Penguin Rebellion

Very good news this morning:

In a rare coordinated action, three #German parties (Greens, Left, Social Democrats) have declared they're leaving #X (formerly #Twitter).

This goes for their official party accounts as well as for the accounts of their respective parliamentary caucuses. They're also recommending their party members and MPs leave X.

All three parties have published a coordinated statement.

E.g., SPD on Instagram
Via a privacy-preserving frontend: Imginn:

»In recent years, X has descended into chaos and is increasingly dominated by right-wing trolls. Political debates thrive on dialogue and on reaching and informing people. We no longer wish to foster a platform like X that promotes right-wing populist content, hate, and disinformation. That is why we have decided, across party lines, to stop posting on our account. We remain active on various other platforms and will continue to engage in dialogue there.«

#DEpol #SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #WirVerlassenX

Breaking our summer posting break for an important update: we can no longer recommend @mullvadnet@mastodon.online as a #VPN service, and #MullvadBrowser or other products of that company.

A leadership member has been found to donate to a far-right party:
@lostgen@det.social

#Mullvad itself has confirmed the donation in question, and believes they can talk their way out of the issue by framing it as one of "Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment".

@pi_r@corneill.es

Needless to say we strongly disagree, and keep following our zero tolerance policy with respect to the far right and their supporters.

Hence, currently, our only remaining recommendation for a privacy-respecting VPN service is #IVPN @ivpn@mastodon.social

New #Linux #kernel #policy: when writing code, humans can be "assisted" by "#AI", but they have to disclose it, and take full responsibility, as contributors.

While this gets celebrated as a "pragmatic stance", it simply delegates responsibilities to individual contributors that no one in good conscience can reasonably take.

Would you be willing to guarantee, legally binding, with all consequences, that your "AI" "assistant" didn't copy-paste code that's under an incompatible license? Or even proprietary, stolen one?

This is a cop out, not a responsible policy. Basically the dirty #subcontractor pattern: Everybody knows that nobody can actually guarantee what they're promising, but hey, wink wink here's their signature, they "promised" it wink wink

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-lays-down-the-law-on-ai-generated-code-yes-to-copilot-no-to-ai-slop-and-humans-take-the-fall-for-mistakes-after-months-of-fierce-debate-torvalds-and-maintainers-come-to-an-agreement

It is useful to keep in mind there can never be any kind of actual end-to-end encryption (#E2EE).

Your understanding of "end" is probably deliberately ignorant.

While you understandably so wish to believe the "end" was in the respective minds of the conversation partners, it is factually and technically located in the hardware and software of the devices used.

Which opens up a myriad of surveillance options, from sinister keyloggers; to simply glancing at your screens; to "AI" "assistants" "summarizing" what you're receiving, and allegedly just "fleshing out" what you're sending.

Even if conversation data was transmitted, "end-to-end encrypted", between brain implants, the producers or vendors of such implants would still happily provide backdoors for "law enforcement".

Peek into @yaelwrites@mastodon.social 's actual device hygiene, communication stack, and physical safety boundaries:

»This isn't a guide. Your situation is different from mine. But sometimes it's useful to see what someone else's setup looks like in practice.«

https://blog.yaelwrites.com/what-my-privacy-and-security-stack-actually-looks-like/

#privacy #security #DeviceHygiene

»Like with many tech trends before it, it’s no surprise that young people are among the biggest adopters of AI #chatbot tools. But contrary to the tales spun by tech companies like #OpenAI and #Google, polling data shows that Gen Z students and workers are a big part of the wider cultural backlash against AI.

And even as they utilize these tools, vast swaths of young people are deeply acrimonious and even resentful of the AI-centric future that many feel is being forced on them.«

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/920401/gen-z-ai

"#AI" #GenZ

This goes for everybody who needs to closely follow a topic, too, not just in security:

»in many security teams, we still collect this information in the most fragile way possible: by manually checking websites, relying on algorithmic social platforms, scraping pages that were never designed for machine consumption, or subscribing to closed platforms that add friction instead of removing it.

This is why RSS needs to come back in operational security.

Not as nostalgia. Not as a retro technology for bloggers. But as a simple, robust, auditable, automatable transport format for change detection and information sharing.«

To be clear: there is still quite an amount of websites that provide #RSS feeds. Start using a #FeedReader, and enjoying a uniform view on your sources of information.

https://www.foo.be/2026/03/bring-back-rss

#NewsFeed

Opposing "#AI" is already being framed as a danger, with insinuations of civil unrest and affinity to extremism, or even terrorism.

Speak up, and defend your right to call out the "AI" planet-burning scam for what it is.

»Among the documents in the tranche obtained by WIRED is a New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report that warns of widespread upheaval in response to AI adoption. Of particular note is a novel term for what the bureau purports to be an emerging extremism threat.

