The Internet faces an existential crisis as nearly 50% of all traffic is now non-human, with AI-generated content and bots threatening to overwhelm authentic human interaction¹. According to recent studies, this includes automated programs responsible for 49.6% of web traffic in 2023, a trend accelerated by AI models scraping content¹.

The problems are stark:
- Search engines flooded with AI-generated content optimized for algorithms rather than humans
- Social media platforms filled with AI "slop" and automated responses
- Genuine human content being drowned out by machine-generated noise
- Erosion of trusted information sources and shared truth

However, concrete solutions exist:

1. Technical Defenses:

- Open-source spam filtering tools like mosparo for protecting website forms
- AI scraper blocking through systems like Anubis
- Content authenticity verification via the CAI SDK¹

1. Community Building:

- Supporting decentralized social networks (Mastodon, Lemmy)
- Using open-source forum platforms that emphasize human moderation
- Participating in curated communities with active fact-checking¹

1. Individual Actions:

- Using privacy-focused browsers and search engines
- Supporting trusted news sources and independent creators
- Being conscious of data sharing and digital footprint¹

"While exposure to AI-generated misinformation does make people more worried about the quality of information available online, it can also increase the value they attach to outlets with reputations for credibility," notes a 2025 study by Campante¹.

1. It's FOSS - The Internet is Dying. We Can Still Stop It ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

The Internet is Dying. We Can Still Stop It

Almost 50% of all internet traffic are non-human already. Unchecked, it could lead to a zombie internet.

^{Theena Kumaragurunathan (It's FOSS News)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/45192281

Archived

[...]

In a historic breach of China’s censorship infrastructure, internal data were leaked from Chinese infrastructure firms associated with the Great Firewall (GFW) in September this year. Researchers now estimate that the data has a volume of approximately 600 GB.

The material includes more than 100,000 documents, internal source code, work logs, configuration files, emails, technical manuals, and operational runbooks. The number of files in the dump is reported to be in the thousands, though exact totals vary by source.

[...]

An unexpected but critical component of the breach is the metadata embedded within documents and logs. Authorship tags, file paths, and computer hostnames have linked hundreds of documents to individual users, systems, and organizations. These human fingerprints offer unprecedented visibility into the organizational structure behind the GFW’s operation. Engineers, data analysts, lab researchers, and regional technicians are all traceable by name or system alias. Many entries refer to known ISPs, national labs, or university-affiliated nodes, suggesting that the enforcement apparatus spans a wide constellation of public-private partnerships, military-academic collaborations, and centralized policy deployment.

Together, these findings constitute a unique technical cross-section of the Chinese censorship-industrial complex, revealing not just what is filtered or how, but who enforces it, who maintains the infrastructure, and how decisions flow through the layered topology of digital control.

[...]

The current report represents only the first installment in a three-part investigative series into the unprecedented breach of China’s censorship apparatus. While this Part 1 has centered on exposing the dataset’s contents and evaluating its technical, organizational, and strategic significance, it is only the beginning. The sheer scale and complexity of the leak, over 500GB of internal GFW infrastructure data, demands a methodical, layered approach to fully grasp its implications.

The next two parts in this series will delve even deeper, uncovering the architecture of China’s censorship regime and examining the wider consequences for global digital governance.

Part 2 of the series will look into the architecture and will offer a forensic reconstruction of how the Great Firewall actually works at the technical level, mapping the core design of the censorship stack. This includes how packets are intercepted, filtered, redirected, or dropped; how apps like Psiphon and V2Ray are detected at the protocol level; and how traffic shaping is deployed based on geography, ISP, or session context.

Part 3 will the geopolitics and the fallout will address the broader implications. This breach does more than just reveal technical controls, it changes the strategic calculus of censorship resistance. We will assess how the exposure reshapes China’s ability to sustain its domestic information control and international cyber operations, and how it informs countermeasures by VPN developers, privacy advocates, and democratic governments. Ethical and legal questions will also be raised: what does responsible engagement with such data look like?

[...]

