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1000 results for “foss_north”
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The Free Software Foundation of India promotes libre software across the subcontinent. You can follow FSF India at:
➡️ @fsfi
The official website is at https://fsf.org.in
FSF India also has sister organisations elsewhere including @fsf (North America), @fsfe (Europe) and FSF Latin America.
#FSFIndia #FSFI #FSF #India #Indian #Swantantra #FOSS #FLOSS #Libre #FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #OpenSource #Software
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The Free Software Foundation of India promotes libre software across the subcontinent. You can follow FSF India at:
➡️ @fsfi
The official website is at https://fsf.org.in
FSF India also has sister organisations elsewhere including @fsf (North America), @fsfe (Europe) and FSF Latin America.
#FSFIndia #FSFI #FSF #India #Indian #Swantantra #FOSS #FLOSS #Libre #FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #OpenSource #Software
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Thanks to Ilan Rabinovitch and the volunteer team for a successful @socallinuxexpo, March 6–8, in Pasadena, California! It was wonderful meeting so many friends and attendees at the community-driven Linux conference. 🐧💻🤝
Read LPI Board Member Ted Matsumura’s article to see how #LPI engaged with the North American open source community on #Linux, #FOSS, and #certifications: https://lpi.org/596b
#SCALE23x #opensource #Linux #FOSS #ITCertification #freesoftware #cloudnative #communityevent
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Hello New Folks! #Introduction
I'm Josh. I really like science, biking, canoeing, and cooking. I’m also a Prof of Anthropology & Social Informatics at Indiana University South Bend, principal investigator w/Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA). I work at intersections of people, heritage, tech, & research, love to help folks use data systems more humanely, openly, & equitably. My posts are mine only and do not reflect my employer or organizational affiliations.#anthropology #archaeology #culturalheritage #cyborganthropology #digitalarchaeology #digitalhumanities #dh #FOSS #GIS #informatics #openSci #openData #openGov
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Hello New Folks! #Introduction
I'm Josh. I really like science, biking, canoeing, and cooking. I’m also a Prof of Anthropology & Social Informatics at Indiana University South Bend, principal investigator w/Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA). I work at intersections of people, heritage, tech, & research, love to help folks use data systems more humanely, openly, & equitably. My posts are mine only and do not reflect my employer or organizational affiliations.#anthropology #archaeology #culturalheritage #cyborganthropology #digitalarchaeology #digitalhumanities #dh #FOSS #GIS #informatics #openSci #openData #openGov
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Hello New Folks! #Introduction
I'm Josh. I really like science, biking, canoeing, and cooking. I’m also a Prof of Anthropology & Social Informatics at Indiana University South Bend, principal investigator w/Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA). I work at intersections of people, heritage, tech, & research, love to help folks use data systems more humanely, openly, & equitably. My posts are mine only and do not reflect my employer or organizational affiliations.#anthropology #archaeology #culturalheritage #cyborganthropology #digitalarchaeology #digitalhumanities #dh #FOSS #GIS #informatics #openSci #openData #openGov
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Hello New Folks! #Introduction
I'm Josh. I really like science, biking, canoeing, and cooking. I’m also a Prof of Anthropology & Social Informatics at Indiana University South Bend, principal investigator w/Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA). I work at intersections of people, heritage, tech, & research, love to help folks use data systems more humanely, openly, & equitably. My posts are mine only and do not reflect my employer or organizational affiliations.#anthropology #archaeology #culturalheritage #cyborganthropology #digitalarchaeology #digitalhumanities #dh #FOSS #GIS #informatics #openSci #openData #openGov
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Hello New Folks! #Introduction
I'm Josh. I really like science, biking, canoeing, and cooking. I’m also a Prof of Anthropology & Social Informatics at Indiana University South Bend, principal investigator w/Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA). I work at intersections of people, heritage, tech, & research, love to help folks use data systems more humanely, openly, & equitably. My posts are mine only and do not reflect my employer or organizational affiliations.#anthropology #archaeology #culturalheritage #cyborganthropology #digitalarchaeology #digitalhumanities #dh #FOSS #GIS #informatics #openSci #openData #openGov
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Who wants to meet up?
I'm committing an #interrail trip through #europe from 15. May to ~5. June, on a somewhat decided path from northern #norway through southern #sweden, #denmark, #germany and Amsterdam in the #Netherlands to #italy (cycling #tuscanytrail there for a week with friends) and back.
