Israel’s Unprovoked Attack on Iran

One Man and his Blog reports:

Digital News Report 2025: exponential media change is here

Big Tech

Ars Technica reports:

OpenAI weighs “nuclear option” of antitrust complaint against Microsoft

How surprising. Two big tech c^nts can’t get along.

The Register reports:

Salesforce study finds LLM agents flunk CRM and confidentiality tests

‘AI is not doing its job and should leave us alone’ says Gartner’s top analyst

Absolutely.

noyb reports:

WhatsApp is getting ads using personal data from Instagram and Facebook

The Guardian reports:

(AI)‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number

TechCrunch reports:

xAI is facing a lawsuit for operating over 400 MW of gas turbines without permits

Tumblr’s content-filtering systems have been falsely flagging posts as ‘mature,’ users blame AI

Instagram users complain of mass bans, pointing finger at AI

BleepingComputer reports:

Instagram ‘BMO’ ads use AI deepfakes to scam banking customers

BellingCat reports:

Meta’s Suit Against Hong Kong Firm Was Just the Beginning – More Companies Linked to CrushAI ‘Nudify’ Apps

Ludic Mataroa schools the AI Bros:

Contra Ptacek’s Terrible Article On AI

Wired reports:

How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren’t Saying

The BBC reports:

Is Google about to destroy the web?

Antitrust Intelligence reports:

Microsoft Could Repeat its Teams Strategy, this time with Bing and Edge

The Markup reports:

We caught 4 more states sharing personal health data with Big Tech

Terror

404 Media reports:

The People Search Sites in the Suspected Minnesota Killer’s Notebook Are a Failure of Congress

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Krebs on Security reports:

Inside a Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs

The Register reports:

Sitecore CMS flaw let attackers brute-force ‘b’ for backdoor

Fuck corporate CMSs.

BleepingComputer reports:

DuckDuckGo beefs up scam defense to block fake stores, crypto sites

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report reports:

Fediverse Report – #121

The W3C Community Group looks at:

Messaging Layer Security over ActivityPub

Timothy Chambers shares:

The Seven Deadly UX Sins of the Fediverse Web Experience (To Fix)

Mastodon has:

Mastodon in 2025

Mastodon is a digital public good

Emily McClue has a bone to pick with them:

New Terms of Service IP clause cannot be terminated or revoked, not even by deleting content

PeerTube announces:

App crowdfunding — Let’s go live!

Elena Rossini shares a valuable asset:

Introducing the Fediverse

Ghost is:

Surfacing discussions

Bonfire announces:

Bonfire Custom Feeds: Events

ActivityPub for WordPress announces:

New Look, Faster Blocks in ActivityPub 6.0.0

TechCrunch reports:

Mastodon updates its terms to prohibit AI model training

Threads is testing spoiler text, Zuckerberg says

Threads expands open social web integrations with fediverse feed, user profile search

Remember to block the instance, threads.net.

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #121

Mathew Ingram says:

Reports of Bluesky’s death have been greatly exaggerated

Tedium shares:

The Narrative

Again, none of this would matter if Bluesky were not a company trying to make money and in debt to VCs.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#121 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #Peertube #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1984

Destroying Autocracy – June 12, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

Fediverse favorite and video pro, Elena Rossini has done the ecosystem an outstanding favor by producing a phenomenal promotional video. She is:

Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media

I make a cameo appearance at the end.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

The Kyiv Independent reports:

US accuses Russian of laundering millions, helping Moscow obtain sensitive technology

DarkReading reports:

‘Librarian Ghouls’ Cyberattackers Strike at Night

OpenAI Bans ChatGPT Accounts Linked to Nation-State Threat Actors

Open_Future has:

Europe Talks Digital Sovereignty

Heise reports:

Digital sovereignty: EU launches its own DNS service with practical functions

Tech Policy has:

Public Sector Triage of the Federal Government’s Data Hemorrhage

Tech Oligarchy Imperils Democratic Information Flows

And everything else to do with democracy.

The Register reports:

Apple AI boffins puncture AGI hype as reasoning models flail on complex planning

Nordjyske reports:

Digitaliseringsminister vil mindske brug Microsoft i eget ministerium

Denmark tells Microsoft to get fucked. Well half-fucked for now.