With this series, we aim to present not just the most complete picture yet of the GFW, but a roadmap for pushing back against the machinery of state censorship.

Inside the Great Firewall Part 1: The Dump - DomainTools Investigations | DTI

Analysis of the 500GB+ Great Firewall data breach revealing China’s state censorship network, VPN evasion tactics, and the operators behind it.

^{DomainTools Investigations | DTI}

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/45192281

Archived

[...]

In a historic breach of China’s censorship infrastructure, internal data were leaked from Chinese infrastructure firms associated with the Great Firewall (GFW) in September this year. Researchers now estimate that the data has a volume of approximately 600 GB.

The material includes more than 100,000 documents, internal source code, work logs, configuration files, emails, technical manuals, and operational runbooks. The number of files in the dump is reported to be in the thousands, though exact totals vary by source.

[...]

An unexpected but critical component of the breach is the metadata embedded within documents and logs. Authorship tags, file paths, and computer hostnames have linked hundreds of documents to individual users, systems, and organizations. These human fingerprints offer unprecedented visibility into the organizational structure behind the GFW’s operation. Engineers, data analysts, lab researchers, and regional technicians are all traceable by name or system alias. Many entries refer to known ISPs, national labs, or university-affiliated nodes, suggesting that the enforcement apparatus spans a wide constellation of public-private partnerships, military-academic collaborations, and centralized policy deployment.

Together, these findings constitute a unique technical cross-section of the Chinese censorship-industrial complex, revealing not just what is filtered or how, but who enforces it, who maintains the infrastructure, and how decisions flow through the layered topology of digital control.

[...]

The current report represents only the first installment in a three-part investigative series into the unprecedented breach of China’s censorship apparatus. While this Part 1 has centered on exposing the dataset’s contents and evaluating its technical, organizational, and strategic significance, it is only the beginning. The sheer scale and complexity of the leak, over 500GB of internal GFW infrastructure data, demands a methodical, layered approach to fully grasp its implications.

The next two parts in this series will delve even deeper, uncovering the architecture of China’s censorship regime and examining the wider consequences for global digital governance.

Part 2 of the series will look into the architecture and will offer a forensic reconstruction of how the Great Firewall actually works at the technical level, mapping the core design of the censorship stack. This includes how packets are intercepted, filtered, redirected, or dropped; how apps like Psiphon and V2Ray are detected at the protocol level; and how traffic shaping is deployed based on geography, ISP, or session context.

Part 3 will the geopolitics and the fallout will address the broader implications. This breach does more than just reveal technical controls, it changes the strategic calculus of censorship resistance. We will assess how the exposure reshapes China’s ability to sustain its domestic information control and international cyber operations, and how it informs countermeasures by VPN developers, privacy advocates, and democratic governments. Ethical and legal questions will also be raised: what does responsible engagement with such data look like?

[...]

With this series, we aim to present not just the most complete picture yet of the GFW, but a roadmap for pushing back against the machinery of state censorship.

Inside the Great Firewall Part 1: The Dump - DomainTools Investigations | DTI

Analysis of the 500GB+ Great Firewall data breach revealing China’s state censorship network, VPN evasion tactics, and the operators behind it.

^{DomainTools Investigations | DTI}

the storm had 7 percent stronger wind speeds than a similar one in a world that has not been warmed by the burning of fossil fuels. They also found the rate of rainfall inside the eyewall of the storm was 16 percent more intense.

They're talking about the World Weather Attribution rapid analysis, which uses peer-reviewed methods.

There is a petition, e6679, on the official ourcommons.ca website for the government of Canada, which address is misinformation in Canadian politicians.

If you ask me, this is a very important petition, because I believe that the threat to Canadian sovereignty and democracy is indeed misinformation that is being spread by Canadian politicians. Sure, misinformation from social media is annoying, and when it comes from the traditional media it's disturbing, but when it comes from Federal politicians, it's downright dangerous.

It has almost 40,000 signatures. Please sign it, there's only three weeks left. The more signatures, the more weight it will have when it's read in parliament

We need to send a message to Parliament and let them know that we're concerned and frustrated with misinformation.

