Salta al contenuto principale



Chatbot roleplay and image generator platform SecretDesires.ai left cloud storage containers of nearly two million of images and videos exposed, including photos and full names of women from social media, at their workplaces, graduating from universities, taking selfies on vacation, and more.#AI #AIPorn #Deepfakes #chatbots


Massive Leak Shows Erotic Chatbot Users Turned Women’s Yearbook Pictures Into AI Porn


An erotic roleplay chatbot and AI image creation platform called Secret Desires left millions of user-uploaded photos exposed and available to the public. The databases included nearly two million photos and videos, including many photos of completely random people with very little digital footprint.

The exposed data shows how many people use AI roleplay apps that allow face-swapping features: to create nonconsensual sexual imagery of everyone, from the most famous entertainers in the world to women who are not public figures in any way. In addition to the real photo inputs, the exposed data includes AI-generated outputs, which are mostly sexual and often incredibly graphic. Unlike “nudify” apps that generate nude images of real people, these images are putting people into AI-generated videos of hardcore sexual scenarios.

Secret Desires is a browser-based platform similar to Character.ai or Meta’s AI avatar creation tool, which generates personalized chatbots and images based on user prompting. Earlier this year, as part of its paid subscriptions that range from $7.99 to $19.99 a month, it had a “face swapping” feature that let users upload images of real people to put them in sexually explicit AI generated images and videos. These uploads, viewed by 404 Media, are a large part of what’s been exposed publicly, and based on the dates of the files, they were potentially exposed for months.

About an hour after 404 Media contacted Secret Desires on Monday to alert the company to the exposed containers and ask for comment, the files became inaccessible. Secret Desires and CEO of its parent company Playhouse Media Jack Simmons did not respond to my questions, however, including why these containers weren’t secure and how long they were exposed.

💡
Do you have a tip about AI and porn? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.

The platform was storing links to images and videos in unsecured Microsoft Azure Blob containers, where anyone could access XML files containing links to the images and go through the data inside. A container labeled “removed images” contained around 930,000 images, many of recognizable celebrities and very young looking women; a container named “faceswap” contained 50,000 images; and one named “live photos,” referring to short AI-generated videos, contained 220,000 videos. A number of the images are duplicates with different file names, or are of the same person from different angles or cropping of the photos, but in total there were nearly 1.8 million individual files in the containers viewed by 404 Media.

The photos in the removed images and faceswap datasets are overwhelmingly real photos (meaning, not AI generated) of women, including adult performers, influencers, and celebrities, but also photos of women who are definitely not famous. The datasets also include many photos that look like they were taken from women’s social media profiles, like selfies taken in bedrooms or smiling profile photos.

In the faceswap container, I found a file photo of a state representative speaking in public, photos where women took mirror selfies seemingly years ago with flip phones and Blackberries, screenshots of selfies from Snapchat, a photo of a woman posing with her university degree and one of a yearbook photo. Some of the file names include full first and last names of the women pictured. These and many more photos are in the exposed files alongside stolen images from adult content creators’ videos and websites and screenshots of actors from films. Their presence in this container means someone was uploading their photos to the Secret Desires face-swapping feature—likely to make explicit images of them, as that’s what the platform advertises itself as being built for, and because a large amount of the exposed content is sexual imagery.

Some of the faces in the faceswap containers are recognizable in the generations in the “live photos” container, which appears to be outputs generated by Secret Desires and are almost entirely hardcore pornographic AI-generated videos. In this container, multiple videos feature extremely young-looking people having sex.

‘I Want to Make You Immortal:’ How One Woman Confronted Her Deepfakes Harasser
“After discovering this content, I’m not going to lie… there are times it made me not want to be around any more either,” she said. “I literally felt buried.”
404 MediaSamantha Cole


In early 2025, Secret Desires removed its face-swapping feature. The most recent date in the faceswap files is April 2025. This tracks with Reddit comments from the same time, where users complained that Secret Desires “dropped” the face swapping feature. “I canceled my membership to SecretDesires when they dropped the Faceswap. Do you know if there’s another site comparable? Secret Desires was amazing for image generation,” one user said in a thread about looking for alternatives to the platform. “I was part of the beta testing and the faceswop was great. I was able to upload pictures of my wife and it generated a pretty close,” another replied. “Shame they got rid of it.”

