A bipartisan pair of US Senators has introduced a bill that would require companies and government agencies to report AI-related layoffs, and it couldn't come at a better time. October jobs data suggests AI is driving the largest wave of layoffs headed into the end of the year that we've seen since 2003.

Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mark Warner (D-VA) on Wednesday announced plans to introduce the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act. If passed, the law requires public companies and pretty much every single federal government agency to hand quarterly layoff data over to the Department of Labor, indicating how many jobs they cut due to automation.

The act would also require employers to report on a quarterly basis how many people they hired related to AI and automation, how many jobs they decided not to fill thanks to AI, and numbers on retraining due to artificial intelligence. The end goal, said Warner, is to help Congress understand how the labor market is changing and how to prepare for the future.

Senate bill would require companies to report AI layoffs as job cuts reach 20-year high in October

ai-pocalypse: Government agencies would also have to report losses due to automation.

^{Brandon Vigliarolo (The Register)}

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

This is a deep cut. There’s a solo John Lennon track called “Remember” off the Plastic Ono Band album. He closes it by screaming “Remember the 5th of November!” followed by an explosion.

It was a reference to Guy Fawkes Day, marking an infamous plot to blow up the British Parliament in 1605 that ended with the perpetrator’s head on a spike.

But that lyric hits a bit different after last year’s presidential election. Because on November 5, 2024, America rewarded a man who tried to blow up our system of government by pushing election lies that incited an attack on our capital.

Seen through the eyes of history, it looks like an act of self-immolation by our nation. That’s exactly why we need to be firefighters rather than arsonists to counteract its impact.

American democracy is an outlier. We are the world’s longest-lasting large democracy and the first nation founded upon an idea rather than a tribal identity. We’ve always been imperfect people working to form a more perfect union.

Bold use of the present tense.

Trump's 'Might Makes Right' Politics Are Bringing Out America's Worst

Donald Trump was elected to a second term in office one year ago on November 5. His "might makes right" politics are corroding America.

^{John Avlon (Rolling Stone)}

This has turned out to be an evergreen hed.

Afunny thing happened to our political blowhard class on its way to its next appointed bout of savvy prognosticating. As breathless pundits looked to this week’s handful of off-year elections for telltale signs of the country’s mood swings, the news broke that President Donald Trump has reached a new low in his national approval ratings. In a CNN poll released Monday, 63 percent of respondents disapproved of his performance in office, leaving just 37 percent approving. As polling analyst G. Elliot Morris notes, the 26 point net gap in disapproval is the lowest Trump has ever clocked—even in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when many observers predicted his political demise. By comparison, an enfeebled and marginalized Joe Biden sported a 40 percent approval rating when he left office. A plurality of 42 percent approval would show Trump holding on to the 2024 coalition that elected him, but this latest swoon indicates that independents and even traditional GOP supporters are turning against him. Meanwhile, The Economist’s poll tracker shows that Trump’s approval is underwater in all seven of the swing states he carried last November, as well as in Texas. That’s right: The state that’s frantically (and secretively) redrawing its congressional maps to suit Trump’s whims—and has even filed an actual lawsuit against Tylenol based on Trump and RFK Jr.’s fabricated claims that the pain suppressant promotes autism in utero—has soured on Trump’s agenda.

It’s easy to make too much of snapshot surveys of presidential approval, but, as Morris also notes, polling averages have been trending strongly away from Trump over the past two weeks. The intensity of that disapproval is also striking: “Depending on the polls you pick for your average,” Morris writes, “between 46 and 50 percent of U.S. adults tell pollsters they “strongly disapprove” of the job Trump is doing as president. That is double the percent that strongly approve…. Put another way, less than half of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 currently ‘strongly approve’ of his presidency.” When you factor in disapproval among respondents who didn’t vote in the last election, the MAGA picture gets grimmer still, with less than a third of American adults approving of Trump, and 53 percent disapproving—48 percent of them doing so “strongly.”

Trump’s Approval Ratings Have Hit a New Low | The Nation

And Democrats need to seize the moment—for once.

^{The Nation}

For low-income people and their families, it’s been a hard, complicated week. On November 1, more than 40 million users of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, did not receive their monthly payments after the Trump administration refused to pay full benefits through emergency funding during the ongoing government shutdown. It would be better, the administration has decided, to weaponize hunger against Democrats, blaming the government shutdown, than to feed people.