I should note that the website has had lots of problems recently. Please be patient and try until you succeed. You need to receive a validation email, click on that, and then you get a confirmation email. Until you get that second email, your signature has not been counted.

South Carolina firebrand running for governor allegedly abused agents working without pay during shutdown

The US representative Nancy Mace, a Republican firebrand running for South Carolina governor, is drawing scrutiny after a police report described her berating airport police and TSA agents as she was being escorted to a gate last week.

The profane incident at the Charleston international airport threatens to derail her run as she said she would sue the airport authority for defamation and false reporting.

An initial incident report from the Charleston county aviation authority police department first obtained by Wired describes Mace cursing at airport staff, saying that this was no way to treat a “f---ing U.S. representative”. She invoked the name of South Carolina senator Tim Scott, saying that the Republican lawmaker would not be treated as she was, according to the report.

Police report describes Republican Nancy Mace berating airport police and TSA agents

^{George Chidi (The Guardian)}

The Democratic governor, a vocal Trump critic who is pursuing a third term next year as well as a potential 2028 White House bid, also indicated that any effort to redraw Illinois’ congressional districts to counter gerrymandering pushed by the president in GOP-led states may depend on whether Indiana takes action on redistricting.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/05/gov-jb-pritzker-says-an-indiana-remap-might-force-illinois-to-act-as-he-celebrates-democratic-wins-tuesday/

The Democratic governor, a vocal Trump critic who is pursuing a third term next year as well as a potential 2028 White House bid, also indicated that any effort to redraw Illinois’ congressional districts to counter gerrymandering pushed by the president in GOP-led states may depend on whether Indiana takes action on redistricting.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/05/gov-jb-pritzker-says-an-indiana-remap-might-force-illinois-to-act-as-he-celebrates-democratic-wins-tuesday/

no plans to fix it, though

- video
pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251105-… - podcast

time: 4 min 58 sec

AI gets 45% of news wrong — but readers still trust it

The BBC and the European Broadcasting Union have produced a large study of how well AI chatbots handle summarising the news. In short: badly. [BBC; EBU] The researchers asked ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemi…

^{Pivot to AI}

Lo so che ormai non solo sembro, ma sono, un disco rotto, ma a questo punto I swear to god, come si dice in questi casi… Ormai mi pare sempre più di vivere in un mondo costruito apposta per distruggermi a tutti i costi; mi sembra di essere all’interno di una di quelle visual novel […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-11-06 10:07:41

rabbia femcellica della mattina sorprendente in cui la rogna universale si riabbatte sul mio culo (gli innamorati in giro mi fanno stare male)

Lo so che ormai non solo sembro, ma sono, un disco rotto, ma a questo punto I swear to god, come si dice in questi casi… Ormai mi pare sempre più di vivere in un mondo costruito apposta per distruggermi a tutti i costi; mi sembra di essere all’interno di una di quelle visual novel pericolosamente mortali, dove alle persone normali succedono cose normali e non tragiche, mentre io sono la protagonista a cui capitano tutte le peggio schifezze… Fatti non oggettivamente gravi, e questo va riconosciuto assolutamente (sia mai che sennò l’universo si ribella ancora di più…), ma comunque situazioni così malamente architettate per farmi stare male dentro, che io non riesco a credere che siano reali senza essere scritte su un copione. 😭

In precisa sostanza, non posso quasi mai semplicemente uscire di casa per andare alla torturiversità — e specifico università, perché, a dire il vero, in mezzo alla strada la mattina presto, o dentro autobus con dentro gente più mista (verso altre destinazioni), o al bar, o chissà dove, queste cose banalmente non le vedo — senza trovarmi ogni volta davanti persone che porca puttana fanno gli animaletti in calore, e si baciano, e si mettono una addosso all’altra, e BLEH… Per chi mi conosce da relativamente meno tempo di altri, questa sembrerà una stronzata, ma credetemi se dico che simili visioni mi torturano dentro, e mi ribolle il sangue in una maniera che altrimenti non succede durante la giornata… 👹