It'd be super cool to meet and maybe grab a local pint with #FOSS people, #coop / #cooperative people and folks doing radical left-of-centre, anti-authoritarian things in general :mastodondance:
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🐴 For #FossilFriday the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), housed at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, UT.
The original specimen—now in a private collection—is about 33cm (13 in) tall at the shoulder. It is one of two known specimens from the Fossil Butte Member at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming.
I’ll be posting more about North American equids in the Midwest the next few months.
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Hi!
I'm papiris, a norwegian mechanical engineering student.
I'm new to this whole fediverse thing and I never did like Twitter, so I'm curious to see how this turns out.
My interests are as diverse as oceanic fauna and as intense as northern lights after a good solar storm. Since my current largest interest is FOSS, I set up residence here with you😊
Nice to meet you!#introductions #norway #mechanicalengineering #paragliding #snowboard #freedive #tuning #3dprint #arctic
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Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN and it’s coming soon.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – November 20, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Muni Town writes:
I’ve been trying to write this piece for years, really ever since I finished the first version of Open Source Explained (a v2 will drop early next year). Every time I get started I’m just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the commentariat accusing me of WrongThink.
So I drop it, because I’m tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).
Understanding ownership is power
It’s important to understand the codes in your life, because your life is made up of them. Once you understand which codes you already have access to and even the right to inspect, you can see more clearly which other codes you ought to have insight into.
Nothing makes me more anxious than writing about open source licensing because nothing brings out more opinion-havers, the vast majority of whom are speaking from a point of privilege-blindess in the western world. The widespread ignorance of the deeper power struggle at play (which we’re losing) has brought the free world to the very brink, so I’m pushing past the discomfort to honor the urgency of our moment.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
404 Media reports:
Ukraine Is Jamming Russia’s ‘Superweapon’ With a Song
Radio Free Europe reports:
How Britain’s Disposable Vape Ban Has Boosted Ukraine’s War Effort
TechCrunch reports:
Five people plead guilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies as ‘remote IT workers’
Surveillance Tech Provide Proteir Was Hacked
Software Maxims has:
How FOSS Won and Why It Matters
Open Future announces:
Open Future Joins the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty
404 Media reports:
Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government
Framasoft has:
Renforcez l’internet du partage en contribuant à la robustesse de Framasoft
The Register reports:
Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium
Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown
Game over: Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep
The Guardian reports:
French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI
TechPolicy Press reports:
Brazil Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Framework for Platform Liability
Neutral
TechCrunch reports:
Databricks co-founder argues US must go open source to beat China in AI
The Guardian reports:
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:
Architects of Online Influence: How Creators, Platforms, and Policymakers Shape Political Speech
TechPolicy Press says:
If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech
MIT Technology Review reports:
Quantum physicists have shrunk and “de-censored” DeepSeek R1
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Corporate Europe reports:
Preparing a roll-back of digital rights: Commission’s secretive meetings with industry
The Brussels Times reports:
Secret EU plans to allow Big Tech to train AI with our personal data
The Guardian reports:
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage
404 Media reports:
This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
The Register reports:
Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US, UK, and Australia sanction Russian ‘bulletproof’ web host used in ransomware attacks
Forbes reports:
Has Samsung Installed ‘Unremovable Israeli Spyware’ On Your Phone?
The Register reports:
Tens of thousands more ASUS routers pwned by suspected, evolving China operation
Big Media
TBD
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia
The Register reports:
Researchers find hole in AI guardrails by using strings like =coffee
404 Media reports:
A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On
The ACLU reports:
Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship
Yep.
TechPolicy Press reports:
How Tech Oligarchs Profit from the Logic of ‘Finitude Capitalism’ and What to Do About It
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Privacy Guides has:
Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds
DarkReading asks:
Can a Global, Decentralized System Save CVE Data?
Heise reports:
3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated
Signal or Delta Chat peeps.
Fediverse
Ben Werdmuller reports on:
The State of the Open Social Web
Great Stuff as usual from Ben.
ForBetter explores:
The future of hope on the Social Web
Connected Places has:
Laura Hargreaves has:
Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To)
Big news with Mastodon this week:
The Future is Ours to Build – Together
Hopefully the new regime (foundation vs. benevolent dictator) will focus on trust & safety and not trying to be Twitter 2.
