News

Saturday 2025-12-13

02:00 PM

The Measles Outbreak In South Carolina Is Growing [Techdirt]

I’m certain some people are getting tired of this refrain, but I’m going to keep repeating it to make the point: we shouldn’t have to talk about measles in this country in 2025. This is a disease that had been officially put in elimination status for America over two decades ago. We were done with this, thanks in large part to a dedicated campaign of MMR vaccinations and a government that advocated for those same vaccinations. It was after that when the anti-vaxxer campaigns really began to spring up. RFK Jr. was, of course, one of, if not the, leading voices in that movement.

Now that he is in charge of American health, I suppose it’s not surprising to see measles included in a number of diseases that are raging when they shouldn’t be. We recently talked about an outbreak currently going in South Carolina, which itself originated from the Texas outbreak earlier in the year. Well, that outbreak is getting worse, and health officials are suggesting it will continue getting even worse for some time.

A measles outbreak that began in South Carolina at the start of October is showing no signs of slowing as officials on Tuesday reported 27 new cases since Friday. Those cases bring the outbreak total to 111.

In an update on Tuesday, South Carolina’s health department suggested the spread is far from over. Of the state’s 27 new cases, 16 were linked to exposure at a church, the Way of Truth Church in Inman. And amid the new cases, new exposures were identified at Inman Intermediate School. That’s on top of exposures announced Friday at four other schools in the region, which led to well over 100 students being quarantined.

The end result is that there are, as of this writing, over 250 people quarantining. All of them reportedly are both unvaccinated for measles and have been recently exposed to the disease. If any appreciable percentage of those in quarantine end up ill, and I have no doubt that will happen, it could mean that there is a much larger pre-symptom spread that occurred, which itself will lead to even more infections. That how infectious diseases work, after all, and there are few if any diseases as infectious as measles.

And these are, of course, in counties and areas where there are both relatively low vaccination rates and a very high rate of those seeking religious exemptions from vaccination requirements.

The two counties’ low vaccination rates are coupled with high rates of religious exemptions. Spartanburg has the state’s highest rate, with 8.2 percent of students exempt from the school vaccination requirement based on religious beliefs. Neighboring Greenville has a religious vaccination exemption rate of 5.3 percent.

It’s very interesting just how much one god or another enjoys infecting their believers with measles.

This continues to be a problem nation wide. We’re quickly approaching 2,000 (!!!!!) confirmed cases of measles this year, blowing past total case counts for the last several decades. More undiagnosed cases certainly exist. We’re going to blow way past that 2,000 number as well, in no small part thanks to this outbreak in South Carolina.

Measles is a horrible disease. Just get your damned shots.

11:00 AM

How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network To Surveil Protesters And Activists [Techdirt]

It’s no secret that 2025 has given Americans plenty to protest about. But as news cameras showed protesters filling streets of cities across the country, law enforcement officers—including U.S. Border Patrol agents—were quietly watching those same streets through different lenses: Flock Safety automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that tracked every passing car.

Through an analysis of 10 months of nationwide searches on Flock Safety’s servers, we discovered that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches through Flock’s national network of surveillance data in connection with protest activity. In some cases, law enforcement specifically targeted known activist groups, demonstrating how mass surveillance technology increasingly threatens our freedom to demonstrate.

Flock Safety provides ALPR technology to thousands of law enforcement agencies. The company installs cameras throughout their jurisdictions, and these cameras photograph every car that passes, documenting the license plate, color, make, model and other distinguishing characteristics. This data is paired with time and location, and uploaded to a massive searchable database. Flock Safety encourages agencies to share the data they collect broadly with other agencies across the country. It is common for an agency to search thousands of networks nationwide even when they don’t have reason to believe a targeted vehicle left the region.

Via public records requests, EFF obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the 50501 protests in February, the Hands Off protests in April, the No Kings protests in June and October, and other protests in between.

The Tulsa Police Department in Oklahoma was one of the most consistent users of Flock Safety’s ALPR system for investigating protests, logging at least 38 such searches. This included running searches that corresponded to a protest against deportation raids in February, a protest at Tulsa City Hall in support of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil in March, and the No Kings protest in June. During the most recent No Kings protests in mid-October, agencies such as the Lisle Police Department in Illinois, the Oro Valley Police Department in Arizona, and the Putnam County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Office all ran protest-related searches.

While EFF and other civil liberties groups argue the law should require a search warrant for such searches, police are simply prompted to enter text into a “reason” field in the Flock Safety system. Usually this is only a few words–or even just one.

In these cases, that word was often just “protest.”

Crime does sometimes occur at protests, whether that’s property damage, pick-pocketing, or clashes between groups on opposite sides of a protest. Some of these searches may have been tied to an actual crime that occurred, even though in most cases officers did not articulate a criminal offense when running the search. But the truth is, the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest.

Search and Dissent

2025 was an unprecedented year of street action. In June and again in October, thousands across the country mobilized under the banner of the “No Kings” movement—marches against government overreach, surveillance, and corporate power. By some estimates, the October demonstrations ranked among the largest single-day protests in U.S. history, filling the streets from Washington, D.C., to Portland, OR.

EFF identified 19 agencies that logged dozens of searches associated with the No Kings protests in June and October 2025. In some cases the “No Kings” was explicitly used, while in others the term “protest” was used but coincided with the massive protests.

Law Enforcement Agencies that Ran Searches Corresponding with “No Kings” Rallies
* Anaheim Police Department, Calif.
* Arizona Department of Public Safety
* Beaumont Police Department, Texas
* Charleston Police Department, SC
* Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Fla.
* Georgia State Patrol
* Lisle Police Department, Ill.
* Little Rock Police Department, Ark.
* Marion Police Department, Ohio
* Morristown Police Department, Tenn.
* Oro Valley Police Department, Ariz.
* Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, Tenn.
* Richmond Police Department, Va.
* Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, Calif.
* Salinas Police Department, Calif.
* San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office, Calif.
* Spartanburg Police Department, SC
* Tempe Police Department, Ariz.
* Tulsa Police Department, Okla.
* US Border Patrol

For example:

In Washington state, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office listed “no kings” as the reason for three searches on June 15, 2025 [Note: date corrected]. The agency queried 95 camera networks, looking for vehicles matching the description of “work van,” “bus” or “box truck.”
In Texas, the Beaumont Police Department ran six searches related to two vehicles on June 14, 2025, listing “KINGS DAY PROTEST” as the reason. The queries reached across 1,774 networks.
In California, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office ran a single search for a vehicle across 711 networks, logging “no king” as the reason.
In Arizona, the Tempe Police Department made three searches for “ATL No Kings Protest” on June 15, 2025 searching through 425 networks. “ATL” is police code for “attempt to locate.” The agency appears to not have been looking for a particular plate, but for any red vehicle on the road during a certain time window.

But the No Kings protests weren’t the only demonstrations drawing law enforcement’s digital dragnet in 2025.

For example:

In Nevada’s state capital, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office ran three searches that correspond to the February 50501 Protests against DOGE and the Trump administration. The agency searched for two vehicles across 178 networks with “protest” as the reason.
In Florida, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office logged “protest” for five searches that correspond to a local May Day rally.
In Alabama, the Homewood Police Department logged four searches in early July 2025 for three vehicles with “PROTEST CASE” and “PROTEST INV.” in the reason field. The searches, which probed 1,308 networks, correspond to protests against the police shooting of Jabari Peoples.
In Texas, the Lubbock Police Department ran two searches for a Tennessee license plate on March 15 that corresponds to a rally to highlight the mental health impact of immigration policies. The searches hit 5,966 networks, with the logged reason “protest veh.”
In Michigan, Grand Rapids Police Department ran five searches that corresponded with the Stand Up and Fight Back Rally in February. The searches hit roughly 650 networks, with the reason logged as “Protest.”

Some agencies have adopted policies that prohibit using ALPRs for monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment. Yet many officers probed the nationwide network with terms like “protest” without articulating an actual crime under investigation.

In a few cases, police were using Flock’s ALPR network to investigate threats made against attendees or incidents where motorists opposed to the protests drove their vehicle into crowds. For example, throughout June 2025, an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer logged three searches for “no kings rock threat,” and a Wichita (Kan.) Police Department officer logged 22 searches for various license plates under the reason “Crime Stoppers Tip of causing harm during protests.”

Even when law enforcement is specifically looking for vehicles engaged in potentially criminal behavior such as threatening protesters, it cannot be ignored that mass surveillance systems work by collecting data on everyone driving to or near a protest—not just those under suspicion.

Border Patrol’s Expanding Reach

As U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), ICE, and other federal agencies tasked with immigration enforcement have massively expanded operations into major cities, advocates for immigrants have responded through organized rallies, rapid-response confrontations, and extended presences at federal facilities.

USBP has made extensive use of Flock Safety’s system for immigration enforcement, but also to target those who object to its tactics. In June, a few days after the No Kings Protest, USBP ran three searches for a vehicle using the descriptor “Portland Riots.”

USBP also used the Flock Safety network to investigate a motorist who had “extended his middle finger” at Border Patrol vehicles that were transporting detainees. The motorist then allegedly drove in front of one of the vehicles and slowed down, forcing the Border Patrol vehicle to brake hard. An officer ran seven searches for his plate, citing “assault on agent” and “18 usc 111,” the federal criminal statute for assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. The individual was charged in federal court in early August.

USBP had access to the Flock system during a trial period in the first half of 2025, but the company says it has since paused the agency’s access to the system. However, Border Patrol and other federal immigration authorities have been able to access the system’s data through local agencies who have run searches on their behalf or even lent them logins.

Targeting Animal Rights Activists

Law enforcement’s use of Flock’s ALPR network to surveil protesters isn’t limited to large-scale political demonstrations. Three agencies also used the system dozens of times to specifically target activists from Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an animal-rights organization known for using civil disobedience tactics to expose conditions at factory farms.

Delaware State Police queried the Flock national network nine times in March 2025 related to DxE actions, logging reasons such as “DxE Protest Suspect Vehicle.” DxE advocates told EFF that these searches correspond to an investigation the organization undertook of a Mountaire Farms facility.

Additionally, the California Highway Patrol logged dozens of searches related to a “DXE Operation” throughout the day on May 27, 2025. The organization says this corresponds with an annual convening in California that typically ends in a direct action. Participants leave the event early in the morning, then drive across the state to a predetermined but previously undisclosed protest site. Also in May, the Merced County Sheriff’s Office in California logged two searches related to “DXE activity.”

As an organization engaged in direct activism, DxE has experienced criminal prosecution for its activities, and so the organization told EFF they were not surprised to learn they are under scrutiny from law enforcement, particularly considering how industrial farmers have collected and distributed their own intelligence to police.

The targeting of DxE activists reveals how ALPR surveillance extends beyond conventional and large-scale political protests to target groups engaged in activism that challenges powerful industries. For animal-rights activists, the knowledge that their vehicles are being tracked through a national surveillance network undeniably creates a chilling effect on their ability to organize and demonstrate.

Fighting Back Against ALPR

ALPR systems are designed to capture information on every vehicle that passes within view. That means they don’t just capture data on “criminals” but on everyone, all the time—and that includes people engaged in their First Amendment right to publicly dissent. Police are sitting on massive troves of data that can reveal who attended a protest, and this data shows they are not afraid to use it.

Our analysis only includes data where agencies explicitly mentioned protests or related terms in the “reason” field when documenting their search. It’s likely that scores more were conducted under less obvious pretexts and search reasons. According to our analysis, approximately 20 percent of all searches we reviewed listed vague language like “investigation,” “suspect,” and “query” in the reason field. Those terms could well be cover for spying on a protest, an abortion prosecution, or an officer stalking a spouse, and no one would be the wiser–including the agencies whose data was searched. Flock has said it will now require officers to select a specific crime under investigation, but that can and will also be used to obfuscate dubious searches.

For protestors, this data should serve as confirmation that ALPR surveillance has been and will be used to target activities protected by the First Amendment. Depending on your threat model, this means you should think carefully about how you arrive at protests, and explore options such as by biking, walking, carpooling, taking public transportation, or simply parking a little further away from the action. Our Surveillance Self-Defense project has more information on steps you could take to protect your privacy when traveling to and attending a protest.

For local officials, this should serve as another example of how systems marketed as protecting your community may actually threaten the values your communities hold most dear. The best way to protect people is to shut down these camera networks.

Everyone should have the right to speak up against injustice without ending up in a database.

Originally posted to the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

A Hurl The Heinz Day for the White House [The Status Kuo]

It’s hard to imagine how yesterday could have gone worse for the Trump regime. From the Indiana legislature to the federal courts to Capitol Hill, the White House and its lackeys were pummeled into the dust, their schemes and plans foiled and their tails between their legs.

Taken together, the broad and varied losses point to a rather surprising assessment: Trump is fast becoming a lame duck president, not even one year into his second term. If that continues and he remains mostly checked out, the consequences could be disastrous for the GOP, especially as they realize the environment has shifted to “every coward and grifter for themselves.”

It’s a delightful Schadenfriday, so let’s enjoy this bounty of Trump’s humiliations, even if the banquet tablecloth is now amply spattered with ketchup.

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Hoosier daddy?!

Kudos to Pete Buttigieg who was one of the few who confidently predicted that, with enough outcry from the public, the plan would go down to defeat.

Despite a massive pressure campaign from the White House, which included two visits by JD Vance (oooh, scary!), calls from Speaker Mike Johnson (oooh, trembling!), and daily rants by Trump on social media (oooh, yawn…) state senators in Indiana voted overwhelmingly yesterday to block a Trump-backed redistricting plan.

The proposed map would have eliminated the state’s last remaining Democratic congressional seats, transforming a 7-2 Indiana congressional delegation into a 9-0 one and endangering plans by the Democrats to retake the House majority in next year’s midterm elections. As the vote on the new proposed map drew near, lawmakers faced increasing threats to their own safety but stayed the course. Politico noted, “The hesitant local lawmakers held out in spite of pipe bomb threats, unsolicited pizza deliveries to their personal addresses and swattings of their homes.”

