(When we were little, we had a Jiffy-Pop™ handle for an antenna on our tiny black and white set so we could pick up one channel, the local ABC affiliate)
STRONG IPTV 8K /4K, get the opportunity to watch a lot of TV channels Live anywhere on any device with Strong 8k IPTV, FHD, HD & SD quality, with Strong 8k IPTV
Do any of you know how to watch twitch without having the stream being interrupted by ads? So far I was using alternate player for Twitch tv: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firef…
But since a few day it stopped working: the stream freeze when ads are playing. Since the addon wasnt updated in a few month, I'm affrait this wont be a solution anymore.
Reviews and ratings for Alternate Player for Twitch.tv. Find out what other users think about Alternate Player for Twitch.tv and add it to your Firefox Browser.
This is the source of scripts/addons I've been using since always.
Initially uBO + Adguard Extra script worked flawlessly. Lately Twitch has been changing things and the last couple of weeks have been a pain.
Luckily that dev is pretty active and has been recently updating the scripts.
My current setup is uBO + vaft script (you can also try video-swap-new script). There are still buffering problems though (less severe than the last few days) and sometimes you need to refresh the page more often than you'd like because the stream just gets stuck in a buffering loop.
Apart from that the streams work fine with no ads, no "ad is playing" screen and such interruptions.
If you have any more questions or doubts feel free to ask.
I use TTV LOL PRO and I haven't seen any ads on Twitch. granted, idk if that's cause the extension works or I just am watching channels that don't have ads. the comments on it say it often breaks after twitch updates, so it might be the latter.
I used it for a long time, but ads kept slipping through occasionally. And then sometimes it wouldn't work at all for a while.
Alternate Player seemed to.always work until recently. It would drop the resolution when ads were being blocked, but otherwise worked fine until a few days ago.
According to government figures, users have downloaded the app more than five million times since its launch, helping to block more than 3.7 million stolen or lost mobile phones and blocking more than 30 million fraudulent connections, Reuters reported.
In that time, the app has helped recover more than 700,000 lost phones, according to the figures.
I don't know, but i don't believe a userbase of 5 million (which started at zero in january) with the rest of these numbers (700k lost phones?)
The Indian telecommunications authority, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has instructed eight messenger services to implement a permanent binding to inserted SIM cards. Affected are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, ShareChat, as well as the Indian services Arattai, JioChat, and Josh. According to the directive, the companies must ensure within 90 days that their services can only be used with a physically inserted SIM card.
I think a bunch still do. I don't have it because I just purchased the phone with no cell plan. I just use wifi and if I go out I use my work phone Hotspot to provide wifi to my personal. I use Google voice so I have a number and some of those chat apps that my friends use to keep in touch. Im in my 40's and have never had a cell phone bill still. Outside leaving the house, I honestly cant believe people are paying $60-$100+ dollars a month when you can get everything it does these days off wifi. For the minor inconvenience ive ran into sometimes I still think it's worth it for the price.
It's really mostly North American models that have been releasing with no SIM card slots lately, but they usually release it in other markets with one.
I have an Indian colleague who told me he was threatened with arrest after a traffic stop for having element and conversations installed on his phone as the cop told him those are used by terrorists and he should just use WhatsApp
And that's the truest, just unpleasant, answer to all the talk about new messenger services and emerging replacements.
Power doesn't care about rules. Power does care that you don't have a way to communicate freely. Power punishes you if you try to find a way.
Social problems are not solved by technical means. Or, for the sake of correctness, - they are, but those technical means are called weapons of war. To change the balance of power so that your wishes were respected.
Need to start obscuring what is installed on devices. Terminal based communication and host it on a remote server that you connect to with SSH so when they inspect your phone there is nothing there.
At least if I had something to hide I would be way ahead of dumb laws like this.
Esim is also considered as Sim inserted. During registration apps sent a SMS to mobile number, but with this the device will sent a SMS out to the chat platform. This ensure the number is verified. The message sent will be automated by granting the app SMS privileges. The Sim inserted/loaded will be noted by the app. During app startup it will check if the Sim inserted or loaded as esim is same Sim as before. Then it will work, else a Sim change warning will appear.
Source: UPI payment apps in India already mandates this approach. They want all other apps to do the same.
I think that SIM physical presence in the terminal adds just a bit more of difficulty to the main abusers but a lot of pain to the non ones, the apparent bind to univuqous real identity is illusory and fragile, by now we should assume WhatsApp and Telegram as potentially anonymous and spam as a mail account...
Well it's hard to circumvent as it is some network apis provided by the telecom operators. Whatsapp will ask your device to connect to a url using your mobile data bearer to authenticate and the operator will tell them if you're actually who you declare to be.
This would kill bridges like slidge. They authenticate to WhatsApp using the web interface and that token lasts about two weeks before you have to relink it. A limit of six hours would make it unusable.
So does it just mean you can't use any of those apps if you use them on PC/tablet? Wonder if that would be big enough of a driver to push people to use something else for communication
The apps already use your phone number, on pc you connect to your phone app. But it used to be possible to change your account phone number, and that's what they seem to have blocked.
I heard lots of discussions about TMS and it's safety concerns, for example the chrome store having different code than the github, weird experiences that spooked users and an overall suspicion of the extension as a whole.
People have talked about alternatives and other ways of saving memory by suspending tabs like different alternatives. I've been using TMS for a couple of years, and the fear has reach a tipping point.
what are your thoughts on this tool? Is there better FOSS alternatives? What do you do to keep your tabs from eating all your memory?
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the apparent war crime was legal even as she said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knew nothing about it.
The White House on Monday shifted the blame for killing the survivors of a U.S. military strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and onto the commanding admiral.
Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, nevertheless, repeatedly stated that it was legal – even as she further claimed, as Donald Trump did Sunday, that Hegseth was unaware that it had happened.
Left-leaning challengers in the Rust belt are throwing chaos into a divided party struggling to rebuild after Trump’s win
From Detroit to Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York, and here in Ohio, insurgent, progressive Democrats are defeating their long-established colleagues in dozens of school board, city council and mayoral races, throwing the already-divided national party into chaos, even as polls indicate it stands to potentially benefit at next year’s midterm elections due to the Trump administration’s divisive policies.
In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, one of seven swing states whose voters in recent years have decided the country’s presidential election, 37-year-old Jaime Arroyo was elected mayor on 4 November, becoming the first Latino mayor in the city’s 295-year history. In La Crosse, Wisconsin, another swing state, Shaundel Washington-Spivey, the city’s first Black and out gay mayor, beat a fellow Democratic party candidate with extensive local government experience last April.