Bloomberg Law reports:

DOGE Access to Government Personnel Data Blocked by Judge

Until the SupremeC^nts reverse it.

404 Media reports:

Wikipedia Pauses AI-Generated Summaries After Editor Backlash

Neutral

Balfour Jarnasob says:

Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk

The Guardian reports:

‘No smartphones before 14; no social media until 16’: The Anxious Generation author on how to fight back against big tech

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

TechCrunch reports:

Trump administration takes aim at Biden and Obama cybersecurity rules

404 Media reports:

Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS

GitHub is Leaking Trump’s Plans to ‘Accelerate’ AI Across Government

Pariah States

The Guardian reports:

Frequent TikTok users in Taiwan more likely to agree with pro-China narratives, study finds

DarkReading reports:

China-Backed Hackers Target SentinelOne in ‘PurpleHaze’ Attack Spree

The Register reports:

Chinese spy crew appears to be preparing for conflict by backdooring 75+ critical orgs

AP New reports:

US-backed Israeli company’s spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds

Big Media

The Nerd Reich reports:

Politico’s $50M Peter Thiel Problem

The San Francisco Standard reports:

The ICE agents disappearing your neighbors would like a little privacy, please

Citation Needed opines:

It matters. I care.

Indeed!

Big Tech

The Guardian reports:

US attacks on science and research a ‘great gift’ to China on artificial intelligence, former OpenAI board member says

Misogyny in the metaverse: is Mark Zuckerberg’s dream world a no-go area for women?

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reports:

Telegram, the FSB, and the Man in the Middle

Verso Books asks:

Is the AI Bubble About to Burst?

If only.

Dutch News reports:

Dutch government websites still reliant on US cloud services

Fortune reports:

‘Sovereign AI’ is political branding. The reality is closer to digital colonialism

404 Media reports:

A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account

Senators Demand Meta Answer For AI Chatbots Posing as Licensed Therapists

Zero Party Data reports:

“Localhost tracking” explained. It could cost Meta 32 billion.

Business Insider reports:

Mark Zuckerberg has created the saddest place on the internet with Meta AI’s public feed

And the least private. What a c^nt.

Cybersecurity/Privacy

DarkReading reports:

Next-Gen Developers Are a Cybersecurity Powder Keg

GitHub: How Code Provenance Can Prevent Supply Chain Attacks

Gartner: How Security Teams Can Turn Hype Into Opportunity

The Conversation reports:

Tracking apps monitor remote employees’ performance — and invade their privacy

The Register reports:

Peep show: 40K IoT cameras worldwide stream secrets to anyone with a browser

DeepSeek installer or just malware in disguise? Click around and find out

This is what happens when you use Chinese software and AI. You get what you deserve.

Fediverse

Elena Rossini has this regarding the video in our featured item section:

My Fediverse Promo Video: Frequently Asked Questions

The Fediverse report has:

Fediverse Report – #120

Bounce, and how the Open Social Web is continually changing

Hamish Campell asks:

Why does any of this matter?

ActivityPub for WordPress has:

6.0.0 – New Kids on the Block

The IT Blog shares:

PeerTube and Platform Control

Peertube starts a series:

Flutter application development: feedback (1/2)

This is very interesting if you are a developer.

TheNewStack reports:

Bringing Joy Back to the Web: Fediverse vs. Centralized Apps

Mastodon has:

Trunk & Tidbits, May 2025

We Distribute reports:

Bandwagon is Bringing Music Sales to the Fediverse

Fedihost shares:

Getting Started on Lemmy

I would recommend PieFed or mbin.

ActivityPub for WordPress announces:

Our 2025 Roadmap: Building the Future of WordPress Federation

This has the potential to double the size of the Fediverse (or more) in the long run.

Ben Werdmuller says:

Welcome to the new Werd I/O

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

ATmosphere Report – #120

Is Bad Behaviour Spoiling the Move from Big Tech?

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky backlash misses the point

None of this would matter if Bluesky were not a company trying to take money and in debt to VCs.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#120 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #Bandwagon #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Lemmy #Mastodon #Nextcloud #Peertube #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1944

Destroying Autocracy – June 05, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item

Ploum writes:

As we don’t have the time to think anymore, we masquerade our lack of ideas with behavioural tricks. We replaced documents with PowerPoints because it allowed lack of structure and emptiness to look professional (just copy paste the data of the last PowerPoint you received in a text file and see by yourself how pitiful it is.