Chris Sturmsucht shares:
Fediverse: a new open and social web
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #democracy #fascism #fediverse #ghost #mastodon #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism
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#Introduction, I'm a self-employed #electronics #hardware developer working on #fiberoptic #communications, #optical networking, #sensors, #power #converters, and #undersea systems. I have a #graphene #patent, & study #nanotech, FOSS IC design, & C++.
I'm the vice-chair of the #IEEE #Consultants Network of Northern New Jersey (CNNNJ) & a tech coach at #Entrepreneurs University.
I build PCs & #maker projects with #ROG #Arduino & #RaspberryPi. I'm ham #radio operator & an amateur #photographer.
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Destroying Autocracy – July 17, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
We are back from holiday and brief respite from Fascism Friendly Florida.
Featured Item
Hamish Campbell writes:
Capitalism’s invisible hand has always relied on hidden data. In the digital age, that data is metadata the overlooked, under-the-hood information that tells us who, where, when, how often, and what next. It doesn’t matter what you say or do if someone else controls the context around it. That’s where the power lies. Let’s be clear: the battle for metadata is the battle for the future.
Capitalism: Metadata is hoarded by the dotcons. This is the tech-feudalism of today—soft fascism in algorithmic form.
Chinese Communism: Here, the state doesn’t outsource metadata – it owns it. Surveillance is centralised. Social credit systems reduce people to patterns and can be used to penalise deviation.
Liberalism: Wants to privatise metadata to the individual, to revive the mythical free market of rational actors with perfect information. But this is a fantasy—metadata’s power comes from aggregation, and no individual can match corporate or state capacity to hoard it. The liberal path leads to a slightly less abusive cage.
Anarchism and the Commons: A Fourth Way
What does anarchism want? It wants the social conditions for free association. It wants autonomy, not just individual, but community autonomy.
In commons vs. the market, capitalism uses metadata to target, extract, and sell. We use metadata to share, trust, and build. The Open Media Network proposes a radical shift to replace the market with metadata commons. In capitalism, knowledge is hoarded for advantage. In the commons, it is shared for coordination. The market’s “invisible hand” becomes the commons’ visible knowledge, messy, partial, human, but rooted in mutual aid, not profit.
Metadata and the OMN Path: Who Controls the Invisible Hand?
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed servers of Russian drone maker
The Kyiv Independent reports:
EU slaps new sanctions on Russia over hybrid threats, disinformation
BleepingComputer reports:
Europol disrupts pro-Russian NoName057(16) DDoS hacktivist group
ETH Zurich announces:
A language model built for the public good
Open Future reports on:
It’s FOSS reports:
Europe on a Roll: Plans Open Source Alternative to Confluence and Jira
OpenProject shares:
Empowering the Public Sector with OpenProject: An Open Source alternative for project management
Bloomberg Law reports:
States Target AI Hiring Tools as Federal Freeze Attempt Fails
404 Media has:
The Open-Source Software Saving the Internet From AI Bot Scrapers
Immigration Raid Tracking App ‘ICE Block’ Keeps Your Data Private, Researcher Finds
Open Ice is a new resource:
TechPolicy reports:
States Are Fighting Back To Defend Medical Privacy and Safeguard Democracy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Despite Supreme Court Setback, EFF Fights On Against Online Age Mandates
Neutral
TechPolicy reports:
How the EU’s Voluntary AI Code is Testing Industry and Regulators Alike
Making Media Pluralism Work in the Age of Algorithms
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
EFF’s Guide to Getting Records About Axon’s Draft One AI-Generated Police Reports
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Platformer reports:
The campaign to make it illegal for ChatGPT to criticize Trump
Krebs on Security reports:
DOGE Denizen Marko Elez Leaked API Key for xAI
404 Media reports:
ICE Is Searching a Massive Insurance and Medical Bill Database to Find Deportation Target
TechPolicy reports:
The US Just Logged Off from Internet Freedom
ProPublica has:
The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE
A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Chinese Hackers
Ars Technica reports:
Trump sues Corporation for Public Broadcasting directors who refused to be fired
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean XORIndex malware hidden in 67 malicious npm packages
DarkReading reports:
China-Backed Salt Typhoon Hacks US National Guard for Nearly a Year
4 Chinese APTs Attack Taiwan’s Semiconductor Industry
Noyb has:
How TikTok, AliExpress & WeChat ignore your GDPR rights
Big Media
404 Media reports:
The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work
TechPolicy reports:
Old Tricks, New Tech: How Legacy Media Capture Fuels Today’s Digital Authoritarianism
Mediations in an Emergency reports:
Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning
Big Tech
Ars Technica reports:
New Grok AI model surprises experts by checking Elon Musk’s views before answering
TechCrunch reports:
Of course, Grok’s AI companions want to have sex and burn down schools
OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI
The Verge asks:
Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?
