The move comes after intense pressure from lawmakers and 404 Media’s months-long reporting about the airline industry's data selling practices.
The move comes after intense pressure from lawmakers and 404 Media’s months-long reporting about the airline industryx27;s data selling practices.#Impact
Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government
Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned by the U.S.’s major airlines, will shut down a program in which it sold access to hundreds of millions of flight records to the government and let agencies track peoples’ movements without a warrant, according to a letter from ARC shared with 404 Media.ARC says it informed lawmakers and customers about the decision earlier this month. The move comes after intense pressure from lawmakers and 404 Media’s months-long reporting about ARC’s data selling practices. The news also comes after 404 Media reported on Tuesday that the IRS had searched the massive database of Americans flight data without a warrant.
“As part of ARC’s programmatic review of its commercial portfolio, we have previously determined that TIP is no longer aligned with ARC’s core goals of serving the travel industry,” the letter, written by ARC President and CEO Lauri Reishus, reads. TIP is the Travel Intelligence Program. As part of that, ARC sold access to a massive database of peoples’ flights, showing who travelled where, and when, and what credit card they used.
The ARC letter.
“All TIP customers, including the government agencies referenced in your letter, were notified on November 12, 2025, that TIP is sunsetting this year,” Reishus continued. Reishus was responding to a letter sent to airline executives earlier on Tuesday by Senator Ron Wyden, Congressman Andy Biggs, Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Adriano Espaillat, and Senator Cynthia Lummis. That letter revealed the IRS’s warrantless use of ARC’s data and urged the airlines to stop the ARC program. ARC says it notified Espaillat's office on November 14.ARC is co-owned by United, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska, Lufthansa, Air France, and Air Canada. The data broker acts as a bridge between airlines and travel agencies. Whenever someone books a flight through one of more than 12,800 travel agencies, such as Expedia, Kayak, or Priceline, ARC receives information about that booking. It then packages much of that data and sells it to the government, which can search it by name, credit card, and more. 404 Media has reported that ARC’s customers include the FBI, multiple components of the Department of Homeland Security, ATF, the SEC, TSA, and the State Department.
Espaillat told 404 Media in a statement “this is what we do. This is how we’re fighting back. Other industry groups in the private sector should follow suit. They should not be in cahoots with ICE, especially in ways may be illegal.”
Wyden said in a statement “it shouldn't have taken pressure from Congress for the airlines to finally shut down the sale of their customers’ travel data to government agencies by ARC, but better late than never. I hope other industries will see that selling off their customers' data to the government and anyone with a checkbook is bad for business and follow suit.”
“Because ARC only has data on tickets booked through travel agencies, government agencies seeking information about Americans who book tickets directly with an airline must issue a subpoena or obtain a court order to obtain those records. But ARC’s data sales still enable government agencies to search through a database containing 50% of all tickets booked without seeking approval from a judge,” the letter from the lawmakers reads.
Update: this piece has been updated to include statements from CHC Chair Espaillat and Senator Wyden.
Airline-Owned Data Broker Selling Your Flight Info to DHS Finally Registers as a Data Broker
It’s a legal requirement for data brokers to register in the state of California. ARC, the airlines-owned data broker that has been selling your flight information to the government for years, only just registered after being contacted by the office …Joseph Cox (404 Media)
A bipartisan letter reveals the IRS searched a database of hundreds of millions of travel records without first conducting a legal review. Airlines like Delta, United, American, and Southwest are selling these records to the government through a co-owned data broker.#arc #Privacy
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
The IRS accessed a database of hundreds of millions of travel records, which show when and where a specific person flew and the credit card they used, without obtaining a warrant, according to a letter signed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and shared with 404 Media. The country’s major airlines, including Delta, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest, funnel customer records to a data broker they co-own called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), which then sells access to peoples’ travel data to government agencies.The IRS case in the letter is the clearest example yet of how agencies are searching the massive trove of travel data without a search warrant, court order, or similar legal mechanism. Instead, because the data is being sold commercially, agencies are able to simply buy access. In the letter addressed to nine major airlines, the lawmakers urge them to shut down the data selling program. Update: after this piece was published, ARC said it already planned to shut down the program. You can read more here.
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Cloudflare va giù nel magnifico Cloud! incidente globale in fase di risoluzione
18 novembre 2025 – Dopo ore di malfunzionamenti diffusi, l’incidente che ha colpito la rete globale di Cloudflare sembra finalmente vicino alla risoluzione. L’azienda ha comunicato di aver implementato una correzione e di essere ora nella fase di monitoraggio attivo, dopo una giornata caratterizzata da disservizi, errori intermittenti e problemi sui servizi applicativi e di sicurezza.