"The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City," the report reads.«

https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/

#privacy #oppression

Today is the World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

What you can do, with minimal effort, to support civilians in #Iran and in many other countries with relentless censorship:

Install the #Snowflake plugin in your browser, and just enable it. No other config is required.

The plugin makes the #Tor network available to people in countries with heavy #censorship, so they can bypass it and get information from abroad.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/torproject-snowflake/

Boost appreciated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Day_Against_Cyber_Censorship

#WorldDayAgainstCyberCensorship

Your whole #body will belong to us, step by step, sooner or later.

»#Meta will start using AI to scan photos and videos for visual clues to see if a user is under 13 and should be removed from #Facebook and #Instagram, the company announced on Tuesday. These visual clues include a person’s height or bone structure, it said.«

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/05/meta-will-use-ai-to-analyze-height-and-bone-structure-to-identify-if-users-are-underage/

»#World, a project designed to distinguish humans from bots using biometrics, announced strategic partnerships with #Tinder, #Zoom, and #Docusign. The three companies will use World’s digital identification to verify users, aiming to reduce deepfakes, scams, and other fraudulent activity.

The World project was launched by Tools for Humanity, a startup co-founded by [Sam] Altman. The company scans people’s irises and assigns them a “proof of humanity.”«

https://restofworld.org/2026/sam-altman-worldcoin-zoom-tinder-partnerships/

#privacy #biometrics

Following an article published by @404mediaco@mastodon.social today, there were many posts recommending to prevent #notifications in #Signal from revealing message content, by switching notification texts to "No name or message".

While here's how to do that:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360043273491-In-App-Notification-Options#android_change_text

…you might not be entirely happy about not knowing whether you've received a message from your significant other, or a family member.

If distinctive notification sounds work for you, and aren't too obnoxious, you can disable notification content, as described above; and still set specific notification sounds on a per-chat base:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360043273491-In-App-Notification-Options#android_custom_sound

This works for both one-on-one chats and for groups.

Why is there no coordinated response at least from major #Linux #distros to #AgeVerification laws imposed by US states? Nor organized resistance?

They're pretty much handling this the way US universities handled being targeted:

• Fear, in isolation.
• Fight, in isolation.
• Lose, in isolation.

Including compliance in advance, where developers seem to be proud of sharing their "cool" ideas for implementing this pilot project and bridgehead for governmental control, in their systems.

It seems #RightsCon 2026 organizers were pressured to exclude specific participants and topics:

»The statement, although seemingly an invitation to negotiate, still lacked any concrete information as to why the government decided to announce they were postponing RightsCon.

What the government wanted from us in order to lift the postponement was conveyed to us informally from multiple sources: in order for RightsCon to continue, we would have to moderate specific topics and exclude communities at risk, including our Taiwanese participants, from in-person and online participation.«

https://www.rightscon.org/rc26-statement/

#TransnationalRepression #Taiwan #PRC

The text of bill H. R. 8250 is now out.

On the #US national level, they want to enforce this:

»An operating system provider, with respect to any operating system of such provider, shall carry out the following:

(1) Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user in order to—

(A) set up an account on the operating system; and

(B) use the operating system.«

#OperatingSystem #AgeVerification #Linux

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/text

#Hackergal Ambassador Neetya Pujara, a Grade 10 student from Aurora, Ontario:

»During one session, presenters displayed images of male tech CEOs, and everyone immediately recognized them. When the slide shifted to female tech CEOs, none of us could name them. That moment struck me deeply.

I didn’t know Melanie Perkins was the founder and CEO of Canva, that Ada Lovelace was the world’s first programmer, or that Hedy Lamarr created the foundation for WiFi. This realization pushed me to consciously learn about the accomplishments of women in #STEAM and inspired me to encourage other girls to recognize the impact women have had in technology throughout history.«

https://hackergal.org/im-a-hackergal-ambassador-heres-how-it-changed-my-life/

epicenter.works @epicenter_works@chaos.social have published their statement regarding several issues with the #EU's digital #EUDI-Wallet. Three particularly serious issues mentioned:

Pseudonymous use of services only exists on paper

In theory and by law, you have a right to pseudonymous usage of most services, because they have absolutely no legitimate need to know your legal identity. But companies wouldn't be obliged to provide such pseudonymous access. They can just bluntly ask for your legal identity – and if you choose to not provide it, you can't get in.

Your passport photo given away, for free

»The draft Implementing Acts now propose to include a mandatory facial image in the Wallet’s minimum person identification data set«. Whoever you have to provide with your digital legal identity gets a copy of your photo: A premium biometric data item, needlessly surrendered, for free.

Any member state can enable companies to rummage through your digital wallet

#EU Member states can decide to not issue "registration certificates" for businesses, at all. Those certificates work a bit like official IDs, e.g. for ticket inspectors, or police officers. If you look at, and verify such an ID, you know whether those people are making acceptable requests, or not. You wouldn't hand over your driving license, or your bus ticket to arbitrary strangers requesting them, would you?

A country deciding to not issue registration certificates is effectively saying things like "our ticket inspectors and police officers don't need an ID, to back up their requests".

Companies can simply set up a local business there, and treat your digital wallet like a self-service store – because requests originating from that country don't come with any registration certificates that would enable your digital wallet to ring an alarm, in case of an overreach.

https://epicenter.works/content/open-letter-concerning-the-fourth-batch-of-eidas-implementing-acts

#privacy #DigitalWallet

Greetings to all who celebrate the anniversary of the unconditional surrender of #Nazi #Germany.

The #FeministHacking Project is maintaining a great collection of links to "community_+_friendz" at:

https://feministhackerspaces.cargo.site/Comunity-Friends

#feminism #research #science #community #tech #softwaredevelopment

Given that #Proton marketing rings the CLOUD Act alarm bell to promote #ProtonMeet, this is yet another instance of them behaving in a questionable manner.

Stay away from companies with a hodgepodge "suite" of offers, particularly when they're trying to make the good reputation of one product "magically" rub off on all the others.

Merely being sold under the same brand name isn't a guarantee for anything here.

https://www.sambent.com/proton-meet-isnt-what-they-told-you

#VideoConferencing

While texts like this one by @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social provide some valuable advice and further resources, the common fixation on border situations is dangerous, in itself.

Keep in mind that crossing a #border is merely a situation where you are guaranteed to be targeted. The space that you are entering behind the border is full of random opportunities to scrutinize you over and over again, with consequences that are no less dangerous.

Hence, the most crucial advice is given at the end of the text: your chances of protecting something are best while it's not on any of your devices, at all.

Even then, there are more than enough legal and illegal means to force you to expose it, and they will be used against you.

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/security-precautions-to-consider-while-traveling-through-airports/

#TSA #ICE #security

Excellent article by @emanuelmaiberg@mastodon.social over at 404 Media, who looked into why a meta study paper has been retracted that concluded #ChatGPT had beneficial effects on #learning:

»“This meta analysis on #ChatGPT effects on learning appeared only two and a half years after ChatGPT was launched,” Williamson said. “So what we are supposed to believe is that in the intervening period, dozens of high quality studies of the effect of ChatGPT on learning performance took place, were written up, submitted for peer review, and published, which the meta analysis authors then painstakingly synthesized using robust methods.

What appeared actually to be the case is that the meta analysis aggregated a whole bunch of very low quality research published in disreputable journals.« (emphasis added)

https://www.404media.co/nature-retracts-paper-on-the-benefits-of-chatgpt-in-education/

"#AI"

#Cartoons may be helpful to cope with the state of the world, and expose propaganda for what it is.

#CartoonMovement @cartoonmovement@newsie.social is a rich website run by cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards @royaards@newsie.social, featuring a network of 800 cartoonists around the world:

»Our mission is to promote the professional editorial cartoon and to defend freedom of speech.

Every day, we publish global perspectives on the news, brought to you by our network of more than 800 cartoonists from all over the world. All our cartoons can be purchased; we offer a unique and lovingly curated collection of over 100,000 international political cartoons.«

https://www.cartoonmovement.com/

Note: While we recommend their website because it is under their own control, we do not recommend their newsletter, because it is currently hosted on Substack, the Nazi bar. We sincerely hope that they will move out, soon.

Summer break until Juli 8th.

FYI, the title of #HR8250 hasn't been changed to "Parents Decide Act". #JoshGottheimer gave it that name, right from the start.

https://gottheimer.house.gov/posts/release-gottheimer-announces-bipartisan-parents-decide-act-to-protect-kids-online

#AgeVerification

Meanwhile, #TransnationalRepression is becoming a law in #China:

»The law’s primary focus is domestic: It mandates the use of Mandarin as the primary medium of education in schools across China, and calls for intermarriage and geographical integration between the Han majority and China’s other 55 recognized ethnicities. […]

“Organizations and individuals outside the [mainland] territory of the PRC that commit acts aimed at the PRC that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division are to be pursued for legal responsibility in accordance with law,” the law reads, referring to the People’s Republic of China by its acronym.«

https://dominotheory.com/beijing-codifies-repression-of-overseas-activists/

Projects like China Targets have shed some light on the integration of #surveillance and #hacking, followed by plain physical #harassment of the "diaspora" by Chinese officials abroad that serve as China's "boots on the ground", disrespecting the sovereignty of the countries they are deployed to.