Pluralistic by Cory Doctorow has:
Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?
404 Media reports:
a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise
The Markup reports:
AI is helping students be more independent, but the isolation could be career poison
This times 1,000.
Terror
404 Media reports:
3D Printing Patterns Might Make Ghost Guns More Traceable Than We Thought
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Bleeping Computer has:
Google Gemini flaw hijacks email summaries for phishing
Malicious VSCode extension in Cursor IDE led to $500K crypto theft
Sounds like a win-win.
Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices
Ars Technica reports:
Hackers exploit a blind spot by hiding malware inside DNS records
DarkReading reports:
Military Veterans May Be What Cybersecurity Is Looking For
Beats being in the National Guard.
Women Who ‘Hacked the Status Quo’ Aim to Inspire Cybersecurity Careers
The Next Web reports:
Whisper emerges from stealth with ‘God Mode’ to tackle cybercrime
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Age Verification Laws: Are the New Social Networks Different, Or Not At All?
Steve Bate has:
ActivityPub Client API: A Way Forward
The Social Web Foundation has:
Seeking interop testing for geosocial ActivityPub client
Mastodon has:
Privacy Guides has:
Privacy and Security on Mastodon
Bandwagon has an update:
Elena Rossini has:
My adventures in self-hosting: day 211 (CDN edition)
Forgejo announces:
TechCrunch reports:
Meta appoints generative AI VP to run Threads
I guess it wasn’t shitty enough.
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
Reuters reports:
European project Eurosky aims to reduce reliance on US tech giants
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#125 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #Bandwagon #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
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Destroying Autocracy – June 05, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Ploum writes:
As we don’t have the time to think anymore, we masquerade our lack of ideas with behavioural tricks. We replaced documents with PowerPoints because it allowed lack of structure and emptiness to look professional (just copy paste the data of the last PowerPoint you received in a text file and see by yourself how pitiful it is.
The root problem is that, for the first time in human history, our brain is the bottleneck. For all history, transmitting information was slow. Brains were fast. After sending a letter, we had days or months to think before receiving an answer. Erasmus wrote his famous “Éloge de la folie” in several days while travelling in Europe. He would never have done it in a couple of hours in a plane while the small screen in the backseat would show him advertisements.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
404 Media reports:
The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced
Fanfuckingtastic! C^nts may be able to kill some things. But you can’t kill ideas.
Ukraine’s Massive Drone Attack Was Powered by Open Source Software
The IEEE reports:
How Ukraine’s Killer Drones Are Beating Russian Jamming
The Kyiv Independent reports:
‘Nothing secret left’ — Ukraine hacks Russia’s Tupolev bomber producer, source claims
EuroNews reports:
Belgian watchdog checking Telegram for EU anti-terror compliance
Android Police reports:
EU’s new rules will shake up Android update policies
Fairphone and e/OS is the way to go.
It’s Foss News reports:
/e/OS 3.0 Debuts with Refined Parental Controls, New Privacy Tools and Murena Vault
Next adds:
Murena lance son système mobile open source et dégooglisé /e/OS 3.0
Open_Future shares:
Leveraging Public Spending for Digital Sovereignty
The Register reports:
As Europe eyes move from US hyperscalers, IONOS dismisses scaleability worries
Reuters reports:
Apple loses bid to pause app store reform order in Epic Games case
Ars Technica reports:
Florida ban on kids using social media likely unconstitutional, judge rules
America’s stubbiest fascist, Gov. Stuntcunt DeSantis knew this when he pushed it through our lickspittle legislature.