L’incidente, iniziato alle 11:48 UTC, ha coinvolto varie componenti dell’infrastruttura Cloudflare, generando rallentamenti, timeout e blocchi a livello globale, con impatti anche su CDN, API, autenticazione e dashboard di gestione.
Di seguito la ricostruzione completa della giornata.
Timeline dell’incidente Cloudflare
11:48 UTC – Inizio dell’incidente
Cloudflare segnala un degrado interno del servizio. Diversi servizi risultano instabili a livello globale e viene avviata l’analisi del problema.
12:03 UTC – Indagine in corso
Cloudflare conferma che alcuni servizi continuano a essere colpiti da errori intermittenti.
12:21 UTC – Prime evidenze di ripristino parziale
Cloudflare osserva miglioramenti, ma i clienti sperimentano ancora errori più elevati del normale.
12:37 UTC – Indagine ancora attiva
Persistono anomalie diffuse sulla rete.
12:53 UTC – Indagine ancora in corso
I tecnici continuano a lavorare senza individuare ancora una soluzione definitiva.
13:04 UTC – Disattivato temporaneamente l’accesso WARP a Londra
Durante i tentativi di mitigazione, Cloudflare disattiva WARP nella region di Londra. Gli utenti locali non riescono a connettersi tramite il servizio.
13:09 UTC – Problema identificato
Cloudflare comunica di aver individuato la causa dell’incidente e di aver iniziato a implementare una soluzione.
13:13 UTC – Ripristino parziale di Access e WARP
Cloudflare ripristina Access e WARP, riportando i livelli di errore alla normalità.
WARP Londra torna operativo. Si continua a lavorare sui restanti servizi applicativi.
13:35 UTC – Problemi ancora presenti
I servizi applicativi non sono ancora stati ripristinati completamente.
13:58 UTC – Lavori in corso
Continuano gli interventi per riportare online i servizi rimanenti.
14:22 UTC – Ripristino dashboard
La dashboard Cloudflare torna operativa, anche se i servizi applicativi mostrano ancora instabilità.
14:34 UTC – Continuano i lavori di ripristino
Il team tecnico prosegue con le attività necessarie a ripristinare tutti i servizi.
14:42 UTC – Cloudflare: “Incidente risolto, monitoraggio in corso”
Cloudflare annuncia di aver implementato una correzione definitiva. Tutti i servizi dovrebbero tornare progressivamente alla normalità, ma rimane attivo il monitoraggio post-incident.
Impatti dell’incidente
L’incidente ha avuto un impatto rilevante su scala globale. Molti siti web serviti da Cloudflare (tra cui redhotcyber.com) hanno mostrato rallentamenti, pagine non raggiungibili, errori 502, 522 e 526, oltre a problemi di caching e routing.
I servizi di sicurezza e autenticazione, come Cloudflare Access e WARP, sono stati fortemente colpiti nella prima fase. In alcune regioni gli utenti non hanno potuto autenticarsi o accedere alle risorse protette.
Anche Downdetector ha mostrato malfunzionamenti, rendendo difficile monitorare l’ampiezza dell’incidente e contribuendo alla percezione di un blackout molto esteso.
L’infrastruttura globale Cloudflare ha registrato rallentamenti e instabilità, con ripercussioni a catena su servizi non direttamente ospitati sulla piattaforma.
Che cos’è Cloudflare WARP
Cloudflare WARP è un servizio sviluppato da Cloudflare con l’obiettivo di migliorare la sicurezza e le prestazioni della connessione Internet degli utenti. A differenza delle VPN tradizionali, che puntano principalmente a fornire anonimato instradando tutto il traffico attraverso server remoti, WARP è progettato per rendere la navigazione più veloce, stabile e protetta, senza appesantire la connessione.
Come funziona
WARP utilizza il protocollo WireGuard, noto per essere leggero, rapido e altamente sicuro. Il traffico viene instradato attraverso la rete globale di Cloudflare, che funge da “strato protettivo” tra l’utente e il web. Questo permette di:
- criptare le connessioni su reti non sicure (come Wi-Fi pubblici),
- ridurre la latenza grazie alla rete globale Cloudflare,
- filtrare automaticamente traffico malevolo o sospetto,
- proteggere da intercettazioni e attacchi man-in-the-middle.
Non mira all’anonimato totale come una VPN classica, ma si concentra su sicurezza e stabilità della connessione.