Even their family members felt the intense political pressure. CNN reported on one state senator’s experience:

Jean Leising spoke at a breakfast this fall at her 8th grade grandson’s school. Hours later, when she was set to give him a ride home from basketball practice, he bashfully told her that his entire team had received text messages about her that day — “and they were all bad.”
Recounting the moment to CNN shortly after she joined 20 other Republican state senators in rejecting President Donald Trump’s redistricting push, Leising said she laughed the moment off with her grandson — but that it ultimately led to her opposing the president.
“Boy, when I got home that night, that’s when I decided,” said Leising, a 76-year-old grandmother of eight, first elected to the Senate in 1988. “I was angry. So the next day, I said, ‘I’ve got to talk about this.’ Because this is over the top. This shouldn’t be the way it was.”

Trump also threatened to withhold federal funds from the state if the senators didn’t go along. Heritage Action, an arm of the Heritage Foundation, issued an open threat on social media:

President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state.
Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.
#PassTheMap

But the pressure campaign backfired— bigly. In his floor speech in support of his “no” vote, GOP state Sen. Greg Goode blasted the tactics. “The forces that define vitriolic political affairs in places outside of Indiana have been gradually and now very blatantly infiltrat(ing) the political affairs in Indiana.” He continued, “Misinformation. Cruel social media posts over the top pressure from within the state house and outside, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends, we’re better than this.”

According to Democracy Docket, 11 GOP state senators faced death threats over their hesitancy to vote for the wipe-out gerrymander.

The move also faced huge outcry from the public as voters who would be disenfranchised by the new map flooded lawmakers’ offices with calls and emails, and vocal protests occurred at the state legislature.

In the end, the vote wasn’t even close. A full 21 Republican senators defied Trump, joining 10 Democrats to send the bill down to defeat 31-19. Commenting on the vote, Secretary Buttigieg, who served many years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, observed of the senators, “To be clear, they didn’t stop being Republicans. This is a conservative state. These are conservative legislators. But they figured out that the right thing to do and the smart thing to do was to say no to the White House, no to Donald Trump, and no to JD Vance.”

Trump tried to downplay the loss even while issuing threats upon those responsible, including top Republican state senators Rod Bray, who oversaw the redistricting effort, blaming them for his humiliation. Per Politico, Trump told reporters yesterday,

“Bray, whatever his name is,” Trump said, threatening to “certainly support anybody that wants to go against him,” and reasoning that he had “done a tremendous disservice.”
“It’s funny ’cause I won Indiana all three times by a landslide, and I wasn’t working on it very hard,” Trump said, despite his team’s well-documented involvement in the matter.

House Speaker Johnson echoed Trump’s awkward denial. Asked if the Indiana GOP’s rejection of the Trump map shows his grip is weakening and that he is now a lame duck, Speaker Johnson responded, “He is not a lame-duck. He’s the most powerful person of this generation.” (Here’s some unsolicited communications advice, Moses: Don’t repeat the bad part of the question.)

“He did not put a major pressure campaign,” Johnson added, notwithstanding Trump’s threats of primaries, funding cuts and political retribution.

I want to end this section with some uplifting words from Pete Buttigieg, who really led on the effort to defeat this map in his home state.

No detention, no indictment (again)

Two notable targets of Trump’s racism and ire got him a pair of pokes in the eye yesterday.

First, a federal judge ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia freed from ICE custody citing misrepresentations to the court by federal authorities. Per Bloomberg’s Zoe Tilman, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from a US immigration detention facility shortly before 5pm today and headed home to Maryland, his lawyer confirmed, after a federal judge ruled this morning that the Trump administration lacked valid legal grounds to keep him in custody.”

Not only did Judge Paula Xinis order him released, she blasted the Trump regime for its misconduct in her court. As Kyle Cheney of Politico reported, “Judge Xinis said the administration misrepresented Costa Rica’s willingness to accept Abrego Garcia and also failed to produce a “final order of removal” necessary to deport him at all.

In another federal courtroom, a grand jury, now for the second time, declined to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on trumped-up mortgage fraud charges. The New York Times header on the news noted, “It was a striking rejection of the administration’s retribution campaign.”

As investigative journalist Allison Gill noted, “This is actually the fourth time Trump has failed to indict Letitia James,” once you count Erik Siebert’s refusal to bring charges, the disqualification of Lindsey Halligan from the case, the next attempt by a new grand jury, and now this one.

At this point, these Keystone Klan efforts are just embarrassing.

Stumble then flee

Trump’s lackeys were back before an energized set of Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill. And it made for some great moments that have since gone viral.

The FBI witness, Michael Glasheen, provided one of those. It was something of a surprise because Glasheen wasn’t viewed, at least until yesterday, as someone who had drunk the MAGA kool-aid. It underscored what the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson has been saying for years: Everything Trump Touches Dies. As MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian noted, “Remarkable moment. Glasheen is a well regarded career agent. Lots of his former colleagues are scratching their heads over these comments.”

The comments came out of questioning by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), whom you may recall co-chaired the January 6 Committee with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney. Glasheen claimed “antifa” was the biggest immediate threat the U.S. now faces from domestic terrorism. Right…

So Thompson asked him some very basic questions, and he got Glasheen to concede, through unresponsive sputtering and then awkward silence, that he didn’t know where its headquarters were or how many members it had. That would be important things to discover, one would think, if antifa truly posed an imminent domestic terror threat.

The exchange was remarkable, and the transcript summary doesn’t give it justice, so be sure to watch the clip itself:

The humiliation wasn’t complete yet for the Trump folks. Kristi Noem was up, too, and one point the Homeland Security Secretary falsely claimed her department had never deported veterans. So in a moment made for the internet (nice messaging work, Democrats!) a deported U.S. veteran appeared on livestream to refute that. Here is that moment, at the end of which Noem commits to reviewing his case.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) took Noem to task over her deporting people who were lawfully applying for asylum and whose cases were still pending. She tried to place the blame on Joe Biden (this is apparently the GOP strategy everywhere now) but Goldman wouldn’t have it.

By the time Noem was set to go before Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX), whom many here have supported with donations as an embattled redistricted Texas Democrat (thank you!), she was ready to run. And in fact, she did, fleeing the hearing early citing a FEMA meeting conflict (even though that meeting had been canceled).

Johnson remarked humorously on Noem’s departure that she must have been scared of her questions, and Noem was heckled by observers on her way out.

Political oddsmakers are starting to bet that Noem isn’t long for her job. And based on her performance yesterday, she may not get to cosplay for national security and ride around in that DHS jet for much longer.

Trump and the Golden discharge

Apologies for that visual from the header, but the joke was sitting right there.

Earlier this year, Trump sought to eliminate certain union job protections for federal workers. As NBC reported,

Trump signed an executive order this year terminating collective bargaining with federal agencies tied to national security, citing authority under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. That law makes exceptions to organizing and collective bargaining for “agencies or units within an agency which has as a primary function intelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
The order in March affected the departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice and Commerce and part of Homeland Security focused on border security.

But today, the GOP-led House voted to reinstate those collective bargaining rights thanks to a discharge petition introduced by Democrat Jared Golden of Maine. This was the second discharge petition to successfully circumvent Speaker Mike Johnson and take a matter directly to the floor for a vote. It passed 231-195 with 20 Republicans joining all Democrats in favor of it.

“This is solidarity in action. I’m proud of the bipartisan coalition who passed this bill,” Golden tweeted on Thursday. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), considered a “centrist” Republican, concurred. He posted that the measure “restores something fundamental: the right of public servants to be heard, respected, and represented in their workplace,” and urged the Senate to “finish the job.”

Zooming out, this is a humiliation both for Trump and his puppet speaker, Mike Johnson. The discharge petition represents a loss of control for Johnson of his own conference and of action on the floor.

The Trump high is wearing off

When Trump started the year, he was riding high and pushing hard. He claimed a mandate out of a close election, and used it to target federal employees, law abiding undocumented immigrants, political enemies, and even democracy itself with an aggressive plan to steal the midterms through mid-decade gerrymandering of red state maps.

But his midterm plans are now in shambles, federal courts are calling out his Justice Department and freeing detained immigrants, grand juries are refusing to play along with his politicized prosecutions, his officials are floundering in their jobs, and his own Republican-led Congress is rebuking him.

Trump is looking like a weak second-term lame duck who is untethered from the political process and whom others are now prepared to ignore despite his excessive shouting and threats. That doesn’t normally happen within the first year of any second term presidency, so it is notable that Trump is losing his grip on power before 2025 is even over.

If history is any guide, Trump’s next moves will be even more over the top as he seeks to reassert his relevance and turn the headlines his way. Democrats understand this, which is why they are gearing up with more Epstein file releases while they hammer him on affordability, especially soaring healthcare costs.

In the meanwhile, keep an eye on what the rest of the GOP is doing. If there’s anything self-serving politicians do well, it is knowing when to jump ship. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) already did, and more may soon follow. Those who are left will fight over the scraps and try to claim Trump’s mantle if it looks like the king is going down.

And no, I don’t mean on Bubba.

10:00 AM

Kanji of the Day: 窓 [Kanji of the Day]

窓

✍11

小6

window, pane

ソウ　ス

まど　てんまど　けむだし

窓口 (まどぐち) — counter
同窓会 (どうそうかい) — alumni association
相談窓口 (そうだんまどぐち) — inquiry counter
窓ガラス (まどガラス) — windowpane
車窓 (しゃそう) — train window
同窓生 (どうそうせい) — graduate of the same school
窓際 (まどぎわ) — window
窓辺 (まどべ) — by the window
ガラス窓 (ガラスまど) — glass window
窓枠 (まどわく) — window frame

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 粒 [Kanji of the Day]

粒

✍11

中学

grains, drop, counter for tiny particles

リュウ

つぶ

大粒 (おおつぶ) — large drop (rain, sweat, tears, etc.)
粒子 (りゅうし) — particle
一粒 (いちりゅう) — one grain
小粒 (こつぶ) — small grain
素粒子 (そりゅうし) — elementary particle
顆粒 (かりゅう) — granule
米粒 (こめつぶ) — grain of rice
微粒子 (びりゅうし) — corpuscle
粒状 (つぶじょう) — granular
全粒粉 (ぜんりゅうふん) — whole wheat flour

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

09:00 AM

Apples [xkcd.com]

07:00 AM

Trump Pretends To Block State AI Laws; Media Pretends That’s Legal [Techdirt]

The mainstream media just failed a basic civics test so badly that you’d think their brains have been pickled by the kinds of folks who spend all their time on X (oh, wait…). Headlines across major outlets are breathlessly reporting that Donald Trump “blocked states from passing AI laws” with an executive order. Except, that’s not how any of this works, and anyone who stayed awake during middle school social studies should know better.

Look at this:

That’s the New York Times, CNN, CNBC, NBC, and the Guardian all confidently telling their readers that Trump can magically override state sovereignty with a memo. These aren’t fringe blogs—these are supposedly serious news organizations with actual editors who apparently skipped the day they taught how the federal government works. They have failed the most simple journalistic test of “don’t print lies in the newspaper.”

Executive orders aren’t laws. They’re memos. Fancy, official memos that tell federal employees how to do their jobs, but memos nonetheless. You want to change what states can and can’t do? You need this little thing called “Congress” to pass this other little thing called “legislation.” Trump can’t just declare state laws invalid any more than he can declare himself emperor of Mars.

Even the text of the actual executive order admits all this:

My Administration must act with the Congress to ensure that there is a minimally burdensome national standard — not 50 discordant State ones. The resulting framework must forbid State laws that conflict with the policy set forth in this order. That framework should also ensure that children are protected, censorship is prevented, copyrights are respected, and communities are safeguarded. A carefully crafted national framework can ensure that the United States wins the AI race, as we must.

Right there in black and white: “must act with the Congress.” Apparently, someone in the White House briefly remembered how government works, even if the president and the entire mainstream media have forgotten.

And look, I actually do mostly agree that we’d be much better off with a single federal solution here, rather than a bunch of piecemeal (and perhaps conflicting) rules from every state. But, that’s why you actually have to work with Congress, and if there’s anything this Congress has shown over the past 11 months, it’s that it is inherently unable to do anything particularly competently.

Only a few news orgs managed to call out the problems with this executive order. Barron’s rightly noted that there would be “court battles” over the law:

NPR, however, came out and pointed out that this overall executive order probably isn’t legal:

NPR’s right. The order contradicts itself so blatantly it’s almost impressive. First paragraph: “we need Congress.” Rest of the document: “never mind, we’ll just do whatever we want.”

Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall establish an AI Litigation Task Force (Task Force) whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 2 of this order, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing Federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful in the Attorney General’s judgment, including, if appropriate, those laws identified pursuant to section 4 of this order.

You can’t just say that because a law goes against the intent of this executive order that the DOJ can challenge it. That’s not how that works. At all.

But here’s where this gets kinda funny (in a stupid way): that “interstate commerce” language could backfire spectacularly. Almost all state laws trying to regulate the internet—from child safety laws to age verification to the various attempts at content moderation laws—might run afoul of the dormant commerce clause by attempting to regulate interstate commerce if what the admin here claims is true (it’s not really true, but if the Supreme Court buys it…). Courts had been hesitant to use this nuclear option because it would essentially wipe out the entire patchwork of state internet regulation that’s been building for years, and a few decades of work in other areas that hasn’t really been challenged. Also, because they’ve mostly been able to invalidate those laws using the simple and straightforward First Amendment.

If Trump’s DOJ starts aggressively pursuing dormant commerce clause challenges to keep his Silicon Valley donors happy, they might accidentally create precedent that invalidates every state’s attempts to regulate social media, require age verification, or mandate content filtering. Every red state law targeting “Big Tech censorship,” every blue state law pretending to protect kids online—all of it could get swept away by Trump’s own legal strategy.

Wouldn’t that be something? In some ways, it would be hilarious, since I think almost all of these state laws are awful and a mess and waste everyone’s time… but it would certainly put a dent in a ton of efforts by Republicans and Democrats alike. All to keep the AI bros happy.

There’s also some extortion in here:

Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce, through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, shall issue a Policy Notice specifying the conditions under which States may be eligible for remaining funding under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program that was saved through my Administration’s “Benefit of the Bargain” reforms, consistent with 47 U.S.C. 1702(e)-(f). That Policy Notice must provide that States with onerous AI laws identified pursuant to section 4 of this order are ineligible for non-deployment funds, to the maximum extent allowed by Federal law. The Policy Notice must also describe how a fragmented State regulatory landscape for AI threatens to undermine BEAD-funded deployments, the growth of AI applications reliant on high-speed networks, and BEAD’s mission of delivering universal, high-speed connectivity.