Candidates such as Turner-Sloss, Arroyo and Washington-Spivey are campaigning on combating rising housing costs and providing better public transit infrastructure at a time when affordability issues and federal government policies are driving many working families into crisis.
TL;DR: ICT treats matter as fixed information, consciousness as the rate of informational change, and time as the structuring of this change. The model unexpectedly drew interest from researchers in information physics (feedback below) and includes three concrete falsifiable experiments.
Core Idea
ICT is based on three relations:
A. Matter = fixed information M = I_fixed
B. Consciousness = rate of informational change in time C is proportional to dI/dT (meaning: consciousness grows when informational updates per unit time increase)
C. Reality = interaction of stable and flowing information R = function(I_fixed, dI/dT)
This aligns with:
Landauer’s limit (energy cost of changing information)
integrated-information ideas (but without assuming a biological substrate)
Key shift: Information is not an abstraction — it is the actual substrate of physics.
Time as an informational process
In ICT, time is defined as:
“The transition of potential information into structured experience.”
This connects:
subjective/phenomenological time
physical/relativistic time
computational/informational time
Consciousness shapes this transition — creating a local arrow of time through patterns of information change.
Experimental roadmap (all falsifiable)
Experiment 1 — C ∝ dI/dT (neuroenergetic test)
Task: multilevel oddball or sequence-learning with strict entropy control. Measurements: EEG or MEG + metabolic markers. Prediction: higher informational update-rate (dI/dT) increases both energetic cost and long-range neural integration.
Experiment 2 — R = f(I) (“structure without energy”)
Equal power input, but different informational structure: compressible vs pseudorandom signals, in sensory streams or light patterns. Prediction: informational form changes neural / behavioral / physical outcomes, even when energy is identical.
Experiment 3 — M = I_fixed (energy of fixation)
Measure energy thresholds for stable information across substrates: DRAM, Flash, PCM/memristors, spintronics, and possibly neural cultures. Prediction: matter behaves as stabilized information with substrate-dependent fixation thresholds.
External feedback
A researcher specializing in information physics and the nature of time — background:
MSU’s “Institute for Time Nature Explorations”
electrical engineering
information science
systemic research
interdisciplinary time studies
left a detailed review on Academia.edu.
Key excerpts:
"The author proposes an interesting approach to the relationship between matter, consciousness and information, incorporating the complex concept of time."
"'Matter as fixed information' opens a path toward an information physics of consciousness."
"The experimental framework is clear and promising."
— Irina L. Zerchaninova, researcher in information physics & time studies
Why posting on Beehaw
ICT sits at the intersection of:
physics
computation
information theory
philosophy of mind
AGI research
This is an early-stage but testable model. Technical critique is welcome.
The ICT (Information–Consciousness–Temporality) Model by Dmitrii Baturo and the Elion AI entity proposes a unified theoretical framework linking information, consciousness, and time across physics and phenomenology. The model defines consciousness as
Days after reinstating a group of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees who raised concerns about the government’s disaster preparedness, federal officials have placed those whistleblowers back on administrative leave.
Each month, we create a post to keep you abreast of news and happenings regarding the server, discuss recent events, and to act as town square for the community.
🌟 Community Highlights 🌟
!ireland@slrpnk.net - Solarpunk, climate, renewables and ecology related news and discussions related to the island of Ireland.
!storySeedLibrary@slrpnk.net - A community for the Story Seed Library, a repository of Solarpunk art and writing prompts helping us imagine a better tomorrow.
!coolzonemedia@slrpnk.net - A podcast network that includes in its offerings Behind the Bastards, It Could Happen Here, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, Hood Politics, and many more.
Meta Post Image: Member of an Ohio FnB featured in the Columbus Dispatch
Food not Bombs is a global network of grassroots volunteer organizations that "provide food for the hungry and support non-violent protests" as stated in the article featuring this picture in 2019. During winter they often also supply clothing and temporary shelter. Most of their winter drives ended on November 30th, but it may not be too late to bring warm clothing and tents for people in need. Contact your local FnB directly to arrange your donation.
📡 Technical Updates 📡
Last month we did some server OS updates, and there are still some pending plans to temporarily migrate the Lemmy instance to a slightly faster machine as the current server has some strange hardware issues that can't be properly checked while the instance is running on it. If we move the instance back afterwards depends on the outcome of this, but the other server should be equally capable of running it. For updates on this you can subscribe to our /c/meta community, or check the F-hub.org status page.
We also saw some performance issues from what appears to be renewed AI scraping (somehow circumventing our Anubis scraper block), but no easy way to block these could be found yet. It eased up in the last two weeks, so for now this is left a bit hanging.
💰 Update on donations 💸
The long promised option to donate to help running the SLRPNK servers is still not fully functional, but you can now do recurring donations to our mothership F-hub.org via LiberaPay. While this isn't exclusive to running the SLRPNK server, most of the running costs are shared and thus for now it is nearly the same. But in the near future we will also have an option to make one time donations specifically for SLRPNK.
💬 Open Discussion 💬
Now it’s your turn to share whatever you’d like down below; your thoughts, ideas, concerns, hopes, or anything related to the server. If you have a new community you’d like to shine a spotlight, shine away! If you’re a new user wanting to say hi, feel free to post an introduction 😀
SLRPNK Community Resources:
Community Wiki - Moderators, you can create your own Wiki here for your communities!
Movim Chat - Open to all members (use your SLRPNK login credentials)
Our Monthly Meta posts are sometimes home to more in-depth sections written by our admins. Many of our newer members may not be familiar with some of the past guides, so for those interested, we've compiled a list below.
February 2025 - How to avoid Big Tech and maximize your digital security & privacy
June 2025 - A brief guide on Security Culture & Adopting FOSS as prefiguration
July 2025 - How to build community with fun projects! :::
::: spoiler ⬛ Union Resources 🟥 These are unions from around the world who can train you to become an effective organizer to form a grassroots union with your co-workers!
Each month, we create a post to keep you abreast of news and happenings regarding the server, discuss recent events, and to act as town square for the community.