La differenza tra WARP e WARP+
Cloudflare offre due versioni del servizio:
- WARP: gratuito, utilizza la rete standard Cloudflare.
- WARP+: a pagamento, instrada parte del traffico tramite la tecnologia Argo Smart Routing, che sceglie dinamicamente il percorso più veloce tra i server Cloudflare, migliorando ulteriormente la velocità.
Situazione attuale
Secondo l’ultimo aggiornamento, la correzione è stata applicata con successo e i servizi stanno tornando alla normalità. Cloudflare è ora nella fase di monitoraggio attivo e nelle prossime ore potrebbero verificarsi residui di instabilità durante l’assestamento della rete
L'articolo Cloudflare va giù nel magnifico Cloud! incidente globale in fase di risoluzione proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
“The more I listened to it, the more I’m like, something doesn’t sound right,” a person who was briefed on the pilot plans told 404 Media.#ICE #bountyhunters
Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE
A current pilot project aims to pay former law enforcement and military officers to physically track immigrants and verify their addresses to give to ICE for $300 each. There is no indication that the pilot involves licensed private investigators, and appears to be open to people who are now essentially members of the general public, 404 Media has learned.The pilot is a dramatic, and potentially dangerous, escalation in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. People without any official role in government would be tasked with tracking down targets for ICE. It appears to be part of ICE’s broader plan to use bounty hunters or skip tracers to confirm immigrant’s addresses through data and physical surveillance. Some potential candidates for the pilot were recruited on LinkedIn and were told they would be given vehicles to monitor the targets.
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Humane Mousetrap Lets You Know It’s Caught Something
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door,” so goes the saying, but VHS beat Betamax and the world hasn’t been the same since. In any case, you might not get rich building a better mousetrap, but you can certainly create something more humane than the ol’ spring’n’snap, as [nightcustard] demonstrates.
The concept is the same as many humane mousetraps on the market. The mouse is lured into a confined cavity with the use of bait, and once inside, a door closes to keep the mouse inside without injuring it. [nightcustard] achieved this by building a plastic enclosure with plenty of air holes, which is fitted with a spring-loaded door. When a mouse walks through an infra-red break beam sensor, a Raspberry Pi Pico W triggers a solenoid which releases the door, trapping the mouse inside. This design was chosen over a passive mechanical solution, because [nightcustard] noted that mice in the attic were avoiding other humane traps with obvious mechanical trigger mechanisms.
As a bonus, the wireless connectivity of the Pi Pico W allows the trap to send a notification via email when it has fired. Thus, you can wake up in the morning and check your emails to see if you need to go and release a poor beleaguered mouse back into the wild. This is critical, as otherwise, if you forget to check your humane trap… it stops being humane pretty quickly.
If you’re looking for more inspiration to tackle your mouse problems, we can help. We’ve featured other traps of this type before, too. Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own friendly homebrew solutions to pesky pest problems, don’t hesitate to hit up the tipsline.
Ministero dell'Istruzione
Dalle ore 12.00 di domani, mercoledì #19novembre, la piattaforma #CartadelDocente sarà accessibile per gli insegnanti che dispongano di eventuali residui dell’Anno Scolastico 2024/2025 e per i beneficiari di sentenze a cui è stata data esecuzione.Telegram
Roberto Rossetti reshared this.
"Defendants have indicated that some video between October 19, 2025 and October 31, 2025 has been irretrievably destroyed and therefore cannot be produced on an expedited basis or at all."#ICE
Two Weeks of Surveillance Footage From ICE Detention Center ‘Irretrievably Destroyed’
The Department of Homeland Security claimed in court proceedings that nearly two weeks worth of surveillance footage from ICE’s Broadview Detention Center in suburban Chicago has been “irretrievably destroyed” and may not be able to be recovered, according to court records reviewed by 404 Media.The filing was made as part of a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security by people being held at Broadview, which has become the site of widespread protests against ICE. The lawsuit says that people detained at the facility are being held in abhorrent, “inhumane” conditions. The complaint describes a facility where detainees are “confined at Broadview inside overcrowded holding cells containing dozens of people at a time. People are forced to attempt to sleep for days or sometimes weeks on plastic chairs or on the filthy concrete floor. They are denied sufficient food and water […] the temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable […] the physical conditions are filthy, with poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids, and insects in the sinks and the floor […] federal officers who patrol Broadview under Defendants’ authority are abusive and cruel. Putative class members are routinely degraded, mistreated, and humiliated by these officers.”