We’ve talked about BEAD a lot here. That’s the Biden-era program that poured billions of dollars into broadband investment, which took way too long because Trump’s first FCC had fucked up the allocation process of earlier broadband grants. The Biden admin didn’t want a repeat of that, and thus tasked NTIA with figuring out a better allocation system, which took so long that Trump is back in office.

And rather than figure out the best way to allocate those funds, he’s holding them for ransom, and states that comply with his policy wishes might get it, and those that don’t won’t. It’s hellishly corrupt, but that’s what you get these days.

The other potentially interesting tidbit that is going to create a huge mess is Section 7:

Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission shall, in consultation with the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, issue a policy statement on the application of the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts or practices under 15 U.S.C. 45 to AI models. That policy statement must explain the circumstances under which State laws that require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models are preempted by the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition on engaging in deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce.

This seems like an improper use of the FTC’s power to deal with unfair and deceptive practices, but the Trump administration abusing and twisting laws to get what it wants is kind of standard operating procedure these days.

The real story here isn’t that Trump signed some groundbreaking AI policy—it’s that the entire mainstream media apparatus completely failed to understand the most basic principles of American government. Executive orders aren’t magic spells that override federalism. They’re memos.

That said, the potential for this legal strategy to completely backfire is darkly amusing. If Trump’s DOJ successfully argues that state AI laws violate the dormant commerce clause, they’ll have handed every future administration—and every tech company—a nuclear weapon against state internet regulation. Every privacy law, every age verification requirement, every attempt by states to regulate online platforms could get vaporized by precedent that Trump’s own lawyers established.

It wouldn’t surprise me if one of the tech bro folks in and around the administration got that dropped into this executive order without much of the administration realizing it.

Google Removes Sci-Hub Domains from U.S. Search Results Due to Dated Court Order [TorrentFreak]

In 2017, American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the field of chemistry, won a lawsuit against Sci-Hub and its operator, Alexandra Elbakyan.

The ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ had failed to appear at a Virginia federal court, resulting in an easy win for the publisher and a $4.8 million default judgment award for damages.

A Broad Anti-Piracy Injunction (2018)

More important, perhaps, was the broad permanent injunction that the Virginia federal court signed off on in 2017. This order effectively gave ACS free rein to take down existing and newly registered Sci-Hub domain names.

The injunction also required all parties “in active concert or participation” with Sci-Hub to “cease facilitating access” to these domain names, including search engines, hosting providers, ISPs, and domain name registrars, the order clarified.

From the 2018 injunction

On paper, this injunction enabled ACS to request American ISPs and search engines to ‘block’ existing and future Sci-Hub domains. However, there was no sign that the publisher was doing so. Aside from a few suspended domains, Sci-Hub remained widely accessible.

Whether ACS did not feel the need to enforce the order against search engines and other intermediaries or if these companies actively objected to the requested actions was unknown. And as time passed, the injunction became a distant memory, at least for a few years.

Google Complies with Zombie Injunction? (2025)

Earlier this week we spotted a unique request in the Lumen Database, where the 2018 injunction was cited. The notice in question asks Google to deindex 34 (sub)domains linked to Sci-Hub.

None of these domains were referenced in the 2018 injunction but are indeed linked to Sci-Hub. Many of the partially redacted domains appear to be domain variations of the scihubtw.tw mirror network, such as edu.scihubtw.tw and freeus.scihubtw.tw.

Court order notice

It’s surprising to see this type of enforcement seven years after the injunction was issued, but the request is legitimate. Google is certainly taking it seriously and has deindexed these domains from its search results in America. In other countries, the same domains remain accessible.

First “US-Only” Sci-Hub Removals

The December 2 notice was sent by UK law firm Wiggin LLP, which sent a similar request in September this year, targeting a few dozen other Sci-Hub domains. In total, we spotted seven notices, with the earliest dating back to 2022.

The results of these removals are also clearly visible in Google search. Those who search for Sci-Hub in the U.S. will see the following notice at the bottom of the results.

Removed by legal request

It’s not clear why it took five years before ACS urged Google to take action in response to the injunction. However, these removals are similar to Google’s removal of pirate site domains in other countries in response to ISP-blocking orders. Voluntary cooperation by Google was uncovered shortly before ACS first notified the search engine.

“In Active Concert”?

Google’s voluntary cooperation with ISP blocking orders in Australia, the Netherlands, France, the UK, and elsewhere also brings up an important question. Is Google cooperating with the permanent injunction in the U.S. because it feels legally compelled to do so, or is that a voluntary gesture too?

The 2018 injunction requires all parties “in active concert or participation” with Sci-Hub to take action. While search engines are mentioned as an example, Google and other tech companies have previously argued that neutral third-party services are not necessarily “in active concert or participation”.

It is likely that Google maintains this stance, opting to voluntarily comply with orders targeting other third parties. That would mirror its response to site-blocking orders elsewhere.

We contacted Google hoping to hear answers to these questions, but the company did not respond to our request for comment.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

05:00 AM

Rep. Green Again Pounds The Drum On Impeachment, And This Time A Majority Of Democrats March To The Beat [Techdirt]

This week Representative Al Green (Texas) filed another set of impeachment articles against Trump. They didn’t move forward; in fact, they failed an initial vote for Congress to decide to even think about moving them forward. But that impeachment didn’t move forward this time is not the story, because even though it didn’t, pursuing it was hardly for naught. It was, at minimum, an opportunity to get everyone on the record about whether they were in favor of pursuing impeachment against Trump. And the good news is that, importantly, and for the first time, a significant majority of Democrats went on record saying yes.

And at this stage that’s the result that matters. Because it’s a first step to build the momentum necessary so that someday all the Democrats, and even enough Republicans, will be able to get the impeachment effort over the finish line.

Of course, that day has not yet arrived. As it was there were 23 Democrats who still said no to impeachment. (Note: their “no” votes look like “yes” votes, but in this case “yes” meant “yes, let’s ignore these impeachment articles”). But it appears that number was originally going to be higher, suggesting that several “no” votes switched to “present” before the voting finished.

Voting “present,” as Democrat leadership declared it would, is, of course, a cowardly way of handling the question of whether impeachment should be pursued. After all, the oath every member of Congress took compels them to act to end Trump’s presidency as soon as possible. And the rationale that “leadership” cited for why they didn’t want to vote to move impeachment along was nonsense: no extensive investigations and hearings are necessary to chuck him out of office— Trump’s crimes are happening in plain sight. Impeachment can happen immediately, as soon as there are enough votes for it.

On the other hand, the fact that several “no” votes switched to “present” suggests Congress is starting to feel significant political pressure to finally get behind the impeachment effort. Also, voting “present” was a lot less destructive to the impeachment movement than a no vote would have been. So while the 47 “present voters” still chickened out on lending their support to the initiative, at least they didn’t try to sabotage it like so many Democrats had on an earlier occasion when Rep. Green had brought forth impeachment articles, when their “no” votes not only doomed the effort to fail but also kneecapped the overall impeachment movement, instead of letting it build momentum. Whereas this time the momentum survives. And with 140 Democrats now openly saying yes to the idea of impeaching Trump, it signals to those remaining hold-out Democrats, Republicans across the aisle, Senate colleagues, the public, and even Trump himself that comeuppance is at last coming.

And maybe even before the midterms, as exigency requires. Further impeachment articles therefore need to be brought forth again before too long, to keep pounding that drum until no one in Congress will be able to still to turn a deaf ear to the need to get Trump removal from office finally done.

But in the meantime there are two more sets of impeachment articles waiting in the wings, with Rep. Thanedar having drafted impeachment articles against Pete Hegseth and Rep. Stevens bringing them against RFK Jr.

There are so many members of the Trump Administration deserving of immediate ejection from their positions of trust. RFK Jr. and Hegseth aren’t even the only ones with body counts—Noem’s lawless goons and deportations have already caused deaths, as has Rubio’s unlawful closure of USAID, for instance—but RFK Jr. and Hegseth are a good place to start. RFK Jr. is responsible for the premature deaths of countless people due to his war on health science, and Hegseth for his war on everyone else. He’s not just destroyed the military readiness of our nation, leaked secrets to our adversaries, and squandered the nation’s military resources, human and otherwise, but he’s also doing murder and war crimes and making the rest of us accomplices to his atrocities.

With the impeachment articles against the two of them, Congress will now have a chance to clearly and boldly say, “Enough,” and start moving for their removal. And perhaps impeachment may even soon succeed, as RFK and Hegseth’s behavior has raised ire on both sides of the aisle. Impeaching either may not even be a political reach for Republicans, or at least trying to save them not worth the political capital. But even if Republican members of Congress continue to refuse to fulfill their own oversight responsibilities and support impeachment, by at least forcing the issue by filing these articles it forces everyone to make a public choice about whether or not they support removing them from office. Which means there can be a political price paid for that choice if any rep chooses wrong—as if the choice to fire someone like Hegseth or RFK Jr. is one that anyone is likely to regret.

But while their dismissal would be a good beginning to taking back our government from the incompetent monsters currently running it, and, on its own, help protect America from their further destruction, no impeachment of any Trump appointee itself solves the real problem, which is Trump himself. Everything he does endangers us, in such volume that it is simply not possible to address each threat one at a time. It is long past time to strike at the root of all the problems he and his cohorts have caused and evict him from the Oval Office. And while it will obviously take still more time to get there, it is good that Democrats have at last taken the first step.

Daily Deal: 3-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad [Techdirt]

This 3-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad integrates three charging modules for cell phones, headphones, and watches—a maximum power of 15W for cell phone charging, 5W for Airpods charging, and 2.5W for Apple Watch charging. This charging pad can be folded and used as a phone stand. It’s slim and compact, easy to put in your pocket or backpack, and perfect for office and travel. It’s on sale for $35.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

India’s Government Rolls Back Invasive Cell Phone Tracking Mandate 48 Hours After Issuing It [Techdirt]

The government of India — especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi — has never been shy about wanting to know what every one of its billion-plus citizens are up to at any given time.

Not only does the government apparently have access to pretty much every bit of internet traffic generated by its citizens, it has also taken steps to ensure those seeking to avoid this pervasive surveillance won’t be allowed to opt out via VPNs or other options that might make their web surfing a bit less visible.

Modi’s government has also made it clear it doesn’t like American companies that undercut its surveillance efforts by notifying residents that their smartphones may have been compromised by state actors.

Everything went a step further last week. The government of India ordered smartphone providers to preemptively compromise devices sold to the country’s citizens.

India’s government sent a notice to private companies last week giving them 90 days to ensure that a government app was “preinstalled on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India.”

The order said the requirement was meant “to identify and report acts that may endanger telecom cybersecurity.” On Tuesday, the government explained that the app, Sanchar Saathi, was intended to prevent crime, including the theft and smuggling of phones and the call-center fraud that wreaks havoc within India and abroad.

Yeah, that’s fucked up. The government reiterated — even as it slowly walked backwards — that this was just a thing that anyone who didn’t want to be surveilled could easily avoid.

By Tuesday afternoon, the government appeared to be backpedaling. Jyotiraditya Scindia, the minister of communications, said that while “this app exists to protect them from fraud and theft,” it was also “completely optional.”

“If you don’t wish to register, you shouldn’t register and can remove it at any time,” he told reporters outside the Parliament building.

That assertion doesn’t appear to be supported by the facts. According to analysts, the order contained wording that suggested phone providers were expected to ensure the functionality of the government-mandated spyware was “not disabled.”

Not that it matters much at the moment. Less than two days after becoming the subject of international headlines (apparently debuting first at Reuters), the Modi government is scrambling to make this all go away as quickly as possible:

India’s government revoked an order on Wednesday that had directed smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung to install a state-developed and owned security app on all new devices. The move came after two days of criticism from opposition politicians and privacy organizations that the “Sanchar Saathi” app was an effort to snoop on citizens through their phones.

“Government has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers,” India’s Ministry of Communications said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

That’s better. Much better. But it still leaves manufacturers with the option of pre-loading this snitchware app voluntarily, which might be an option some take to score a few points with what is presumably a “regime for life” government headed by a relatively charismatic autocrat.

And while the government is currently getting bashed for attempting to slide this past the populace, it continues to insist it’s the public that’s wrong about this:

While the order for it to be installed universally was revoked, the government continued defending the app on Wednesday, saying the intent had been to “provide access to cybersecurity to all citizens,” and insisting that it was “secure and purely meant to help citizens.”

While the app does allow users to make use of the tracking software to locate lost or stolen phones and/or defend against scammers using fraudulent numbers or online accounts, it was obvious from the secretive rollout that any benefits enjoyed by citizens were just the unavoidable byproduct of an app clearly meant to give the government expanding surveillance capabilities. It’s the sugar-coating on the poison pill. And all the government has to say in defense of its failed ratfuckery is that a rounding error (“2.6 million lost or stolen phones“) in a nation with 1.5 billion cell phones (that would be 0.17% of all phones) outweighs whatever evil it planned to do if it had been able to make this mandate stick.

02:00 AM

DSA-6080-1 chromium - security update [Debian Security]

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-6080-1

01:00 AM

Keeping it open (video version) [F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository]

This Week in F-Droid

TWIF curated on Thursday, 11 Dec 2025, Week 50

F-Droid core

We had great reach with our “F-Droid and Google’s Developer Registration Decree” post and its sequel, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Sideloading”, to raise awareness about the future of Android. But we hope we broke out of our tech-savvy bubble, so everyone hears about what the proposed changes entail, and how F-Droid’s goal, of freedom for all users, is truly the way forward.

But if you didn’t read those yet, or you want an audio/video to go along, our own board member and writer, Marc Prud’hommeaux, recently had an 1 hour interview that covers it.

While the interview is one month old by now, and Google announced some initial modifications to how this will presumably work, we still believe these are not enough and device owners need full control and freedom.

The keepandroidopen.org site has all the info, a call to action and resources so you can make your voice heard.