In the Secret Desires Discord channel, where people discuss how they’re using the app, users noticed that the platform still listed “face swapping” as a paid feature as of November 3. As of writing, on November 11, face swapping isn’t listed in the subscription features anymore. Secret Desires still advertises itself as a “spicy chatting” platform where you can make your own personalized AI companion, and it has a voice cloning mode, where users can upload an audio file of someone speaking to clone their voice in audio chat modes.

On its site, Secret Desires says it uses end-to-end encryption to secure communications from users: “All your communications—including messages, voice calls, and image exchanges—are encrypted both at rest and in transit using industry-leading encryption standards. This ensures that only you have access to your conversations.” It also says stores data securely: “Your data is securely stored on protected servers with stringent access controls. We employ advanced security protocols to safeguard your information against unauthorized access.”

The prompts exposed by some of the file names are also telling of how some people use Secret Desires. Several prompts in the faceswap container, visible as file names, showed users’ “secret desire” was to generate images of underage girls: “17-year-old, high school junior, perfect intricate detail innocent face,” several prompts said, along with names of young female celebrities. We know from hacks of other “AI girlfriend” platforms that this is a popular demand of these tools; Secret Desires specifically says on its terms of use that it forbids generating underage images.
Screenshot of a former version of the subscription offerings on SecretDesires.ai, via Discord. Edits by the user
Secret Desire runs advertisements on Youtube where it markets the platform’s ability to create sexualized versions of real people you encounter in the world. “AI girls never say no,” an AI-generated woman says in one of Secret Desire’s YouTube Shorts. “I can look like your favorite celebrity. That girl from the gym. Your dream anime character or anyone else you fantasize about? I can do everything for you.” Most of Secret Desires’ ads on YouTube are about giving up on real-life connections and dating apps in favor of getting an AI girlfriend. “What if she could be everything you imagined? Shape her style, her personality, and create the perfect connection just for you,” one says. Other ads proclaim that in an ideal reality, your therapist, best friend, and romantic partner could all be AI. Most of Secret Desires’ marketing features young, lonely men as the users.
youtube.com/embed/eVugJ78rBRM?…
We know from years of research into face-swapping apps, AI companion apps, and erotic roleplay platforms that there is a real demand for these tools, and a risk that they’ll be used by stalkers and abusers for making images of exes, acquaintances, and random women they want to see nude or having sex. They’re accessible and advertised all over social media, and that children find these platforms easily and use them to create child sexual abuse material of their classmates. When people make sexually explicit deepfakes of others without their consent, the aftermath for their targets is often devastating; it impacts their careers, their self-confidence, and in some cases, their physical safety. Because Secret Desires left this data in the open and mishandled its users’ data, we have a clear look at how people use generative AI to sexually fantasize about the women around them, whether those women know their photos are being used or not.




We talk the terrible format of the latest Epstein dump; how a contractor is hiring randos on LinkedIn to physically track immigrants for $300; and a new code of conduct in the adult industry.#Podcast


Podcast: The Epstein Email Dump Is a Mess


We start this week with a rant from Jason about how the latest dump of Epstein emails were released. It would be a lot easier to cover them if they were published differently! After the break, we talk about Joseph’s piece about a contractor hiring essentially randos off LinkedIn to physically track immigrants for $300. In the subscribers-only section, Sam tells us about a new adult industry code of conduct that has been a long time coming
playlist.megaphone.fm?e=TBIEA6…
Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.
youtube.com/embed/_6tVI4jh__Y?…




Druetti-Marro (Possibile): Cannabis, il Senato blocca l’esame del DDL di iniziativa popolare in violazione del proprio regolamento. Conferenza stampa il 20 novembre, ore 16.00 – Sala Nassirya


Il 20 novembre alle ore 16.00, presso la Sala Nassirya del Senato, si terrà la conferenza stampa “Io Coltivo: che fine ha fatto la proposta di legge popolare?” dedicata al Disegno di Legge di iniziativa popolare S.1317 – “Depenalizzazione della coltivazione per uso personale e in forma associata della cannabis”, promosso da Meglio Legale, Associazione Coscioni, Forum Droghe e con il sostegno di oltre 70 organizzazioni.

A quasi un anno dal deposito della proposta, sostenuta da 54.000 firme, e a dieci mesi dalla sua assegnazione alle Commissioni Giustizia, Sanità e Lavoro, il Senato non ha ancora avviato l’esame del testo, violando apertamente l’Art. 74 del Regolamento.

Una mancata discussione che svilisce e di fatto denigra lo strumento della proposta di legge di iniziativa popolare, previsto dalla Costituzione per garantire ai cittadini un canale diretto di partecipazione democratica.