As part of discovery in the case, the plaintiffs’ lawyers requested surveillance footage from the facility starting from mid September, which is when ICE stepped up its mass deportation campaign in Chicago. In a status report submitted by lawyers from both the plaintiffs and the Department of Homeland Security, lawyers said that nearly two weeks of footage has been “irretrievably destroyed.”
“Defendants have agreed to produce. Video from September 28, 2025 to October 19, 2025, and also from October 31, 2025 to November, 7 2025,” the filing states. “Defendants have indicated that some video between October 19, 2025 and October 31, 2025 has been irretrievably destroyed and therefore cannot be produced on an expedited basis or at all.” Law & Crime first reported on the filing.
A screenshot from the court filing
The filing adds that the plaintiffs, who are being represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, the MacArthur Justice Center, and the Eimer Stahl law firm, hired an IT contractor to work with the government “to attempt to work through issues concerning the missing video, including whether any content is able to be retrieved.”Surveillance footage from inside the detention center would presumably be critical in a case about the alleged abusive treatment of detainees and inhumane living conditions. The filing states that the plaintiffs' attorneys have “communicated to Defendants that they are most concerned with obtaining the available surveillance videos as quickly as possible.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. A spokesperson for the ACLU of Illinois told 404 Media “we don’t have any insight on this. Hoping DHS can explain.”
Trump admin says video footage inside ICE facility at center of lawsuit 'cannot be produced'
"Plaintiffs intend to explore the issue of missing footage," a recent filing reads.Law & Crime
Casting Metal Tools With Kitchen Appliances
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to starting a home blacksmithing operating is the forge. There’s really no way around having a forge; somehow the metal has to get hot enough to work. Although we might be imagining huge charcoal- or gas-fired monstrosities, [Shake the Future] has figured out how to use an unmodified, standard microwave oven to get iron hot enough to melt and is using it in his latest video to cast real, working tools with it.
In the past, [Shake the Future] has made a few other things with this setup like an aluminum pencil with a graphite core. This time, though, he’s stepping up the complexity a bit with a working tool. He’s decided to build a miniature bench vice, which uses a screw to move the jaws. He didn’t cast the screw, instead using a standard size screw and nut, but did cast the two other parts of the vice. He first 3D prints the parts in order to make a mold that will withstand the high temperatures of the molten metal. With the mold made he can heat up the iron in the microwave and then pour it, and then with some finish work he has a working tool on his hands.
A microwave isn’t the only kitchen appliance [Shake the Future] has repurposed for his small metalworking shop. He also uses a standard air fryer in order to dry parts quickly. He works almost entirely from the balcony of his apartment so he needs to keep his neighbors in mind while working, and occasionally goes to a nearby parking garage when he has to do something noisy. It’s impressive to see what can be built in such a small space, though. For some of his other work be sure to check out how he makes the crucibles meant for his microwave.
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Gipfel zur Europäischen Digitalen Souveränität: Kehrtwende für die „Innovationsführerschaft“
netzpolitik.org/2025/gipfel-zu…
Cheap VHF Antenna? Can Do!
The magnetic loop antenna is a familiar sight in radio amateur circles as a means to pack a high performance HF antenna into a small space. It takes the form of a large single-turn coil made into a tuned circuit with a variable capacitor, and it provides the benefits of good directionality and narrow bandwidth at the cost of some scary RF voltages and the need for constant retuning. As [VK3YE] shows us though, magnetic loops are not limited to HF — he’s made a compact VHF magnetic loop using a tin can.
It’s a pretty simple design; a section from the can it cut out and made into a C shape, with a small variable capacitor at the gap. The feed comes in at the bottom, with the feed point about 20 % of the way round the loop for matching. The bandwidth is about 100 MHz starting from the bottom of the FM broadcast band, and he shows us it receiving broadcast, Airband, and 2 meter signals. It can be used for transmitting too and we see it on 2 meter WSPR, but we would have to wonder whether the voltages induced by higher power levels might be a little much for that small capacitor.
He’s at pains to point out that there are many better VHF antennas as this one has no gain to speak of, but we can see a place for it. It’s tiny, if you’re prepared to fiddle with the tuning its high Q gets rid of interference, and its strong side null means it can also reduce unwanted signals on the same frequency. We rather like it, and we hope you will too after watching the video below.
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Congratulations to the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge Winners
For the Component Abuse Challenge, we asked you to do the wrong thing with electrical parts, but nonetheless come out with the right result. It’s probably the most Hackaday challenge we have run in a long time, and you all delivered! The judging was tight, but in the end three projects rose up to the top, and will each be taking home a $150 DigiKey gift certificate, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give all of the projects a look.
