New financial support for #FDroid thanks to FLOSS/Fund
f-droid.org/en/2026/05/26/flos…
#FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource #privacy #Android
Some exciting news from 2025, F-Droid was awarded $50,000 in funding from FLOSS fund, an initiative dedicated to supporting critical, impactful, and valuable...f-droid.org
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"Object permanence": the ability to understand that things still exist, even if you can't see 'em. Kids acquire a thorough sense of object permanence by the age of two. But when it comes to technopolitics, object permanence eludes full-grown lawmakers. These motherfuckers would lose a game of peek-a-boo.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read/share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/she…
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Pluralistic: There's no such thing as "age verification" (19 May 2026)Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)
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The deepest protest ever for the world leaders in the back:
👏 LISTEN 👏 TO 👏 THE 👏 SCIENCE 👏
Sign the petition >> greenpeace.org/international/a…
#StopDeepSeaMining #ProtectTheOceans #ArcticDeepExpedition
The deep ocean is one of the world’s largest, most fragile, and most important ecosystems. We need a global moratorium to stop the launch of this destructive new extractive industry.Greenpeace International
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Our Friendica (TROM Social) failed to update to the latest stable. Likely this bug github.com/YunoHost-Apps/frien…
Seems easy to solve, but since our database is massive, around 80GB, it took around 20 hours to restore....
I understand that it totally sucks for a Social Network to be down for almost a day. People may be put off and not want to use Friendica anymore. Or our instance at least. But our instance has been very reliable for the past years and I always email people to tell them about updating it, so they are aware such things can happen.
Also, our budget for TROM.tf is around €0, compared to the billions floating around Facebook and the like. So please understand that.
Today we will give the update another try, and it is likely to work. If it doesn't at least thanks to @YunoHost a backup will be automatically restored.
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Regarding that upgrade failure - I ran this:
sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
with that key errors:
Err:6 dl.yarnpkg.com/debian stable InRelease
The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 62D54FD4003F6525
Err:7 packages.sury.org/php bookworm InRelease
The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG B188E2B695BD4743 DEB.SURY.ORG Automatic Signing Key <deb@sury.org>
Probably you can do a similar job.
Woke up to a suspended social media account with zero explanation? Arbitrary account suspensions or content takedowns are direct violations of your freedom of speech.
Report it to our 24/7 RightsLine for pro bono legal support to navigate the redressal mechanism, challenge these violations, and reach the right authorities.
Report here: rightsline.sflc.in/
#freedspeech #digitalrights #FoE
Rights Line is your digital rights helpline, providing guidance and resources on digital rights, privacy, and internet freedom.rightsline.sflc.in
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“This is an important public service announcement related to your right to privacy … We the people have 1 day 16 hours 33 minutes 13 seconds to take action and influence this outcome.
…
For now, your encrypted messages have a lock on them.
Only you, and the person you're talking to, hold the key. Not the app. Not the company. Not the government. You probably don't think about it. That's the whole point — it just works.
Until, possibly, the end of this summer.
WHAT BILL C-22 WOULD DO
Every messaging app in Canada would be required to build a second key.”
Another effort to destroy end-to-end encryption, and thus your privacy, this time from Canada.
#canada #privacy #endToEndEncryption #backdoor
Pay attention #Canada 🇨🇦Canada is about to end private digital conversation — Bill C-22
Bill C-22 would force every messaging app in Canada to build a backdoor — and track all your activity for one year. Apple says no. Signal says they'll leave.dontsurveil.me
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Just read more about them retaining metadata for 12 months...I wonder where this will be stored - almost certainly one of these - AWS, google, microsoft.
All american corporations, and as a result that makes all that data available to american agencies under their data laws.
Perhaps this may be a way to shelve this Canadian plan? Bit late, I know, but only today I read about it ☹️.
A formula for persecution.