Ci sarà per forza chi, probabilmente senza dirmelo, penserà che sto esagerando, e che se sto male così è un problema mio, perché non sia mai che i sentimenti di una femcel ormai letteralmente distrutta dall’esistenza stessa vengano presi seriamente… Noo, ovviamente sono solo una strega vecchiaccia che si impegna ad alimentare la negatività, mica una vittima delle precise circostanze, come espresse all’interno del contesto della nostra società marcita, che mi rendono ahimè precisamente chi io sono, in contrasto con quelli che sono i miei veri desideri, e certo… Ma voi non avete idea che questi esseri, talmente superefficaci sulla mia fragile psiche da riuscire a tormentarmi con la sola vista, escono dalle fottute pareti!!! Non è che stanno in angolini nascosti, dietro i cespugli come gli allenatori Pokémon, o controllano attorno per assicurarsi di essere da soli: basta girare l’angolo sbagliato, girarsi per andare da qualche parte, e questi soggetti maledetti spuntano!!! 🙀

Mi sale allora, non sto scherzando, un istinto di vomito solo a ripensarci per scriverlo — cosa che, anche questa, non mi succede altrimenti mai… posso guardare ogni giorno i disegnini gore con una faccia fermissima, ma basta che 2 individui reali si toccano troppo e io mi sento male — ma oggi davvero mi sono sentita come se l’universo avesse voluto prendersi gioco di me più del solito. Sono salita sull’autobus, e appena alla seconda o terza fila ci stavano due pseudo-abbracciati — erano più stirati uno sull’altra senza capo né coda, mi sembra — che io nemmeno ho voluto guardare, perché ormai ne va veramente della mia salute mentale, ma porca troia. Non li ho per fortuna visti o sentiti durante il viaggio, perché mi sono attentamente seduta svariati posti più dietro, ma non riuscivo a smettere di pensarci. Il tizio poi — perché, mannaggia al cazzo, sono sempre i maschi che si mettono particolarmente storti sui mezzi pubblici, e poi io non dovrei essere misandrica — stava steso col piede mezzo fuori dal sedile per tutto il tempo; manco lo ha spostato per far passare me o l’altra persona che è salita nel mio stesso momento, tant’è che l’ho pure urtato involontariamente… mi dispiace solo che io sia troppo leggera, quindi non gli ho fatto male. Non so se precisamente si stavano anche baciando o che, e francamente è meglio così, perché sennò a questo punto il vomito mi usciva davvero, invece mi è salito solo un nodo in gola. 🎈

Poi, scusate se sono eterocisfobica, ma le circostanze mi costringono a pormi domande importanti, per quanto queste possano magari racchiudere uno stigma latente da parte mia: ma è possibile che sono sempre chiaramente un ragazzo e una ragazza a fare questo schifo??? Mai ho visto coppie omosessuali, né yuri né yaoi; mai ho visto due persone di cui almeno una con una presentazione di genere ambigua o comunque non subito inquadrabile; mai ho visto un gruppo poligamo; ma, in realtà, mai ho visto gente che non avesse un aspetto stereotipato, da “cloni“ (mai con vestiti particolari o stili interessanti, insomma), che però in giro da sole ci sono!!! Qui, dunque, un quesito va posto: sono le persone etero cis normie ad essere in media intrinsecamente schifose e prive di rispetto per le femcel e gli incel intorno a loro che non vogliono assolutamente vedere questa roba, perché mannaggia al cazzo, e allora fanno queste oscenità in pubblico senza remore; oppure, le persone non fatte con lo stampino sono semplicemente tutte da sole come me??? 🕸️

Boh, basta, io non ce la faccio più. Ogni giorno che passo in questo schifo di posto, i dolori aumentano. Questa estate, segregata per benino in casa — o, comunque, fuori solo ad orari ed in posti da cinquantenne, non da gente della mia età — a pensarci, sono stata molto meglio di come sto ora; e non perché in estate ho marcito per bene mentre ora devo studiare, visto che probabilmente ormai lo sanno anche le pareti dei bagni che non studio… E, non mi era capitato di dirlo, ma, a ripensarci, nell’iniziare questo terzo anno ho pensato “oh nooooh, ora lì all’università vedrò tutti quegli schifosi in giro mentre io sono da sola…“… sono davvero così tormentata. Nemmeno a scuola, né alle medie né al liceo, ho mai sofferto così, mai ho visto questi scenari con così tanta frequenza e veemenza (anche se lì forse è perché nel contesto ristretto della classe nessuno ha mai sviluppato niente, e le occasioni in cui gente di varie classi si può incontrare dentro la scuola sono ristrette); qualcuno mi salvi. 😊🔪

#cringe #femcel #rabbia #schifo #università

Citing Kotatsu's recent shut down, two of Mihon's devs said that misuse of Mihon’s name and branding by a group may endanger the project.

I copied the text if you don't want to go the link. It's a bit long so I spoilered it.
::: spoiler spoiler

Hello everyone,

With Kotatsu's recent shutdown and due to some ongoing issues over the years, I believe Mihon is also under threat. If you care about the project's future, please take a moment to read this message.

---

Who is behind the threat, and how?

A group going by iiTachiyomi and recently Miyomi has built a massive following by impersonating Tachiyomi (Mihon's predecessor) across various platform. They only rebranded to iiTachiyomi after years of request and only on platforms where they had a low following.

Their blatant impersonation was one of the key reason behind the legal threat Tachiyomi received, which ultimately led to its shutdown. When we announced Mihon and exposed their behavior, iiTachiyomi promised to change their ways and not impersonate Mihon.

However, just months after Mihon launched, they resumed the same behavior by:
- Creating a new brand "Miyomi: Tachiyomi and Mihon community" to capitalize on Mihon's name
- Posting Mihon release notes and announcements without attribution
- Sharing updates of third-party extension repos without attribution
- Failing to clarify they are not the developers behind Mihon or those extensions
- Selling fake Mihon branded merchandise

Why does this threaten Mihon?

When P.CoK, the anti-piracy division of Kakao requested the removal of extensions, the Tachiyomi team complied. iiTachiyomi, however continued distributing them in a misleading way, causing confusion that escalated into legal pressure, which resulted in Tachiyomi shutting down.

Now, they are doing the same thing with Mihon. Their misrepresentation and misuse of Mihon’s name, branding and work puts the project at risk, despite Mihon having already corrected the mistakes Tachiyomi made. It could also cause problems for other apps they promote.

What to do from now on

iiTachiyomi claims to serve the community, but their actions prove otherwise. To protect Mihon:
- Report iiTachiyomi or Miyomi pages that mislead users
- Correct people who confuse Mihon with iiTachiyomi or Miyomi
- Don’t share or support unofficial Mihon merchandise
- Spread the word: Mihon has no connection to them

---

Signed by:
- Antsy, Mihon Developer
- jobobby04, TachiyomiSY Developer

:::

This is after the action that Kotatsu manga app shutting down due to Kakao's continued war on manga piracy, and Google's future policy of limiting what Android users can install on their own devices.

From Kotatsu's github readme:
::: spoiler screenshot

:::

Important

In light of recent challenges — including threating actions from Kakao Entertainment Corp and upcoming Google’s new sideloading policy — we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Kotatsu and end its support. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed and to the amazing community that grew around this project.

One year ago, Tachiyomi shut down due to Kakao's efforts, as per this post here.

alphacyberranger

2024-08-23 15:56:00

After Tachiyomi, Kakao Aiming To Take Down 'World's No. 1' Manga Piracy Site Among Others

After Tachiyomi, Kakao Aiming To Take Down 'World's No. 1' Manga Piracy Site Among Others - Animehunch

Kakao Entertainment's relentless campaign against manga and webtoon piracy continues to gain momentum, with the company now setting its sights on three

^Animehunch