So without further ado, let’s check out the winners and all the others that tickled the hacky regions of our judges’ brains.
Prize Winners
The component misuse is an old favorite: the diode’s forward voltage drop depends on the temperature, and if you measure the voltage across the current-limiting resistor, you can read this voltage and determine when someone is setting fire to your LED. A bonus of the single-LED configuration is that if you touch the LED’s leads, your finger shunts some of the current, and you can “snuff” the LEDs out. And while we’ve seen similar LED hacks before, the addition of actual fire to this one seems to have warmed our judges’ hearts.
[Luke J. Barker]’s Need an Electrical Slip Ring? is simplicity itself, and appears to have been born of the mother of invention. [Luke] was making a VertiBird helicopter toy, which spins around on the desk and rises and falls with joystick control. And for that, he needed a slip ring. Enter the humble audio jack, which fills the job nicely, transmitting power to the rotating helicopter without twisting up wires in the process. There’s not much magic here, but it’s a fantastic idea when you need something to spin.
On the other end of the spectrum, [Craig D]’s Boosting voltage with a cable looks like it shouldn’t work at first, but it does. In most step-up-voltage setups, you’re storing the energy in either a capacitor or inductor, and switching it in and out of the circuit to hop the voltage up. Here, the energy isn’t ever really “stored” as much as it’s “in flight”.
A circuit sends a pulse down a long length of coaxial cable that is left open at the other end. The pulse reflects off the open end and heads back toward the voltage driver, which then fires off another pulse at just the right time to make the travelling wave a little bit bigger, and this continues. It’s like pushing a swing – adding a little extra oomph at just the right time can build up. There’s a lot of cool physics here, a nice simulation that actually ends up corresponding very well with reality, and in the end the pulse timing isn’t rocket science, but rather figuring out the resonant frequency along the coax. And it works well enough to light up two neon bulbs in series (~140 V) off of a 15 V power supply.
Honorable Mentions
We got way more cool entries than we have prizes, so we try to round them up into categories and give them a little time in the sun.
Out of Spec
Normally, a 555 timer oscillator circuit relies on filling up a capacitor with a current that’s throttled through a resistor. How can you make it go faster? Make the capacitor smaller and the resistor less resistive. What happens when you get rid of them both entirely, relying on stray capacitance and the resistance of whatever wire you’re using? That’s what [MagicWolfi] aimed to find out with his Ludicrous 555 project.
The IC-Abusing Diode Tester is an absolutely horrible circuit. Nothing in it works like it should. The only reason the IC doesn’t burn up is that it’s more robust than the datasheet promises, and the battery used has such a high internal resistance that it can’t source that much current anyway. Parts are powered by leakage current, and below their minimum voltage. [Joseph Eoff] counts seven values that are out of spec in this single historical circuit, so that’s gotta count for something.
Junk Box Substitutions
Or maybe you’re working on self-assembling robots and you need some magic glue to hold different modules together. [Miana]’s Low-melt-solder connected robots is half research project, and half hack. Resistors are used to melt solder, magnets align the parts together, and when it all cools down, it’s as if two modules are brazed together. This one’s a lot more than a hack, but we’re honored to have it entered in the contest anyway!
Bizarro World
We honestly thought we’d get more entries that made use of the duality of most sensors / emitters. Instead, we got two. [Nick]’s Better Than Bluetooth does the LED-as-photosensor trick, and concludes that it’s better than Bluetooth if expense, limited range, and frustration are what you’re looking for in a data link. Meanwhile, [Kauz] proves that electromagnets are also pickups by building a guitar pickup out of six relays.
Side Effects
Most old op-amps oscillate out of control when given feedback, unless you damp it down a bit with a capacitor. [Adrian Freed] found an op-amp lousy enough that would do this at audio frequencies, and used it to reimagine a classic noisemaker.
Finally, while you should probably avoid the metastable middle-zones between digital one and zero, [SHAOS] combines unbuffered NAND and NOR gates to tease out a third logic state. [Bob Widlar] would be proud.
Thanks All!
As always, we had more great entries that we could feature here, so head on over to Hackaday.io and check them out. And thanks again to DigiKey for providing our top three with $150 gift certificates. If you’re looking for your chance to show off a project that you’re working on, hang on for a while because we’ll be starting up a new contest in early 2026.