Community News

Which apps make your top trio? In this 5 minutes post, in French, we get a glimpse of one Luxembourg sysadmins preferences.

39C3: Power Cycles, the 39th Chaos Communication Congress will take place between 27-30 December in CCH Hamburg. The 39C3 Schedule app was updated to 1.73.0 so make sure to have it ready.

ArcaneChat was updated to 2.33.0 to add some fixes and polish. But hidden there in plain site, there’s a boring change “New experimental feature: several addresses per profile” which sounds rather bland, what are profiles anyway? Well… this new option allows one to change the relay (read it as server) used to send and receive messages. This is a nice feature and you might need to read the guide to get the gist on how to switch them. Delta Chat will get updated soon too.

FOSS Warn was updated to 1.0.1 and some issues were fixed for UnifiedPush integration, hence Conversations and forks like Cheogram or monocles chat can be used as distributors again.

MediLog was updated to 3.5.0 and we also added MediLog (Reproducible build) signed by the developer.

Thunderbird Beta for Testers was updated to 16.0b2 and the devs posted their monthly report with the bonus 40+ mins video. Shock news: Material/You is not good enough and will be dropped!

Newly Added Apps

8 more apps were newly added

LinxShare: Share images on your device with others through your self-hosted linx server
LiveGalGame: An amazing app that lets you chat with girls like a GalGame
Lux Alarm: Wake up with light! This alarm can only be turned off when your room is bright
Messages: A fast messaging app designed to make conversations simple and effortless (A fork of QUIK SMS; description and app info will get fixed in the next version)
PlayHex: Play Hex board game online
Poker Payout: Professional poker tournament management with payouts and timers
Running Services Monitor: Monitor running services on your Android device with Shizuku integration
Tensy: Select numbers that sum to ten

Downgraded Apps

1 apps were downgraded

Clock was downgraded from 2.27 to 2.26 as we picked up an unstable version.

Updated Apps

154 more apps were updated

(expand for the full list)

Ad-silence was updated to v0.7.0-prod
Amber was updated to 4.0.3
AnkiDroid: Flashcards was updated to 2.23.0
ANOTHERpass was updated to 2.2.5
Anx Reader was updated to 1.10.1
Audile was updated to 1.13.1
baresip was updated to 73.0.1
baresip+ was updated to 61.0.0
BetterCounter was updated to 5.2.0
Bim! was updated to 13
Birthday Adapter was updated to 3.6
Blichess was updated to 8.0.0+ble2.4.0
Caffeinate was updated to 2.2.0
Calisthenics Memory was updated to 1.11.0
Cartes IGN was updated to 3.4.1
Casio G-Shock Smart Sync was updated to 24.8
Catima — Loyalty Card Wallet was updated to 2.40.0
CClauncher was updated to v9.10.9
Chess was updated to 9.10.1
Contacts was updated to 1.1
Conversations was updated to 2.19.7+free
Daily You was updated to 2.14.3
DAVx⁵ was updated to 4.5.7.1-ose
DayExam was updated to 1.1.0
De1984 was updated to 2.6.0
Deku SMS was updated to 0.68.0
Dnd Toggle was updated to 1.9
DuressKeyboard was updated to 3.5
EasySync was updated to 1.22
Eblan Launcher was updated to 0.2.4-alpha
Emotic was updated to 0.1.11
Ente Photos - Encrypted photo storage was updated to 1.2.28
Exclave was updated to 0.17.4
FaFa Runner was updated to 2.6.0
File Navigator was updated to 0.3.1-fdroid
FitBook was updated to 2.0.34
Flare was updated to 1.1.3
Flexify was updated to 2.1.44
Flip 2 DND was updated to 9.0.0
floccus bookmark sync was updated to 5.8.2
Fluffy was updated to 3.4.1
Forecastie was updated to 1.23
Forkgram was updated to 12.2.6.0
FossWallet was updated to 0.33.0
Fread was updated to 1.7.30
Geo Share was updated to 5.10.0
Giggity was updated to 2.1.5
GitNote was updated to 25.12
GPSLogger was updated to 135
Gridle was updated to 1.19
Grit was updated to 5.5.2
HappyTaxes was updated to 1.0.6
Harmony Music was updated to 1.12.2
Helio was updated to 3.17
HTTP Request Shortcuts was updated to 4.0.0
Infomaniak kDrive was updated to 5.11.3
Infomaniak Mail was updated to 1.22.0
Kahon was updated to 0.19.5
Kakugo was updated to 1.39.3
Kazumi was updated to 1.9.2
kitshn (for Tandoor) was updated to 2.0.0-beta.13
Kwik EFIS was updated to 7.17
Les Pas - Photo Album for Nextcloud was updated to 2.10.5
Library App VideLibri was updated to 2.953
Librera Reader was updated to 9.1.35-fdroid
Linwood Butterfly Nightly was updated to 2.4.2-rc.2
Materialious was updated to 1.12.3
MedTimer was updated to 1.21.0
Mental Math was updated to 18
Minis companion was updated to 1.5.0
MMRL was updated to v34242-release
MonsterMusic was updated to 0.1.59
Mullvad VPN: privacy is a universal right was updated to 2025.11
MusicSearch was updated to 1.83.0
My Expenses was updated to 4.0.5
NATINFo+ was updated to 1.0.0
Nextcloud was updated to 3.35.0 RC2
Nextcloud Cookbook was updated to 0.26.0
Nextcloud Dev was updated to 20251210
NouTube was updated to 0.4.5
ntfy - PUT/POST to your phone was updated to 1.18.0
Nunti was updated to v2.8.1
Obtainium was updated to 1.2.9
OctoDroid was updated to 4.6.15
OMGSoundboard was updated to 21.0
OpenAssistant was updated to 1.2
OpenTopoMap Viewer was updated to 1.25
OpenTracks (Non-reproducible) was updated to v4.24.0irreproducible
OpenTracks (Reproducible build) was updated to v4.24.0
OsmAnd~ was updated to 5.2.13
oxproxion was updated to 2.1.15
Pachli for Mastodon was updated to 3.2.4
PAIesque was updated to 28
Parcel - Pickup code was updated to 1.0.40
PassVault was updated to 1.1.0
PennyWise AI was updated to 2.15.42
Peristyle was updated to v9.4.0
Photok was updated to 2.3.1
PicGuard was updated to 5.1.0
Podcini.X - Podcast instrument was updated to 9.8.0
Polymarket Viewer was updated to 1.29
Privacy Flip was updated to 2.0.8
QRshare was updated to 1.0.22
Quicksy was updated to 2.19.7+free
Quitter was updated to 1.0.100
Resticopia was updated to 0.7.8
RomanDigital was updated to 2.2.1
Roto was updated to 1.0.7
Ruam Mij was updated to 1.2.1
Sapio was updated to 1.10.0
SD Maid 2/SE - System Cleaner was updated to 1.5.6-rc0
Sensa Gram was updated to 1.5.2
Sensor Server was updated to 7.0.0
Sensor Spot was updated to 1.9.0
Sensors2OSC was updated to 0.15.0
ServerBox was updated to 1.0.1276
Shader Editor was updated to 2.35.3
Shattered Pixel Dungeon was updated to 3.3.0
SherpaTTS was updated to 2.9
Simple Keyboard was updated to 6.0-beta3
SimpleXray was updated to 1.10.9
Sound Toggle was updated to 1.2.0
Squeezer was updated to 2.4.0
Standard Notes was updated to 3.201.4
Stepsy: Step Counter was updated to 1.5.8
Super Productivity was updated to 16.5.5
SwatchIt was updated to 0.3.0
Table Habit was updated to 1.22.2
Tailscale was updated to 1.92.1-tfb55d3905-g925ac2f42
Taison was updated to 1.2.0
Tessel – A tile game was updated to 1.0.16
Threema Libre was updated to 6.3.0l
TLSFragment was updated to 4.1.0
Tomato was updated to 1.7.1
Torrent Search was updated to 0.4.4
Tournant was updated to 2.10.4
Traditional T9 was updated to 58.0
Traffic Light was updated to 2.6
Tuta Calendar was updated to 315.251204.0
Tuta Mail was updated to 315.251204.0
Twili Recipes was updated to 0.2.7
Unciv was updated to 4.18.19
Unitto — calculator and unit converter was updated to Titanium yellow
Unstoppable Crypto Wallet was updated to 0.46.2
URnetwork was updated to 2025.12.4
Webview Kiosk was updated to 0.24.42
wger Workout Manager was updated to 1.9.2
whoBIRD was updated to 5.0
Wiki Fronted was updated to r/50562-r-2025-12-08
Wikipedia was updated to r/50562-r-2025-12-08
Xray was updated to 12.0.0
Xtra was updated to 2.52.0
YacGuide Dev was updated to 20251204
聚在工大 was updated to 4.19.0.1

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

Please subscribe to the RSS feed in your favourite RSS application to be updated of new TWIFs when they come up.

You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉

To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.

Friday 2025-12-12

11:00 PM

Politico’s Union Journalists Win Key Ruling In Battle Against Lazy, Undercooked AI [Techdirt]

The rushed integration of half-cooked automation into the already broken U.S. journalism industry simply isn’t going very well. There have been just countless examples where affluent media owners rushed to embrace automation and LLMs (usually to cut corners and undermine labor) with disastrous impact, resulting in lots of plagiarism, completely false headlines, and a giant, completely avoidable mess.

Earlier this year, we noted how Politico was among the major media companies rushing to embrace AI without really thinking things through or ensuring the technology actually works first. They’ve implemented “AI” systems –without transparently informing staff — that generate articles rife with all sorts of gibberish and falsehoods (this Brian Merchant post is a must read to understand the scope).

Politico management also recently introduced another AI “report builder” for premium Politico PRO subscribers that’s supposed to offer a breakdown of existing Politico reporter analysis of complicated topics. But here too the automation constantly screws up, conflating politicians and generating all sorts of errors that, for some incoherent reason, aren’t competently reviewed by Politico editors.

Actual human Politico journalists are understandably not pleased with any of this, especially because the nontransparent introduction of the new automation was in direct violation of the editorial union’s contract struck just last year. So unionized Politico employees spent much of this year battling with Politico via arbitration. And they just won a key battle in the fight, the first of its kind:

“The arbitrator ruled that Politico officially violated the collective bargaining agreement by failing to provide notice, human oversight, or an opportunity for the workers to bargain over the use of AI in the newsroom.

“If the goal is speed and the cost is accuracy and accountability,” the arbitrator wrote in his decision, “AI is the clear winner. If accuracy and accountability is the baseline, then AI, as used in these instances, cannot yet rival the hallmarks of human output, which are accuracy and reliability.” He also confirmed that the report-building product contained “erroneous and even absurd” AI-generated materials.

Politico leadership have made all sorts of crazy claims in the run up to this ruling, including Politico deputy editor-in-chief Joe Schatz claiming that AI can’t and shouldn’t be held to the same ethical standards as actual journalists, because it was technically created by programmers and not journalists.

In a statement, unionized Politico workers hope this sets a precedent at other news organizations:

“We are going to continue holding the line. This ruling is a great example of the important role unions play in ensuring workers have a say over working conditions–including the rollout of new technologies. I hope it emboldens our colleagues at other news shops across the country fighting AI deployments that similarly degrade ethical standards, and I hope it sends a message to managers at POLITICO and news executives everywhere that adopting new technology cannot come at the cost of accuracy and accountability.”

These aren’t “AI doomers.” They’re people who believe AI can be a useful tool, they just want it implemented competently and transparently, within the lines of existing union agreements.

There are, of course, caveats. Most U.S. journalists aren’t protected by a union, and we live in a country where labor regulators are being steadily lobotomized. And Politico itself, owned by yet another weird rich, Trump-friendly zealot, engages in a lot of false equivalency (“both sides,” “view from nowhere”) journalism with or without the help of undercooked automation.

By and large it’s pretty clear what the extraction class ownership of U.S. media want to build: a lazy, badly-automated, clickbait engagement ouroboros that shits out ad engagement and subscription money without the pesky need to pay so many annoying humans for things like health insurance. A system that basically just props up all of billionaire-ownerships’ laziest priors without interference by the plebs.

But, if nothing else, it’s refreshing to see some effective, organized resistance against the rushed implementation of under-cooked automation by the kind of rich assholes for whom informed consensus and the public interest are the very last thing on their minds.

10:00 PM

Looking at pareidolia [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

There’s a face on Mars.

Ever since Viking took this photo fifty years ago, some people have been sure–certain–that it clearly shows a face on the planet’s surface. Of course, once we had a high resolution image from a later mission, all resemblance to a face went away.

Human beings need a story, especially when we’re trying to understand something we haven’t already classified. And so we see faces in clouds, in grilled cheese sandwiches and on other planets.

We do it with song lyrics that don’t make sense and with technology we don’t really understand as well.

Some of the drivers are:

Fear of the unknown.

Novelty and the arrival of something new.

Unpredictable inputs that seem to assert some sort of intentional action and agency.

It’s no wonder, then, that LLMs and other forms of AI lead to waves of pareidolia. We ascribe a gender, a tone of voice and most of all, intent to these computer programs that are doing nothing but math. We imagine that they are lying to us, manipulating us and getting ready to take over the world.

If imagining that there’s a little person inside helps you use the tool better, that’s fine.

But made up stories that we invented to deal with our fear often make it worse. They distract us from the hard work of understanding what’s actually happening.

When the details become more clear, we’ll then have to unlearn all the personification we insisted on learning.

09:00 PM

MKVCinemas: ACE Anti-Piracy Coalition Takes Credit For Sudden Shutdown [TorrentFreak]

After spending just 20 minutes watching piracy-related uploads on Instagram during the past few weeks, the hard reality of the Indian piracy scene is impossible to ignore.

In the wake of enforcement action against iBomma, a sprawling streaming platform supposedly blocked back in 2022, it transpires that people refer to the site’s operator using his real name. The media describe Immadi Ravi as a piracy ‘kingpin’, yet to his hyper-enthusiastic fan base, he’s somewhat of a hero, someone to admire and defend.