Nextcloud shares:
Nextcloud Awards 2025: Celebrating those building a sovereign digital future
Neutral
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Building a newsroom technology culture
Tech Policy says:
With Congress Silent, the FTC Must Protect Kids from Big Tech
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
The Telegraph reports:
Trump official who shut down counter-Russia agency has links to Kremlin
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Ars Technica reports:
Lawsuit: DOGE, HHS used “hopelessly error-ridden” data to fire 10,000 workers
ProPublica reports:
DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts
Desmog reports:
A Weaponized AI Chatbot Is Flooding Canadian City Councils with Climate Misinformation
The Intercept reports:
How the FBI Sought a Warrant to Search Instagram of Columbia Student Protesters
404 Media reports:
TSA Working on Haptic Tech To ‘Feel’ Your Body in Virtual Reality
Why is our world a combination of stupidity and technology?
Pariah States
Bleeping Computer reports:
‘Russian Market’ emerges as a go-to shop for stolen credentials
New PathWiper data wiper malware hits critical infrastructure in Ukraine
NPR reports:
OpenAI takes down covert operations tied to China and other countries
The Hacker News reports:
Chinese APT41 Exploits Google Calendar for Malware Command-and-Control Operations
The Register reports:
Uncle Sam moves to seize $7.7M laundered by North Korean IT worker ring
Big Media
Isabelle Roughol says:
We’ve been thinking about Substack all wrong
I say if you’ve been thinking about Suckstack period, you’re wrong. Including reading anything on it. Once again, Ghost people!
Big Tech
Tech Policy asks:
Why are Tech Oligarchs So Obsessed with Energy and What Does That Mean for Democracy?
Sigh.
The Guardian reports:
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year
The next stage in enshitification.
Ars Technica reports:
Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers
The Register reports:
Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul
Endgadget reports:
The Oversight Board says Meta isn’t doing enough to fight celeb deepfake scams
404 Media reports:
Apple Gave Governments Data on Thousands of Push Notifications
Polygon reports:
Duolingo users are in turmoil over the app’s AI lessons
Unfortunately, my subscription renewed in March. But, I won’t be renewing it.
Matthew Garret reports:
Twitter’s new encrypted DMs aren’t better than the old ones
Terror
Pro Publication reports:
“The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention
I guess we are better off with incompetent fascists than competent ones???
Cybersecurity/Privacy
DarkReading has:
EMR-ISAC Shuts Down: What Happens Now?
Beware of Device Code Phishing
BleepingComputer reports:
BidenCash carding market domains seized in international operation
Global Encryption shares:
Joint Letter on the European Internal Security Strategy (ProtectEU)
Fediverse
The Fediverse report has:
PeerTube announces:
App crowdfunding campaign — First goal reached!
Splinter, a web app that splits long posts into Mastodon threads , was introduced.
Useful!
The Indie Beat Radio announces:
Audio Interface Channel Launches on The Indie Beat Radio
Bonfire is:
Announcing the Bonfire Social 1.0 Release Candidate
TechCrunch has:
Introducing Bounce, a tool to move your following between Bluesky and Mastodon
Luis Quintanilla shares:
Ghost is:
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
The Fediverse Report has:
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#119 #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #eOS #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Peertube #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine
-
I am USIDORE, Wizard of the 12th Realm of Ephysiyies, Master of Light and Shadow, Manipulator of Magical Delights, Devourer of Chaos, Champion of the Great Halls of Terr'akkas, known to the elves as Fi’ang Yalok, known to the dwarfs as Zoenen Hoogstandjes, and known known in the Northeast as Gaismunēnas Meistar.
I am also the average FOSS enthusiast
Happy Halloween!
#hellofromthemagictavern #halloween
P.S. why are there no blue wizard hats at a 60cm radius good god.