Ministero dell'Istruzione
La XXIV edizione del #concorso nazionale “I giovani ricordano la #Shoah” per l’anno scolastico 2025/2026 è promossa dal #MIM, in collaborazione con l’Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane.Telegram
A Quick Primer On TinkerCAD’s New Features
TinkerCAD had its first release all the way back in 2011 and it has come a long way since then. The latest release has introduced a raft of new, interesting features, and [HL ModTech] has been nice enough to sum them up in a recent video.
He starts out by explaining some of the basics before quickly jumping into the new gear. There are two headline features: intersect groups and smooth curves. Where the old union group tool simply merged two pieces of geometry, intersect group allows you to create a shape only featuring the geometry where two individual blocks intersect. It’s a neat addition that allows the creation of complex geometry more quickly. [HL ModTech] demonstrates it with a sphere and a pyramid and his enthusiasm is contagious.
As for smooth curves, it’s an addition to the existing straight line and Bézier curve sketch tools. If you’ve ever struggled making decent curves with Bézier techniques, you might appreciate the ease of working with the smooth curve tool, which avoids any nasty jagged points as a matter of course.
While it’s been gaining new features at an impressive rate, ultimately TinkerCAD is still a pretty basic tool — it’s not the sort of thing you’d expect to see in the aerospace world or anything. ut it’s a great way to start whipping up custom stuff on your 3D printer.
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In Praise of Plasma TVs
I’m sitting in front of an old Sayno Plasma TV as I write this on my media PC. It’s not a productivity machine, by any means, but the screen has the resolution to do it so I started this document to prove a point. That point? Plasma TVs are awesome.
Always the Bridesmaid, Never the Bride
It’s funny, because I firmly believe that without plasma displays, CRTs would have never gone away. Perhaps for that I should hate them, but it’s for the very reasons that Plasma won out over HD-CRTs in the market place that I love them.
What You Get When You Get a Plasma TV
I didn’t used to love Plasma TVs. Until a few years ago, I thought of them like you probably do: clunky, heavy, power-hungry, first-gen flatscreens that were properly consigned to the dustbin of history. Then I bought a house.
The house came with a free TV– a big plasma display in the basement. It was left there for two reasons: it was worthless on the open market and it weighed a tonne. I could take it off the wall by myself, but I could feel the ghost of OSHA past frowning at me when I did. Hauling it up the stairs? Yeah, I’d need a buddy for that… and it was 2020. By the time I was organizing the basement, we’d just gone into lockdown, and buddies were hard to come by. So I put it back on the wall, plugged in my laptop, and turned it on.
I was gobsmacked. It looked exactly like a CRT– a giant, totally flat CRT in glorious 1080p. When I stepped to the side, it struck me again: like a CRT, the viewing angle is “yes”.
How it Works
None of this should have come as a surprise, because I know how a Plasma TV works. I’d just forgotten how good they are. See, a Plasma TV really was an attempt to get all that CRT goodness in a flat screen, and the engineers at Fujitsu, and later elsewhere, really pulled it off.
Like CRTs, you’ve got phosphors excited to produce points of light to create an image– and only when excited, so the blacks are as black as they get. The phosphors are chemically different from those in CRTs but they come in similar colours, so colours on old games and cartoons look right in a way they don’t even on my MacBook’s retina display.
Unlike a CRT, there’s no electron beam scanning the screen, and no shadow mask. Instead, the screen is subdivided into individual pixels inside the flat vacuum panel. The pixels are individually addressed and zapped on and off by an electric current. Unlike a CRT or SED, the voltage here isn’t high enough to generate an electron beam to excite the phosphors; instead the gas discharge inside the display emits enough UV light to do the same job.
Image based on “Plasma-Display-Composition.svg” by [Jari Laamanen].Still, if it feels like a CRT, and that’s because the subpixels are individual blobs of phosphors, excited from behind, and generating their own glorious light.
It’s Not the Same, Though
It’s not a CRT, of course. The biggest difference is that it’s a fixed-pixel display, with all that comes with that. This particular TV has all the ports on the back to make it great for retrogaming, but the NES, or what have you, signal still has to be digitally upscaled to match the resolution. Pixel art goes unblurred by scanlines unless I add it in via emulation, so despite the colour and contrast, it’s not quite the authentic experience.
Those big CRTs don’t have to worry about burn in, either, something I have been very careful in the five years I’ve owned this second-hand plasma display to avoid. I can’t remember thinking much about burn-in with CRTs since we retired the amber-phosphor monitor plugged into the Hercules Graphics card on our family’s 286 PC.
