Mullvad VPN - AND THEN? A film about Chat Control and mass surveillance
Update: On November 26, 2025 the EU Council, after three years, agreed on a common position on Chat Control.
Chat Control is once again back on the menu. In the Council of the EU (the member states), several countries continue to work on new versions of the bill. The latest draft in November 2025 was presented with different branding and different semantics, but it would result in mass surveillance, AI-scanning of private data, ID requirement to use messaging services and – with vague legislative text – risk of mandatory scanning (even for end-to-end-encrypted services) in the future.
As long as the Council refuses to reject the bill (the way the European Parliament did), the Chat Control proposal could still become law – despite violating EU law and fundamental human rights.
To highlight the effects of mass surveillance and remind people of the corrupt history (full story below) behind the Chat Control proposal, we now present the film "And Then?"
Mullvad VPN presents And Then?
Chat Control is back on the menu. To highlight the corruption behind the proposal, Mullvad VPN now presents "And Then?"Mullvad VPN
What risk might I have accidentally exposed my computer to by viewing a pirated streaming site without AV blocking?
I recently wanted to watch something a film and went to one of the first two sites listed on the Reddit's r/Piracy mega thread under it's online streaming section. I normally use an older laptop that I don't care about and have no sensitive info on but wanted to stream to a projector and only my personal laptop had an hdmi port.
I downloaded firefox exclusively to use for piracy streaming but initially forgot to add ublock origin or another AV extension to the browser. When clicking anywhere on the site, a new tab would open that I'd need to close before I could actually engage with the website content (search, play, etc), which had been my experience in the past using online streaming sites. Once, one of the popup tabs opened and immediately started a file download without my permission. I didn't open it and deleted it immediately but have recently been noticing some performance issues on my device Mostly that web pages and their content are slower to load than before and my computer has gotten overwhelmed and frozen a few times - not extremely substantially but enough that I've noticed a difference.
For context: I have a ThinkPad with windows 10 installed and an Intel i5 CPU. My default browser has been Opera for a few months now.
I just checked and the compressed zip file is in my recycling bin (not fully off my computer) and I'm not sure if/how it can affect my device without me ever opening or running its contents. I don't have an antivirus background process on my device aside from the default Microsoft Defender Antivirus that comes with Windows 10.
Is there possibly somewhere I could upload the file to check for malware/scan the file to know what it does (titled "XVlDEOSs_Elena_Frost_IMG_223606" - searching for that title didn't match anything on google)? Is there any chance the file is benign and the performance issues I'm noticing are unrelated to this situation?
TLDR: How concerned should I be about the possibility of a virus on my device from a popup window automatically downloading a zip file I never opened?
Would reinstalling my OS be the main/only possible resolution to a potential virus/worm/malware? I'd really like to avoid that if possible but many of the articles/info I can find about it have inconsistent info about risk and steps to take for resolution.
I don't know much about what kinds of risks I might've exposed my computer to. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
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Just to be safe.
![stupid_asshole69 [none/use name]](images/person-80.jpg)
Youre working at this from the wrong angle.
You dont know how to judge if something bad has happened. You dont know what to do if something bad had happened. You dont know how to recover from something bad that may have happened.
You do know that something has happened because the computer is exhibiting different behavior now.
You cant know what happened and it’s not worth the time for you to develop the skills and tools to understand or even be able to use systems like virustotal et.al. which might provide some insight.
Stop using that computer. Turn it off.
If you don’t know where your data is saved, figure it out. If you determine that you want to save data off that computer, pull the drive and order a usb to sata or m2 adapter, whatever the drive is. Plug the drive into the adapter and attach it to a different computer, copy only what you need.
Do you have a way to reinstall windows? If not, go to massgrave.dev and figure it out then reinstall windows.
Do you have some system for backing up your computers? Go ahead and test it out now. If you don’t have a system, decide on one. It could be as simple as an external drive you plug in once a week and as elaborate as you like.
Now you have recovered from whatever happened and you have a system and toolkit for dealing with it if it happens again.
If you run Linux, you're fine, but if you did you probably already knew this
On Windows, i guess you're fine, probably, maybe, but without AV you're already at right with any normal Internet usage.
I'd just say switch to Linux and be done with the question
Yes it's bait but also there is real science behind it. Sun spots are magnetic knots that are wound up magnetic lines. If the lines snap they could pull huge amounts of charged particles and launch them at earth.