“Siamo da anni al fianco della battaglia per la legalizzazione della cannabis e siamo al fianco di Meglio Legale”, dichiara la Segretaria di Possibile Francesca Druetti, “con la convinzione che sia urgente e necessario togliere il mercato della cannabis dalle mani della criminalità organizzata, separarlo da quello delle droghe pesanti, trovare risorse per le casse dello Stato che possono essere investite in una corretta informazione sulle droghe e sulla sanità pubblica. Che il Parlamento non voglia nemmeno discutere una proposta firmata e condivisa da decine di migliaia di persone è un danno che la maggioranza fa non solo a noi, ma alla qualità del rapporto tra istituzioni e cittadinanza”.

In quest’ottica, Druetti ha partecipato alla Controconferenza nazionale sulle Droghe a Roma insieme alla Consigliera Regionale del Piemonte Giulia Marro, che aggiunge: “La Controconferenza è stato un luogo di confronto serio e necessario in un momento in cui le politiche governative procedono a colpi di “tolleranza zero”, senza risultati e senza ascolto.

È emerso con chiarezza quanto queste scelte – dalle oscillazioni continue sulla canapa agli interventi punitivi sulle sostanze – stiano producendo solo danni: non diminuisce l’uso, non si riduce la circolazione delle droghe, che anzi oggi sono più varie e più diffuse che mai.

Si continua a combattere battaglie simboliche, inseguendo un nemico immaginario, invece di confrontarsi con ciò che cinquant’anni di studi e pratiche ci insegnano: la repressione non funziona. Funzionano l’informazione corretta, la comunicazione trasparente, la riduzione del danno, il coinvolgimento delle persone e delle associazioni di consumatori.

Per questo considero grave che il Senato non abbia ancora avviato l’esame del DDL di iniziativa popolare sulla coltivazione domestica.

Rispettare la volontà di migliaia di cittadine e cittadini è un obbligo democratico. Continuare a rinviare la discussione significa lasciare spazio a politiche inefficaci e punitive, mentre avremmo bisogno di responsabilità, dati e prevenzione”.

Interverranno:

Antonella Soldo, presidente Meglio Legale e vicesegretaria +Europa

Marco Perduca, Associazione Luca Coscioni

Francesca Druetti, segretaria Possibile

Leonardo Fiorentini, Forum Droghe

Mattia Cusani, Canapa Sativa Italia

Denise Amerini, CGIL

Parlamentari, rappresentanti istituzionali, stampa e organizzazioni sono invitati a partecipare.

L'articolo Druetti-Marro (Possibile): Cannabis, il Senato blocca l’esame del DDL di iniziativa popolare in violazione del proprio regolamento. Conferenza stampa il 20 novembre, ore 16.00 – Sala Nassirya proviene da Possibile.



Basta tagli: al presidio AVS contro i tagli agli enti locali


Oggi in piazza a Roma insieme a tanti amministratori e amministratrici da tutta Italia per partecipare al presidio organizzato da Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra che denuncia i tagli agli enti locali fatti dal governo Meloni.

139,5 milioni su 140 tagliati al fondo per la messa in sicurezza di scuole, strade ed edifici pubblici.

100 milioni su 200 tagliati ai fondi contro il dissesto idrogeologico.

400 milioni su 400 di taglio ai fondi per gli interventi di sviluppo sostenibile.

29,9 milioni su 30 tagliati a opere per la messa in sicurezza di edifici e strutture pubbliche.

Soldi, tantissimi soldi, tolti all’edilizia scolastica, agli edifici pubblici, al contrasto al dissesto idrogeologico, all’edilizia pubblica.

Tagli che significano la cancellazione o riduzione di servizi essenziali, di politiche per la casa, di interventi sull’efficientamento energetico, della messa in sicurezza di infrastrutture e territorio. In un paese in cui milioni persone vivono in aree a rischio idrogeologico, in cui l’emergenza abitativa dovrebbe essere in cima alle priorità di qualunque governo. Tagli che investono fondi in gran parte destinati al Mezzogiorno e alle Aree interne.

In un paese in cui l’astensionismo alle urne è un dato allarmante, il governo decide tagli che vanno a depotenziare le amministrazioni comunali, le istituzioni più vicine ai cittadini e alle cittadine, quelle che dovrebbero poter garantire servizi essenziali nella vita quotidiana delle persone, che dovrebbero essere la fondazione del rapporto tra cittadinanza e chi in sua rappresentanza amministra la cosa pubblica. Se i Comuni non hanno i mezzi per erogare questi servizi, si incrina ulteriormente la fiducia tra cittadinanza e istituzioni, si infierisce su chi è più fragile, aumentando ulteriormente le disuguaglianze, si mina la tenuta delle città e dei territori di fronte alla crisi economica, sociale, climatica.