The dreaded specter of burn-in is plasma’s Achilles heel – more than the weight and thickness, which were getting much better before LG pulled the plug as the last company to exit this space, or the Energy Star ratings, which weren’t going to catch up to LED-backlit LCDs, but had improved as well. The fear of burn-in made you skip the plasma, especially for console gaming.
By the end, the phosphors improved and various tricks like jiggling the image pixel-by-pixel were found to avoid burn-in, and it seems to have worked: there’s absolutely no ghosting on my model, and you can sometimes find late-model Plasma TVs for the low, low cost of “get this thing off my wall and up the stairs” that are equally un-haunted. I may grab another, even if I have to pay for it. It’s a lot easier to hide a spare flatscreen than an extra CRT, another advantage to the plasma TVs, and in no case do phosphors last forever.
But Where’s the Hack?
Is “grab an old flat screen instead of hunting around for an impossible CRT” a hack? Maybe it’s not, but it’s worth considering, though, because Plasma TVs don’t get the love they deserve. (And seriously, you’re not going to find the mythical 43-inch CRT, even if it technically existed. And you’ll never find a tube that could match the 152” monster Panasonic put out to claim the record back in the day.)
In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy the contrast ratio, refresh rate, and the bonus space heater. I’m in Canada, and winter is coming, so it’s hard to get too overworked about waste heat when there’s frost on your windowpanes.
Featured image: “IFA 2010 Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin 124” by [Bin im Garten].
Interne Dokumente: EU-Staaten einigen sich auf freiwillige Chatkontrolle
netzpolitik.org/2025/interne-d…
Journalists’ cameras become targets at Oregon protests
You’ve probably seen the inflatable frogs, the dance parties, the naked bike ride. Maybe you’ve also seen the darker images: a federal officer aiming a weapon at protesters, or federal agents hurling tear gas and flash bangs into peaceful demonstrations at a Portland, Oregon, immigration facility.
Local journalists have been attacked for bringing images like these to the world. They’re being tear-gassed and shot with crowd-control munitions by federal agents simply for doing their jobs.
Photojournalist John Rudoff is among them. He’s been covering these protests since June, photographing both peaceful marches and violent responses from federal officers that often follow.
On Oct. 11, while documenting a protest, Rudoff was struck by a stinger grenade, even though he was clearly identifiable as press. He was bruised, but not deterred.
“If you cover protests, you’re going to have discomfort and hazard. Period. That’s just the way it is,” Rudoff told us. “They shoot 20-year-old girls, and they shoot 70-year-old men, and they shoot people in wheelchairs, and they shoot blind people,” he added, referring to federal agents using crowd-control munitions. “The word impunity seems to be coined for them.”
Despite the danger, Rudoff refuses to stop documenting. “The entire media ecosystem has been covered with the administration’s rantings about the war-ravaged hellscape of Portland, and the city is burning down, and ICE officers are being attacked, and on and on and on,” he said. “I feel some obligation to try and counter this frankly preposterous narrative that the city’s burning down. It isn’t.”
Independent journalist Kevin Foster, who has also been covering the Portland protests, shares that sense of duty and outrage. “It’s clear the Trump administration wants to paint Portland as a war zone to seize more control, but it’s a lot harder to do that when I’m showing you all the dancing inflatable frogs,” he told us. “At the end of the day, someone needs to be there to document abuses of power.”
Foster has felt the danger up close while reporting from protests. “I’ve seen other press members shot with pepper balls, I’ve had flash bangs go off at my feet, and tear gas canisters explode above my head,” he said. But he continues to work to keep the public informed, reporting on federal agents’ heavy use of force and escalatory tactics at the protests.
For Foster, the concerns go beyond federal agents at protests. “Right-wing influencers and agitators have reportedly doxxed people,” Foster said. “With the state of the presidency and the history of authoritarianism, I do sometimes worry about persecution as well, especially given that a lot of my coverage subverts the narrative produced by right-wing media.”
The incident in Portland that got the most attention involved Katie Daviscourt, a reporter for the conservative news site The Post Millennial. She reported being hit in the face by someone swinging a flagpole at a protest, blackening her eye. Police let the suspect go, prompting feigned outrage from the White House.
Holding federal agents accountable
Violence against the press, from any direction, is an attack on the First Amendment itself, especially when enabled by law enforcement. Unfortunately, those purportedly appalled by the Daviscourt incident have not shown similar concern over federal law enforcement attacks on journalists who don’t further their preferred political narratives.