-
Good morning #Fediverse! :fediverse: In this morning's #ConnectionList #introduction, where I try to more deeply and richly connect the Fediverse, I'd like you to meet:
@alienelf who works with #MasakhaneNLP #NLP in #Africa. They are a #scientist and #musician 🇿🇦
@DRMacIver works in #software #testing and #assurance, and if you are #snek or #curlyboi inclined you may want to follow him 🇬🇧 🐍 #Python
@nicky is incredible and she is a founder of Grok Learning, a #tech #educator and now works in #productmanagement. She is also of the #snek #Python 🐍
@ElectricWill is from The North in #Sheffield, and is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and is a #wheelchair user. They (not assuming pronouns) are into #photography #gaming #disability #a11y 🇬🇧 👋
@hmlittlecbigc is a #PhD candidate at the Kirby Institute at UNSW and a #healthpromotion practitioner. She's on Bidjigal land 🇦🇺 👋
@robs is a #formalmethods #researcher #academic in #concurrency. Uses #Isabelle and #HOL for any other #trustedsystems. folks. You might know @gernot ? Also interested in 🇯🇵 (cc @Takoyaki ) and likes #SciFi 🇦🇺 👋
@lauren works in #tech #systems and #policy #analysisas well as #privacy 🇺🇸
@signalapp is the brand account for Signal. What's the deal with stories?!
@thunderbird is the brand account for Thunderbird for any #opensource and #foss folks.
(Edited to remove Mozilla brand account which looked suspicious)
More this evening! ❤️
-
🐴 For #FossilFriday the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), housed at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, UT.
The original specimen—now in a private collection—is about 33cm (13 in) tall at the shoulder. It is one of two known specimens from the Fossil Butte Member at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming.
I’ll be posting more about North American equids in the Midwest the next few months.
-
🐴 For #FossilFriday the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), housed at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, UT.
The original specimen—now in a private collection—is about 33cm (13 in) tall at the shoulder. It is one of two known specimens from the Fossil Butte Member at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming.
I’ll be posting more about North American equids in the Midwest the next few months.
-
🐴 For #FossilFriday the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), housed at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, UT.
The original specimen—now in a private collection—is about 33cm (13 in) tall at the shoulder. It is one of two known specimens from the Fossil Butte Member at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming.
I’ll be posting more about North American equids in the Midwest the next few months.
-
🐴 For #FossilFriday the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), housed at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, UT.
The original specimen—now in a private collection—is about 33cm (13 in) tall at the shoulder. It is one of two known specimens from the Fossil Butte Member at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming.
I’ll be posting more about North American equids in the Midwest the next few months.
-
Good morning #Fediverse! :fediverse: In this morning's #ConnectionList #introduction, where I try to more deeply and richly connect the Fediverse, I'd like you to meet:
@alienelf who works with #MasakhaneNLP #NLP in #Africa. They are a #scientist and #musician 🇿🇦
@DRMacIver works in #software #testing and #assurance, and if you are #snek or #curlyboi inclined you may want to follow him 🇬🇧 🐍 #Python
@nicky is incredible and she is a founder of Grok Learning, a #tech #educator and now works in #productmanagement. She is also of the #snek #Python 🐍
@ElectricWill is from The North in #Sheffield, and is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and is a #wheelchair user. They (not assuming pronouns) are into #photography #gaming #disability #a11y 🇬🇧 👋
@hmlittlecbigc is a #PhD candidate at the Kirby Institute at UNSW and a #healthpromotion practitioner. She's on Bidjigal land 🇦🇺 👋
@robs is a #formalmethods #researcher #academic in #concurrency. Uses #Isabelle and #HOL for any other #trustedsystems. folks. You might know @gernot ? Also interested in 🇯🇵 (cc @Takoyaki ) and likes #SciFi 🇦🇺 👋
@lauren works in #tech #systems and #policy #analysisas well as #privacy 🇺🇸
@signalapp is the brand account for Signal. What's the deal with stories?!
@thunderbird is the brand account for Thunderbird for any #opensource and #foss folks.
(Edited to remove Mozilla brand account which looked suspicious)
More this evening! ❤️
-
Good morning #Fediverse! :fediverse: In this morning's #ConnectionList #introduction, where I try to more deeply and richly connect the Fediverse, I'd like you to meet:
@alienelf who works with #MasakhaneNLP #NLP in #Africa. They are a #scientist and #musician 🇿🇦
@DRMacIver works in #software #testing and #assurance, and if you are #snek or #curlyboi inclined you may want to follow him 🇬🇧 🐍 #Python
@nicky is incredible and she is a founder of Grok Learning, a #tech #educator and now works in #productmanagement. She is also of the #snek #Python 🐍
@ElectricWill is from The North in #Sheffield, and is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and is a #wheelchair user. They (not assuming pronouns) are into #photography #gaming #disability #a11y 🇬🇧 👋
@hmlittlecbigc is a #PhD candidate at the Kirby Institute at UNSW and a #healthpromotion practitioner. She's on Bidjigal land 🇦🇺 👋
@robs is a #formalmethods #researcher #academic in #concurrency. Uses #Isabelle and #HOL for any other #trustedsystems. folks. You might know @gernot ? Also interested in 🇯🇵 (cc @Takoyaki ) and likes #SciFi 🇦🇺 👋
@lauren works in #tech #systems and #policy #analysisas well as #privacy 🇺🇸
@signalapp is the brand account for Signal. What's the deal with stories?!