L'articolo Basta tagli: al presidio AVS contro i tagli agli enti locali proviene da Possibile.



Ahmad Salem libero: la mobilitazione per la Palestina non è reato


Ahmad Salem è un nome che alla maggior parte di noi non dice niente, ed è questo il problema.

Salem è un ragazzo palestinese, da sei mesi detenuto in regime di alta sicurezza in un carcere della nostra regione per aver denunciato il genocidio che il suo popolo stava e sta subendo per mano di Israele.
Durante l’iter per ottenere asilo politico in Italia il suo telefono è stato sequestrato e perquisito: spezzoni decontestualizzati di un video in cui invita la società civile a mobilitarsi per la Palestina sono bastati per accusarlo di “propaganda jihadista”.
Altri filmati presenti sul suo cellulare sono considerati dall’accusa “video istruttivi” di matrice terroristica. I filmati — diffusi in passato dalle principali testate giornalistiche italiane — non contengono però effettive indicazione tecniche o di addestramento.
I reati contestati a Salem — istigazione a delinquere e autoaddestramento con finalità di terrorismo — sono stati introdotti dal DDL Sicurezza, cardine della repressione del dissenso che è l’unico tratto distintivo del governo Meloni. Un provvedimento che, tramite l’introduzione di nuovi reati e l’inasprimento di pene, aggravanti e sanzioni, limita diritti e libertà fondamentali.
Salem ora va sostenuto, come lui ha tentato di fare col popolo palestinese. Dobbiamo diventare la sua voce, amplificare la sua rabbia e aggiungerci la nostra verso un governo sempre più securitario e criminalizzante.
Raccogliendo l’appello delle attiviste e degli attivisti, come @vincenzo23fullone, vi invitiamo a spezzare l’indifferenza che circonda la detenzione di Salem.

Il 21 novembre è stato organizzato un presidio di solidarietà davanti al Tribunale de L’Aquila per altri tre giovani palestinesi — Ahmad, Anan Yaeesh, Ali Irar e Mansour Doghmosh — accusati di terrorismo, in cui manifestare anche la solidarietà ad Ahmad Salem.

L'articolo Ahmad Salem libero: la mobilitazione per la Palestina non è reato proviene da Possibile.



FLOSS Weekly Episode 855: Get in the Minecart, Loser!


This week Jonathan chats with Kevin, Colin, and Curtis about Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead! It’s a rogue-like post-apocalyptic survival game that you can play in the terminal, over SSH if you really want to! Part of the story is a Kickstarter that resulted in a graphics tile-set. And then there’s the mods!


youtube.com/embed/XzS8cOnVFgg?…

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/…

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:


Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


hackaday.com/2025/11/19/floss-…



Hackers Can’t Spend a Penny


We aren’t here to praise the penny, but rather, to bury it. The penny, and its counterparts, have been vanishing all around the world as the cost of minting one far outweighs its value. But hackers had already lost a big asset: real copper pennies, and now even the cheaply made ones are doomed to extinction.

If you check your pockets and find a pre-1982 penny, it’s almost all copper. Well, 95% of its slightly-more-than-3-gram heft is pure copper. Since then, the copper penny’s been a fraud, weighing 2.5 g and containing only a 2.5% copper plate over a zinc core. During WWII, they did make some oddball steel pennies, but that was just a temporary measure.

Penny Science


If you are a certain age, you might remember building a “voltaic pile.” These primitive batteries use pennies, cardboard soaked in vinegar, and aluminum foil. Granted, it wasn’t very practical, so raiding your couch for change to make a battery was never really practical, but it was a fun science experiment. There are dozens of YouTube videos showing this popular experiment, including the [ScienceBuddies] video below.

youtube.com/embed/JcRRTHkAl6A?…

Old pennies were also a cheap and easy source of copper. Vinegar or lemon juice and some voltage made it simple to copperplate another metal object, like a nail. Copper also makes a good heatsink. We’ve seen Raspberry Pis and similar boards with heatsinks that cost an integer number of pennies, because that’s all they were. An oxidized penny shows up in some foxhole radios. They were also handy little weights if you made a balance or for taming a wobbly ceiling fan.