The root problem is that, for the first time in human history, our brain is the bottleneck. For all history, transmitting information was slow. Brains were fast. After sending a letter, we had days or months to think before receiving an answer. Erasmus wrote his famous “Éloge de la folie” in several days while travelling in Europe. He would never have done it in a couple of hours in a plane while the small screen in the backseat would show him advertisements.

A Society That Lost Focus

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

404 Media reports:

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced

Fanfuckingtastic! C^nts may be able to kill some things. But you can’t kill ideas.

Ukraine’s Massive Drone Attack Was Powered by Open Source Software

The IEEE reports:

How Ukraine’s Killer Drones Are Beating Russian Jamming

The Kyiv Independent reports:

‘Nothing secret left’ — Ukraine hacks Russia’s Tupolev bomber producer, source claims

EuroNews reports:

Belgian watchdog checking Telegram for EU anti-terror compliance

Android Police reports:

EU’s new rules will shake up Android update policies

Fairphone and e/OS is the way to go.

It’s Foss News reports:

/e/OS 3.0 Debuts with Refined Parental Controls, New Privacy Tools and Murena Vault

Next adds:

Murena lance son système mobile open source et dégooglisé /e/OS 3.0

Open_Future shares:

Leveraging Public Spending for Digital Sovereignty

The Register reports:

As Europe eyes move from US hyperscalers, IONOS dismisses scaleability worries

Regulator sues product comparison site alleged to only compare products on which it earned commission

Reuters reports:

Apple loses bid to pause app store reform order in Epic Games case

Ars Technica reports:

Florida ban on kids using social media likely unconstitutional, judge rules

America’s stubbiest fascist, Gov. Stuntcunt DeSantis knew this when he pushed it through our lickspittle legislature.

Nextcloud shares:

Nextcloud Awards 2025: Celebrating those building a sovereign digital future

Neutral

Ben Werdmuller shares:

Building a newsroom technology culture

Tech Policy says:

With Congress Silent, the FTC Must Protect Kids from Big Tech

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The Telegraph reports:

Trump official who shut down counter-Russia agency has links to Kremlin

You couldn’t make this shit up.

Ars Technica reports:

Lawsuit: DOGE, HHS used “hopelessly error-ridden” data to fire 10,000 workers

ProPublica reports:

DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts

Desmog reports:

A Weaponized AI Chatbot Is Flooding Canadian City Councils with Climate Misinformation

The Intercept reports:

How the FBI Sought a Warrant to Search Instagram of Columbia Student Protesters

404 Media reports:

TSA Working on Haptic Tech To ‘Feel’ Your Body in Virtual Reality

Why is our world a combination of stupidity and technology?

Pariah States

Bleeping Computer reports:

‘Russian Market’ emerges as a go-to shop for stolen credentials

New PathWiper data wiper malware hits critical infrastructure in Ukraine

NPR reports:

OpenAI takes down covert operations tied to China and other countries

The Hacker News reports:

Chinese APT41 Exploits Google Calendar for Malware Command-and-Control Operations

The Register reports:

Uncle Sam moves to seize $7.7M laundered by North Korean IT worker ring

Big Media

Isabelle Roughol says:

We’ve been thinking about Substack all wrong

I say if you’ve been thinking about Suckstack period, you’re wrong. Including reading anything on it. Once again, Ghost people!

Big Tech

Tech Policy asks:

Why are Tech Oligarchs So Obsessed with Energy and What Does That Mean for Democracy?

Sigh.

The Guardian reports:

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year

The next stage in enshitification.

Ars Technica reports:

Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers

The Register reports:

Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul

Endgadget reports:

The Oversight Board says Meta isn’t doing enough to fight celeb deepfake scams

404 Media reports:

Apple Gave Governments Data on Thousands of Push Notifications

Polygon reports:

Duolingo users are in turmoil over the app’s AI lessons

Unfortunately, my subscription renewed in March. But, I won’t be renewing it.