The risk is that if big enough it could strip back the our magnetic field reducing our production from radiation and all the electrical charged particles. This could mean electrical systems are disrupted, destroyed, or even catch fire. In the worst case the amount of radiation could kill millions.
So yeah chances are very low but never 0.
if anyone hasn't seen it in a while LOL
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
The Canningite tradition
As the world returns to 19th-century multipolarity, George Canning’s approach to British foreign policy offers timeless lessons. Great powers must protect the interests of small nations in order to hold sway.
Berlin: Police can secretly enter homes for state trojan installation
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/54414754
In order to monitor encrypted communication, investigators will in future, according to the Senate draft and the Änderungen der Abgeordneten, not only be allowed to hack IT systems but also to secretly enter suspects' apartments.If remote installation of the spyware is technically not possible, paragraph 26 explicitly allows investigators to "secretly enter and search premises" in order to gain access to IT systems. In fact, Berlin is thus legalizing – as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania did before – state intrusion into private apartments in order to physically install Trojans, for example via USB stick.
Berlin: Police can secretly enter homes for state trojan installation
To collect data from IT systems, investigators in Berlin can secretly search suspects' rooms. This is in a Police Act amendment.Stefan Krempl (heise online)
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China’s CO2 Emissions Might Have Finally Peaked
China’s CO2 Emissions Might Have Finally Peaked
China has rapidly become the world leader in renewable energy, but continued coal use means it could take longer for its emissions to declineAndrea Thompson (Scientific American)
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most universally acceptable video file formats?
For holiday gift I was thinking of making USB/microSDs full of TV/movies. The intended recipients are not tech savvy types. They would be using windows computers, normal TVs etc.
What kind of file formats/encodings would be good to package the files in? What is safe and universally usable? And which ones are to be avoided? I'd like to guarentee they'll play without any fooling around with drivers or software.
And I want them to be as small as possible so that I can fit more stuff.
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Avc (h264) 8bits video, with AAC audio, hardcoded subtitles and .mp4 container.
That should be warrantied to work on every dumb device built this or last decade.
Israel Is Quietly Expanding Its Occupation of Gaza Under Cover of “Ceasefire”
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6941781
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1165…
For us here in Gaza, this “ceasefire” is a fiction. The bombing has continued as Israel expands its Yellow Line.From Truthout via This RSS Feed.
Gaza gang leader and Israeli collaborator Yasser Abu Shabab has been killed, reports say
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6941728
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1167…
Yasser Abu Shabab had become an infamous figure in Gaza over the past two years for his role in collaborating with the Israeli army, looting aid convoys destined for starving Palestinians, and sowing social strife amid the genocide.
From Mondoweiss via This RSS Feed.
Israel rampages towards catastrophe on the West Bank
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6941853
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1166…
Trump’s peace plan in Gaza is unacceptable to the Jewish supremacists in Israel’s ruling coalition. Even though it submits Gaza to an American-led occupation, even though it gives Israel a free hand to kill as it pleases, it holds out vague hope for a Palestinian state, at least in words. Their whole programme is to destroy any prospect of a Palestinian homeland.
From In Defence of Marxism via This RSS Feed.
Israel rampages towards catastrophe on the West Bank
Trump’s peace plan in Gaza is unacceptable to the Jewish supremacists in Israel’s ruling coalition. Even though it submits Gaza to an American-led occupation, emarxist.com
'Intellexa Leaks' Reveal Wider Reach of Predator Spyware
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6941726
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1168…
Highly invasive spyware from consortium led by a former senior Israeli intelligence official and sanctioned by the US government is still being used to target people in multiple countries, a joint investigation published Thursday revealed.
Inside Story in Greece, Haaretz in Israel, Swiss-based WAV Research Collective, and Amnesty International collaborated on the investigation into Intellexa Consortium, maker of Predator commercial spyware. The "Intellexa Leaks" show that clients in Pakistan—and likely also in other countries—are using Predator to spy on people, including a featured Pakistani human rights lawyer.
“This investigation provides one of the clearest and most damning views yet into Intellexa’s internal operations and technology," said Amnesty International Security Lab technologist Jurre van Bergen.