If you were a real kid chemist, you might have done the classic trick of turning a penny into “silver” and then “gold.” You used not-so-lovely-to-handle sodium hydroxide, some zinc, and a flame to actually convert the penny to brass. It wasn’t really a precious metal, but still a good trick if you were a kid with a chemistry set. As the video from [Simon] below shows, that will still work with the copperplate pennies.

youtube.com/embed/wmd2teoPUu0?…

New Pennies


Not that you can’t have fun with zinc pennies. If you scratch the plating a bit and dip it in HCL, the zinc core fizzes away. What’s left is a hollow copper penny. If you don’t like using HCL, we hear you can do it over a stove and simply melt the zinc. We wouldn’t try either one of those without a vent hood and an unhealthy disregard for your personal safety, so, you know, don’t do that. But know that you could. [Craig] shows how to remove the zinc or the copper in the video below.

youtube.com/embed/5Cf0gH2LtiE?…

The legality of all this has always been a little suspect. Since 2006, it has been illegal to melt down coins for their metal value. Technically, using it in a science class probably won’t bring the Treasury agents swooping into your classroom, but you have been warned.

Household Hacker


Of course, it is going to take some time for all the pennies to really vanish. There are plenty of them, and you can still get around a hundred for a buck. But when they are gone, what other household items are easy to hack for science? Aluminum foil, maybe? Tell us your favorite in the comments.

Whether they were copper slugs or thinly plated zinc tokens, pennies were a weirdly perfect hacker material: cheap, conductive, sacrificial, and everywhere. We’ll miss them.

Featured image: “wealth of pennies” by [Reza]


hackaday.com/2025/11/19/hacker…



“Noi, Pastori della Chiesa italiana, riuniti nella città di san Francesco, uomo di pace, auspichiamo che all’umanità siano risparmiati ulteriori lutti e tragedie e sia evitata la spaventosa ipotesi di una catastrofe dalle conseguenze incalcolabili”.


Perché si concretizzi il sogno della pace, “ieri come oggi, c’è bisogno di una conversione vera, di un cambiamento profondo di mentalità, che parta dalla convinzione che Dio ha dato a tutti, non solo ad alcuni, le ricchezze della terra”.


“Non gli uni contro gli altri, non più, non mai!”. Dalla chiesa inferiore della basilica di san Francesco ad Assisi, i vescovi italiani, nel loro appello lanciato durante la celebrazione dei Vespri e la preghiera per la pace presieduti dal card.


“Noi, pastori della Chiesa italiana, riuniti nella città di san Francesco, uomo di pace, auspichiamo che all’umanità siano risparmiati ulteriori lutti e tragedie e sia evitata la spaventosa ipotesi di una catastrofe dalle conseguenze incalcolabili”.


Press-hating president kisses up to press-murdering crown prince


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

President Donald Trump shamefully welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House today. He brushed aside questions about Prince Mohammed’s role in the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, commenting that “things happen” and “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said:

“Somehow calling a female reporter ‘piggy’ was only the second-most offensive anti-press utterance to come out of the president’s mouth in recent days. And somehow Biden’s infamous fist bump is now only the second-most disgusting public display of flattery by a U.S. president to journalist-murderer Mohammed bin Salman.

“Scolding a U.S. reporter for asking questions about MBS ordering a fellow journalist to be bonesawed signals to dictators everywhere that they can murder journalists with impunity — as if Trump hadn’t already sent that message clearly enough by bankrolling and arming Israel while it does just that in Gaza.

“Today’s fiasco felt like the nail in the coffin for whatever was left of the U.S.’s global standing as a leader on press freedom. The next president is going to have their work cut out for them in rebuilding that credibility. In the meantime, judges, lawmakers, and everyone else in a position to slow the backslide need to step up and rise to the moment before more journalists get killed.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.


freedom.press/issues/press-hat…

Light reshared this.



Press Release: Commission’s Digital Omnibus is a major rollback of EU digital protections


Today the European Commission has published two Digital Omnibus proposals, reopening the EU’s core protections against harm in the digital age. This step risks dismantling the rules-based system that was hard-won over decades, endangering the very foundation of human rights and tech policy in the EU.

The post Press Release: Commission’s Digital Omnibus is a major rollback of EU digital protections appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).



Why the Digital Omnibus puts GDPR and ePrivacy at risk


Today, the Commission will present a “Digital Omnibus” package, a series of measures to allegedly ease administrative burdens for businesses across areas like privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. This will include one proposal dedicated to the AI Act, and another to simplifying digital rules, reopening and amending both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive.