On Monday, a court ordered that the Trump administration use contingency funds to fund SNAP, although the Trump administration said it would only fund half the regular amount. It’s unclear whether the White House, which has flip-flopped on SNAP several times in recent weeks, will pull a similar stunt in December if the government shutdown continues—or when the funds for this month will reach people.

And it’s not like the system was perfect. A recent report from the National Domestic Workers Alliance found that in September, 91 percent of domestic workers who responded to the survey—including nannies, home health care aides and house cleaners—said their households struggled with food insecurity in September, when SNAP payments were still in effect.

Domestic workers count on SNAP. Trump's shutdown is hitting hard.

Cleaners, nannies, and home health aides work full-time—and still disproportionately rely on food stamps.

^{Mother Jones}

Airports in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are among 40 of the busiest across the U.S. where flights will be cut starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines and obtained by The Associated Press.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday it would reduce air traffic by 10% across “high-volume” markets to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers go unpaid and exhibit signs of strain during the shutdown.

The affected airports in more than two dozen states include the busiest ones across the U.S., including Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, and San Francisco. In some of the biggest cities — such as New York, Houston and Chicago — multiple airports will be affected.

https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-reduced-flights-a082a6817d960101968a923f7dfd8ef0

I ended up in Captcha hell trying to archive this, so I'm afraid I can't provide a link.

Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.

A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.

On average, one December 2024 document notes, the company shows its platforms’ users an estimated 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements – those that show clear signs of being fraudulent – every day. Meta earns about $7 billion in annualized revenue from this category of scam ads each year, another late 2024 document states.

Much of the fraud came from marketers acting suspiciously enough to be flagged by Meta’s internal warning systems. But the company only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud, the documents show. If the company is less certain – but still believes the advertiser is a likely scammer – Meta charges higher ad rates as a penalty, according to the documents. The idea is to dissuade suspect advertisers from placing ads.

The documents further note that users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/gavin-newsom-brazil-21131913.php?hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL2NsaW1hdGUvYXJ0aWNsZS9nYXZpbi1uZXdzb20tYnJhemlsLTIxMTMxOTEzLnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTc2MjQ0OTM2Mzg3Mg%3D%3D&rid=ZjZmMmQ3YjgtNjRhMy00ZmM1LWFlMmItZTNmNzM5MTExODA5&sharecount=MQ%3D%3D

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/climate/belem-brazi-cop30-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE8.vujv.eUZzuN_ppI0c

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

Go with me here. Routers are routers, and servers are servers. Some people mix and match things, but generally, ideally, this is how it goes. And I agree.

But the router I just set up, the Google WiFi, has 4gb storage, 512mb of ram, a quad core CPU at 800mhz, is easy to flash, and only costs $10-15 on eBay all day long.

If you used it as only a little computer, no routing.. Then..

If I wanted to say... Set up a tailscale node at my family's house. Why spend $45-80, or even $130(!) on a raspberry pi with an Ethernet port, when the Google WiFi works just as well if not better for that job?

Maybe a tiny matrix server? Tiny web hosting?

Or, for a less ideal solution, but still reasonable. What if I wanted to set up a remote backup node for my main server? If my needs were small enough, the Google WiFi would be much more economical, although you'd need to add a USB hub to break out the USB ports. And there would be limitations obviously.

Or getting really crazy, you could potentially squeeze one or two bigger services onto a router, just to see if it's possible.. Minecraft server?

My question is. What is the best device for this? The Google WiFi is dirt cheap at $10-15, I'm about to pull the trigger on a second one just to play with. But I wanted to see if you guys had any other suggestions?

I tried searching the toh for similar devices, but even restricting it down every way I can think of, I've still got over a hundred devices to look at.

Basically, I think older router hardware is an overlooked, cheaper alternative, to raspberry pis, for some scenarios.

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 interaction[^1]. According to recent studies, this includes automated programs responsible for 49.6% of web traffic in 2023, a trend accelerated by AI models scraping content[^1].

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 SDK[^1]

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-checking[^1]

1. Individual Actions:

- Using privacy-focused browsers and search engines
- Supporting trusted news sources and independent creators
- Being conscious of data sharing and digital footprint[^1]

"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 Campante[^1].

[^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)}

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}