🚨Intellexa Leaks:"Among the most startling findings is evidence that—at the time of the leaked training videos—Intellexa retained the capability to remotely access Predator customer systems, even those physically located on the premises of its govt customers."securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/...[image or embed]
— Vas Panagiotopoulos (@vaspanagiotopoulos.com) December 3, 2025 at 9:07 PMPredator works by sending malicious links to a targeted phone or other hardware. When the victim clicks the link, the spyware infects and provide access to the targeted device, including its encrypted instant messages on applications such as Signal and WhatsApp, as well as stored passwords, emails, contact lists, call logs, microphones, audio recordings, and more. The spyware then uploads gleaned data to a Predator back-end server.
The new investigation also revealed that in addition to the aforementioned "one-click" attacks, Intellexa has developed "zero-click" capabilities in which devices are infected via malicious advertising.
In March 2024, the US Treasury Department sanctioned two people and five entities associated with Intellexa for their alleged role "in developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts."
"The proliferation of commercial spyware poses distinct and growing security risks to the United States and has been misused by foreign actors to enable human rights abuses and the targeting of dissidents around the world for repression and reprisal," the department said at the time.
Those sanctioned include Intellexa, its founder Tal Jonathan Dilian—a former chief commander of the Israel Defense Forces' top-secret Technological Unit—his wife and business partner Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou; and three companies within the Intellexa Consortium based in North Macedonia, Hungary, and Ireland.
In September 2024, Treasury sanctioned five more people and one more entity associated with the Intellexa Consortium, including Felix Bitzios, owner of an Intellexa consortium company accused of selling Predator to an unnamed foreign government, for alleged activities likely posing "a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States."
The Intellexa Leaks reveal that new consortium employees were trained using a video demonstrating Predator capabilities on live clients. raising serious questions regarding clients' understanding of or consent to such access.
"The fact that, at least in some cases, Intellexa appears to have retained the capability to remotely access Predator customer logs—allowing company staff to see details of surveillance operations and targeted individuals raises questions about its own human rights due diligence processes," said van Bergen.
"If a mercenary spyware company is found to be directly involved in the operation of its product, then by human rights standards, it could potentially leave them open to claims of liability in cases of misuse and if any human rights abuses are caused by the use of spyware," he added.
Dilian, Hamou, Bitzios, and Giannis Lavranos—whose company Krikel purchased Predator spyware—are currently on trial in Greece for allegedly violating the privacy of Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis and Artemis Seaford, a Greek-American woman who worked for tech giant Meta. Dilian denies any wrongdoing or involvement in the case.
Earlier this week, former Intellexa pre-sale engineer Panagiotis Koutsios testified about traveling to countries including Colombia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan, where he pitched Predator to public, intelligence, and state security agencies.
The new joint investigation follows Amnesty International's "Predator Files," a 2023 report detailing "how a suite of highly invasive surveillance technologies supplied by the Intellexa alliance is being sold and transferred around the world with impunity."
The Predator case has drawn comparisons with Pegasus, the zero-click spyware made by the Israeli firm NSO Group that has been used by governments, spy agencies, and others to invade the privacy of targeted world leaders, political opponents, dissidents, journalists, and others.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
'Intellexa Leaks' Reveal Wider Reach of Predator Spyware
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1168…Highly invasive spyware from consortium led by a former senior Israeli intelligence official and sanctioned by the US government is still being used to target people in multiple countries, a joint investigation published Thursday revealed.
Inside Story in Greece, Haaretz in Israel, Swiss-based WAV Research Collective, and Amnesty International collaborated on the investigation into Intellexa Consortium, maker of Predator commercial spyware. The "Intellexa Leaks" show that clients in Pakistan—and likely also in other countries—are using Predator to spy on people, including a featured Pakistani human rights lawyer.
“This investigation provides one of the clearest and most damning views yet into Intellexa’s internal operations and technology," said Amnesty International Security Lab technologist Jurre van Bergen.
🚨Intellexa Leaks:"Among the most startling findings is evidence that—at the time of the leaked training videos—Intellexa retained the capability to remotely access Predator customer systems, even those physically located on the premises of its govt customers."securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/...[image or embed]
— Vas Panagiotopoulos (@vaspanagiotopoulos.com) December 3, 2025 at 9:07 PMPredator works by sending malicious links to a targeted phone or other hardware. When the victim clicks the link, the spyware infects and provide access to the targeted device, including its encrypted instant messages on applications such as Signal and WhatsApp, as well as stored passwords, emails, contact lists, call logs, microphones, audio recordings, and more. The spyware then uploads gleaned data to a Predator back-end server.