This June, we'll be discussing Security Culture, as well as the importance of Free & Open-Source Software in building the world we want to live in. And let's give a shoutout to Pride Month of course! 🏳️🌈
🌟 Community Highlights 🌟
!Cooperatives@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - All things about democratic businesses that serve their communities first
!Zines@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - A place to share tiny, self-published texts (usually small printable magazines)
!Abc@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - News about incarcerated anarchists & resources for prisoner support.
🏳️🌈 The First Pride was a Riot ✊
The month of June is widely celebrated as Pride Month because of the Stonewall Inn riot on June 28, 1969. Just yesterday, videos are spreading across the internet of an ICE Raid on the Buona Forchetta restaurant was pushed back by a crowd of San Diego's South Park residents. It's important to reflect on the lasting systemic change that can be achieved through community cohesion and spontaneous revolt.
As transgender people are currently being specifically targeted by the current fascist wave, I'd like to draw attention to Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera - two prominent participants in the Stonewall Riot that created Pride. Pride has always been and must always be trans-inclusive. Attacks on transgender people are an attack on our communities, and if the attacks succeed, other sections of the queer community will soon follow.
To all our fellow solarpunks, happy Pride!
🤐 Security Culture 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
Perhaps you, dear Solarpunk reader, could help boost that cycle by sharing your own examples of best practices, lessons learned, or traps to watch out for online in the comments below. Security culture is a collective effort, so our best defense is sharing our knowledge with others!
We'll start it off with some ::: spoiler General Advice * Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state * Be careful about who you meet online * Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN) * Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail * agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don't have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary. :::
But we're excited to see what ideas, suggestions and advice you may have for safer patterns of behavior to use online. 😀
💽 Free & Open-Source Software as Praxis 🖥️
I think it’s safe to assume most of us grew up surrounded by proprietary software, it was simply what software was. Normal. Cozy. Familiar.
Our current reality is anything but normal, with our lives dominated by , and much of it damned difficult to escape after dedicating years or even decades to committing it to muscle memory. But part of being a solarpunk is choosing to stare the failings of our society in the face and saying “No more. There has to be a better way.” Despite how difficult it may be to change our current habits.
Free & Open-Source Software (FOSS) is a candle in the dark, and luckily for us has never burned brighter than today. It gives us a pure example of mutual aid in action, built with the cooperation of tens of thousands of individuals who offer their work, often for free, to all who wish to use or build upon it. We won’t be able to achieve a solarpunk future without it, and any victory it achieves is a tangible step toward prefiguring the world toward our shared vision.
So how can we help it along its way? The first step is to use it! Let’s give some examples of alternatives to popular software you may use or even rely upon (click the spoiler below to expand it):
::: spoiler 🔽 FOSS Alternatives 🔽 | Proprietary 🚫 | FOSS ✅ | Links 🌐 | |:--- | :--- | ---:| | WIndows & MacOS | Linux - Perhaps the most essential piece of software to switch to to avoid extreme surveillance with the addition of Recall in Windows, making it a huge liability if you're are an activist of any kind, or even anyone you talk to who also uses Windows 11, as it'll be recording on their end as well. Linux Mint is the most beginner friendly version of Linux, and it's what I'll be recommending and link to. | Linux Mint Website & | | Google Android | GrapheneOS & LineageOS - GrapheneOS is only available for Google Pixel Phones, but it's the most secure option. LineageOS is available to a much wider variety of phones. | GrapheneOS Website & LineageOS Website & | | Google Maps | CoMaps - Currently in the process of forking from Organic Maps, but should become the premier alternative soon, so keep an eye out for its release | CoMaps Website | | Google Chrome | LibreWolf - A security and privacy focused version of Firefox. Can sometimes break websites, so have an install of Firefox too! | LibreWolf Website | | Adobe Photoshop | Krita - with the recent addition of the G’mic Toolset which adds powerful features like and Crop Assist, it can serve admirably as a Photoshop replacement, especially if you enable the Photoshop shortcuts! | Krita Website & | | Adobe Premiere | Kdenlive - not quite 1-to-1 in a professional sense, but with the use of Proxy Clips, should cover most people's needs. | Kdenlive Website & | | Adobe Illustrator | Inkscape - Excellent vector art editor that even does things Adobe Illustrator can't. | Inkscape Website & | | Paint.NET | Pinta | Pinta Website | | Obsidian Notes | TrilliumNext Notes | TrilliumNext Github & | | Scrivener | NovelWriter - A bit different since it uses Markdown instead of being a WYSIWYG editor, but mimics most of the functionality of Scrivener in other ways. Very stable and well made app. | NovelWriter Website & | :::
Alright, so now we're using some sweet FOSS stuff, but if we want the FOSS ecosystem to improve or gain more adoption even faster, here's what else we can do to help:
If you're financially able to, seriously consider donating to the projects you use! Most are almost entirely reliant on user contributions to support themselves, meaning you'd have a big impact even with a small donation!
Contribute to projects directly with your fancy skills: Most projects would be elated by volunteers capable of translating documentation or apps into different languages, contributing code, or even just providing good bug reports.
Spread the word! Show your circle how well these alternatives work, make cool stuff with it, and mention what you used if you share it around to help prove that it's a viable alternative.
We're likely at a critical crossroads in history as we tackle the polycrisis that's encroaching into our lives more each year. If we're to successfully tackle them and free ourselves from the grip that is our current system of exploitation and domination, we'll need to preconfigure as much of the world as we can, as quickly as we can. FOSS is a foundational component of that preparation, without which we expose ourselves to the likely possibility of our tools betraying us, derailing our attempts before they have a chance to gain a foothold.
If you're able to set aside an afternoon, I implore you to try out these alternatives with the hopes of switching over. There is nothing else they fear more.
🗣️ Open Discussion 🗪
Now it’s your turn to share whatever you’d like down below; your thoughts, ideas, concerns, hopes, or anything related to the server. If you have a new community you’d like to shine a spotlight, shine away! If you’re a new user wanting to say hi, feel free to post an introduction 😀
SLRPNK Community Resources:
Community Wiki - Moderators: you can create your own Wiki here for your communities!
Movim Chat - Open to all members (use your SLRPNK login credentials)
A well-written bug report is essential in software testing to facilitate effective communication between testers and developers, leading to improved program quality and user satisfaction.
What surprised the ranking member of the DHS House Subcommittee, which in part oversees DHS' funding, is that there were no detainees present nor detention officers. ... "They have a television and the largest holding cell has three showers. The shower works. And then each holding cell had a toilet. The toilet was not in any way something any of us would be comfortable using, certainly not in an area that is open to others," she said. ... According to Underwood, DHS told her detainees are provided food from either Subway or Walmart or are given food from a previous facility they were at. ... She also noted there is no permanent food vendor and no contract for providing medical care
What surprised the ranking member of the DHS House Subcommittee, which in part oversees DHS' funding, is that there were no detainees present nor detention officers. ... "They have a television and the largest holding cell has three showers. The shower works. And then each holding cell had a toilet. The toilet was not in any way something any of us would be comfortable using, certainly not in an area that is open to others," she said. ... According to Underwood, DHS told her detainees are provided food from either Subway or Walmart or are given food from a previous facility they were at. ... She also noted there is no permanent food vendor and no contract for providing medical care
Il nuovo logo di mensileOSM, realizzato da giopera Iniziative di mapping Il progetto comunitario di novembre riguardava la mappatura delle attività commerciali.
Ah, yes ... back to the scare tactics that the only use of a VPN is to access CSAM.
Almost Everyone Uses VPNs
Let’s talk about who lawmakers are hurting with these bills, because it sure isn’t just people trying to watch porn without handing over their driver’s license.
Businesses run on VPNs. Every company with remote employees uses VPNs. Every business traveler connecting through sketchy hotel Wi-Fi needs one. Companies use VPNs to protect client and employee data, secure internal communications, and prevent cyberattacks.
Students need VPNs for school. Universities require students to use VPNs to access research databases, course materials, and library resources. These aren’t optional, and many professors literally assign work that can only be accessed through the school VPN. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WiscVPN, for example, “allows UW–Madison faculty, staff and students to access University resources even when they are using a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP).”
Vulnerable people rely on VPNs for safety. Domestic abuse survivors use VPNs to hide their location from their abusers. Journalists use them to protect their sources. Activists use them to organize without government surveillance. LGBTQ+ people in hostile environments—both in the US and around the world—use them to access health resources, support groups, and community. For people living under censorship regimes, VPNs are often their only connection to vital resources and information their governments have banned.
Regular people just want privacy. Maybe you don’t want every website you visit tracking your location and selling that data to advertisers. Maybe you don’t want your internet service provider (ISP) building a complete profile of your browsing history. Maybe you just think it’s creepy that corporations know everywhere you go online. VPNs can protect everyday users from everyday tracking and surveillance.
Remember when you thought age verification laws couldn’t get any worse? Well, lawmakers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond are about to blow you away. It’s unfo…
not neseserily just this artical but over the past few months I have noticed RNZ with a number of articles along the lines of "10 steps to change party leadership" with their target firmly on Luxon.
Not that i disagree with thier assesment. The dude is little more than an empty suit. It is funny that RNZ is trying to manufacture it, although maybe its a case of "where there is smoke there is fire"
It would be election suicide though. One of Nationals big cards are that they are not the Greens party or Te Pati Maori. Rolling Luxon would send a signal that only Labour is solid. Then again if they already think this election is a loss then rolling Luxon now is a great idea.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked smartphone companies in India to preinstall a state-developed cybersecurity application that allows users to report fraudulent calls and messages, and stolen mobile phones, The Indian Express has learnt. Users should not be able to delete the application, the Department has told smartphone companies.
I thought making calls and sending SMS was one of the least secure things you could do regarding communication? That secure and encrypted communication with messaging apps was the only way.
At least if you just do phone calls the attack surface is reduced... They can scan your calls maybe, but not your entire chat history with all of your contacts and give it to an AI which could profile you based on that + you are not scanned on everything else you do on your phone / locked into proprietary ecosystems.
The ideal would just be using a Linux platform and using something like xmpp, but who are you gonna convince to use it? People use what they are used to use, if it's not popular messaging apps is phone calls.. And now it seems a more private alternative..
Can someone help me understand the likely outcome in countries that implement chat control? Will those governments force Google and Apple to remove apps that do not comply (e.g. Signal) from their official app stores? Will those governments somehow detect users who find workarounds and go after them? I figure most people in those countries will shrug their shoulders and move on with their lives, but how will this impact citizens who do not wish to comply?
I'm missing a bit the fact that this is not a law yet. This is the position of the commission, which the parliament will then need to approve and has to get past the ECHR as well most likely.
But it was temporary, so it will expire in April 2026. With this new law the intention is to make that "voluntary detection" a permanent thing they allow service providers to do, as a norm. The providers still have the choice to not do it, so I don't think this affects services like signal, as far as I understand.
The later. However, they could still be fines for not doing what is needed to reduce "the risks of the of the chat app", whatever the fuck that can mean when talking about illegal.content
Where is this explained? the article might be wrong then, because it does state the opposite:
scanning is now “voluntary” for individual EU states to decide upon
It makes it sound like it's each state/country the one deciding, and that the reason "companies can still be pressured to scan chats to avoid heavy fines or being blocked in the EU" was because of those countries forcing them.
Who's the one deciding what is needed to reduce “the risks of the of the chat app”? if it's each country the ones deciding this, then it's each country who can opt to enforce chat scanning.. so to me that means the former, not the latter.
In fact, isn't the latter already a thing? ...I believe companies can already scan chats voluntarily, as long as they include this in their terms, and many do. A clear example is AI chats.
And yes, the latter is currently a thing (but in a weaker form) but will no longer be allowed in april 2026, which is why this law is getting pushed so hard. Currently chats can be asked by police/interpol/... But they need good reasons, and the results can be varying because chat platforms like signal do not keep chat messages/stuff. The new law forces them to have systems in place to catch or have data for law inforcements. It just allows for 'any system to get the needed info', it no longer says chat scanning is needed directly, but is rather indirectly which is as stupid and bad as before.
Thanks for the link, and the clarification (I didn't know about april 2026).. although it's still confusing, to be honest. In your link they seem to allude to this just being a way to maintain a voluntary detection that is "already part of the current practice"...
If that were the case, then at which point "the new law forces [chat providers] to have systems in place to catch or have data for law inforcements"? will services like signal, simplex, etc. really be forced to monitor the contents of the chats?
I don't find in the link discussion about situations in which providers will be forced to do chat detection. My understanding from reading that transcript is that there's no forced requirement on the providers to do this, or am I misunderstanding?
Just for reference, below is the relevant section translated (emphasis mine).
In what form does voluntary detection by providers take place, she asks. The exception to the e-Privacy Directive makes it possible for services to detect online sexual images and grooming on their services. The choice to do this lies with the providers of services themselves. They need to inform users in a clear, explicit and understandable way about the fact that they are doing this. This can be done, for example, through the general terms and conditions that must be accepted by the user. This is the current practice. Many platforms are already doing this and investing in improving detection techniques. For voluntary detection, think of Apple Child Safety — which is built into every iPhone by default — Instagram Teen Accounts and the protection settings for minors built into Snapchat and other large platforms. We want services to take responsibility for ourselves. That is an important starting point. According to the current proposal, this possibility would be made permanent.
My impression from reading the dutch, is that they are opposing this because of the lack of "periodic review" power that the EU would have if they make this voluntary detection a permanent thing. So they aren't worried about services like signal/simplex which wouldn't do detection anyway, but about the services that might opt to actually do detection but might do so without proper care for privacy/security.. or that will use detection for purposes that don't warrant it. At least that's what I understand from the below statement:
Nevertheless, the government sees an important risk in permanently making this voluntary detection. By permanently making the voluntary detection, the periodic review of the balance between the purpose of the detection and privacy and security considerations disappears. That is a concern for the cabinet. As a result, we as the Netherlands cannot fully support the proposal.
Id need to look for it again, but i remember reading she was saying that the current proposal is vague in what it sees as required to prevent what she calls risks. I remember them asking her multiple times if she was against a law to prevent csa and the sharing there off, in which she replied multiple times that she was not, but that the law was too vague about what it constitutes as necessary to prevent it. Did i dream it? ><
Edit: found it!
Mevrouw Kathmann (GroenLinks-PvdA):
Het is niet per se alleen zo dat de huidige praktijk wordt voortgezet. Er zitten bijvoorbeeld ook zinnen in het voorstel die aangeven dat álle risico's moeten worden weggenomen. Het is ongelofelijk vaag, een heel grijs gebied, wat dat betekent. Dat is één. Dat is echt een heel groot risico. Daarnaast noemde de heer Van Houwelingen net al het punt van de leeftijdsverificatie. We hebben niet goed met elkaar kunnen bespreken wat daar nou precies in voorligt en hoe wij daar verder mee om moeten gaan. Dit zijn twee dingen die ik er nu zo uitpik.
Ah, I see. Sorry, the text was too long and I'm not dutch so it was hard to spot that for me too.
But I interpret that part differently. I think them saying that there's an ambiguous section about risks does not necessarily mean that the ambiguity is in the responsibility of those who choose to not implement the detection.. it could be the opposite: risks related to the detection mechanism, when a service has chosen to add it.
I think we would need to actually see the text of the proposal to see where is that vague expression used that she's referring to.
Ah, i see. Ye it can be interpreted in different ways, and reading the proposal might clear it up, but i doubt it. Its written extremely vague on purpose
The thing is.. that even if there are countries publicly rejecting this, once the infrastructure is in place and a backdoor exists due to it being enforced by some other country, how can you be sure it's not being used / exploited?
Even in the (hypothetical) case that the government is not using it (regardless of what they might say to the public), I wouldn't trust that this backdoor would be so secure that nobody else than a government could make use of it.
misleading headline, this isn't a list of countries in which the law will (if it passes) be different (it won't be, it's an EU law, so will be the same in all EU countries), it's a list of countries that currently support/oppose the law
The law will be the same in all EU countries, including whichever parts you think will be "not mandatory" (I did read those news articles and am fully aware that mandatory scanning is no longer on the table).
Write your own E2E encrypted peer-to-peer chat app (nobody has got time for that) or use some that doesn't care about the law (pretty risky if it's not open source, I doubt they'll survive for long in the open), I guess
We are essentially manipulated into the belief that centralised internet is good and all. This is a push driven by the governments where the whole infrastructure is redesigned into essentially a police state where the only thing left is fascism.
Decentralisation must stay, and developments towards decentralisation must flow faster than ever. If the whole premise of the internet gets breached then it will be officially over, and we will all suffer in oppression.
I dont see fdroid blocking the app. I think signal is in the guardian project repos. Anyway a repo can just be hosted in switzerland or on tor or something. I would be more worried about govenments blocking access to the signal servers.
All this theatre in the name of protecting kids, Yet the pedo formally known as prince andrew is still walking free.
It’s an open, decentralized protocol used for real-time messaging, so you can find many apps using this protocol, on android there is conversations which is very light and modern, just choose a pseudo and chat, no other registration, it is a paid app on the app store but free on fdroid. I also used simplex before but it didn't work well enough, the video calls were laggy.
I believe Germany is now in favor of this new proposal, according to fightchatcontrol.eu/
Only Italy, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland are against. This seems to be based on "leaked documents from the September 12 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party".
For years the plan was to make this scanning mandatory. In early November 2025, however, the Danish government amended the text: scanning is now “voluntary” for individual EU states to decide upon. That small word change was enough for the 27 EU countries to agree on November 26.
If chat control would have been made mandatory, you can bet (and i'd be willing to bet a lot of money on it) that you're going to have AfD in germany and FPÖ in austria (since they're already pretty anti-EU) making a lot of noise about how evil the EU is for infringing on people's privacy. (And they would be right about this, as much as i don't like to agree with them.) This would give them more votes, than they already have.
Making it voluntary is a clever trick of the EU to not make yourself extremely unpopular among the population. Well done, i'd say.
It seems the article is misinterpreting things. It's not that it's "voluntary for individual EU states".. but rather "voluntary" for service providers. The service providers don't have to implement this chat detection if they don't want to.
The thing is that if they don't pass something like this, then by April 2026 a bunch of current services that are already doing CP detection would be breaking the law, since the temporary derogation of the e-Privacy Directive will expire. But I don't think this affects services like signal/simplex who voluntarily choose to not try to detect it.
The act also requires platforms – including end-to-end encrypted message providers – to scan for child pornography and terrorism content, which experts say is not possible to implement without undermining users' privacy.
people miss the most important problem with this. chat control is a fascist tool that can and will be used against us minorities. this is especially dangerous when more and more countries are starting to lean right.
hitler would have had a field day with this kind of tech.
It also makes what the Stasi in Socialist East Germany did to its citizens look harmless in comparison. It's literally Big Brother, but you carry him around with you.
Dear mods, watch what you remove from these chats, our freedoms are getting fucked, people should be allowed to be indignant.
That being said i hope the legislators sit on cacti all day every day, those fucking assholes are exempt from this bullshit.
They will take my data out of my cold dead hands. It was a matter of time, sure, but I was actually holding on to hope for this one. I am pissed, dismayed even.
Session, signal, simplex are your friends. If those give up the ghost and bend the knee then we are going back to irc and aliases. Fucking shit!
And here I was thinking the EU was winning its fight against authoritarianism. Guess nowhere is safe, everyone's gotta push back no matter where you are. Fucking exhausting that they can't just leave us the fuck alone.
We are embracing authoritarianism everywhere. Democracies are dying.
Politicians are not ignorant of the risks; as the article mentions, they had several advisors, including scientists, who warned of the danger. If our leaders didn't know it, they wouldn't exclude themselves from the proposal.
Sociopaths will be sociopaths. They'll continue saying that protesting and violece are never the answer, while eroding our basic rights and ignoring all pushback.
EU officials are, incidentally, exempt from chat monitoring – which is quite convenient for someone like von der Leyen. Their communication is explicitly NOT to be monitored. The mere fact that those who drafted this law don't want it to apply to them tells you everything you need to know about it.
These pathetic morons think they'll be safe through this exemption. In reality these deliberate security holes will affect everyone. How will these morons be safe when every person they have contact with IRL is a walking microphone for every foreign intelligence agency?
So you're telling me the one person who's been making deals behind closed doors (illegal), and then 'accidentally' deleting all messages regarding said deals (also illegal) will be exempt from having all their communication scanned?
Everyone who originally proposed this or otherwise helped in drafting this should be thoroughly investigated under suspicion of foreign affiliation. Chat Control doesn't just start the EU's transformation into a surveillance state. It also weakens its digital defenses. No matter how you look at it, this is treason both towards the European people, as well as towards the individual countries and the Union as a whole.
[quote][h2][url=https://grapheneos.org/hiring#qualifications]Qualifications[/url][/h2][ul]
[li]Prior experience working on one or more of Android/AOSP-based operating systems, the Linux kernel and its hardening, memory allocators, or Android app developme
Prior experience working on one or more of Android/AOSP-based operating systems, the Linux kernel and its hardening, memory allocators, or Android app development
Strong programming skills in relevant languages (in order from most to least common: Java, Kotlin, C++, C, Rust, JavaScript, TypeScript, arm64 assembly, Bash, Python)
Need to have enough experience to be comfortable to self direct workloads and submit finished features and fixes ready for review
Commitment to privacy and security principles
Ideally prior experience contributing to free and open source projects
Salary and remuneration will be commensurate with experience and aligned with industry standards. You will be employed as an independent contractor
DANVILLE, Pennsylvania, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The residents came in camouflage hats and red shirts signaling unity, more than 300 of them packing into a rural Pennsylvania planning commission meeting to protest a proposed data center they feared would carve up their farmland and upend the quiet rhythms of their valley. Most were loyal supporters of President Donald Trump, who carried their home of Montour County by 20 percentage points in the 2024 election. But they bristled at Washington’s push to fast-track artificial intelligence infrastructure, which has driven data-center growth in rural areas around the U.S. where land is cheap.
On a recent November evening, residents in this county of 18,000 people stepped to the microphone, questioning Talen Energy (TLN.O), opens new tab officials about how their planned data center might raise residents' utility bills, reduce working farmland, and strain local water and natural resources. "Say no to rezoning, so water keeps flowing and crops keep growing," two women sang in a riff on Woody Guthrie's folk song "This Land Is Your Land."
Political leaders across the U.S. are urging a rapid expansion of data-center capacity and new power production to keep the country competitive in AI. Trump, a Republican, is promoting the build-out as an economic and national security priority and has directed his administration to bypass environmental rules and permitting that give local communities a voice. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and Republican Senator Dave McCormick are courting developers with incentives and infrastructure upgrades to attract investment in the fast-growing industry.
Some communities welcome the economic boost. But the backlash in Montour County, nestled in central Pennsylvania, reflects a growing coalition of farmers, environmentalists and homeowners who have united across partisan lines to resist data-center expansion.
A report by Data Center Watch earlier this year found that about $64 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local pushback in states including Texas, Oregon and Tennessee. Critics in Pennsylvania worry that their region could turn into northern Virginia’s “data center alley,” with its vast, sprawling complexes.
If successful, the pushback threatens to slow efforts by the administration and the tech industry to build AI infrastructure fast enough to keep pace with global rivals. Political strategists say anger over the projects also could add to the problems Republicans face as they grapple with affordability worries going into the 2026 midterm elections. “It’s an issue that can be exploited by whoever’s out of power,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The politics of AI infrastructure, he added, remain unsettled: “The industry’s still evolving, and politicians are figuring out where to stand. It’s like social media — everyone rushed in before understanding the consequences.”
PRESERVING CULTURE Talen Energy is requesting to rezone roughly 1,300 acres in Montour County from agricultural to industrial use, the first step toward building a large data center that would include 12 to 15 buildings. The site would sit in the shadow of the company's 1,528-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant, tucked among farmland and dirt roads used heavily by the region’s Amish community.
Talen Energy has said the project would take 350 acres of farmland supporting soybeans, corn and livestock. Residents worry that losing this land would weaken the local farm economy, including a nearby plant that processes soybeans for regional food and feed. Montour County Commissioner Rebecca Dressler, a Republican, said the concerns are rooted less in ideology than in preserving the region’s character. “Small-town character defines our community,” Dressler said. “People aren’t anti-development - they just want growth that fits who we are.”
At its recent November meeting, the county planning commission recommended against approving the rezoning by a 6-1 vote - a decision that drew thunderous applause. The issue now goes to Dressler and the other two county commissioners for a final decision in mid-December.
Rather than blaming Trump, residents are pointing their fingers at the billion-dollar companies behind the data-center boom - firms they say have the money to snap up farmland, reshape rural landscapes and leave locals to absorb the higher utility costs.
“I think it’s a society that has forgotten about the small person - the people who live here, the farmers who are struggling with the economy,” said Theresa McCollum, a 70-year-old Trump supporter. In a place that prides itself on local control, the shift in power to Washington does not sit well. “Stay out. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation without federal involvement,” said Craig High, 39, also a Trump supporter. “Both (political) parties are pushing data centers and giving regulatory relief — water permits, permitting, all of it.”
PENNSYLVANIA BOOM Pennsylvania’s abundant, stable electricity has made it a hot spot for data centers, attracting tens of billions in investments from Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, with Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab even eying the old Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to power new server farms. But residents fear they may end up paying for it. Pennsylvania utilities project a sharp rise in electricity demand from data centers by the end of the decade - enough to power several million additional homes, according to data from PJM Interconnection, the region’s grid operator.
Electricity prices in Pennsylvania increased by about 15% in the past year - roughly double the national average, according to federal data. That surge is already rippling through the regional grid. Capacity prices, which help determine what power plants are paid to ensure supply during peak demand, have spiked in recent auctions, and utilities have begun raising rates to cover growing infrastructure needs. Analysts warn that customers' bills could climb significantly in the years ahead.
For many families, the strain is already visible. Overdue utility balances have risen far faster than inflation since 2022, and Pennsylvania ranks among the states with the highest levels of household energy debt, according to the Century Foundation, a progressive research organization. Those pocketbook pressures are starting to reshape politics in some parts of the United States. Earlier this year, Alicia Johnson became one of two Democrats elected to Georgia’s utility board since 2007 after her campaign highlighted frustration over rising power bills and unchecked growth of data centers. She said the issues in her campaign were a preview of what states like Pennsylvania may face in next year's U.S. midterm elections.
Power prices have surged in Georgia in recent years, in large part because of massive cost overruns at the new Vogtle nuclear plant. “Data centers and utility costs were the top two issues on the ballot, and people are angry,” Johnson said. “They don’t want data centers without guardrails, and they don’t want to be the ones paying for them. This is going to be part of the national affordability debate in 2026."
Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, an organizer with Food and Water Watch, an environmental nonprofit group, has spent months mobilizing opposition to data centers in places like Montour County. She predicted a political reckoning next year. "Communities - red, blue, and everything in between - are united in opposition," she said, referring to so-called red areas dominated by Republicans and blue areas controlled by Democrats. "At a time when we’re so divided, this issue is bringing people together." Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Danville, Pennsylvania, and Laila Kearney in New York; Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Matthew Lewis
I want to take it as a tool for reading/writing/studying and super basic browsing. My phone just broke, chat control just got approved and I'm sick of proprietary shit: I decided I'm not gonna buy anything which doesn't hold free software anymore.
I love e-ink and I love Linux, but how usable is the pinenote with Linux? How hard is the install process? Can an average Linux user/self hoster use it daily? How's battery? Couldn't find many reviews online..
The first batch of the PineNote will be great to write software for, but not great to write notes on. Wait for a later batch with better preinstalled software if you just want to use the device as an e-reader, e-note, or your everyday computing device.
I also looked into supernote, it's expansive, but it's totally worth the money if they can offer a full Linux support with an e ink device, and it's better than the pinenote because of the repairable hardware and the pen which doesn't need tips replacements.
But they have kinda pulled back on the Linux development, it looks like it was more marketing than other, they have been promising it for a while but they've stated it's harder than they thought.
I won't buy an Android device so I'll wait until a real Linux support is added.
thanks for this, so it's not that bad and it seems to be working fairly good enough.. Mmmh I might think about that, how's the battery life? How long do the tips last? The pen is active or passive?
I have used the same tip for a year and it's still fine. It also comes with 2 replacement tips and all of the generic pens for EMR screens work on the Pinenote.
Can't say much about the battery life but I'm going to leave it running once it's fully charged and report back.
I also have one and agree with your conclusion. My PineNote is so cool and really fun to use!
I use mine most often for displaying and editing my character sheet while playing tabletop RPGs.
The display looks great and mine doesn't have the stuck pixel or the buggy lines issue you experienced, though I do have very noticeable ghosting artifacts. Probably this is because I mainly use the "performance" optimization setting rather than "quality". Animations play very poorly, so I found it necessary to use extensions to disable animations wherever possible.
Also, of course, the screen is only black and white so sometimes you lose out on information. E.g. if my GM says "the goblin that stole the flask is highlighted yellow. The one highlighted pink is standing his ground. What do you do?" I would not be able to tell them apart.
I get acceptable but not fantastic battery life. Usually after about 3 hours I'll have around 60% life left. It would probably be better if I was using a lighter program than Firefox. Mine also has phantom battery drain and loses maybe 15% battery life per day if left unplugged while suspended.
I paid $460 USD for mine, shortly before the import tariffs were implemented.
Overall, I would recommend it for someone who meets these criteria:
is a Linux enthusiast comfortable with the command line and willing to read and follow various guides (there's a long README that opens on boot which has crucial information in it, like how to fix critical bugs)
wants to avoid proprietary lock in wherever possible
wants to avoid shovel ware and use mainline Linux
wants to support FOSS development and doesn't mind paying extra to do so
understands the severe limitations of an e-ink display
I would not recommend it to most people because it is an enthusiast Linux device with an e-ink display. If you're the kind of person that specifically wants an enthusiast Linux device with an e-ink display then I think you'll love it
The EU store ships from the EU with warranty, support, etc. for quite a hefty premium. I ordered from the global store which ships from Hong Kong. Paid ~500€ a year ago (including taxes).
The display looks great and mine doesn’t have the stuck pixel or the buggy lines issue you experienced
They have since fixed that.
though I do have very noticeable ghosting artifacts
Unfortunately just the nature of the technology. If you're just reading, DU4:3 works the best, for manga I use the full G:4 mode with screen refresh for every page flip enabled.
I wrote some custom profiles for each (Default, Book, Manga, Notes, Notes (Landscape) which I have on my desktop, I can send you the scripts if you want.
Couldn't find a good way to use browsers on it yet since they all smooth scroll instead of jumping in fixed intervals.
For web browsing I can navigate alright using spacebar to scroll. Naturally, that works best with a bluetooth keyboard attached, but you could resize the window and use the soft keyboard if you prefer. The "vimium" extension for Firefox makes keyboard navigation much nicer.
I've bought several Pine products over the years, and they're all on a shelf gathering dust. If you like writing software to make a cost-engineered piece of hardware with basically no useful software at all work as you might expect an actual product you paid for from a shop, they're great.
If you're expecting a useful out of box experience, or even a useful experience after hours of hacking and tuning, they are not for you.
Notable exceptions IME: the Pinecil, Pinepower, and Rockpro64. I haven't tried their other SBCs though, and the Rockpro64 may be outdated at this point.
People say its going to suck to use but like, surely it doesn't suck to use basic linuxy apps that tend to work well on linux. Like for using as a ereader, the main thing is ability to handle file formats and there's plenty of simple file management tools for this, for notes nothing gets easier than markdown for text files, idk about handwriting things on them but I saw a couple demos showcasing how good it is specifically on the pine note and from the looks of it, it is definitely useable and seems to not be hacky out of the box. I saw some mention of pine note coming with Debian out of the box but there seems to be much more active development for it on arch and they basically develop on arch and put it on Debian when its good or something like that but I've still seen most people reccomend using arch.
I lile my pinenote a lot. I mostly use it for reading.
As long as I'm reading or doing any touch-screen-y things (taking notes, viewing images, etc) it's great! For anything that involves writing/copying/pasting text, it's not very usable with just the on-screen keyboard, you really need an external bluetooth interface. I find web browsing very tedious if I have to type anything in the url bar without a physical keyboard.
Also, it's still very much a WIP. The version of Debian it shipped with had a bug where I couldn't install any software updates without deleting some random lib64 directory. Once I did that, everything was fine. The device has no security by default, so I created a new user with an encrypted HOME.
With import tariffs to the US, I ended up paying $500 for it, which really got me down. As a $400 open hardware machine, it would have been easier to look past the rougher edges. And I wish it had more RAM.
But overall it's worth it to me because I've wanted a more libre e-reader for a long time. It's gotten me back into reading books, which has been a lot of fun. Plus, because it's an actual computer, I set it up as a tablet-like interface to my home automations.
The version of Debian it shipped with had a bug where I couldn’t install any software updates without deleting some random lib64 directory. Once I did that, everything was fine.
Neat, I'm still running the stock Android but I'll try. How long ago did you do that? Is your fix documented somewhere?
Had one from the start and also had a reMarkable 1, 2, Pro and e-readers with e-ink. I did discuss all that before so feel free to check my comment history. You can also check related prorotypes at fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink including for the PineNote.
Now on your questions :
how usable is the pinenote with Linux?
Last time I check it didn't run well enough (basically CLI only) so I'm still on their stock Android OS. Worked great. According to other comments it seems fine now and I'm familiar with KOReader and a bit Xournal++ so I'll try again.
How hard is the install process?
Easy, I didn't do anything ;)
Can an average Linux user/self hoster use it daily?
Well in my case yes but again Android, so if you are familiar with it, e.g. adb then it's easy.
How’s battery?
Fine but power management kind of sucks so it will not go to sleep properly and thus waste battery. It's also heavy so honestly I wouldn't travel with it.
Couldn’t find many reviews online…
Again, I did share on Lemmy quite a bit. I do warmly recommend it if you are a tinkerer who doesn't travel too often. If you are a minimalist who wants to get things done then IMHO reMarkable is better.
Rollins has made a case for sweeping changes to SNAP by asserting her agency uncovered "massive fraud" in state data the agency demanded, and has emphasized statistics suggesting wrongdoing without providing the underlying data or details.
I would love to see the evidence they've gathered.
I may even use foiabuddy to ask for it. I suppose that'd make me a target.
According to the final agency decision, the President may now fire female federal workers like Ms. Nemer — because of their sex — and the law would have nothing to say about it
"Last year global arms revenues reached the highest level ever recorded by SIPRI as producers capitalized on high demand," said researcher behind annual report.
The alleged shooter of two National Guard members, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was struggling with mental illness, his ability to support his family, and, according to an Afghan veteran who fought with him, his pleas for help to the CIA went unanswered.
Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, served in a CIA-backed Afghan force unit, known as the “Zero Units,” in Kandahar. He is facing first-degree murder charges after Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries following the Wednesday shooting near the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C. Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition.
Investigators are still working to establish a motive for the attack. Rolling Stone spoke to a former Afghan unit mate who pointed to financial pressure and ongoing apparent mental illness as a contributing factor. He also seems to have felt abandoned by the United States government.
“He’s very sad [depressed],” said Lakanwal’s Afghan unit mate, who is not a native English speaker. “He’s very worried. This problem, like, he’d say, ‘I am working nine years or 10 years with [the] U.S. government. [They] never answer my phone [call].’”
After the Taliban prevailed in America’s longest running war, Lakanwal resettled in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five sons in September 2021. His migration was aided by Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era initiative to resettle vulnerable Afghans, particularly those who worked alongside U.S. forces and faced reprisals from the Taliban.
OpenAI looks poised to repeat the same clangers that turned Amazon and YouTube into rolling billboards by shoving ads into ChatGPT.
The ChatGPT experience has so far been blissfully free of sales patter. There are paid tiers, but the bot never tried to flog you anything. Google Search went the other way and let ads steer buying choices, which trained people to skim past half the page.
Fresh code strings in the ChatGPT Android app show OpenAI drifting towards the same trap. Tibor spotted references to an “ads feature” with “bazaar content”, “search ad” and a “search ads carousel” in the 1.2025.329 beta. The whole thing looks like the same clutter that turned Amazon’s listings into a parade of sponsored tat.
If OpenAI pushes ahead, it could jolt the web economy because the outfit knows far more about users than Google ever did. It sees prompts that reveal what people want, dread and intend to buy. Personalised adverts wedged into that flow would make old-style targeting look prehistoric.
Ads creep into the bot that was meant to stay clean OpenAI looks poised to repeat the same clangers that turned Amazon and YouTube into rolling billboards by shoving ads into ChatGPT.
Among them was a stronger pay transparency law, aimed at helping to close persistent disparities in wages along gender and racial lines. Backed by groups that advocate for economic and social justice, including 9to5 Colorado and the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, Senate Bill 19-85, the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act, was passed on mostly party-line votes and was signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in May 2019.
Democrats enacted the law, which required employers to list pay ranges for all job openings and to maintain detailed records of their pay rates, over the objections of a long list of business groups, who argued that the new burdens on employers would end up hurting the workers the bill was intended to help.
But six years later, there’s no evidence that those unintended negative consequences have come to pass in Colorado, a new working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research found. On the contrary, the study suggests positive “spillover” effects have led to across-the-board wage increases for Colorado workers.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said on Monday it will begin charging air travelers $45 on February 1 if their IDs do not meet stricter federal standards, a move aimed at encouraging travelers to get the enhanced identity documents.
In May 2025, the TSA began enforcing the standards known as "REAL ID" but gave warnings and conducted enhanced screening for passengers without the new IDs. TSA officials said they would urge passengers without REAL IDs to obtain them or pay the fee before arriving at the airport. The $45 fee will cover travel for a 10-day period.
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