Matthew Garret reports:

Twitter’s new encrypted DMs aren’t better than the old ones

Terror

Pro Publication reports:

“The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention

I guess we are better off with incompetent fascists than competent ones???

Cybersecurity/Privacy

DarkReading has:

EMR-ISAC Shuts Down: What Happens Now?

Beware of Device Code Phishing

BleepingComputer reports:

BidenCash carding market domains seized in international operation

Global Encryption shares:

Joint Letter on the European Internal Security Strategy (ProtectEU)

Fediverse

The Fediverse report has:

Fediverse Report – #119

PeerTube announces:

PeerTube v7.2 is out!

App crowdfunding campaign — First goal reached!

Splinter, a web app that splits long posts into Mastodon threads , was introduced.

Splinter

Useful!

The Indie Beat Radio announces:

Audio Interface Channel Launches on The Indie Beat Radio

Bonfire is:

Announcing the Bonfire Social 1.0 Release Candidate

TechCrunch has:

Introducing Bounce, a tool to move your following between Bluesky and Mastodon

Luis Quintanilla shares:

FediForum Day One Recap

Ghost is:

Ramping up for expansion

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #119

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#119 #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #eOS #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Peertube #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1898

Destroying Autocracy – May 22, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item(s)

Hamish Campbell writes:

We need to keep highlighting an old but still urgent tension: the intersection of technology and social change. In this too often unspoken divide, one side leans heavily on practical, technical problem-solving. They want working code, functioning systems, and tangible results, not abstract debates. To them, critiques about capitalism shaping code sound like distractions from the “real work.”

The other side insists that technical problems are social problems. They argue that all code is written by people, shaped by culture, power, and history. Ignoring the social dynamics behind technology guarantees we repeat the same failures.

The Open Media Network isn’t just about media, it’s about building the social soil

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, TechnoFeudalism, and other douchebaggery

The European Council of the European Union reports:

Russian hybrid threats: EU lists further 21 individuals and 6 entities and introduces sectoral measures in response to destabilising activities against the EU, its member states and international partners

Wired reports:

/e/OS Is Better Than Android. You Should Try It

You really should. I love it on my Fairphone.

Tuta shows us:

Best private Google alternatives: The ultimate list to De-Google your life in 2025.

Bert Hubert shares:

What we in the open world are messing up in trying to compete with big tech

Lionel Dricot has a:

Petit manifeste low-tech

The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:

OMB’s Revised AI Memos Exemplify Bipartisan Consensus on AI Governance Ideals, But Serious Questions Remain About Implementation

CDT Advocates for Counter-Drone Authorities that Protect Civil Liberties

EuroNews reports:

EU to provide €5.5 million in emergency funds to help keep Radio Free Europe afloat

BleepingComputer reports:

European Union sanctions Stark Industries for enabling cyberattacks

US indicts leader of Qakbot botnet linked to ransomware attacks

TechCrunch reports:

Fortnite returns to the US App Store after a five-year gap

Signal says:

By Default, Signal Doesn’t Recall

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

Micah Flee reports:

DDoSecrets publishes 410 GB of heap dumps, hacked from TeleMessage’s archive server

TeleMessage customers include DC Police, Andreessen Horowitz, JP Morgan, and hundreds more

Tech Policy reports:

Proposed Moratorium on US State AI Laws is Short-Sighted and Ill-Conceived

Pariah States

EuroNews reports:

Poland’s Tusk says Russian hackers attacked party websites ahead of presidential election

The Register reports:

Russia’s Fancy Bear swipes a paw at logistics, transport orgs’ email servers

The Kyiv Independent reports:

UK accuses Russian GRU of carrying out cyberattacks targeting logistics, technology organizations

BleepingComputer reports:

Russian hackers breach orgs to track aid routes to Ukraine

Chinese hackers breach US local governments using Cityworks zero-day

DarkReading reports:

Pandas Galore: Chinese Hackers Boost Attacks in Latin America

AP reports:

Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war but denies use to harm people in Gaza

Big Media

404 Media reports:

Viral AI-Generated Summer Guide Printed by Chicago Sun-Times Was Made by Magazine Giant Hearst

Calmatters reports:

Google follows Newsom in reducing support for California local news

Big Tech

Bloomberg reports:

Google Decided Against Offering Publishers Options in AI Search

MIT Technology Review reports:

By putting AI into everything, Google wants to make it invisible

The Guardian asks:

Can the term ‘cloud fascism’ help us understand – and resist – the hard right?