The new investigation also revealed that in addition to the aforementioned "one-click" attacks, Intellexa has developed "zero-click" capabilities in which devices are infected via malicious advertising.
In March 2024, the US Treasury Department sanctioned two people and five entities associated with Intellexa for their alleged role "in developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts."
"The proliferation of commercial spyware poses distinct and growing security risks to the United States and has been misused by foreign actors to enable human rights abuses and the targeting of dissidents around the world for repression and reprisal," the department said at the time.
Those sanctioned include Intellexa, its founder Tal Jonathan Dilian—a former chief commander of the Israel Defense Forces' top-secret Technological Unit—his wife and business partner Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou; and three companies within the Intellexa Consortium based in North Macedonia, Hungary, and Ireland.
In September 2024, Treasury sanctioned five more people and one more entity associated with the Intellexa Consortium, including Felix Bitzios, owner of an Intellexa consortium company accused of selling Predator to an unnamed foreign government, for alleged activities likely posing "a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States."
The Intellexa Leaks reveal that new consortium employees were trained using a video demonstrating Predator capabilities on live clients. raising serious questions regarding clients' understanding of or consent to such access.
"The fact that, at least in some cases, Intellexa appears to have retained the capability to remotely access Predator customer logs—allowing company staff to see details of surveillance operations and targeted individuals raises questions about its own human rights due diligence processes," said van Bergen.
"If a mercenary spyware company is found to be directly involved in the operation of its product, then by human rights standards, it could potentially leave them open to claims of liability in cases of misuse and if any human rights abuses are caused by the use of spyware," he added.
Dilian, Hamou, Bitzios, and Giannis Lavranos—whose company Krikel purchased Predator spyware—are currently on trial in Greece for allegedly violating the privacy of Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis and Artemis Seaford, a Greek-American woman who worked for tech giant Meta. Dilian denies any wrongdoing or involvement in the case.
Earlier this week, former Intellexa pre-sale engineer Panagiotis Koutsios testified about traveling to countries including Colombia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan, where he pitched Predator to public, intelligence, and state security agencies.
The new joint investigation follows Amnesty International's "Predator Files," a 2023 report detailing "how a suite of highly invasive surveillance technologies supplied by the Intellexa alliance is being sold and transferred around the world with impunity."
The Predator case has drawn comparisons with Pegasus, the zero-click spyware made by the Israeli firm NSO Group that has been used by governments, spy agencies, and others to invade the privacy of targeted world leaders, political opponents, dissidents, journalists, and others.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
'No One Is Safe': Phone Numbers of 14 World Leaders on Pegasus List
"If 10 prime ministers and three presidents can't be safe from mercenary spyware, what chance do the rest of us stand?" asked one critic. "Since the hacking industry is incapable of self-control, governments must step up."kenny-stancil (Common Dreams)
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Did Russia Really Have a Gasoline Crisis? New Data Suggests Otherwise.
Did Russia Really Have a Gasoline Crisis? New Data Suggests Otherwise.
Opinion | The way events unfold in Russia today bears little resemblance to the way those same events are portrayed in the media.Dmitry Nekrasov (The Moscow Times)
As AI Data Centers Disrupt US Cities, Wisconsin Woman Violently Arrested After Speaking Out
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1191…
Public opposition to artificial intelligence data centers—and the push by corporations and officials to move forward with their construction anyway—were vividly illustrated in a viral video this week of a woman who was arrested after speaking out against a proposed data center in her community in Wisconsin.
Christine Le Jeune, a member of Great Lakes Neighbors United in Port Washington, spoke at a Common Council meeting in the town on Tuesday evening. The meeting was not focused on the recently approved $15 million "Lighthouse" data center set to be built a mile from downtown Port Washington—part of a project developed by Vantage Data Centers for OpenAI and Oracle—but the first 30 minutes were taken up by members of the public who spoke out against the project.
As CNBC reported last month, more than 1,000 people signed a petition calling on Port Washington officials to obtain voter approval before entering into the deal, but the Common Council and a review board went ahead with creating a Tax Incremental District for the project without public input. The data center still requires other approvals to officially move forward.