@thunderbird is the brand account for Thunderbird for any #opensource and #foss folks.
(Edited to remove Mozilla brand account which looked suspicious)
More this evening! ❤️
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN and it’s coming soon.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN and it’s coming soon.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN and it’s coming soon.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN and it’s coming soon.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 20, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Muni Town writes:
I’ve been trying to write this piece for years, really ever since I finished the first version of Open Source Explained (a v2 will drop early next year). Every time I get started I’m just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the commentariat accusing me of WrongThink.
So I drop it, because I’m tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).
Understanding ownership is power
It’s important to understand the codes in your life, because your life is made up of them. Once you understand which codes you already have access to and even the right to inspect, you can see more clearly which other codes you ought to have insight into.
Nothing makes me more anxious than writing about open source licensing because nothing brings out more opinion-havers, the vast majority of whom are speaking from a point of privilege-blindess in the western world. The widespread ignorance of the deeper power struggle at play (which we’re losing) has brought the free world to the very brink, so I’m pushing past the discomfort to honor the urgency of our moment.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
404 Media reports:
Ukraine Is Jamming Russia’s ‘Superweapon’ With a Song
Radio Free Europe reports:
How Britain’s Disposable Vape Ban Has Boosted Ukraine’s War Effort
TechCrunch reports:
Five people plead guilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies as ‘remote IT workers’
Surveillance Tech Provide Proteir Was Hacked
Software Maxims has:
How FOSS Won and Why It Matters
Open Future announces:
Open Future Joins the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty
404 Media reports:
Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government
Elon Musk Could ‘Drink Piss Better Than Any Human in History,’ Grok Says
Literally, pathetic.
Framasoft has:
Renforcez l’internet du partage en contribuant à la robustesse de Framasoft
The Register reports:
Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium
Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown
Game over: Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep
The Guardian reports:
French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI
TechPolicy Press reports:
Brazil Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Framework for Platform Liability
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features
Neutral
TechCrunch reports:
Databricks co-founder argues US must go open source to beat China in AI
The Guardian reports:
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:
Architects of Online Influence: How Creators, Platforms, and Policymakers Shape Political Speech
TechPolicy Press says:
If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech
MIT Technology Review reports:
Quantum physicists have shrunk and “de-censored” DeepSeek R1
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Corporate Europe reports:
Preparing a roll-back of digital rights: Commission’s secretive meetings with industry
The Brussels Times reports:
Secret EU plans to allow Big Tech to train AI with our personal data
The Guardian reports:
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage
404 Media reports:
This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country
The Register reports:
Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform
Trump, Republicans try again to stop states from regulating AI
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US, UK, and Australia sanction Russian ‘bulletproof’ web host used in ransomware attacks
Forbes reports:
Has Samsung Installed ‘Unremovable Israeli Spyware’ On Your Phone?
The Register reports:
Tens of thousands more ASUS routers pwned by suspected, evolving China operation
DarkReading reports:
Chinese APT Infects Routers to Hijack Software Updates
Big Media
TBD
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia
MalwareBytes reorts:
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
The Register reports:
Researchers find hole in AI guardrails by using strings like =coffee
404 Media reports:
A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On
The ACLU reports:
Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship
Yep.
TechPolicy Press reports:
How Tech Oligarchs Profit from the Logic of ‘Finitude Capitalism’ and What to Do About It
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Privacy Guides has:
Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds
DarkReading asks:
Can a Global, Decentralized System Save CVE Data?
Heise reports:
3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated
Signal or Delta Chat peeps.
Fediverse
Ben Werdmuller reports on:
The State of the Open Social Web
Great Stuff as usual from Ben.