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Our Peertube is updated now. Security issue fixed! videos.trom.tf/home
Thank you @PeerTube for fixing it so fast and #yunohost for implementing the change.
If anyone wants to post their videos on our instance, we invite you! Unlimited storage basically, but 5GB a day max upload. If you need more tell us.
Let's add more original and good content on #peertube!
We already have a few original creators, so check them out!
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I decided to ease into my hiking in Iceland adventure by doing a Workaway for the first month. I'm staying in a beautiful town called Akranes with a lovely Icelandic family. I'm working part time in exchange for accommodation and food, and I'm able to test my camping/hiking equipment on my days off. So far only my jacket and sleeping pad are a big failure 😁
The Hubba Hubba tent and phantom sleeping bag have held up in below freezing conditions, so that's a relief 😅
Here are some photos from my first week in Iceland.
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Our #peertube instance - videos.trom.tf - is not currently working. A failed upgrade and failed restore from backup. We need to figure what is the issue...stay tuned.
EDIT: We are affected by this github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube… . Currently trying to fix it. See github.com/YunoHost-Apps/peert…
UPDATE: We fixed the issue. The bloody infection...manually. As recommended by Peertube in the link above. I urge people to do it.
This is a disaster. Updating from 8.1.5 ynh2 to 8.1.6 ynh1. Log here https://paste.yunohost.org/raw/icomahipej 2026-05-23 11:52:54,574: DEBUG - + pushd /var/www/peertube 2026-05-23 11:52:54,574: DE...tio-trom (GitHub)
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BTW, I don't think Google is going to completely ditch their search results page, because the TechCrunch article said it like this:
> Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times.
I don't think "at times" at the end here was an accident. It is still very bad that Google is doing this, but I feel like if they removed the search results page entirely then there would be a big backlash.
What Google is trying to do now is to slowly get people accustomed to the "AI-powered interactive experience" and perhaps sometime in the future they would make it the default, reminds me of the boiling frog.....
They may not do it now, but may do it eventually. Plus if they push that interactive summary then most people will use that, just as today they use those simple summaries. So in a sense making the search results irrelevant.
But thank you for pointing that out.
Yes that's what I said in my next comment - fosstodon.org/@futureisfoss/11…
@emilymbenderWhat Google is trying to do now is to slowly get people accustomed to the "AI-powered interactive experience" and perhaps sometime in the future they would make it the default, reminds me of the boiling frog.....
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Today us and Article 19 are at CPDP2026 for "Data-driven warfare: AI, civilian risks, and corporate responsibility."
We'll be asking the hard questions - about surveillance, humanitarian law, and the export of military AI into civilian life.
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The Register quoted Wiz putting it plainly: “The Linux networking stack is starting to look less like infrastructure and more like a root exploit vending machine.”
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Remember this whenever you hear claims that your data is secure on some system or other that you do not own and control.
Like all that additional data governments want to gather via the slippery slope of “age verification” in the EU.
The only data that is actually secure on a third party is data you haven’t shared with the third party.
Hence: data minimisation.
Had I mentioned GDMR yet today? Because I feel I might have. But hey, here it is again:
ar.al/2018/11/29/gdmr-this-one…
#data #security #privacy #GDMR #microsoft #github #hack
GDMR: The regulation EU citizens deserve. No, you didn’t misread it and, no, it’s not a typo. GDMR – the General Data Minimisation Regulation – can end surveillance capitalism in the EU. The problem is that no such regulation exists.Aral Balkan
GitHub confirms breach of ~3,800 repositories after one of its employees installed a malicious VS Code extension; TeamPCP claimed responsibility for the hack (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu…
techmeme.com/260520/p14#a26052…
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this and the enshitification of software by using AI on each and every thing the internet does provide made the decision easy for me to switch to a selfhosted alternative like Gitea. If someone is interested how to make the switch as easy as possible just check out my blog post about it:
ztfr.eu/how-to-switch-from-git…
A comprehensive guide to move your repos from GitHub to Gitea.Dome (Zeitfresser)
So glad that I moved away from Google search a long time ago. Gentle reminder for everyone that you can use DuckDuckGo without any AI features by going to their no-AI search here - noai.duckduckgo.com/
I hope to see more search engines following this approach become mainstream. We live in an age of misinformation and so now it's more important than ever to know where your information is coming from and whether you can trust that source, these "AI answers" completely obscures the source.
The Internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs.DuckDuckGo
Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something):techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/goog…
A short thread
🧵>>Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)
Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something):
techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/goog…
A short thread
🧵>>
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)
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"Google Search as you know it is over".
Easily shortened with no loss of information to "Google Search is over". It's really time for them to stop pretending Google is a search engine anymore.
I do wonder what running genAI on all their queries is already costing them and how that will only grow per user, though I can only guess how they are going to try and recover that cost.
Meanwhile I can see a lot of websites opting out of paying the Google advertisers tax and starting to set a google noindex tag.
at the same time as this presentation there was also one to presenting their ideas fror their real business, selling advertising.
Link to an article covering this in @urlyman 's post.
social.linux.pizza/deck/@urlym…
From the article itself:
"Google is betting its entire future on a world where people eagerly hand over their emails, their files, their habits, and their trust – to an AI system that will quietly auction off their attention, word by word, to the highest bidder. The ad infrastructure is ready. The question is whether the audience is."
matthiasott.com/notes/ad-infin…
Web design engineer, UX designer, teacher, and speaker – helping teams build websites and digital products with a focus on CSS, accessibility, and performance.Matthias Ott (Matthias Ott – Web Design Engineer)
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We Joined Rangers Protecting Armenia’s Wildlife - videos.trom.tf/w/qxyAkWpcWhBij…
Dima is doing a fantastic work. Subscribe to his Peertube, he deserves a lot more views.
#conservation #volunteering #bebravetoact #bbta #environment #nature
We Joined Rangers Protecting Armenia’s Wildlife
We went to ARPA Protected Landscape in Armenia. Where from village Areni we joined Arpa Rangers to monitor the area, check camera traps, count animals and do regular check of the territory.To know more about ARPA : arpafund.am/
Become a member of Be Brave To Act:
patreon.com/BeBraveToAct
Donate via paypal : paypal.com/donate?hosted_butto…This channel documents real conservation work around the world.
Thanks to my Patreons :
Cherry Summerfield
Steve Potts
Matthias Crommelinck
Eric Forsmark
Max Bo
Jesse Ludwig
RANDI#NatureDocumentary #WildlifeConservation #FieldExpedition
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We went to ARPA Protected Landscape in Armenia. Where from village Areni we joined Arpa Rangers to monitor the area, check camera traps, count animals and do regular check of the territory.
To know more about ARPA : arpafund.am/
Become a member of Be Brave To Act:
patreon.com/BeBraveToAct
Donate via paypal : paypal.com/donate?hosted_butto…
This channel documents real conservation work around the world.