"We will not continue to be silenced and ignored while our beautiful and pristine city is taken away from us and handed over to a corporation intent on extracting as many resources as they can regardless of the impact on the people who live here," said Le Jeune. "Most leaders would have tabled the issue after receiving public input and providing sufficient notice. But you did nothing, and you laughed about it."
Le Jeune spoke for her allotted three minutes and went slightly over the time limit. She then chanted, "Recall, recall, recall!" at members of the Common Council as other community members applauded.
Police Chief Kevin Hingiss then approached Le Jeune while she was sitting in her seat, listening to the next speaker, and asked her to leave.
She refused, and another officer approached her before a chaotic scene broke out.
Last night, the Port Washington Police Department used excessive force to arrest a woman for speaking up against the Vantage data center.We are thankful that this local advocate is safe, and we condemn the Port Washington PD’s actions in the strongest possible terms. SHAME! pic.twitter.com/35dhEKvojL
— Our Wisconsin Revolution (@OurWisconsinRev) December 3, 2025City officials had told attendees not to speak out of order during the meeting, and Le Jeune acknowledged that she and others had spoken out of turn at times.
But she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she had been surprised by the police officers' demand that she leave, and by the eventual violence of the incident, with officers physically removing her from her seat and dragging her and two other people across the floor.
The two other residents had approached Le Jeune to protest the officers' actions.
"I never expected something like that to happen in a meeting. It was very strange," she told the Journal Sentinel. "Suddenly this police chief showed up in front of me, and all I was thinking was: 'Wait, what is going on? Why is he interrupting her speech? ... It felt like [police] were kind of primed tonight to pounce."
State Sen. Chris Larson (D-7) said that "police should not be allowed to violently detain a person who is nonviolently exercising their free speech. This used to be something all Americans agreed on."
William Walter, executive director of Our Wisconsin Revolution, filmed the arrest and told ABC News affiliate WISN, "I've never seen a response like that in my life."
"What I did see was a lot of members of the Port Washington community who are really frustrated that they're being ignored and they're being dismissed by their elected officials," he said.
AI data centers, he added, "will impact you. They'll impact your friends, your family, your neighbors, your parents, your children. These are the kinds of things that are going to be dictating the future of Wisconsin, not just for the next couple of years but for the next decade, the next 50 years."
After Le Jeune's arrest, another resident, Dawn Stacey, denounced the Common Council members for allowing the aggressive arrest.
"We have so many people who have these concerns about this data center," said Stacey. “Are we being heard by the Common Council? No we’re not. Instead of being heard we have people being dragged out of the room.”
“For democracy to thrive, we need to have respect between public servants and the people who they serve," she added.
Vantage has distributed flyers in Port Washington, which has a population of 17,000, promising residents 330 full-time jobs after construction. But as CNBC reported, "Data centers don’t tend to create a lot of long-lasting jobs."
Another project in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin hired 3,000 construction workers and foresees 500 employees, while McKinsey said a data center it is planning would need 1,500 people for construction but only around 50 for "steady-state operations."
Residents in Port Washington have also raised concerns about the data center's impact on the environment, including through its water use, the potential for exploding utility prices for residents, and the overall purpose of advancing AI.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, the development of data centers has caused a rapid surge in consumers' electricity bills, with costs rising more than 250% in just five years. Vantage has claimed its center will run on 70% renewable energy, but more than half of the electricity used to power data center campuses so far has come from fossil fuels, raising concerns that the expansion of the facilities will worsen the climate emergency.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that a rapidly growing number of Americans support a ban on AI data centers in their surrounding areas—41% said they would support a ban in the survey taken in late November, compared to 37% in October.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
From Soaring Energy Prices to Climate Threat to AI Bubble, Experts Warn Against Data Center Buildout
“Tech giants are cutting backroom deals with utilities and government officials to build massive data centers at breakneck speed, while passing the costs onto working families," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.stephen-prager (Common Dreams)
Investigation Reveals How Amazon Is Fleecing Public Schools With 'Algorithm-Driven Pricing'
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1193…
A detailed investigation released Thursday reveals that the e-commerce behemoth Amazon is using its market dominance and political influence to gain a foothold in local governments' purchasing systems, locking school districts into contracts that let the corporation drive up prices for pens, sticky notes, and other basic supplies.