Since the Portland protests began in June, for instance, photojournalist Mason Lake has been struck by crowd-control munitions twice, pepper-sprayed, and had a rifle aimed at him. Yet federal officials haven’t condemned these attacks, or the attack on Rudoff.
“It’s very disconcerting to see how free press has been trampled,” Lake told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). “The best we can do is push back and make sure the truth isn’t run over.”
In other cities, like Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California, federal court orders protect journalists from such assaults. But Portland currently has no such order. Legal precedent from 2020 protests in Portland recognized reporters’ First Amendment right to cover protests and shielded them from dispersal orders. But it has done little to rein in federal agents today.
“They have to be sued, and they have to be enjoined, and they have to be criminally prosecuted until they stop doing it,” suggested Rudoff.
Until that happens, however, journalists must keep speaking up, not just about what they see, but also for being attacked for witnessing it. “Most attacks on journalists aren’t reported,” explained Rudoff. But, he added, “I don’t know a single journalist out there who hasn’t been shot or hit or knocked over or tear-gassed or pepper-sprayed. It’s everybody.”
Foster put it even more bluntly: “Many Americans seem to have this impression that brutalizing protesters and targeting the press only happens in other countries. If that notion hasn’t shattered for you yet, wait until your ears are ringing from flash bangs and you’re enveloped in a cloud of tear gas so thick you can’t see 15 feet.”
This isn’t some distant dictatorship. It’s the city of Portland. And the First Amendment is under siege.
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#Ucraina: l'utopia e la realtà
Ucraina: l’utopia e la realtà
La realtà dei fatti, da una parte, e il comportamento del regime ucraino e dei suoi sponsor europei, dall’altra, continuano a muoversi su strade totalmente divergenti, con decisioni, prese da parte di questi ultimi, che non hanno nessuna giustificazi…www.altrenotizie.org
Paolo Berizzi: “Vi racconto misteri e legami di CasaPound”
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
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Da poco in libreria con un testo che sta facendo particolarmente discutere (“Il libro segreto di CasaPound”, Fuoriscena editore), Paolo Berizzi ha deciso di devolvere alla nostra associazione una parte
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"I.A. BASTA!”: l’appello dei docenti contro l’intelligenza artificiale a scuola - L'INDIPENDENTE
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Un appello, una mozione e un questionario per dire “basta” all’intelligenza artificiale nella scuola. È questo il cuore della mobilitazione lanciata dal gruppo auto-organizzato di lavoratrici e lavoratori della scuola, che vede la partecipazione di docenti, personale ATA, rappresentanti del sindacal
La militarizzazione dell’AI è già iniziata. Ma dove arriverà?
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Molti analisti parlano ormai dell’uso bellico dell’Intelligenza Artificiale in guerra come del vero “momento Oppenheimer” della nostra epoca. Un termine che indica l’idea che, come accadde con il nucleare a metà Novecento, stiamo varcando una soglia dalla quale sarà difficile tornare indietro. Un
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Il direttore del Parlamento Ue in Italia a TPI: “Senza rafforzare l’Europa la nostra indipendenza è a rischio”
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
Oggi l’Europa è sotto attacco? «Assolutamente sì, l’ha ricordato in plenaria al Parlamento europeo, nel momento istituzionale più delicato e importante, la presidente della Commissione Ue Ursula von der Leyen. Le sue prime parole
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Caselli torna in antimafia e spazza il campo dalla falsa valanga di “mafia appalti”
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
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Lo “spazza-neve” Caselli torna in Antimafia e finisce il lavoro: sgombrato completamente il campo dalla falsa valanga di “mafia
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Dal dominio cognitivo a quello cibernetico. L’Italia sotto attacco ibrido nel dossier Crosetto
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Presentato durante la riunione del Consiglio Supremo di Difesa, il “Non-paper sul contrasto alla guerra ibrida” del ministro della Difesa, Guido Crosetto, parla chiaro: l’Italia è già in un conflitto sottosoglia, quotidiano, mutevole
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fanpage.it/wamily/quando-torni…
ma perché? le donne devono occuparsi dolo di fare figli e crescere la prole... sono sicura che c'è un sacco di gente (più uomini) che concorderebbe infatti con questa affermazione. questa è una donna santa....
Cyber security, evolve lo scenario di rischio: ecco le figure professionali più richieste
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Non raggiunge il 10% la quota di chi ha competenze in cyber security, ma gli annunci per cyber security engineer registrano un aumento a doppia cifra. Il problema è lo skill shortage. Ecco cosa emerge dall'Osservatorio sulle
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