Thanks to my Patreons :
Cherry Summerfield
Steve Potts
Matthias Crommelinck
Eric Forsmark
Max Bo
Jesse Ludwig
RANDI
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Over and over again, politicians are warned about the ways that their pet policies will a) produce enormous collateral damage, and; b) be easily evaded by the people they're seeking to control, giving rise to a cascade of ever-more extreme measures. And yet, they swallow a spider to catch a fly and then act baffled and hurt when we tell them it's their own damn fault that they now have to swallow a bird to catch the spider:
pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wan…
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Pluralistic: They were warned; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 4) (13 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of bad technopolicy are all around us, but in the eternal *now* of a politics utterly devoid of object permanence, no one is allowed to remember what happened the last time we did something stupid, *especially* not when we're on the verge of doing that same stupid thing again, *only worse*:
pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/for…
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Pluralistic: China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor (07 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Technopolitics are defined by Bruce Schneier's "security syllogism," which goes, "Something must be done! There, I've done something." "Something" doesn't have to fix the problem, and "something" doesn't have to anticipate what will happen next. So long as "something" is done, the issue is resolved and the politician can chalk up a win.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This gives rise to some genuinely bizarre consensus hallucinations, in which we pretend that the reality decreed by policy matches up with *actual* reality. Take "streaming." There is no such thing as "streaming." A "stream" is just "a download that is transmitted to an application that doesn't have a 'Save As...' button":
pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/ful…
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Pluralistic: Darth Android (01 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Once you decree there is such a thing as a stream, you must bend heaven and earth to ensure that no "Save As..." buttons are added to the "streaming" program. You have to make it illegal to inspect code. To modify code. To report code defects. To index info about defects in code. To index info about mods. To link to indices that compile defects and mods. You have to swallow the fly, the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog, and the whole damned horse:
memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10…
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Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing – Cory Doctorow's MEMEX
Cory Doctorow (Cory Doctorow's MEMEX)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Then there's that perennial fave, "bans on working cryptography." To ban working cryptography, you have to outlaw free/open source software. You have to inspect every device that comes into your country. You have to erect a Great Firewall that blocks every site that might carry working cryptography.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
You make it impossible to reliably update the software in pacemakers, anti-lock brakes and nuclear power plants, *and* you make it easy for identity thieves, foreign powers and corporate spies to raid your government, your corporations, and your households - and it *still* won't work!
memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04…
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Oh for fuck’s sake, not this fucking bullshit again (cryptography edition) – Cory Doctorow's MEMEX
Cory Doctorow (Cory Doctorow's MEMEX)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The latest consensus hallucination to take over our political classes is "age verification," a thing that manifestly *does not exist*. You can't "verify the age" of an internet user - you can only attempt to attribute every byte that traverses the *entire* internet to affirmatively identified persons:
pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bel…
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Pluralistic: “Privacy preserving age verification” is bullshit (14 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This comes at enormous cost. It is a gift to every future dictator, every identity thief, and every would-be sexual exploiter of children, who will have access to the hacked, leaked, and badly secured troves of data that this doomed effort produces.
Yes, *doomed*. Because even when it comes to kids, "age verification" is just a way of convincing young people to familiarize themselves with VPNs.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This was *entirely obvious* from the very *instant* that "age verification" was mooted, and yet policymakers pretended they couldn't hear the chorus of people who pointed it out. When cornered on the issue, they were affronted: "Can't you see that something must be done? How dare you attempt to stop me from doing *something*?"
And now, every single one of these chucklefucks is proposing bans on VPNs, from Utah:
eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utah…
To the UK:
theregister.com/security/2026/…
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Mozilla warns UK: Breaking VPNs will not magically fix Britain's age-check mess
Carly Page (theregister)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
They were warned that this would happen. We told them not to swallow that fly. Now we're telling them not to swallow whole *bucketloads* of spiders. I fully expect that next year, they'll be telling us that once they swallow this herd of horses, it will all be OK.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
My next book is *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI*, out next month. Pre-order it now, including as a DRM-free audiobook or ebook, at my Kickstarter, and help me continue to prove that DRM-free isn't just the *right* way to reach an audience, it's also the *best* way to reach them:
kickstarter.com/projects/docto…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Image:
Fir0002/Flagstaffotos (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
GFDL 1.2
gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html
eof/
File:Calliphora augur whitebackground.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.orgPrometheus
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •uis
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Yet another Josh
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Politicians hallucinating?
New game show: IS IT AI OR IS IT GERIATRICS?
Robin Adams
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I remember in Yes Prime Minister this was called the "politician's syllogism" too:
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.
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Mr B
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
3D Printing Laws are CHANGING ft. David Tobin!! - Making Awesome 260
3D Musketeers (YouTube)Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Plan A to Y
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Brought to mind this Wondermark comic