Since the 39-year-old is reportedly still behind bars following his arrest at the hands of the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police during November, the defense aspect may yet find itself put to the test.

iBomma Down, Bappam TV Down, Other Platforms Too

On November 15, Telangana police arrested Ravi after reportedly monitoring his activities for the previous three months. The authorities say he operated iBomma from the Caribbean but managed to apprehend him in Kukatpally, Hyderabad, after learning he’d be flying in from France. Ravi reportedly fled the country on October 1 after a case was filed against him.

At a post-arrest press conference attended by movie suits, directors, producers, and actors, the name and reputation of iBomma founder were placed on the line and then dragged through the mud.

The claim that Ravi had amassed the personal data of around 5 million users, provided a backdrop of data theft and cybercrime to which other details were soon revealed.

Ravi’s 21,000-title pirate movie library was slammed for its major contribution to the losses suffered by the industry. In 2024 alone, losses reportedly amounted to 3,700 crore; in U.S. dollars, that’s a significant amount of money: US$428 million, give or take.

Getting Rich, Making Mistakes

A student of computer science, Ravi reportedly pocketed Rs 30 crore (US$3.2 million) for himself, deposited in 35 bank accounts, held in cryptocurrency, and otherwise spent to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Yet, while massively successful, police implied that he wasn’t universally smart. When allegedly purchasing the initial iBomma domain from Njalla, the privacy-focused registrar founded by The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, Ravi reportedly provided his real personal details and paid using a personal debit card.

“Since he used his own credentials, he cannot deny ownership of the domain,” ACP Srinivasulu said, perhaps forgetting that when acquiring a domain from Njalla, the service retains legal ownership – customers simply get to use them.

With the two named pirate operations out of action, other sites reportedly went dark too. That’s not unusual, since panic tends to spread rapidly when police start knocking on doors. In the early stages, it can be impossible for outsiders to differentiate between cautious downtime and the effects of a full blown raid. That doesn’t prevent people from trying to connect the dots, however.

iBomma and Bappam TV – Or Potentially More?

Describing a globe-trotting life and visits to new countries every week, Hyderabad Additional Commissioner of Police told reporters that Ravi regularly traveled overseas, including to meet with representatives of 1win and 1xBet, the gambling companies said to benefit from his pirate site businesses.

Officially reported as the operator of iBomma and Bappam TV, widespread unofficial claims state that Ravi was also behind pirate streaming platform MKVCinemas. The site reportedly went dark around the same time as iBomma and Bappam TV.

In a timely announcement issued Thursday, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it was responsible for the ‘dismantling’ of MKVCinemas and the shutdown of a “high-traffic drive-to-drive cloning tool” frequently used by piracy services in India and Indonesia.

“Collectively, the MKVCinemas domains accounted for 142.4 million global visits between 2024 and 2025. The piracy tool received 231.4 million visits in the same time period,” the ACE announcement reads.

“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India, who agreed to shut down the operation and transfer 25 associated domains.”

Searching For Answers

There are at least dozens and conservatively well in excess of 100 MKVCinemas-branded domains, so when no domains are mentioned by name, determining which sites were shut down can prove challenging.

Ultimately, we were able to identify all 25 domains mentioned by ACE and a few others, all confirmed as linked to each other.

At the time of writing, eight domains have been fully transferred to ACE, but the number will almost certainly increase in the coming hours.

So are there any proven, likely, or even circumstantial links between MKVCinemas and iBomma?

Circumstantial Isn’t Good Enough, But India is a Very Big Place

We already knew that ACE was interested in MKVCinemas back in April 2025, as much was revealed in the documents supporting its application for a DMCA subpoena in the United States.

In India, ZeeTV obtained a blocking injunction (CS(COMM) 650/2022) against iBomma in 2022, which included an order to cancel registration of the domain zee5.org, which appears to have been designed to irritate more than anything else.

Whether ACE or ZeeTV discovered anything useful via the DMCA subpoena and injunction is unknown. That being said, a detail in the ACE statement seems like it could be important.

“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India.”

In the wake of Ravi’s arrest, actor Konidela Chiranjeevi (known locally as Mega Star), fellow actor Nagarjuna Akkineni, and film director SS Rajamouli, met with Hyderabad city police commissioner VC Sajjanar. According to Indian Express, the men expressed their gratitude, with Chiranjeevi noting how movies had “suffered greatly” while pirates took money from the industry’s pockets.

“I heard a 22-year-old from Bihar was earning huge money through piracy. It’s unbearable,” he said.

Hardly conclusive, but we suspect things may be a little more bearable now.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

02:00 PM

Finally: Rep. Haley Stevens Files Articles Of Impeachment For RFK Jr. [Techdirt]

We’ve obviously done a ton of coverage on RFK Jr. as the head of Health and Human Services because, well, he’s an unmitigated disaster. Between all the chaos he’s created with his hiring/firing practices at HHS and its child agencies, the mass exodus of talent from those agencies, and all the anti-vaxx bullshit he’s pulled with ACIP, the CDC, and agency websites, he’s a damned problem and not nearly enough of our Congress people seem willing to do anything about it. And that’s not even getting into the ongoing measles and pertussis outbreaks that are occurring in several states as we speak.

In many of our posts on Kennedy, we have begged for someone to do something about all of this. One of those possible things that could be done is to at least try to impeach this brain-wormed assclown. And now, finally, someone did. Rep. Haley Stevens of Mighigan introduced articles of impeachment this week.

“RFK Jr. has got to go. Today, I introduced articles of impeachment to remove him from office. RFK Jr. has turned his back on science and public health and on the American people,” Stevens said in a video statement released on the social platform X. “Under his watch, families are less safe, health care costs are skyrocketing, and lifesaving research — including right here in Michigan — is being gutted,” she said in the video.

“I cannot and I will not stand by while one man dismantles decades of medical progress,” she continued. “Enough is enough, and that is why I’m pushing to impeach RFK Jr., to hold him accountable and to protect the health, safety and future of every Michigander because our health, our science and our future are worth fighting for.”

Now, let me prepare you for what you’re about to hear. Stevens, as mentioned, is campaigning for a Senate seat in her state. Thus far, polling suggests it’s not going all that well, with Stevens trailing Republican Mike Rogers by several points, though she has been closing the gap recently. What you’re going to hear about this, from Republicans and some Democrats, is that this impeachment effort is a stunt to raise Stevens’ profile in the race to get more name recognition and build turnout among Democrats.

Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: even if that is true, I don’t fucking care. If that’s what it takes to at least attempt to oust Kennedy from his role, so be it. But I also do not think that is what Stevens is doing, given her larger track record on Kennedy.

Stevens has repeatedly called for Kennedy’s removal from his role since he became HHS secretary and said in September she intended to file impeachment articles against him over the “heath care chaos” under his watch. The measure is not likely to pass in a Republicans-controlled Congress.

We’ll just have to see about that last bit. It’s probably correct that Republicans won’t go against Dear Leader and do the right thing, but they should be put on the record as such. Vote against impeachment if you wish. Make yourself a responsible party to all of the horrors Kennedy has, is, and will visit upon Americans’ health. The deaths from measles. The Hep B infections in newborns, along with the long-tail health effects of those infections, including deaths. Declining vaccination rates due to the misinformation vomited from Kennedy and his hand-picked cadre of cronies. A vote against impeaching Kennedy will serve as cosigning all of the above. All of it.

Bill Cassidy could certainly help here, if he wants to stop being a partisan for ten minutes and put his doctor’s coat back on. Cassidy was a crucial vote in Kennedy’s confirmation to HHS, as well as being something of a silent whip for other Republican votes that were unsure on voting for Kennedy’s confirmation. He can likewise now serve the opposite purpose. He can come out in favor of Stevens’ articles of impeachment, whip Republican votes for it, and begin to undo the harm that he helped create through the confirmation process. He’s spilled plenty of words worrying out loud about what Kennedy is doing. Now let him back it up.

Either way, get everyone on the record. Are you okay with Kennedy’s dismantling of decades of progress made on various matters of health, or are you not? That is what an impeachment vote would be asking.

09:00 AM

Lulu’s Book Product Type Options [Write, Publish, and Sell]

Lulu offers 3,200 unique product configurations. Don’t worry, you don’t have to try them all. But just in case you wanted to, today we’re going to walk through the foundation of those configurations so you can get the most out of Lulu.

Lulu’s Product Configurations

Trim Sizes

Trim size refers to the final height and width of your book after the excess paper has been cut off during the printing process. Lulu offers 16 different trim sizes to choose from for your project. If you visit our Products Page and click on any of the options under Product Types You Can Make On Lulu, you will see recommended trim sizes for the specific project you are trying to create. These are just recommendations; you can choose whatever trim size speaks to you.

We also suggest that when choosing a trim size for your project, you let genre expectations and market research guide you in the decision-making process. Writing a novel in the US? A US Trade Paperback (6x9) or Novella (5x8) will do you just fine.

Working on a magazine or quarterly publication? US Letter (8.5x11) or A4 (8.27x11.69) are both great options. Use our guides and suggestions as a frame of reference, and then make it your own.

Binding Types

Your binding type is how your book is actually held together. From novels to workbooks to calendars and more, we have the perfect binding type for whatever you are looking to create. Our binding types include Paperback, Coil Bound, Saddle Stitch, Hardcover Casewrap, Hardcover Linen Wrap with Dust Jacket, and Wire-O for calendars.

Since every project at Lulu is printed on-demand, you don’t have to stress over which choice will be best to lovingly cradle your masterpiece. Order one of each until you’ve found the perfect fit.

Printing your project in multiple binding types can also be a great way to offer a wider range of price points for your audience. The thrift shopper may opt for the paperback, while the collector may gravitate to a hardcover edition.

Interior Color

Now let’s take a peek under the cover. For interior color options, Lulu offers Standard and Premium ink for both Black & White and Color printing. For most standard fiction and nonfiction projects, Standard Black & White will work beautifully. If you are working on a project filled with graphs, charts, or several black and white images or graphics, Premium Black & White is a great way to ensure the images really stand out.

If you are creating a planner, journal, workbook, or guide with a few color elements or images throughout, Standard Color is a great choice for adding a bit of flair to the presentation. Children’s books, photo books, look books, cookbooks, and any other image-heavy projects will benefit from the added saturation of our Premium Color.

Paper Type

And now for the canvas that will host your glorious arrangement of words, thoughts, images, or perhaps simply the serene invitation of the blank page, Lulu offers four different paper types to choose from.

For most projects, 60# Cream or White will play the perfect host to your content. I personally like Cream for novels or nonfiction narratives and 60# White for low- or no-content projects or supplemental materials like workbooks.

Our 80# White Coated paper offers a high-gloss option perfect for photo books, magazines, and comic books. And last but not least, our 100# White paper is reserved for our calendars, creating a sturdy and vibrant product that can withstand 12 months of wear and tear.

Cover Finish

For the final design element, Lulu offers two cover finishes: Glossy and Matte.

They both work well on a variety of projects, so this decision will largely come down to personal preference or genre expectations. If you’re unsure which to choose, order one of each and then share with your audience to let them decide.

And if you still can’t come to a conclusion, why not offer both?

If you are looking to give your backlist a boost or want to refresh a marketing campaign, creating new covers or offering titles in hardcover is a great way to excite readers and elevate the experience.

Distribution Eligibility

Keep in mind that all 3,200 of our product configurations are eligible for sale through Lulu’s Bookstore or your own website via Lulu Direct, but not Retail Distribution.

If you are hoping to sell your book through Lulu’s Retail Distribution program, be sure to only choose options that are retail eligible, denoted by this icon:

Most Popular Product Types

How you choose to combine all of these options is up to you, but here are a few popular products to help you get started.

Print Books

Obviously. Your standard print book in Paperback or Hardcover can be a great way to tell a story, relay a message, or raise brand awareness.

If you are new to creating print products, a notebook, journal, or planner is a great place to start. Lulu even takes care of the heavy lifting by offering 100- or 200-page interior files for notebooks and planners, so all you have to do is add your logo to the cover and a bit of information about your company or organization to the interior or back cover, and voila! You have stylish, portable billboards you can leave with potential clients that are functional and informative.

If you are offering clients a new process or methodology, maybe a customized fitness routine or meal plan, offering a print version with helpful tips, instructions, and room for them to note their progress and key takeaways can be a great way to help them get the most out of your content.

Photo Books

I am using photo books here as an all-encompassing term that refers to highly visual and aesthetic print projects.

If you are a graphic designer in need of a portable portfolio, this is perfect for you. If you are an artist or photographer looking to offer some of your work at perhaps a more approachable price point, photo books can provide the opportunity to own some of your stunning images without breaking the bank.

A few other great uses of this format are:

Cookbooks
Look books
Coffee table books
Children’s books

Magazine

Because Lulu is powered by print-on-demand technology and there are no upload or revision fees, it makes us a perfect platform for printing periodicals like magazines. And with our Order Import tool, you can easily place multiple orders at once by uploading a CSV file with customer and product information and placing your order.

Magazines are a great way to give your audience a tangible glimpse into products, expertise, or upcoming trends. Lifestyle and photography magazines are popular on Lulu because of the high-quality, engaging format and simple revision and order process.

How to Get Started

If you are ready to turn 3,200 unique product configurations into the right one for you, here’s how:

Once you choose your project types, use our pricing calculator to enter specs and get custom templates
Create two files for the project - one PDF for your interior and one for your cover (or use our cover creator tool)
Create a free account
In your account, select “Create a Project”
Follow the prompts to print your project
Publish and order a proof copy for review!

Once your proof copy has been reviewed and any necessary edits have been made, it’s time to share your work with the world. Lulu has a few ways to help you do this, but for building a sustainable brand, Lulu Direct is the best option. Lulu Direct allows you to sell your print projects through your own website directly to your audience. Doing so allows you to keep more revenue per sale, maintain brand continuity, and collect valuable information about your customers.

Here’s what you’ll need to start selling direct:

Set up your ecommerce site & store if you don’t already have one
Connect your store to Lulu Direct
1. For Shopify & Wix, you’ll need to download the Lulu Direct App
2. Install the Lulu Direct plugin for Woo
Update your store’s settings in the Lulu Direct Dashboard (contact info, packing slip, etc.)
Connect your book to your ecommerce store
Manage your shipping options and automate payment and fulfillment
Place your first test order to ensure the order process is simple and easy
Let your audience know your work is available for sale on your website!

Why Product Types Matter for Print Books

Your content is unique. Why shouldn’t your print products be? Whether you are making software or product guides, high-fashion magazines, personalized fitness plans, or children’s books, Lulu has you covered. In Gloss or Matte.

Your Free Lulu Account

Create a Lulu Account today to print and publish your book for readers all around the world

Create a Free Account

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Censors & Sensibility [Techdirt]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Resonant Computing Manifesto
Support Techdirt’s Uncompromising Coverage, Get Our First Commemorative Coin (Techdirt)
US Ambassador Slams EU Tech Rules as Musk’s X Hit With Fine (Bloomberg)
Why the X fine is causing so much transatlantic drama (Politico)
Tech workers face new H1-B scrutiny as Trump targets ‘censorship’ (Washington Post)
H1-B visa advice (LinkedIn – Alice Hunsberger)
Australian leader defends social media ban as teens flaunt workarounds (Reuters)
Age restrictions alone won’t keep children safe online (Unicef)
Focus must be on making social media safe for children as Australia brings in ban (Save The Children)
Operation Bluebird tries to reclaim Twitter (LinkedIn)

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor CCIA, an international, not-for-profit trade association representing a broad cross section of communications and technology firms and that promotes open markets, open systems, and open networks.

v32.0.3 [Release notes from server]

https://github.com/nextcloud-releases/server/releases/tag/v32.0.3

v31.0.12 [Release notes from server]

https://github.com/nextcloud-releases/server/releases/tag/v31.0.12

Kanji of the Day: 兵 [Kanji of the Day]

兵

✍7

小4

soldier, private, troops, army, warfare, strategy, tactics

ヘイ　ヒョウ

つわもの

兵庫県 (ひょうごけん) — Hyogo Prefecture (Kinki area)
核兵器 (かくへいき) — nuclear weapon
兵士 (へいし) — soldier
兵器 (へいき) — arms
米兵 (べいへい) — American soldier
海兵隊 (かいへいたい) — Marine Corps
大量破壊兵器 (たいりょうはかいへいき) — weapon of mass destruction
米海兵隊 (べいかいへいたい) — US Marine Corps
兵力 (へいりょく) — military force
傭兵 (ようへい) — mercenary (soldier)

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 蛮 [Kanji of the Day]

蛮

✍12

中学

barbarian

バン

えびす

野蛮 (やばん) — savage
蛮行 (ばんこう) — act of barbarity
南蛮貿易 (なんばんぼうえき) — Nanban trade
蛮勇 (ばんゆう) — foolhardiness
野蛮人 (やばんじん) — barbarian
蛮風 (ばんぷう) — barbarous customs
蛮族 (ばんぞく) — barbarian tribe
南蛮人 (なんばんじん) — Western European (esp. the Spanish and the Portuguese)
南蛮渡来 (なんばんとらい) — imported to Japan by early European traders
蛮夷 (ばんい) — savages

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Pluralistic: Instacart reaches into your pocket and lops a third off your dollars (11 Dec 2025) [Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

Instacart reaches into your pocket and lops a third off your dollars: A/B splitting your way into doing a total fucking racism.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Predicting the present; Caller eye-deer; RIP Robert Sheckley; Student protesters and Google Maps vs kettling; If your kids like computers, they're criminals; A billion CC licenses; The moral character of cryptographic work; EC resurrects link-taxes.
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Instacart reaches into your pocket and lops a third off your dollars (permalink)

There's a whole greedflation-denial cottage industry that insists that rising prices are either the result of unknowable, untameable and mysterious economic forces, or they're the result of workers having too much money and too many jobs.

The one thing we're absolutely not allowed to talk about is the fact that CEOs keep going on earnings calls to announce that they are hiking prices way ahead of any increase in their costs, and blaming inflation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/20/quiet-part-out-loud/#profiteering

Nor are we supposed to notice the "price consultancies" that let the dominant firms in many sectors – from potatoes to meat to rental housing – fix prices in illegal collusive arrangements that are figleafed by the tissue-thin excuse that "if you use an app to fix prices, it's not a crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/25/potatotrac/#carbo-loading

And we're especially not supposed to notice the proliferation of "personalized pricing" businesses that use surveillance data to figure out how desperate you are and charge you a premium based on that desperation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Surveillance pricing – when you are charged more for the same goods than someone else, based on surveillance data about the urgency of your need and the cash in your bank account – is a way for companies to reach into your pocket and devalue the dollars in your wallet. After all, if you pay $2 for something that I pay $1 for, that's just the company saying that your dollars are only worth half as much as mine:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

It's a form of cod-Marxism: "from each according to their desperation":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

The economy is riddled with surveillance pricing gouging. You are almost certainly paying more than your neighbors for various items, based on algorithmic price-setting, every day. Case in point: More Perfect Union and Groundwork Collaborative teamed up with Consumer Reports to recruit 437 volunteers from across America to login to Instacart at the same time and buy the same items from 15 stores, and found evidence of surveillance pricing at Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, and Sprouts Farmers Market:

https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/instacart/

The price-swings are wild. Some test subjects are being charged 23% more than others. The average variance for "the exact same items, from the exact same locations, at the exact same time" comes out to 7%, or "$1,200 per year for groceries" for a family of four.

The process by which your greedflation premium is assigned is opaque. The researchers found that Instacart shoppers ordering from Target clustered into seven groups, but it's not clear how Instacart decides how much extra to charge any given shopper.

Instacart – who acquired Eversight, a surveillance pricing company, in 2022 – blamed the merchants (who, in turn, blamed Instacart). Instacart also claimed that they didn't use surveillance data to price goods, but hedged, admitting that the consumer packaged goods duopoly of Unilever and Procter & Gamble do use surveillance data in connection with their pricing strategies.

Finally, Instacart claimed that this was all an "experiment" to "learn what matters most to consumers and how to keep essential items affordable." In other words, they were secretly charging you more (for things like eggs and bread) because somehow that lets them "keep essential items affordable."

Instacart said their goal was to help "retail partners understand consumer preferences and identify categories where they should invest in lower prices."

Anyone who's done online analytics can easily pierce this obfuscation, but for those of you who haven't had the misfortune of directing an iterated, A/B tested optimization effort, I'll unpack this statement.

Say you have a pool of users and a bunch of variations on a headline. You randomly assign different variants to different users and measure clickthroughs. Then you check to see which variants performed best, and dig into the data you have on those users to see if there are any correlations that tie together users who liked a given approach.

This might let you discover that, say, women over 40 click more often on headlines that mention kittens. Then you generate more variations based on these conclusions – different ways of mentioning kittens – and see which of these variations perform best, and whether the targeted group of users split into smaller subgroups (women over 40 in the midwest prefer "tabby kitten" while their southern sisters prefer "kitten" without a mention of breed).

By repeatedly iterating over these steps, you can come up with many highly refined variants, and you can use surveillance data to target them to ever narrower, more optimized slices of your user-base.

Obviously, this is very labor intensive. You have to do a lot of tedious analysis, and generate a lot of variants. This is one of the reasons that slopvertising is so exciting to the worst people on earth: they imagine that they can use AI to create a self-licking ice-cream cone, performing the analysis and generating endless new variations, all untouched by human hands.

But when it comes to prices, it's much easier to produce variants – all you're doing is adding or subtracting from the price you show to shoppers. You don't need to get the writing team together to come up with new ways of mentioning kittens in a headline – you can just raise the price from $6.23 to $6.45 and see if midwestern women over 40 balk or add the item to their shopping baskets.

And here's the kicker: you don't need to select by gender, racial or economic criteria to end up with a super-racist and exploitative arrangement. That's because race, gender and socioeconomic status have broad correlates that are easily discoverable through automated means.

For example, thanks to generations of redlining, discriminatory housing policy, wage discrimination and environmental racism, the poorest, sickest neighborhoods in the country are also the most racialized and are also most likely to be "food deserts" where you can't just go to the grocery store and shop for your family.

What's more, the private equity-backed dollar store duopoly have waged a decades-long war on community grocery stores, enveloping them with dollar stores that use their access to preferential discounts (from companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble, another duopoly) to force grocers out of business:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Then these dollar stores run a greedflation scam that is so primitive, it's almost laughable: they just charge customers much higher amounts than the prices shown on the shelves and price-tags:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/do-all-those-low-dollar-store-prices-really-add-up-120325.html

When you live in a food desert where your only store is a Dollar General that defrauds you at the cash-register, you are more likely to accept a higher price from Instacart, because you have fewer choices than someone in a middle-class neighborhood with two or three competing grocers. And the people who live in those food deserts are more likely to be poor, which, in America, is an excellent predictor of whether they are Black or brown.

Which is to say, without ever saying, "Charge Black people more for groceries," Instacart can easily A/B split its way into a system where they predictably and reliably charge Black people more for groceries. That's the old cod-Marxism at work: "from each according to their desperation."

This is so well-understood that anyone who sets one of these systems in motion should be understood to be deliberately seeking to do racist profiteering under cover of an algorithm. It's empiricism-washing: "I'm not racist, I just did some math" (that produced a predictably racist outcome):

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/insight-amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK0AG/

This is the dark side and true meaning of "business optimization." The optimal business pays its suppliers and workers nothing, and charges its customers everything it can. Obviously, businesses need to settle for suboptimal outcomes, because workers won't show up if they don't get paid, and customers won't buy things that cost everything they have⹋.

⹋ Unless, of course, you are an academic publisher, in which case this is just how you do business.

A business "optimizes" its workforce by finding ways to get them to accept lower wages. For example, they can bind their workers with noncompete "agreements" that ban Wendy's cashiers from quitting their job and making $0.25 more per hour at the McDonald's next door (one in 18 American workers have been locked into one of these contracts):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/09/germanium-valley/#i-cant-quit-you

Or they can lock their workers in with "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) – contractual clauses that force workers to pay their bosses thousands of dollars if they quit or get fired:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

But the most insidious form of worker optimization is "algorithmic wage discrimination." That's when a company uses surveillance data to lower the wages of workers. For example, contract nurses are paid less if the app that hires them discovers (through the unregulated data-broker sector) that they have a lot of credit-card debt. After all, nurses who are heavily indebted can't afford to be choosy and turn down lowball offers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point

This is the other form of surveillance pricing: pricing labor based on surveillance data. It's more cod-Marxism: "From each according to their desperation."

Forget "becoming ungovernable": to defeat these evil fuckers, we have to become unoptimizable:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/20/billionaireism/#surveillance-infantalism

How do we do that? Well, nearly every form of "optimization" begins with surveillance. They can't figure out whether they can charge you more if they can't spy on you. They can't figure out whether they can pay you less if they can't spy on you, either.

And the reason they can spy on you is because we let them. The last consumer privacy law to pass out of Congress was a 1988 bill that bans video-store clerks from disclosing your VHS rental history. Every other form of consumer surveillance is permitted under US federal law.

So step one of this process is to ban commercial surveillance. Banning algorithmic price discrimination is all well and good, but it is, ultimately, a form of redistribution. We're trying to make the companies share some of the excess they extract from our surveillance data. But predistribution – ending surveillance itself, in this case – is always far more effective than redistribution:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/31/losing-the-crypto-wars/#surveillance-monopolism

How do we do that? Well, we need to build a coalition. At the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we call this "privacy first": you can't solve all the internet's problems by fixing privacy, but you won't fix most of them unless we get privacy right, and so the (potential) coalition for a strong privacy regime is large and powerful:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

But of course, "privacy first," doesn't mean "just privacy." We also need tools that target algorithmic pricing per se. In New York State, there's a new law that requires disclosure of algorithmic pricing, in the form of a prominent notification reading, "THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA."

This is extremely weaksauce, and might even be worse than nothing. In California we have Prop 65, a rule that requires businesses to post signs and add labels any time they expose you to chemicals "known to the state of California to cause cancer." This caveat emptor approach (warn people, let them vote with their wallets) has led to every corner of California's built environment to be festooned with these warnings. Today, Californians just ignore these warnings, the same way that web users ignore the "privacy policy" disclosures on the sites they visit:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/19/gotcha/#known-to-the-state-of-california-to-cause-cancer

The right approach isn't to (merely) warn people about carcinogens (or privacy risks). The right approach is regulating harmful business practices, whether those practices give you a tumor or pick your pocket.

Under Biden, former FTC chair Lina Khan undertook proceedings to ban algorithmic pricing altogether. Trump's FTC killed that, along with all the other quality-of-life enhancing measures the FTC had in train (Trump's FTC chair replaced these with a program to root out "wokeness" in the agency).

Today, Khan is co-chair of Zohran Mamdani's transition team, and she will use the mayor's authority (under the New York City Consumer Protection Law of 1969, which addresses "unconscionable" commercial practices) to ban algorithmic pricing in NYC:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/15/unconscionability/#standalone-authority

Khan wasn't Biden's only de-optimizer. Under chair Rohit Chopra, Biden's Consumer Finance Protection Bureau actually banned the data-brokers who power surveillance pricing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

And of course, Trump's CFPB (neutered by Musk and his broccoli-haired brownshirts at DOGE) killed that effort:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/15/asshole-to-appetite/#ssn-for-sale

But the CFPB staffer who ran that effort has gone to work on an effort to leverage a New Jersey state privacy law to crush the data-broker industry:

https://www.wired.com/story/daniels-law-new-jersey-online-privacy-matt-adkisson-atlas-lawsuits/

These are efforts to optimize corporations for human thriving, by making them charge us less and pay us more. For while we are best off when we are unoptimizable, we are also best off when corporations are totally optimized – for our benefit.

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

Hey look at this (permalink)

Uber is selling your ride and food ordering data to advertisers for marketing insights https://boingboing.net/2025/12/08/uber-is-selling-your-ride-and-food-ordering-data-to-advertisers-for-marketing-insights.html
404 Media Is Making a Zine https://www.404media.co/404-media-is-making-a-zine/
Maybe a General Strike Isn’t So Impossible Now https://labornotes.org/2025/12/maybe-general-strike-isnt-so-impossible-now
The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01611194.2025.2566408
Bringing organizational maturity to radical groups https://blog.bl00cyb.org/2025/12/bringing-organizational-maturity-to-radical-groups/

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Free voicemail helps homeless people get jobs https://web.archive.org/web/20051210021850/http://www.cvm.org/

#20yrsago Anti-P2P company decides to focus on selling music instead https://de.advfn.com/borse/NASDAQ/LOUD/nachrichten/13465769/loudeye-to-exit-content-protection-services-busine

#20yrsago Caller Eye-Deer’s eyes glow when phone rings https://www.flickr.com/photos/84221353@N00/71889050/in/pool-69453349@N00

#20yrsago EFF to Sunncomm: release a list of all infected CDs! https://web.archive.org/web/20051212072537/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004245.php

#20yrsago Only 2% of music-store downloaders care about legality of their music https://web.archive.org/web/20051225200658/http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/tempo2005.html

#20yrsago Dykes on Bikes gives the Trademark Office a linguistics lesson https://web.archive.org/web/20060523133217/https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/09/MNGQOG5D7P1.DTL&type=printable

#20yrsago Robert Sheckley has died https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007078.html

#20yrsago Xbox 360 DRM makes your rip your CDs again https://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-xbox-360-hands-on-report/1100-6139672/

#20yrsago Music publishers: Jail for lyric-sites http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm

#15yrsago 2600 Magazine condemns DDoS attacks against Wikileaks censors https://web.archive.org/web/20101210213130/https://www.2600.com/news/view/article/12037

#15yrsago UK supergroup records 4’33”, hopes to top Xmas charts https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/dec/06/cage-against-machine-x-factor

#15yrsago FarmVille’s secret: making you anxious https://web.archive.org/web/20101211120105/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6224/catching_up_with_jonathan_blow.php?print=1

#15yrsago Rogue Archivist beer https://web.archive.org/web/20101214060929/https://livingproofbrewcast.com/2010/12/giving-the-rogue-archivist-to-its-namesake/

#15yrsago Hossein “Hoder” Derakhshan temporarily released from Iranian prison https://cyrusfarivar.com/blog/2010/12/09/iranian-blogging-pioneer-temporarily-released-from-prison/

#15yrsago Student protesters in London use Google Maps to outwit police “kettling” https://web.archive.org/web/20101212042006/https://bengoldacre.posterous.com/student-protestors-using-live-tech-to-outwit

#15yrsago Google foreclosure maps https://web.archive.org/web/20170412162114/http://ritholtz.com/2010/12/google-map-foreclosures/
#15yrsago Theory and practice of queue design https://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2010/12/third-queue.html

#15yrsago Legal analysis of the problems of superherodom https://lawandthemultiverse.com/

#10yrsago A great, low-tech hack for teaching high-tech skills https://miriamposner.com/blog/a-better-way-to-teach-technical-skills-to-a-group/

#10yrsago In case you were wondering, there’s no reason to squirt coffee up your ass https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/12/10/starbutts-or-how-is-it-still-a-thing-that-people-are-shooting-coffee-up-their-nether-regions

#10yrsago Survey of wealthy customers leads insurer to offer “troll insurance” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/insurance/12041832/Troll-insurance-to-cover-the-cost-of-internet-bullying.html

#10yrsago US State Department staffer sexually blackmailed women while working at US embassy https://web.archive.org/web/20151210230259/https://www.networkworld.com/article/3013633/security/ex-us-state-dept-worker-pleads-guilty-to-extensive-sextortion-hacking-and-cyberstalking-acts.html

#10yrsago Robert Silverberg’s government-funded guide to the psychoactive drugs of sf https://web.archive.org/web/20151211050648/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-us-government-funded-an-investigation-into-sci-fi-drug-use-in-the-70s

#10yrsago Toy demands that kids catch crickets and stuff them into an electronic car https://www.wired.com/2015/12/um-so-the-bug-racer-is-an-actual-toy-car-driven-by-crickets/

#10yrsago The crypto explainer you should send to your boss (and the FBI) https://web.archive.org/web/20151209011457/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/12/08/you-already-use-encryption-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-it/

#10yrsago French PM defies Ministry of Interior, says he won’t ban open wifi or Tor https://web.archive.org/web/20160726031106/https://www.connexionfrance.com/Wifi-internet-ban-banned-17518-view-article.html

#10yrsago The no-fly list really is a no-brainer https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/09/no-fly-list-errors-gun-control-obama

#10yrsago America: shrinking middle class, growing poverty, the rich are getting richer https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/

#10yrsago Marriott removing desks from its hotel rooms “because Millennials” https://web.archive.org/web/20151210034312/http://danwetzelsports.tumblr.com/post/134754150507/who-stole-the-desk-from-my-hotel-room

#10yrsago China’s top Internet censor: “There’s no Internet censorship in China” https://hongkongfp.com/2015/12/09/there-is-no-internet-censorship-in-china-says-chinas-top-censor/

#10yrsago Stolen-card crime sites use “cop detection” algorithms to flag purchases https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/when-undercover-credit-card-buys-go-bad/

#10yrsago UK National Crime Agency: if your kids like computers, they’re probably criminals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjYrxzSe3DU

#10yrsago US immigration law: so f’ed up that Trump’s no-Muslim plan would be constitutional https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/opinion/trumps-anti-muslim-plan-is-awful-and-constitutional.html?_r=0

#10yrsago Ecuador’s draft copyright law: legal to break DRM to achieve fair use https://medium.com/@AndresDelgadoEC/big-achievement-for-creative-commons-in-ecuador-national-assembly-decides-that-fair-use-trumps-drm-c8cdd9c57e01#.n1vkccd3r

#10yrsago One billion Creative Commons licenses in use https://stateof.creativecommons.org/2015/

#10yrsago The moral character of cryptographic work https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral-fn.pdf

#10yrsago Everybody knows: FBI won’t confirm or deny buying cyberweapons from Hacking Team https://web.archive.org/web/20151209163839/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fbi-wont-confirm-or-deny-buying-hacking-team-spyware-even-though-it-did

#10yrsago European Commission resurrects an unkillable stupid: the link tax https://web.archive.org/web/20160913095014/https://openmedia.org/en/bad-idea-just-got-worse-how-todays-european-copyright-plans-will-damage-internet

#5yrsago Why we can't have nice things https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/borked/#bribery

#5yrsago Facebook vs Robert Bork https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/borked/#zucked

#1yrago Tech's benevolent-dictator-for-life to authoritarian pipeline https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/#high-on-your-own-supply

#1yrago Predicting the present https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/#deny-defend-depose

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

Hamburg: Chaos Communications Congress, Dec 27-30
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html
Denver: Enshittification at Tattered Cover Colfax, Jan 22
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
Colorado Springs: Guest of Honor at COSine, Jan 23-25
https://www.firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/

Recent appearances (permalink)

How to Stop “Ensh*ttification” Before It Kills the Internet (Capitalisn't)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34gkIvYiHxU
Enshittification on The Daily Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2e-c9SF5nE
Enshittification with Four Ways to Change the World (Channel 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQaEeuuI3Q
The Plan is to Make the Internet Worse. Forever. (Novarra Media)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wE8G-d7SnY
Enshittification (Future Knowledge)
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/episodes/enshittification

Latest books (permalink)

"Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025
"Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
"Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026
"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026
"The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Still Just Concepts of a Healthcare Plan [The Status Kuo]

Donald Trump famously claimed that he had “concepts of a plan” when it came to healthcare. For once he was actually telling the truth.

Just ask Republicans. The only agreement among them is that there is none. As Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told NBC News yesterday, “The consensus is we need to come up with something.”

Truth bomb moment: Republicans do not, and have never had, a healthcare plan. And now they’re out of time. Senate Majority Leader John Thune promised a vote today on a healthcare plan, in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government, to head off the looming crisis from soaring ACA premiums. But the GOP plan is little more than a joke.

Despite efforts by a handful of Republicans to come up with something that would prevent economic catastrophe for tens of millions of Americans come January, the proposal Majority Leader Thune has blessed amounts to a meager cash handout that Republicans know will help no one.

And desperate families shouldn’t look for solutions over in the House either, where there is also nothing to show after years of promises.

Subscribe now

The crap plan from Crapo-Cassidy

The Senate will reportedly vote today on two plans.

The Democratic proposal is simple. It would extend ACA premium subsidies cleanly with no conditions for 24 million Americans for another three years.

And the Republican proposal? For some time, it wasn’t clear whether the Republicans were going to even offer one of their own. A compromise plan authored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH) would have extended ACA premium subsidies for two years with income limitations and minimum premiums. But it failed to gain traction among the GOP.

Instead, Majority Leader Thune is greenlighting a different Republican proposal from Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). That plan would not extend the ACA premium subsidies. Instead it would replace them with modest direct payments to people earning less than a certain maximum amount and who purchase health insurance plans with high deductibles and low premiums. Payments would be deposited into health savings accounts, with $1,000 for those below 50 and $1,500 for those aged 50-64.

This proposal aligns loosely with Trump’s call for people to receive cash to spend as they like instead of handing it to insurance companies. The money could be used on medical services except abortion services or gender affirming care, because of course they exempted those.

But this “fix” is laughable.

As Sen. Bernie Sanders noted, insurance premiums on the ACA marketplace would spike, and families would be required to switch from gold or silver health insurance plans to bronze or catastrophic plans. Under such plans, they would face crushing deductibles of $7,500 and $10,000 for individuals and up to $21,200 for households.

Sanders’s office provided three examples of how this would play out for different insured individuals and families:

A 62-year-old couple in Miami, Florida, making $85,000 would be forced to pay $21,654 more in premiums than they do today and see their deductible go from $0 to $7,700.

A family of four living in Kansas making $45,000 could be forced to pay $4,500 more for surgery after a heart attack than under current law.

A 46-year-old living in New Orleans, Louisiana, making $32,000 could pay $2,560 more for breast cancer treatment and premiums than under current law.

These cost increases are not doable for any of these people.

Sanders noted that the Cassidy-Crapo plan “would make an already broken and outrageously expensive health care system even worse.” Premiums would go up two to four times for millions of Americans. The plan would not address rising costs of prescription drugs. And it would do nothing to make it easier for Americans to see a doctor.

Sanders concluded, “The Cassidy-Crapo bill would lead to more medical bankruptcies, more unaffordable care and more Americans going without the health care they desperately need. That would be absolutely unacceptable.”

Yet this is the only plan the Senate GOP intends to advance at this time.

Bullet points are not a plan

The healthcare plan situation in the House is no better. It’s hard to fathom, but as of yesterday, when Speaker Mike Johnson called his conference to a meeting, he offered them only healthcare plan bullet points. Per Politico,

Speaker Mike Johnson presented attendees of a closed-door conference meeting with [a] list of 10 possible policies that could get votes in the coming weeks or months, according to five Republicans in the room.

These points are so broad as to be meaningless. “Innovation” is just a concept, not a plan. And notably, as with the Crapo-Cassidy plan, the ideas did not include an extension of the existing ACA premium subsidies, the very crisis driving the urgency to act.

The continued lack of any actual GOP healthcare plan is causing considerable consternation among Republican House members who will have to face angry voters next fall. They expressed frustration at how poorly the whole topic has been handled.

“There was a general uneasiness because nothing is coming together,” said a House Republican to Politico.

“We wasted so much time,” one conservative Republican declared, lamenting that there was no unified GOP plan with just seven session days left in the year. Recall that Johnson sent his conference home for most of the last few months when they could have been working on a healthcare plan.

A bipartisan group of “moderate” House members, including Republicans in vulnerable swing districts, is hoping to force a vote on the House floor to extend the ACA premium subsidies via a discharge petition. But that effort seems stalled, and there isn’t time under the rules to succeed before the clock runs out on 2025.

So where does this leave us?

Without 60 votes for either proposal in the Senate, and with no viable House plan to address the looming healthcare affordability crisis, the ACA premium subsidies will expire and millions of Americans will face not only sticker shock but a Hobson’s choice: 1) going without health insurance or a plan with inadequate coverage, or 2) shelling out two to four times as much for an ACA plan with worse coverage and very high deductibles.

The hard truth is this: Republicans are fully prepared to let the ACA subsidies expire and send healthcare soaring for everyone. Why? A solid number of them absolutely hate Obamacare, and they believe that making it unaffordable will ultimately kill it.

Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said it best. “The GOP health care plan has been the same for 15 years. Repeal the ACA and return to when millions were denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.”

There is a terrible irony at work here. One group most vulnerable to a healthcare system that excludes or prices out those with pre-existing conditions is Trump’s own voter base in deep red states. Per a report by KFF, the share of adults with “declinable pre-existing conditions” exceeds one-third of all adults under age 65 in states like West Virginia (37%), Arkansas (34%), Kentucky (34%), and Mississippi (34%).

Without the protections of Obamacare, these Republican voters would be shifted into different “risk pools” with higher premiums, or they might not be insurable at all.

Extending the ACA premium subsidies is a costly proposition, and it admittedly doesn’t fix the underlying causes of rising healthcare costs. We still need to move toward universal healthcare coverage, perhaps under some kind of single payer plan that cuts out the insurance companies. But the idea that we will suddenly throw millions off their health insurance by ending the subsidies on January 1 is both morally reprehensible and economically foolish. And it is a move the Republicans, who control government, will own.

The only silver lining is that millions of Republican voters will soon experience what the rest of us have been warning about. Along with Democrats and independents, their wrath might finally be directed where it belongs: at the party that took away their insurance, their Medicaid and their food security, all to fund tax breaks for their super wealthy donors.

08:00 AM

ChatGPT Is Pitching In To Help Federal Officers Misrepresent Confrontations With Protesters [Techdirt]

We’ve already written several times about the danger posed by adding AI to law enforcement incident/arrest reports. There are a lot of obvious problems, ranging from AI misinterpreting what it’s seeing to it adding so much unsupported gibberish it isn’t the time-saver companies like Axon (formerly Taser) claim it will be.

The cost-effectiveness of relying on AI is pretty much beside the point, at least as far as the cops are concerned. This is the wave of the future. Whatever busywork can be pawned off on tireless AI tech will be. It will be up to courts to sort this out, and if a bot can craft “training and expertise” boilerplate, far too many judges will give AI-generated police reports the benefit of the doubt.

The operative theory is that AI will generate factual narratives free of officer bias. The reality is the opposite, for reasons that should always have been apparent. Garbage in, garbage out. When law enforcement controls the inputs, any system — no matter how theoretically advanced — will generate stuff that sounds like the same old cop bullshit.