It can’t hurt, but if you want to take action that will resist it, read our Manifesto via the link in the navigation.

Runbox reports:

Outlook stores email in Microsoft Cloud – what you need to know

TechCrunch reports:

Judge pressures Apple to approve Fortnite or return to court

Grok says it’s ‘skeptical’ about Holocaust death toll, then blames ‘programming error’

404 Media reports:

‘Configuration Issue’ Allows Civitai Users to AI Generate Nonconsensual Porn Videos

Ars Technica reports:

Meta hypes AI friends as social media’s future, but users want real connections

Renée DiResta has:

We’re all trying to find the guy who did this

The Register reports:

‘Close to impossible’ for Europe to escape clutches of US hyperscalers

Discouraging, but you can always do something locally.

Terror

404 Media reports:

Student Makes Tool That Identifies ‘Radicals’ on Reddit, Deploys AI Bots to Engage With Them

Cybersecurity/Privacy

404 Media reports:

Telegram Gave Authorities Data on More than 20,000 Users

Reuters reports:

Exclusive: Hacker who breached communications app used by Trump aide stole data from across US government

So-called newspaper, The Washington Post reports:

Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras

The Register reports:

CISA has a new No. 2 … but still no official top dog

On a more encouraging note, It reports:

FBI, Microsoft, international cops bust Lumma infostealer service

The Internet Society reports:

Encryption Under Threat: The UK’s Backdoor Mandate and Its Impact on Online Safety

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #117

Decentralisation as a shifting mental framework

Ben Wermuller says:

Let’s fund the open social web

IFTAS examines:

Take It Down Act 2025 (USA)

A New Social announces:

Bridgy Fed Config & Patreon

Ghost has:

Moderation preferences

Magic Pages has:

Social Web/Activity Pub Beta

TechCrunch reports:

Open social web browser Surf makes it easier for anyone to build custom feeds

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #117

Leaflet Lab announces:

We’re making a social publishing platform built on Bluesky

Kind of like Ghost with ActivityPub.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#117 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1859

Destroying Autocracy – May 15, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Featured Item(s)

Cory Doctorow has:

Who Broke the Internet? Part II

It’s not who you think.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, TechnoFeudalism, and other douchebaggery

The Verge reports:

Pope Leo XIV names AI one of the reasons for his papal name

Tech Policy has:

Europe’s Digital Sovereignty is a Democratic Imperative

Building the Eurostack: Can Open-Source Save Europe’s Tech Future?

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has:

EU ruling: tracking-based advertising by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X, across Europe has no legal basis

Call on European Parliament to push for data enforcement to defend democracy

EuroNews reports:

Dutch competition agency launches two probes under EU Digital Markets Act

The Register reports:

Europe plots escape hatch from the enshittification of search

The ‘End of 10’ is nigh, but don’t bury your PC just yet

Wired reports:

North Korean IT Workers Are Being Exposed on a Massive Scale

Neutral

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Legal Corner: The threshold of originality for copyrightable source code

Government Techology asks:

Does the Federal Government Have a Right to States’ Data?

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

The FCC Must Reject Efforts to Lock Up Public Airwaves

IRS-ICE Immigrant Data Sharing Agreement Betrays Data Privacy and Taxpayers’ Trust

404 Media reports:

License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows

TechCrunch reports:

FTC delays enforcement of click-to-cancel rule

White House scraps plan to block data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive data

The Verge reports:

Elon Musk’s apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired

Propublica reports:

The Trump Administration Leaned on African Countries. The Goal: Get Business for Elon Musk.

It’s not just Africa either.

Pariah States

TechCrunch reports:

Five things we learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group spyware lawsuit

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Poland detects foreign-funded election ads amid fears of Russian interference

BleepingComputer reports:

Moldova arrests suspect linked to DoppelPaymer ransomware attacks

DarkReading reports:

North Korea’s TA406 Targets Ukraine for Intel

Turkish APT Exploits Chat App Zero-Day to Spy on Iraqi Kurds

Big Media

So-called newspaper, The New York Times reports:

A Free People Need a Free Press

No shit, fuckers. Why have you been laying down on the job the last few years?

EuroNews reports:

UK to allow foreign states to own 15% stake in British newspapers

Big Tech

Privacy Guides shares:

Sam Altman Wants Your Eyeball

The Register reports:

Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection

Meta’s still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb

ArsTechnica reports:

Meta is making users who opted out of AI training opt out again, watchdog says

Report: Terrorists seem to be paying X to generate propaganda with Grok

Jesus.

404 Media has:

Why Did Grok Start Talking About ‘White Genocide’?

Fuck me.

ArsTechnica reports:

Report: Terrorists seem to be paying X to generate propaganda with Grok

Jesus.

404 Media has:

Why Did Grok Start Talking About ‘White Genocide’?

Fuck me.

Tech Policy reports:

Racialized Grooming Gangs: How Musk and X Amplified Islamophobia and Racism in the UK

Cybersecurity/Privacy

MIT Technology Review reports on:

How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans

The Register reports:

Feds disrupt proxy-for-hire botnet, indict four alleged net miscreants

You think ransomware is bad now? Wait until it infects CPUs

As US vuln-tracking falters, EU enters with its own security bug database

Martin Fowler.com has:

Coding Assistants Threaten the Software Supply Chain

AI is still 95% horseshit.

W3C announces:

Privacy Principles is a W3C Statement

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #116

Hamish Campbell opines:

We do need tools to share to help people on the path back onto the #openweb

The Library of Alexandra says:

Moderating Communities is Not a Burden

It just seems to be for tech bros.

Dead Superheron shares:

My Dream Fediverse Platform

We Distribute reports:

Mastodon: Giving Journalists Options Away From Big Tech

ActivityPub for WordPress has:

5.9.0 – Easier Onboarding for Your Fediverse Experience

Ghost has:

Blocking domains

Sciety announces:

Sciety secures funding from NLNet Foundation to help build discourse around preprints

Lemmy has:

Lemmy Development Update April 2025

TechCrunch reports:

Threads now lets creators add up to 5 links to profiles, track clicks

More enshittification from the c^nts at Meta.

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Taking Control of Your Timeline – in Different Ways

ATmosphere Report – #116

Free Our Feeds shares:

Free Our Feeds – Update #2, May 2025

Bluesky gives an update on:

Network Account Management

The Dabbler has:

I updated my Bluesky PDS and it stopped working. Here’s how I fixed it.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#116 #2 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Lemmy #Mastodon #openweb #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1822

Destroying Autocracy – May 01, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

Happy May Day! Cast off your chains.

Featured Item(s)

Cory Doctorow writes:

The point of AI isn’t to make workers more productive, it’s to make them weaker when they bargain with their bosses.

Tech workers are workers, and they once held the line against enshittification, refusing to break the things they’d built for their bosses in meaningless all-nighters motivated by vocational awe. Long after tech bosses were able to buy all their competitors, capture their regulators, and expand IP law to neutralize the threat of innovative, interoperable products like alternative app stores, ad-blockers and jailbreaking kits, tech workers held the line.

There’ve been half a million US tech layoff since 2023. Tech workers’ scarcity-derived power has been vaporized. Tech workers can avoid the fate of the factory, warehouse and delivery workers their bosses literally work to death — but only by unionizing.

In other words, the workers in re-shored factories and tech workers need the same thing. They are class allies — and tech bosses are their class enemies. This is class war.

The enshittification of tech jobs

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, TechnoFeudalism, and other douchebaggery

Tech Policy reports:

Labor Unions Can Counterbalance the Big Tech Oligarchy, But Only If They Rediscover Their Power

Expats Czechia reports:

Court rules that Czechia collects phone data illegally in landmark decision

Mashable reports:

Elon Musk’s X lost 11 million users in the EU over the past 5 months

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Calyx Institute: A Case Study in Grassroots Innovation

EFF Leads Prominent Security Experts in Urging Trump Administration to Leave Chris Krebs Alone

EuroNews reports:

EU governments discuss action on disinformation over climate policy

Fast Company reports:

How Big Tech’s Faustian bargain with Trump backfired

Framablog has:

Docilités numériques

The Verge reports:

A judge just blew up Apple’s control of the App Store

The Register reports:

Cook’d: Judge says Apple lied to court in Epic case, asks Feds to mull criminal charges

Double awesome.

Neutral

The Register reports:

DARPA to ‘radically’ rev up mathematics research. And yes, with AI

The Journal of Online Trust and Safety has:

Science and Causality in Technology Litigation

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

TechDirt has:

Government Actually Threatens Wikipedia’s Editorial Freedom; Self-Proclaimed Free Speech Warriors Suddenly Have Other Plans

Congress Moving Forward On Unconstitutional Take It Down Act

Ars Technica reports:

Trump’s hasty Take It Down Act has “gaping flaws” that threaten encryption

The Register reports:

DOGE may help Elon Musk’s biz empire dodge $2.4B in liabilities – Senate probe

Framablog looks at:

L’État artificiel : la vie civique automatisée

Pariah States

BleepingComputer reports:

France ties Russian APT28 hackers to 12 cyberattacks on French orgs

Pro-Russia hacktivists bombard Dutch public orgs with DDoS attacks

DarkReading has:

Putin’s Cyberattacks on Ukraine Rise 70%, With Little Effect

Adversaries Are Toying With US Networks & DC Is Short on Answers

Billbug Expands Cyber-Espionage Campaign in Southeast Asia

The Register reports:

China now America’s number one cyber threat – US must get up to speed

Open source text editor poisoned with malware to target Uyghur users

Big Media

NPR reports:

Corporation for Public Broadcasting sues Trump after he tries to fire board members

The Daily Beast reports:

MAGA Billionaire Leads L.A. Times to Lose $50 Million

Ars Technica reports:

CBS owner Paramount reportedly intends to settle Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit

Big Tech

Semafor reports:

The group chats that changed America

The Guardian reports:

Meta faces Ghana lawsuits over impact of extreme content on moderators

Meta slowest to remove scam content, says City watchdog

TechCrunch reports:

Report finds Meta’s celebrity-voiced chatbots could discuss sex with minors

OpenAI is fixing a ‘bug’ that allowed minors to generate erotic conversations

404 Media has:

Researchers Secretly Ran a Massive, Unauthorized AI Persuasion Experiment on Reddit Users

Mbin or PieFed, peeps.

Reddit Issuing ‘Formal Legal Demands’ Against Researchers Who Conducted Secret AI Experiment on Users

This Is Palantir’s Justification for Building ICE’s Master Database

Instagram’s AI Chatbots Lie About Being Licensed Therapists

The Markup reports:

Kids should avoid AI companion bots—under force of law, assessment says

The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:

Report – In Deep Trouble: Surfacing Tech-Powered Sexual Harassment in K-12 Schools

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Lawfare covers:

Advancing Secure by Design through Security Research

404 Media reports:

The Age of Realtime Deepfake Fraud Is Here

The Markup reports:

How California sent residents’ personal health data to LinkedIn

BleepingComputer reports:

Hackers ramp up scans for leaked Git tokens and secrets

FBI shares massive list of 42,000 LabHost phishing domains

Tech Policy Press reports:

Reverse Keyword Search Warrants and the Threat to Online Privacy

The Jacobin reports:

Big Tech Wants Free Rein to Sell Your Data

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #114

Fosstodon has more on its drama:

An Intro/Update From Gina

ActivityPub for WordPress announces:

V5.8.0 – If it’s on the Fediverse, you can embed it.

ActivityPods shares:

Key learnings from building social apps with ActivityPods

Forgejo has:

Forgejo monthly update – April 2025

The Social Web Foundation has:

Steps Forward in Long-form Text

Mastodon is:

Evolving the Team

Matthew Tift has:

Finding an Ethical Path Through Social Media: Why I Choose Mastodon

PieFed has:

PieFed development update Apr 2025 – S3, OAuth, Federation retry queue, Stripe

NodeBB has:

NodeBB v4.3.0 — Remote Categories are a go!

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

WinBuzzer reports:

Bluesky’s Decentralized Network Faces Major Outage Caused by Centralized Servers

The Internet Review asks:

Where Does Bluesky Go from Here? What is the Bluesky of 2036?

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#114 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #NodeBB #PieFed #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1772