The new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), titled Turning Public Money Into Amazon’s Profits: The Hidden Cost of Ceding Government Procurement to a Monopoly Gatekeeper, is based on purchasing records from nearly 130 cities representing more than 50 million Americans.
ILSR found that "cities, counties, and school districts spent $2.2 billion with Amazon in 2023—a nearly fourfold increase since 2016."
"Through its Amazon Business platform, the company has maneuvered to become the default source for office products, classroom materials, cleaning supplies, and other routine goods," the report states. "Today, it is embedded in most local governments, making inroads into state agencies, and dominating a new program designed to reshape how federal agencies buy commercial products."
Unlike the fixed pricing that's typical for government contracts, the agreements that Amazon has secured with local governments across the US entail "algorithm-driven pricing" to "covertly raise prices and inflate costs for governments."
"The result is dramatic price variation: One city bought a 12-pack of Sharpie markers for $8.99, while a nearby school district paid $28.63 for the identical pack that same day," ILSR said. "Our data contain thousands of similar examples, with some agencies paying double or even triple what others paid for the same items."
- Hard to believe, but Amazon has persuaded schools and cities across the country to abandon competitive bidding and fixed price contracts. Instead, they're signing contracts with Amazon that specify dynamic pricing. The result: Paying $37 for 12 pens or $74 for 36 markers. pic.twitter.com/afIIkPucZL
— Stacy Mitchell (@stacyfmitchell) December 5, 2025Overall, ILSR found that school districts bound to Amazon contracts spend twice as much per student as school districts without an agreement with the $2.5 trillion company.
“Public officials should be deeply concerned by what we found,” Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director of ILSR, said in a statement. “Amazon is reshaping public procurement in ways that expose taxpayer dollars to waste and risk. It has persuaded cities and schools to abandon safeguards meant to ensure fair prices and accountability—while driving out independent suppliers, eroding competition, and putting Amazon in a position to dictate terms.”
Having gained sweeping access to local government purchasing processes, Amazon is increasingly inserting itself into state and federal systems. ILSR noted that "Amazon dominates the General Services Administration’s Commercial Platforms Program, a new system for agencies to make purchases below $15,000 that do not require competitive bids."
"During the first two years of the program’s pilot phase," the group found, "Amazon captured 96% of sales."
ILSR emphasized that Amazon's dominance is by no means inevitable and can, with concerted action, be rolled back.
"A handful of cities and counties have recognized the risks of relying on Amazon and taken steps to restore transparency and keep public dollars local," the report observes. "Tempe, Arizona rejected an Amazon group-purchasing contract after hearing concerns from a local business owner. Between 2017 and 2023, the city cut its Amazon spending by 84% while increasing purchases from local suppliers. Phoenix likewise prioritizes local bids and has spent almost nothing with Amazon over the last decade."
Kennedy Smith, co-author of the report, said that "when local officials put real safeguards in place and prioritize local suppliers, they save money, strengthen their economies, and restore public control over public dollars."
To keep their procurement system free of the kinds of tactics Amazon uses to line its pockets with taxpayer money, ILSR urged state and local governments to prohibit so-called "dynamic pricing" in purchasing contracts and to prioritize buying from local businesses.
"By reclaiming control of public procurement, governments can safeguard dollars, strengthen local businesses, and ensure that the goods that sustain our schools and public services are supplied through systems that are transparent, competitive, and democratic," the group said.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
Investigation Reveals How Amazon Is Fleecing Public Schools With 'Algorithm-Driven Pricing'
"Public officials should be deeply concerned by what we found."jake-johnson (Common Dreams)
This Might Be the Biggest Thing in the Universe That Spins
This Might Be the Biggest Thing in the Universe That Spins
Space is packed with all sorts of weird and unexpected stuff, but this humongous, spinning string-thing raises a whole new set of questions.Gayoung Lee (Gizmodo)
Campbell’s Executive “Revelations” Expose the Rot of Capitalist Food Production
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1195…
From knowingly unhealthy products to deadly working conditions, capitalism’s focus on profit poisons our food, our planet, and our class.The post Campbell’s Executive “Revelations” Expose the Rot of Capitalist Food Production appeared first on Left Voice.
From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.