And it’s not just limited to the boys in blue (who are actually now mostly boys in black bloc/camo) at the local level. The combined forces of the Trump administration’s anti-migrant efforts are asking AI to craft their reports, which has resulted in the expected outcome. The AP caught something in Judge Sara Ellis’s thorough evisceration of Trump’s anti-immigrant forces as they tried to defend the daily constitutional violations they engaged in — many of which directly violated previous court orders from the same judge.

Contained in the 200+ page opinion [PDF] is a small footnote that points to an inanimate co-conspirator to the litany of lies served up by federal law enforcement in defense of its unconstitutional actions:

Tucked in a two-sentence footnote in a voluminous court opinion, a federal judge recently called out immigration agents using artificial intelligence to write use-of-force reports, raising concerns that it could lead to inaccuracies and further erode public confidence in how police have handled the immigration crackdown in the Chicago area and ensuing protests.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis wrote the footnote in a 223-page opinion issued last week, noting that the practice of using ChatGPT to write use-of-force reports undermines agents’ credibility and “may explain the inaccuracy of these reports.” She described what she saw in at least one body camera video, writing that an agent asks ChatGPT to compile a narrative for a report after giving the program a brief description and several images.

The judge noted factual discrepancies between the official narrative about those law enforcement responses and what body camera footage showed.

AI is known to generate hallucinations. It will do this more often when specifically asked to do so, as the next sentence of this report makes clear.

But experts say the use of AI to write a report that depends on an officer’s specific perspective without using an officer’s actual experience is the worst possible use of the technology and raises serious concerns about accuracy and privacy.

There’s a huge difference between asking AI to tell you what it sees in a recording and asking it to summarize with parameters that claim the officer was attacked. The first might make it clear no attack took place. The second is just tech-washing a false narrative to protect the officer feeding these inputs to ChatGPT.

AI — much like any police dog — lives to please. If you tell it what you expect to see, it will do what it can to make sure you see it. Pretending it’s just a neutral party doing a bit of complicated parsing is pure denial. The outcome can be steered by the person handling the request.

While it’s true that most law enforcement officers will write reports that excuse their actions/overreactions, pretending AI can solve this problem does little more than allow officers to spend less time conjuring up excuses for their rights violations. “We can misremember this for you wholesale” shouldn’t be an unofficial selling point for this tech.

And I can guarantee this (nonexistent) standard applies to more than 90% of law enforcement agencies with access to AI-generated report-writing options:

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment, and it was unclear if the agency had guidelines or policies on the use of AI by agents.

“Unclear” means what we all assume it means: there are no guidelines or policies. Those might be enacted at some point in the future following litigation that doesn’t go the government’s way, but for now, it’s safe to assume the government will continue operating without restrictions until forced to do otherwise. And that means people are going to be hallucinated into jail, thanks to AI’s inherent subservience and the willingness of those in power to exploit whatever, whenever until they’ve done so much damage to rights and the public’s trust that it can no longer be ignored.

06:00 AM

Daily Deal: SunFounder GalaxyRVR Mars Rover Kit for Arduino [Techdirt]

The SunFounder GalaxyRVR Mars Rover Kit is your gateway to hands-on learning on robotics, coding, and Mars-like adventures! Its durable aluminum frame and rocker-bogie suspension easily handle tough terrains, while smart sensors ensure smooth navigation. It’s compatible with the Arduino UNO R3, runs on solar power, and includes real-time FPV with app-based control for day or night adventures. Complete with beginner-friendly tutorials and active support, this kit makes learning coding, electronics, and robotics fun and accessible. It’s on sale for $110.

Pebble’s Original Creator Creates An Open Source $99 Voice Recorder Ring You Can Hack [Techdirt]

Eric Migicovsky, who basically invented the smartwatch category with the original Pebble, just announced something much simpler: a $99 ring with one button that records voice memos. That’s it. No internet connection required, no cloud storage, no subscription fees, no wake words. Press the button, talk, release. Your note is saved locally—either on the ring’s tiny bit of memory or synced to your phone directly.

What makes the Pebble Index 01 actually interesting isn’t the hardware minimalism (though that’s refreshing). It’s that the whole thing is open source and designed to be hacked. Want long-press to do something different? Go for it. Want your voice memos piped into your task manager? Do it. The platform is yours to modify.

If you don’t know Migicovsky’s background: he kickstarted the original Pebble Watch in what became one of the platform’s most successful campaigns (I backed it), proving smartwatches could be useful. Pebble eventually got passed by bigger players, sold to Fitbit, then absorbed into Google.

A few years back, Eric moved into a different space, creating Beeper, the incredibly cool and useful universal messaging app, that pulls together basically all your messaging tools into a single unified interface. As I discussed with him on the Techdirt podcast last year, it was a cool example of how protocols let people build things that were more powerful. Last year, Beeper was sold to Automattic.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Google agreed to open source all the original Pebble software (which it wasn’t using), and Eric decided to get back to his original baby, creating Core Devices, which would create a new generation of Pebble watches which recently shipped. This time, built on open source, totally hackable software, and even the ability of others to build devices on the Pebble platform.

I spoke to Eric last week about the Index 01. The design philosophy is clear and refreshing: keep it simple enough that it works perfectly every time. As someone who constantly sends myself notes—thoughts while walking, reminders mid-conversation, ideas that’ll vanish if I don’t capture them immediately—this is a tool I’m really looking forward to. But the real story isn’t the ring itself. It’s what you can do with it.

The AI processing is local—a small on-device model that does speech-to-text without sending anything to the cloud. But because the whole platform is open source, you’re not stuck with that default behavior. You can reprogram the button. You can route the output wherever you want. I’m already thinking about piping voice memos directly into my vibe coded task management tool, turning quick verbal notes into actionable tasks without touching a screen.

This is the kind of experimentation that closed hardware makes impossible. When you buy a typical consumer device, you’re renting someone else’s vision of how you should use it (and often paying a subscription fee for the privilege). When the hardware and software are open, you’re buying raw capability that you can shape however you need.

The device also has battery life that should last quite a while. Eric says two years, but that really depends on how much you use it. As I understand it, the battery can effectively record between 12 and 15 hours before the battery dies. If you’re just doing short 5 second notes to yourself, that can be quite some time.

The somewhat controversial decision here, though is that the ring is not rechargeable. From what Eric told me, that allowed them to simplify things and also use a longer-lasting hearing aid battery in the ring. Putting in a rechargeable battery and then adding a charging port and cables and such would have made the product more expensive, and less practical.

It’s a design choice that I can understand, but also one that some may bristle at, given that the ring will only last about two years if used regularly (and less if used a lot) and then become e-junk. For what it’s worth, the plan is to allow you to send back your used up ring to Core Devices to recycle when it reaches end of life (the app will warn you with plenty of time ahead). In theory, you would send it back when you buy a new one (assuming you found it super handy over the two years you were using it).

For years, I’ve argued for protocols over platforms in software—the idea that decentralized, open systems give users more control than walled gardens, even when the walled gardens are more convenient.

Consumer hardware has often gone in the opposite direction. We’ve too frequently traded repairability and control for sleekness and integration. Your smartphone is a sealed black box. Your smart home devices stop working when the company shuts down its servers. Even something as simple as a fitness tracker often requires a proprietary app and cloud account just to see your own data.

The Index 01 won’t reverse that trend by itself—it’s a $99 ring, not a revolution. But it’s a reminder that another path is possible. Open hardware, like open protocols, creates options. The Raspberry Pi proved there’s demand for hackable hardware in hobbyist computing. Framework has shown that’s true for laptops. Migicovsky is betting there’s demand for it in everyday consumer devices too.

I put in a pre-order. Not just because I need a better way to capture fleeting thoughts, but because this represents the kind of product I want to see more of: something you control, something you can modify, something that doesn’t stop working when the company loses interest. For all the complaints about big tech dominance and ecosystem lock-in, the solution isn’t better monopolies. It’s tools that put control back in users’ hands—whether that’s through open protocols in software or open platforms in hardware.

This is one example of what that looks like.

ICE Deports Man To Guatemala, Blowing Off Ruling That Said He Was Likely To Be Tortured There [Techdirt]

ICE continues to be increasingly awful as it chases arrest and deportation quotas it will never meet. The administration’s desire to rid this nation of as many migrants as possible is generating new nastiness on a daily basis.

This bit of hideousness will likely have been subsumed several times over by the time you read this, but that doesn’t mean it should pass by unnoticed. The “worst of the worst” applies more to ICE officers and officials than it does to most of the people it sweeps up. This case is no exception. (h/t Kyle Cheney)

Guatemalan native Faustino Pablo Pablo has been in the United States since 2012, following all the rules of the lengthy asylum process. He received a ruling from a US immigration judge that said it “more likely than not” he would be “tortured” by (or with the permission of) the Guatemalan government if he was forced to return. The ruling made it clear Pablo Pablo could be removed to another country but was absolutely not to be sent back to Guatemala.

From 2013 to 2025, Pablo Pablo complied with every aspect of his order or release, including making regular check-ins to ICE’s ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) office. Then this happened:

On November 5, 2025, ICE detained Pablo Pablo at a “regular check-in appointment” without notice or explanation. Pablo Pablo’s attorney promptly contacted ICE to share, inter alia, receipt of his withholding of removal to Guatemala. On November 17, 2025, the Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ERO”) component of ICE transported Pablo Pablo to El Paso, Texas, “for staging of removal to Guatemala.”

That from the recent order [PDF] issued by federal judge David Guaderrama. The judge definitely isn’t happy with ICE, which is hardly surprising since the government basically admits it did the wrong thing willfully.

Once it became clear Pablo Pablo was challenging his (illegal) deportation, ICE accelerated the removal process:

On November 20, 2025, [Pablo Pablo] filed an additional motion, asking that Respondents be enjoined from transferring him outside of the Western District of Texas during the pendency of his habeas petition. The same day, at 5:00 AM MST, ICE transported Pablo Pablo to the airport. At 6:00 AM, ICE placed him on a flight direct to Guatemala By the time the Court ordered
Respondents not to remove Pablo Pablo, he had arrived in Guatemala City.

That led to the court demanding some answers from the government. And while the government was responsive (in the legal sense), it doesn’t appear to be all that concerned about Pablo Pablo’s whereabouts or well-being.

Respondents conceded that Pablo Pablo “was subject to withholding of removal to Guatemala at the time he was removed, and therefore the physical removal was unlawful.” To rectify the error, Respondents stated that Pablo Pablo’s return flight had been “tentatively scheduled” for December 4, 2025.23 On December 4, 2025, Respondents provided an update that “Petitioner was not returned to the United States.” As far as the Court is aware, Pablo Pablo currently remains in Guatemala.

But then the government argued that the judge no longer had jurisdiction over Pablo Pablo’s habeas petition because… the government no longer had custody of Pablo Pablo. This is ridiculous, says the judge.

For reasons squarely outside of Pablo Pablo’s control, his attention has shifted from challenging his detention to challenging the blatant lawlessness of his removal. In other words, “[t]he removal itself lies at the heart of the wrongs.”

You’ll notice the words “blatant lawlessness of his removal” are not in quotes. This is a judge talking directly to ICE and the government’s legal reps, telling them exactly what he thinks about their actions. This isn’t an indirect slam cribbed from precedent.

And the judge is right to be angry. As Kyle Cheney’s report for Politico notes, this is something ICE has been doing repeatedly since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

The administration has acknowledged several other improper deportations, including a man sent to El Salvador despite a court-approved settlement agreement barring his deportation while his asylum claim was pending, a man who was sent to Mexico despite immigration officials’ acknowledgment that they had no record of a “credible fear” interview to determine whether he might face persecution, a man deported to El Salvador — where he remains incarcerated — despite a federal appeals court order barring his deportation, and a transgender woman deported to Mexico despite an immigration court order finding she was likely to be tortured there.

And even though the government admitted it had engaged in a “blatantly unlawful” removal when questioned by the court, the DHS remains defiant. Assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement that basically says that Pablo Pablo is more wrong than ICE is:

“This illegal alien from Guatemala has a final order of removal from an immigration judge issued in 2015. He received full due process. One thing is certain: he is not going to be able to remain in the U.S. We will deport him to another country.”

McLaughlin also said this in her statement, which yet again undercuts the “worst of worst” narrative that gets trotted out every time ICE starts ramping up raids.

If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a criminal with a lengthy rap sheet or someone who spent more than a decade here doing everything the government asked of him and, apparently, being a law-abiding non-citizen. Either way, this administration wants you gone.

02:00 AM

Fighting for Internet Freedom: Ramon's Story from Cuba [Tor Project blog]

In our ongoing fight for internet freedom, it's important to remember who we're fighting for. That’s why in this blog post, we’re highlighting a story submitted by a Tor user and how Tor helps them circumvent government censorship.

Ramon* is a Tor user living in Cuba who faces challenges accessing information from blocked websites, grapples with slow internet speeds, and encounters sanctions limiting his access to specific platforms and software. These obstacles make it difficult for him to prepare effective curriculums for his students.

In Cuba, the government controls the internet infrastructure, the formal media sector, and tightly regulates content. The independent press operates outside the law, and journalists face regular harassment, detention, and interrogation.

A social communication law was approved in May 2023, stating that public information is solely accessible through state media, further restricting internet freedom in Cuba. This means all digital platforms must be registered with the government, and all of their content must align with the government ideology. People and independent press that share opposing views of the government on social media and the internet will face legal consequences.

When governments deny access to the free internet by blocking sites and services, people like Ramon are stripped of their human right to access information.

“I am a software developer and programming teacher and I live in Cuba,” Ramon told us in his response to a survey of Tor Browser users. “There are many sites with information that I need to be able to do my work that are blocked due to absurd laws.”

Ramon is one of billions of people living in countries where internet freedom has declined for more than a decade. Tor tools help Ramon circumvent blocked sites and access essential information to educate others. He responded to one of our requests for stories through an anonymous survey, and consented for us to publish his story in order to highlight the importance of Tor for free expression.

As a nonprofit, the Tor Project relies on donations to continue supporting millions of people like Ramon. Join us in this fight – donate today and help us secure a free internet.

*=pseudonym.

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