ForBetter explores:
The future of hope on the Social Web
Connected Places has:
Laura Hargreaves has:
Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To)
Big news with Mastodon this week:
The Future is Ours to Build – Together
Hopefully the new regime (foundation vs. benevolent dictator) will focus on trust & safety and not trying to be Twitter 2.
Chris Sturmsucht shares:
Fediverse: a new open and social web
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 143 – Eurosky Live
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky announces moderation changes focused on better tracking, improved transparency
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #democracy #fascism #fediverse #ghost #mastodon #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 20, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Muni Town writes:
I’ve been trying to write this piece for years, really ever since I finished the first version of Open Source Explained (a v2 will drop early next year). Every time I get started I’m just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the commentariat accusing me of WrongThink.
So I drop it, because I’m tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).
Understanding ownership is power
It’s important to understand the codes in your life, because your life is made up of them. Once you understand which codes you already have access to and even the right to inspect, you can see more clearly which other codes you ought to have insight into.
Nothing makes me more anxious than writing about open source licensing because nothing brings out more opinion-havers, the vast majority of whom are speaking from a point of privilege-blindess in the western world. The widespread ignorance of the deeper power struggle at play (which we’re losing) has brought the free world to the very brink, so I’m pushing past the discomfort to honor the urgency of our moment.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
404 Media reports:
Ukraine Is Jamming Russia’s ‘Superweapon’ With a Song
Radio Free Europe reports:
How Britain’s Disposable Vape Ban Has Boosted Ukraine’s War Effort
TechCrunch reports:
Five people plead guilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies as ‘remote IT workers’
Surveillance Tech Provide Proteir Was Hacked
Software Maxims has:
How FOSS Won and Why It Matters
Open Future announces:
Open Future Joins the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty
404 Media reports:
Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government
Elon Musk Could ‘Drink Piss Better Than Any Human in History,’ Grok Says
Literally, pathetic.
Framasoft has:
Renforcez l’internet du partage en contribuant à la robustesse de Framasoft
The Register reports:
Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium
Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown
Game over: Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep
The Guardian reports:
French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI
TechPolicy Press reports:
Brazil Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Framework for Platform Liability
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features
Neutral
TechCrunch reports:
Databricks co-founder argues US must go open source to beat China in AI
The Guardian reports:
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:
Architects of Online Influence: How Creators, Platforms, and Policymakers Shape Political Speech
TechPolicy Press says:
If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech
MIT Technology Review reports:
Quantum physicists have shrunk and “de-censored” DeepSeek R1
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Corporate Europe reports:
Preparing a roll-back of digital rights: Commission’s secretive meetings with industry
The Brussels Times reports:
Secret EU plans to allow Big Tech to train AI with our personal data
The Guardian reports:
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage
404 Media reports:
This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country
The Register reports:
Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform
Trump, Republicans try again to stop states from regulating AI
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US, UK, and Australia sanction Russian ‘bulletproof’ web host used in ransomware attacks
Forbes reports:
Has Samsung Installed ‘Unremovable Israeli Spyware’ On Your Phone?
The Register reports:
Tens of thousands more ASUS routers pwned by suspected, evolving China operation
DarkReading reports:
Chinese APT Infects Routers to Hijack Software Updates
Big Media
TBD
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia
MalwareBytes reorts:
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
The Register reports:
Researchers find hole in AI guardrails by using strings like =coffee
404 Media reports:
A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On
The ACLU reports:
Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship
Yep.
TechPolicy Press reports:
How Tech Oligarchs Profit from the Logic of ‘Finitude Capitalism’ and What to Do About It
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Privacy Guides has:
Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds
DarkReading asks:
Can a Global, Decentralized System Save CVE Data?
Heise reports:
3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated
Signal or Delta Chat peeps.
Fediverse
Ben Werdmuller reports on:
The State of the Open Social Web
Great Stuff as usual from Ben.
ForBetter explores:
The future of hope on the Social Web
Connected Places has:
Laura Hargreaves has:
Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To)
Big news with Mastodon this week:
The Future is Ours to Build – Together
Hopefully the new regime (foundation vs. benevolent dictator) will focus on trust & safety and not trying to be Twitter 2.
Chris Sturmsucht shares:
Fediverse: a new open and social web
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 143 – Eurosky Live
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky announces moderation changes focused on better tracking, improved transparency
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #democracy #fascism #fediverse #ghost #mastodon #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism