International politics has ceased to be a theater and has become a circus without a big top and without shame.
By Alberto García Watson
What used to be disguised as strategic diplomacy is now openly exhibited as geopolitical pantomime without shame or principle. Donald Trump's recent decision, with the enthusiastic blessing of diplomats from the United Kingdom and Spain, to remove Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the list of terrorist organizations is not only an affront to memory: it is an official consecration of hypocrisy as a diplomatic doctrine.
HTS, the marketing version of Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, has a Nuremberg-worthy record: a decade of beheadings, suicide bombings, slavery, sectarian repression, ethnic cleansing and social destruction under the leadership of its charismatic executioner, Abu Mohammad al-Golani. But, of course, it was enough for him to put on an Armani suit and take a couple of photos with his beard trimmed and combed for Syria's number one terrorist to suddenly become a “regional stability actor”. Hollywood should be taking note.
The marketing of terrorism: from jihad to “multilateralism”
The most insulting thing is not only its media whitewashing, but the real motive that has made it “digestible” for the West: al-Golani is now the guarantor of a future Syria that, surprise, would gladly adhere to the Abraham Accords. Yes, the same agreements that normalize relations with Tel Aviv, while bombs continue to fall on Gaza and illegal settlements devour Palestine. So he is not only forgiven for the past: he is rewarded for betraying what was once the most sacred pan-Arab cause.
This turn is not pragmatism: it is geopolitical prostitution. Golani has not changed his principles; he has simply learned to put them up for rent. And nothing rents more today than to offer a fragmented but obedient Syria, submissive to Israel's interests and aligned with Washington's whims. The noble Palestinian cause, which for decades was the banner of resistance in the Arab world, is today conveniently pushed under the bus by the same man who preached its defense with blood and fire.
The West: selective memory and moral balance
Meanwhile, European capitals are juggling to justify this diplomatic resurrection. The British minister speaks of “pragmatism”. The Spanish Chancellor calls for “reviewing certain designations”. That is to say: if a terrorist is useful, he is called a partner. If he serves the narrative, he is called reformed. And if he kisses the ring of power, he is offered immunity with canapé and glass in hand.
The victims, thousands of Syrians, beheaded journalists, massacred civilians have been filed away as footnotes in the great novel of realpolitik. Not a mention. Not an apology. Not a hint of memory. The West, which once painted its face with the war against terrorism, today paints its face with indifference.
What's next? Golani at the UN talking about Human Rights?
It would not be unusual to see him next as a panelist at a forum on “peaceful transitions” or “security in the Middle East”. Perhaps he will be invited to Davos, or even Jerusalem, to talk about how “regional cooperation is the way to the future.” The same man who murdered in the name of extremism will now lecture on interfaith coexistence. This is not satire. It is foreign policy.
Conclusion: Treason as diplomatic currency
Al-Golani's whitewashing is not a mistake, it is a clear message: terrorism is forgiven, recycled and rewarded, as long as the traitor on duty signs where he is told to. It doesn't matter if he stabs his own people, if he betrays the Palestinian cause or if his record is worthy of the Hague Tribunal: if he surrenders to the new order, he becomes a preferred partner.
And so, terrorism is institutionalized, betrayal is celebrated and dignity is exported at a bargain price. The fight against extremism is no longer a cause: it is a slogan. And forgiveness, like sovereignty, is bought in cash or oil.
This is what I mean when I say Kant (and other enlightenment era thinkers) obsession with some universal moral rules followed by purely rational humans is some dude’s fantasy who never has understood how normal people work.
A friend messaged me the other day. I saw it. I didn’t reply. A week later, I finally responded with the classic: Sorry for the late reply, just got to this.
She called me out. You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks.
Damn. She was right. I’d opened it. I’d registered it. But I’d also shelved it. It needed a proper reply, and at that moment, I wasn’t equipped.
Maybe it got lost between revisiting pictures from 2016 and the reminder I set to cancel my Nibble app 7-day trial on day 6. Maybe I got a call? Perhaps I’d wanted to sink back into that Substack article about reclaiming attention, ironically while still on social media. Maybe I was working one of the four jobs I need to survive under capitalism’s boot heel. Maybe I was doing nothing?
Does free time now equal availability?
I get a ping from the family group chat, which doubles as an IT helpdesk for my mum. My best friend just FaceTimed me about a White Lotus episode, and another left a voice note crying about a possible diagnosis. All this, lodged between videos of cats and genocide.
The boundaries between reception and response have collapsed.
Every design choice that social media platforms make nudges users toward certain actions, values, and emotional states.
It is a design choice to offer a news feed that combines verified news sources with conspiracy blogs — interspersed with photos of a family picnic — with no distinction between these very different types of information. It is a design choice to use algorithms that find the most emotional or outrageous content to show users, hoping it keeps them online. And it is a design choice to send bright red notifications, keeping people in a state of expectation for the next photo or juicy piece of gossip.
Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.
Social media platforms are bringing massive changes to how people get their news and how they communicate and behave. For example, the “endless scroll” is a design feature that aims to keep users scrolling and never reaching the bottom of a page where they might decide to pause.
I’m a political scientist who researches aspects of technology that support democracy and social cohesion, and I’ve observed how the design of social media platforms affects them.
Democracy is in crisis globally, and technology is playing a role. Most large platforms optimize their designs for profit, not community or democracy. Increasingly, Big Tech is siding with autocrats, and the platforms’ designs help keep society under control.
There are alternatives, however. Some companies design online platforms to defend democratic values.
Didn't I read somewhere that today's youth drinks less alcohol? I know when I was young I wouldn't be caught "dancing" at the club unless I was closer to puking than to slurred speech.
Login/add account by clicking the user icon in the top right corner
Select PieFed and choose a server
Likely I'll be pushing PieFed support to TestFlight next.
This might be the biggest PR I've ever written. It took a month of work and thousands of lines of code updated. There s a very high chance that random things will be a little broken, but I'll fix the bugs as I find them. That being said, it's very usable. Please let me know if you encounter any issues.
PieFed is still pretty unstable. They could push a breaking change at any point that would require me to make an app update for PieFed to work again.
There are known issues that I'm solving with the help of the PieFed devs:
Private messages don't load your reply messages to other users
Comment loading is a little broken. You will see "missing comment" a lot
I hope you like the update, and I'm pretty confident this work will unlock the next chapter for Blorp. I might even look into mbin support, no promises.
Episodes of The Bear, Stranger Things and Lena Dunham’s new show Too Much are stretching the limits of television and reducing our enjoyment in the process
A robot trained on videos of surgeries performed a lengthy phase of a gallbladder removal without human help. The robot operated for the first time on a lifelike patient, and during the operation, responded to and learned from voice commands from the team—like a novice surgeon working with a mentor.
The robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies.
In work led by Johns Hopkins researchers, the robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies
His comments came in response to a U.N. report released last month that alleged technology firms including Google and its parent company Alphabet had profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence division, where workers were debating the report, according to the screenshots.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin calls U.N. ‘transparently antisemitic’ after report on tech firms and Gaza
His comments came in response to a U.N. report released last month that alleged technology firms including Google and its parent company Alphabet had profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence division, where workers were debating the report, according to the screenshots.
Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right, says housing expert Justin Kadi
È firmata dal compositore Edoardo Verde la colonna sonora ufficiale dell’edizione 2025 del Festival del Doppiaggio – Premio Tonino Accolla, svoltosi a Siracusa, Noto e Ortigia dal 26 al 29 giugno 2025. Un riconoscimento importante per un artista dalla cifra stilistica raffinata, capace di coniugare profondità sonora, sensibilità narrativa e ricerca espressiva.
Impossibile parlare di Edoardo, senza ricordare la figura del nonno Dino Verde – autore di alcuni dei brani più iconici della musica leggera italiana: da "Resta cu’ mme" a "Romantica", da "Piove (Ciao ciao bambina)" a hit indimenticabili come "Il ballo del mattone", "Una zebra a pois", "Buonasera buonasera", "Felicità tà tà tà". Una tradizione artistica che Edoardo onora con la sua personale voce musicale, capace di emozionare e raccontare, anche attraverso una semplice nota.
Renzo Pasolini, pur non avendo mai vinto un campionato del mondo, rimane popolare grazie al suo stile intrepido. È sepolto nel Cimitero Monumentale di Rimini, dove il suo casco e alcune testimonianze delle sue vittorie sono esposte sul suo sepolcro. Jarno Saarinen è ricordato come uno dei piloti motociclistici più promettenti e talentuosi della sua epoca. Rimane l’unico finlandese ad aver vinto un campionato del mondo di motociclismo su strada. Il suo stile di guida, in particolare la sua posizione del corpo e la capacità di far scivolare il pneumatico posteriore, influenzò futuri campioni.
L’incidente che tolse la vita ad entrambi il 20 maggio 1973 a Monza fu un momento che generò una forte richiesta di migliori condizioni di sicurezza nello sport delle due ruote
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it was issuing sanctions against an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.
The state department’s decision to sanction Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, comes after a recent US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post failed.
Albanese, a human rights lawyer, has been vocal in calling for an end to what she describes as the “genocide” that Israel is waging against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the US, which provides military support, have strongly denied that accusation.
Israel has faced accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the ICC over its devastating military assault on Gaza. Albanese’s position has also been backed by leading genocide scholars and rights organisations.
This study from MIT used geo data collected from cars in Milan, Italy, to check the effectiveness of 30 km/h zones in reducing speed.
The first conclusion is that the signs don't work: 85 percentile speeds are all over the place in 30 km/h zones in Milan, as shown in the figure below:
The second step was finding correlations between speeds and street features extracted from openstreetmap. Results are as expected: narrow, short, curvy sections correlate with lower speeds, as do 1 lane vs more, one way vs 2 ways:
The final step is also interesting: the authors made a model to predict the compliance of 30 km/h speed limit on streets that are 50 km/h at the moment. Useful for urban planning to understand if charging an area to 30 km/h would need structural interventions (like bumps, narrowing of the street...) or not:
There is so much more in the article, I suggest to read it fully.
Milano, analisi del limite 30 km/h dimostra che quel che conta non sono i cartelli, ma com'è fatta la strada
Uno studio di #MIT sulle velocità rilevate, dimostra con dati concreti e analisi dell'infrastruttura da #openstreetmap, quel che già era noto: i guidatori adeguano la velocità alla loro percezione di pericolo, e non ai limiti imposti. Strade più strette, a senso unico, con incroci fanno rallentare. Non ci sono più scuse
So the limit is what matters, but it has to actually be enforced. Thats some very novel insight hmmmm. But yes, physical filters like bumps are much more effective compared to signs.
If the limit is setup appropriately. Loads of roads have the limit set where you would think the speed limit is 80km/h but somehow it is set to 50km/h. So everyone ignores the set limit. While at other roads the limit is say 70km/h but you can hardly drive over 50km/h.
The limit should be set to whatever is deemed safe for pedestrians and cyclists in a given location. The road design should then match that speed limit.
Loads of roads have the limit set where you would think the speed limit is 80km/h but somehow it is set to 50km/h
So the road should be redesigned to make it hard to drive over 50 (make it more narrow and add traffic calming)
This is Italy we're talking about, our public officials want zero responsibility so they always set absurdly low limits.
Point is, road design is everything, if you want people to go slow, you can make it so, if it's an area where people can go faster, design the road accordingly and keep it maintained, don't let it turn into a crater field, just to later "fix" the problem with a temporary speed limit.
In Milan this would be possible, since it is a rich city, in the rest of Italy, not so easy.
This is Italy we’re talking about, our public officials want zero responsibility so they always set absurdly low limits.
Sounds good TBH. If they also narrow the roads/remove lanes to enforce it, put bike paths/public transit lanes in the free space, and fine anyone driving dangerously, then this is the recipe for a good city.
This study from MIT used geo data collected from cars in Milan, Italy, to check the effectiveness of 30 km/h zones in reducing speed.
The first conclusion is that the signs don't work: 85 percentile speeds are all over the place in 30 km/h zones in Milan, as shown in the figure below:
The second step was finding correlations between speeds and street features extracted from openstreetmap. Results are as expected: narrow, short, curvy sections correlate with lower speeds, as do 1 lane vs more, one way vs 2 ways:
The final step is also interesting: the authors made a model to predict the compliance of 30 km/h speed limit on streets that are 50 km/h at the moment. Useful for urban planning to understand if charging an area to 30 km/h would need structural interventions (like bumps, narrowing of the street...) or not:
There is so much more in the article, I suggest to read it fully.
Milano, analisi del limite 30 km/h dimostra che quel che conta non sono i cartelli, ma com'è fatta la strada
Uno studio di #MIT sulle velocità rilevate, dimostra con dati concreti e analisi dell'infrastruttura da #openstreetmap, quel che già era noto: i guidatori adeguano la velocità alla loro percezione di pericolo, e non ai limiti imposti. Strade più strette, a senso unico, con incroci fanno rallentare. Non ci sono più scuse
Moreno Vignolini, presidente di Confartigianato Moda:
“Il settore tessile e moda, pilastro storico del Made in Italy, oggi vive una crisi che richiede risposte immediate, mirate e un’azione coordinata tra pubblico, privato e istituzioni”.
Nei primi quattro mesi del 2025 l’export delle aziende artigiane è sceso del 3,7%, la produzione ha registrato un calo del 9,3% e l’occupazione è diminuita del 5,6%.
Willie Nelson la voce. Chi "mastica" un po' di musica sa che Willie Nelson è una vera istituzione, una delle colonne portanti del panorama country. La sua è una carriera molto prolifica, con i suoi quasi ottant'anni infatti, nel suo portafoglio si trovano oltre sessanta album di cui una decina dal vivo che volendo fare una media è quasi vicino ad un disco all'anno, una "cifra" che molto probabilmente lo candida nel podio dei più attivi... Leggi e ascolta...
Willie Nelson la voce. Chi “mastica” un po' di musica sa che Willie Nelson è una vera istituzione, una delle colonne portanti del panorama country. La sua è una carriera molto prolifica, con i suoi quasi ottant'anni infatti, nel suo portafoglio si trovano oltre sessanta album di cui una decina dal vivo che volendo fare una media è quasi vicino ad un disco all'anno, una “cifra” che molto probabilmente lo candida nel podio dei più attivi. In questo suo incredibile catalogo Nelson oltre ad aver riscosso parecchi premi (una quarantina circa) ha conosciuto il successo di critica e commerciale ed è stato spesso in cima alle classifiche di vendita, ma, nonostante questo, quello che lo ha sempre contraddistinto è la sua coerenza ed etica musicale. Anche se per definizione Nelson è un artista country, la sua musica è stata un caleidoscopio di influenze sonore, dal blues al folk, dal rock'n'roll a collaborazioni variegate, tutte e comunque sempre ispirate e non banali... artesuono.blogspot.com/2014/10…
I'm looking for manufacturers of different kinds of paper to print on. So vinyl sticker paper, photo paper, normal paper, cardstock paper and so on. Do you know of any good European (EU) paper manufacturers that sell these in high quality and don't break the bank at the same time?
This is a break down of commits to each project per month. In most cases a review request is just a single commit, but this chart helps to see what projects are being worked on.
We did originally rlease 2.92.0 but I noticed immediately when I went to update the flatpak that I forgot to update the version in the metadata file so we had to cut 2.92.1 right away to address that.
Future Plans
Finish up the conversation persistence that we were trying to get into Experimental 3.
Determine how to proceed with the SIP protocol plugin. We're probably going to create yet another library to handle it.
After conversation persistence is done, we need to add persistence to the contact list as well.
We have decided that we're going to do a 2.15.0 release. The decision and announcement can be found here.
Retrospective
Added support to display protocols, loaders, and other "hidden" plugins in the plugins list but made them not unloadable.
Fixed log viewing for protocols that are no longer loadable.
Removed the "retro" protocols plugins. The ones that still existed have been moved to the new retro-prpl project.
Releases
None yet, we're trying to finalize some things before releasing 2.15.0.
Future Plans
We're still working on updating the versions of GLib and GTK for the windows build as well as creating an official pre-built development bundle/SDK.
GPlugin
GPlugin is our GObject based plugin library that is used in Pidgin 3.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Future Plans
GPlugin is pretty stable at the moment but there's quite a lot of maintenance stuff to get too, but it's not as high of a priority as the other stuff at the moment.
HASL
HASL is the Hassle-free Authentication and Security Layer library. It implements SASL in a modern and easy use way compared to the existing libraries.
Retrospective
We fixed our error domains which were not implemented in a way that would work in language bindings.
Releases
None
Future Plans
We have been in the progress of implementing the SCRAM Mechanisms which will be included in the next release.
Birb
Birb is a library of GLib utilities that we use across all of our projects.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Xeme
Xeme is our XMPP integration library. It is the basis for both the Link Local Messaging (Bonjour) and XMPP protocols in Pidgin 3. It is still early in development and has not yet had a release.
Ibis
Ibis is our IRCv3 integration library. It has seen a lot of active development as it is used in the IRCv3 protocol plugin in Pidgin 3.
We are nearing known feature completion on it and expect to do a 1.0 release in the near future.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Future Plans
Continue working through the open issues and watching new IRCv3 specifications for things we should be including.
Hiya
Hiya is a new client abstraction library for mDNS. It was created to help make implementation of the Link Local Messaging protocol easier as we would have to abstract out the different platform implementations and by putting it in a library that abstraction can be used by other projects.
Hiya has not yet had a release.
Myna
Myna is a new integration library for Matrix. It is still extremely early in development.
Seagull
Seagull is a new library we created to make working with SQLite feel more like a GLIB/GNOME library and force usage of prepared statements with named parameters and other similar things.
Retrospective
Added aliases for columns.
Added support for binding objects.
Added support for retrieving columns from objects.
Added support for creating statements from resources.
Added API for date times, enums, and flags.
Fixed a bug were non prefixed parameters would match even though a prefix was specified.
We have a few features to fill out yet and a few ideas that need a bit more time in the oven.
More specific details can be found in our open issues.
Traversity
Traversity is a new library for traversing NATs. There are many different ways to traverse a NAT and the goal of Traversity is to hide that from developers who just need to traverse a NAT.
It is still early in development and has not yet had an official release.
retro-prpl
retro-prpl is a new repository we've created on GitHub. This repository contains all of the abandoned protocols that have ever lived in our code base and is meant to make them easier to study and for people to use with services like Retro AIM Server and NINA.
Retrospective
We've wrapped up just about all the development here and are just waiting for Pidgin 2.15.0 before releasing.
Releases
None
Future Plans
Right now we didn't add any support for protocol specific emojis because we completely forgot about them. Anyways we're looking at creating a custom emoji theme that will include everything for these retro protocols.
Closing
We hope you all are enjoying the new format and if you have any questions of comments please leave them below!
Lithuania and Finland plan to begin domestic anti-personnel mine manufacturing in 2026, with some of the supplies potentially earmarked for Ukraine to counter the Russian threat, Reuters reported on July 9.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
The anti-poverty charity Oxfam warns that growing inequality in Africa is hindering democracy. The four richest Africans have more wealth than half of the continent's population.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Idk about other countries, but in Italy I'm quite sure the power infrastructure isn't ready to handle the enormous requirements of switching from gas to electrical heating
i mean, italy has not produced enough power to meet domestic demands since the 80s. they're the biggest electricity importer in europe. i don't know if the rest of the continent can handle them switching off of gas.
Washington (AFP) – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced Washington was sanctioning the United Nations special expert on the Palestinian territories, following her criticism of Washington policy on Gaza.
"Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (International Criminal Court) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives," Rubio said on social media.
In a subsequent statement he slammed the UN expert's strident criticism of the United States and said she recommended to the ICC that arrest warrants be issued targeting Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rubio also attacked her for "biased and malicious activities," and accused her of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism (and) support for terrorism."
He said she escalated her contempt for the United States by writing "threatening letters" to several US companies, making what Rubio called unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue prosecutions of the companies and their executives.
"We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty," Rubio said.
While Albanese was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, she does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.
The Italy-born expert released a damning report earlier this month denouncing companies she said "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide" in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report provoked a furious response from Israel, while some of the named companies also raised objections.
Albanese has leveled broadsides against the policies of Israel in Gaza, and of US President Donald Trump, particularly the plan he announced in February to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its residents elsewhere.
That proposal faced a rejection from Palestinians, Middle East leaders and the United Nations.
Albanese dismissed it as "utter nonsense" and an "international crime" that will sow panic.
"It's unlawful, immoral and... completely irresponsible because it will make the regional crisis even worse," she said on February 5 during a visit to Copenhagen.
US ally Israel on Wednesday commended Rubio's action against the rapporteur.
"Albanese has consistently undermined the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council by promoting false narratives and pushing for illegitimate legal actions that ignore the realities on the ground," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said.
Molti sono gli ostacoli sulla strada di un onesto cittadino che, per una ragione o per l’altra, abbia scelto come scopo nella vita di riuscire un giorno a salvare il mondo.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Rayhunter is a new open source tool we’ve created that runs off an affordable mobile hotspot that we hope empowers everyone, regardless of technical skill, to help search out cell-site simulators (CSS) around the world.
Cops use devices to pretend to be a celltower, so your phone connects to it, and then they use it to spy on you. Rayhunter looks for this behaviour and warns you if it detects a suspicious tower that behaves like cops pretending to be a tower.
What do you do if it comes up positive? Presumably if you know it's a risk, you'd leave your phone in airplane mode or at home, and if you know it's happening you've already been recorded?
I don't understand why cell phones don't authenticate the towers they connect to. Is this really just a "standards lag behind modern security" thing, or is it on purpose to allow these Stingray devices to be used?
I assume it's the same as the Internet (or more specifically HTTP): It wasn't designed with security in mind.
Unlike HTTP, for some reason it wasn't included in a new specification, though. My guess is that's because of the more centralized nature of cellular networks. The barrier for entry is a lot higher as well so there are few but big players who have little incentive to improve over the bare minimum.
IIRC encryption was initially proposed to be part of 5G but got shot down in the process.
Wait, 5G isn't encrypted? I think it does have some protections still. I mean, not that it would matter to me, they only use NR-NSA in my country so it isn't even full 5G with all its advantages.
At the risk of sounding like an AI-generated ad, I use an app called Privacy Cell on Fdroid, that confirmed there is no true 5G anywhere in my country. I just wish there was a way to differentiate between the two versions of 5G natively, kinda like 4G-LTE showing up as LTE instead of just 4G.
Encrypted data channels can still be vulnerable to man in the middle attacks. Like when you connect to an unknown host with SSH, and the client pops up a big warning.
In this case, ICE or whomever sets up a "valid" cell tower that your phone connects to, and they (law enforcement) route your packets onto the rest of the Internet. They can decrypt the 5G data, and see all of the IP headers. They can't necessarily read the TLS traffic, such as https. But most important of all, they can log all of the IMEIs that connect, which effectively gives them a database of all of the protestors.
The use of Stingray by US law enforcement has been challenged on grounds that the law enforcement agencies have no spectrum license. Those challenges seem not to have found success.
On the other hand, prisons in the US have been stopped from operating cell phone jammers on prison grounds, on the same complaint of no spectrum license.
I don't know the specific methods, but 3G, 4G and 5G do authenticate bidirectionaly, just 2G doesn't, partially why Android now has "Disable 2G" toggle. Also probably why they said they can downgrade you to 2G to intercept communication.
What's happening here is probably similar to anyone being able to send Wi-Fi deauthentification frame to your device to disconnect you. Unless you're using WPA3.
IMEI/IMSI are collected (and immediately linked, hence deanonymized even if SIM was inserted only once) by cell tower operators. Just not bring your device, period.
Yeah, I agree with that personally, but realistically, "your phone was near a place" is not the same as "you were involved". If they hijack a phone onto a Stingray, they can get way more info than just IMEI.
Yeah, if you go protest you should leave your tracking device at home or, even better, with a friend or relative who you know will not be there. The US government doesn't require subcutaneous tracking chips (yet), you can put yours away.
At protests you should not bring your smartphone but instead rely on anonymous drvices such as Meshtastic.
If you want to bring your smartphone to a protest, set Airplane mode and communicate with others through Bluetooth or WiFi networks using Briar or Bitchat
But we're talking about a protest where bad actors (the police) just want the names of its attendants. Our phones scream to everyone "I am [name surname] and I am here!". Bluetooth instead says the same but with a lower tone of voice, so less people can listen. Also, with little configuration you can instruct it not to broadcast its identifier.
It's amazing how many times I saw this knowledge being spread, together with thousands of umbrellas and hard hats during the Hong Kong riots from day one with "Hong Kong, add oil" as their first slogan combined with very mild mannered arguments (we don't know if it could lead to more serious things) against the extradition law which was supposed to affect maybe half a dozen people per decade, all serious criminals. A law almost every country has on earth that the US used against the daughter of the owner of one of the largest companies in the world, for the flimsiest of reasons, in contrast to the walled-off-to-arrest-one-particular-teen-girl-axe-murderer-to-be-shipped-to-Taiwan-law Hong Kong tried to implement.
How many people have been affected by the Alien Enemies Act again?
And how did the ~~The protests were call "No kings" remember that? Remember that it was called NO KINGS "Unbiased. Straight. Facts" SAN? Do you remember that? No? Okay, well...~~ "anti-ICE" ~~it is~~ protests go?
Because apart from the shocker that you were being surveilled, I think the protests needed a little bit less "Zero demands, not one more" chants and a little more 'We demand and protest until we win and get what we want' kind of thing.
Meshtastic with 3 jumps would be stretching for actual communication. Plus Bluetooth is even worse for security. Direct connection might be a better way to use the device.
I've had meshtastic for about 2 ish years now and its still being worked on.
What is unsafe about cell communication is that there is virtually no way to prevent being tracked. Bluetooth is not necessarily more secure but has several advantages:
1) Its Mac address can be easily changed. With a fake Mac address it's more difficult to track someone down, albeit it needs some "technical skills" (going in the developer settings) 2) With these apps communication is encrypted by default unlike cell tower communication 3) The range is limited. If police listens over Bluetooth they'll be able to track less people down
May I ask you how? Or if you have more info? No criticism here, honest question. Afaik the only way to do that would be to fingerprint a behavioural pattern, which albeit possible is surely more secure than cell communication.
This is exactly why I was railing against some of the earlier protests which featured politicians openly asking protestors to take out their phones and send texts to opt-in for fundraisers. Besides all the obvious bullshit, it put those protestors who didn't know better at serious risk.
Thankfully, I haven't seen too much of that at the protests I've been to recently, but this is a good reminder that we have to keep educating people to leave their phone at home.
Wait politicians were telling people to take their phones and opt-in for fundraisers? I never saw this, what was the reasoning besides "give us money pls"???
When I go to a protest with friends/family we leave our phones at home and then use basic walkie talkies. It's open channel, so no privacy, but the main goal is to just communicate basics like "I'm safe." We predetermine a couple of locations to meet up at if things get rough and we're separated.
FundMECFS
in reply to Lady Butterfly she/her • • •My genetics:
Are you seriously gonna have the shits because your stresses.
Yes.
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