Arizona congresswoman who waited 7 weeks for Mike Johnson to swear her in says she was pepper sprayed by ICE at a taco joint
Rep. Adelita Grijalva says she was ‘sprayed in the face’ and ‘pushed around’ as agents descended on restaurant
Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva says federal agents fired pepper spray at her and others protesting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Arizona.
In a video posted on social media Friday, Grijalva said roughly 40 federal officers, most of them masked, pulled up in several vehicles for a raid at Taco Giro in Tucson, where a large group of demonstrators had gathered in the street.
There, she was “sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent” and “pushed around by others,” she said.
She also posted footage of a heavily armored officer firing pepper spray towards her and others in the crowd as she approaches agents and repeatedly tells them “you need to get out.” The footage also appears to show a pepper bullet hitting her feet.
Far-right extremists have been organizing online since before the internet – and AI is their next frontier
How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? That’s a question policymakers and watchdog organizations confronted as early as the 1980s and ’90s – and it hasn’t gone away.Decades before artificial intelligence, Telegram and white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ livestreams, far-right extremists embraced the early days of home computing and the internet. These new technologies offered them a bastion of free speech and a global platform. They could share propaganda, spew hatred, incite violence and gain international followers like never before.
Far-right extremists have been organizing online since before the internet – and AI is their next frontier
Neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists were early adopters of bulletin board systems, pioneering online recruiting and radicalization techniques long before the social media revolution.The Conversation
US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.
The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.
The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed, sources sayJoseph Gedeon (The Guardian)
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US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.
The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.
The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed, sources sayJoseph Gedeon (The Guardian)
Scientists Discovered the Human Brain Goes On Its Own Life-Long ‘Eras Tour’
Scientists Discovered the Human Brain Goes On Its Own Life-Long ‘Eras Tour’
A new study highlights five key eras of human brain development, and they don’t align with age quite as one might expect.Darren Orf (Popular Mechanics)
Announcing: Thaura - Your Ethical ChatGPT Alternative
You can use Thaura for everyday tasks like writing emails, doing homework, and researching online. It remembers your conversations, helps you create documents and code, and even searches the web for you. And it works seamlessly with your existing tools through full OpenAI SDK compatibility.
But what really makes Thaura different is what it doesn't do:
- It doesn't collect your data or spy on you
- It doesn't have political bias
- It doesn't water down the truth on sensitive topics
Announcing: Thaura - Your Ethical ChatGPT Alternative
Meet Thaura, your ethical AI companion. A platform that actually respects your values, protects your data, and tells the truth - all without Big Tech strings attached.Afzal (Tech for Palestine)
Technology reshared this.
Real-time web search via Brave - no tracking, no bubbles, just truth
I wonder if they realize that the owner of Brave is everything they supposedly stand against.
Military grade encryption (aes-256)
I smell bullshit.
...and absolutely no mention of how it was trained. Does it still crawl the entire internet to steal and plunder and train on material obtained without consent?
Announcing: Thaura - Your Ethical ChatGPT Alternative
You can use Thaura for everyday tasks like writing emails, doing homework, and researching online. It remembers your conversations, helps you create documents and code, and even searches the web for you. And it works seamlessly with your existing tools through full OpenAI SDK compatibility.
But what really makes Thaura different is what it doesn't do:
- It doesn't collect your data or spy on you
- It doesn't have political bias
- It doesn't water down the truth on sensitive topics
Announcing: Thaura - Your Ethical ChatGPT Alternative
Meet Thaura, your ethical AI companion. A platform that actually respects your values, protects your data, and tells the truth - all without Big Tech strings attached.Afzal (Tech for Palestine)
“A Second West Bank”: Israeli Military Raids Escalate in Occupied Syrian Border Villages
Hoda Matar
Dec 03, 2025
QUNEITRA, SYRIA—In what has become a regular occurrence in southwest Syria, Israeli tanks and troops stormed the Quneitra countryside on Monday, taking up positions in the village of Saida Al-Hanout. As drones flew overhead, Israeli military units set up a temporary checkpoint and searched civilians before eventually withdrawing.Over the past year, Israeli forces have established nine military posts in southern Syria; constructed military installations less than one kilometer from villages; demolished at least 12 buildings in al-Hamidiya; razed over 45 hectares of the Jubata al-Khashab forest; and seized thousands of dunams of agricultural land, cutting off access to farmers’ livelihoods. Local officials told Drop Site News that, in total, Israel has illegally seized between 600 and 800 square kilometers of southern Syrian territory through more than 200 incursions.
“A Second West Bank”: Israeli Military Raids Escalate in Occupied Syrian Border Villages
Israeli forces are entrenching even further in Syria as Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants a demilitarized “buffer zone” stretching to Damascus.Hoda Matar (Drop Site News)
RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show
The Sudanese city of El Fasher resembles a “massive crime scene”, with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) work to destroy evidence of the scale of their massacre.
Six weeks after the RSF seized the city, corpses have been gathered together in scores of piles to await burial in mass graves or cremated in huge pits, analysis indicates.
While the final death toll of the massacre remains unclear, British MPs have been briefed that at least 60,000 have been murdered in El Fasher. Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons international development select committee, said: “Members received a private briefing on Sudan, at which one of the academics stated: ‘Our low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.’”
As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher remain unaccounted for since the city fell to the RSF. They are not thought to have left the city, and this grisly development comes amid increasingly gloomy speculation about their fate.
RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show
Up to 150,000 residents of El Fasher are missing since North Darfur capital fell to paramilitary Rapid Support ForcesMark Townsend (The Guardian)
RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show
The Sudanese city of El Fasher resembles a “massive crime scene”, with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) work to destroy evidence of the scale of their massacre.
Six weeks after the RSF seized the city, corpses have been gathered together in scores of piles to await burial in mass graves or cremated in huge pits, analysis indicates.
While the final death toll of the massacre remains unclear, British MPs have been briefed that at least 60,000 have been murdered in El Fasher. Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons international development select committee, said: “Members received a private briefing on Sudan, at which one of the academics stated: ‘Our low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.’”
As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher remain unaccounted for since the city fell to the RSF. They are not thought to have left the city, and this grisly development comes amid increasingly gloomy speculation about their fate.
RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show
Up to 150,000 residents of El Fasher are missing since North Darfur capital fell to paramilitary Rapid Support ForcesMark Townsend (The Guardian)
What's your best software?
Looking for the best software stacks on my new Linux setups one for HTPC (running Kodi on Fedora KDE Plasma) I'm more focused on data security to store keys, passwords, and software outside of the mainstream software like FreeTube (freetubeapp.io/)
Where I can save the content I want for later/offline to store underground music stuff. Exploring all the software out there has been fun.
What software setups are you guys running?
Open Source Reviews - Curated by GitHub Users
Evidence-based reviews and comparisons focusing on privacy and security.opensourcereviews.github.io
Why condoms in China are about to get more expensive
ABC News
ABC News provides the latest news and headlines in Australia and around the world.Iris Zhao (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Blog post: The Linux kernel is just a program
I’ve been working on a "Linux Inside Out" series and wrote a post that might interest folks here who like low(ish)-level / OS internals.
The idea is to dissect the components of a Linux OS, layer by layer, and build a mental model of how everything fits together through experiments.
The first part is about the kernel, in the post I:
* take the same kernel image my distro boots from /boot
* boot it directly with QEMU (no distro, no init system)
* watch it panic
* write a tiny Go program and use it as PID 1
* build a minimal initramfs around it so the kernel can actually start our process
The goal isn’t to build a real distro, just to give a concrete mental model of:
* that the Linux kernel is just a compressed file, you can boot it
* without anything else
* what the kernel actually does at boot
* how it hands control to userspace
* what PID 1 / init is in practice
* what is kernel space vs user space
Link: serversfor.dev/linux-inside-ou…
I’m the author, would be happy to hear from other devs whether this way of explaining things makes sense, and what you’d add or change for future posts in the series.
Hope you find it useful.
The Linux kernel is just a program
Most books and courses introduce Linux through shell commands, leaving the kernel as a mysterious black box doing magic behind the scenes.serversfor.dev
like this
The code of the program: should also suggest which file to edit, e.g potato.go. It might be obviously to anybody working with Go but for others it's not.
so the specific image adds nothing (since being arrested anywhere for anything usually ends up with being in a cell), and could just be any image depicting anyone in a cell?
perhaps it was foolish of me to think there was a joke here.
US Supreme Court agrees to hear case challenging birthright citizenship
US Supreme Court agrees to hear case challenging birthright citizenship
Donald Trump's controversial executive order to end birthright citizenship had been rejected by lower courts.Brandon Drenon (BBC News)
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