The post Why the Digital Omnibus puts GDPR and ePrivacy at risk appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).




Piantedosi, faccia votare i fuorisede


Nella giornata di ieri, il Ministro dell’Interno Matteo Piantedosi ha rivolto un appello alla partecipazione al voto. Un invito che ogni rappresentante delle istituzioni ha il dovere di fare, ma che rischia di apparire contraddittorio se non accompagnato dalle misure necessarie a rendere realmente possibile l’esercizio del diritto di voto per tutte e tutti.

Ancora ad oggi, infatti, il Governo non ha introdotto una norma che consenta ai fuorisede di votare senza dover affrontare costi e disagi significativi. Sono migliaia di persone che, pur volendo partecipare, vengono di fatto ostacolate da un sistema che non tiene conto dei problemi. Studentesse e studenti, lavoratrici e lavoratori che vivono lontano dal proprio comune. Parliamo anche di persone temporaneamente domiciliate fuori sede per motivi di cura.

Il diritto di voto deve essere garantito pienamente, senza discriminazioni territoriali o economiche. È necessario introdurre subito una legge sul voto dei fuorisede: una misura di civiltà, di democrazia e di rispetto verso chi studia, lavora e contribuisce al Paese.

Chiediamo che il Governo abbandoni rinvii e ambiguità e si assuma la responsabilità di rendere l’Italia una democrazia più accessibile e inclusiva. Invitare al voto è importante; permettere davvero a tutte e tutti di votare lo è ancora di più.

L'articolo Piantedosi, faccia votare i fuorisede proviene da Possibile.



“Per la pace bisogna combattere la logica della forza con le armi dell’amore, le uniche capaci di sconfiggere il demone e i demoni che si impadroniscono del mondo e dei cuori delle persone”. Lo ha detto il card.


Damn Fine (Solar Powered) Coffee


The folks at Low Tech Magazine are here again, this time with a solar powered coffee maker. Lest you think of a large parabolic mirror with a pot at its focus, in this case the device is much more friendly. It’s a table-top appliance that relies upon a 100 W 12 V panel for its operation.

They make the point that an electric coffee pot requires at least 300 W to work, so what’s the secret? In this case, insulation, as a standard moka pot is placed within a nichrome heating element set in mortar and surrounded by cork. On the outside are tiles, though they appear largely ornamental and the write-up suggests you could experiment with other materials to serve as an enclosure.

It appears to be an effective coffee maker, with the significant caveat that it’s hardly fast. In full sunlight the first pot takes over an hour to brew, with subsequent ones once it’s up to temperature being somewhat faster. But you can’t argue with the idea of free power, even if your favourite caffeinated beverage may now take a while to appear.

We like this idea, despite its slow brewing. We’ve featured Low Tech Magazine before, not least in their solar powered oven.


hackaday.com/2025/11/19/damn-f…



Zensur in Vietnam: Mitarbeiter des deutsch-vietnamesischen Exilmediums Thoibao in Haft


netzpolitik.org/2025/zensur-in…



Alberto Trentini, dal governo un anno di silenzio intollerabile


È passato un anno dall’arresto di Alberto Trentini, non si è mosso nulla.
“Sono qui dopo 365 giorni a esprimere indignazione. Per Alberto non si è fatto ciò che era doveroso fare. Sono stata troppo paziente ed educata ma ora la pazienza è finita”.
Sono le parole di Armanda Colusso, mamma dell’operatore umanitario detenuto in Venezuela da un anno senza un’accusa formale a suo carico.
L’immobilismo del governo Meloni non può essere tollerato, facciamo pressione, chiediamo che si attivi e adoperi ogni strumento diplomatico necessario alla sua liberazione.
Facciamolo per Alberto e la sua famiglia, facciamolo per la giustizia che perde valore ogni minuto che Alberto passa nella cella in cui è detenuto senza colpa.
Insistiamo.

L'articolo Alberto Trentini, dal governo un anno di silenzio intollerabile proviene da Possibile.



L'uso consapevole dei dispositivi mobili, sono online i contenuti dedicati!
Questo tema è rivolto ai #genitori nell’ambito della campagna #Sicurnauti, il nuovo percorso che aiuta studenti, famiglie e personale scolastico a comprendere l'importanza de…


Why Samsung Phones Are Failing Emergency Calls In Australia


We’re taught how to call emergency numbers from a young age; whether it be 911 in the US, 999 in the UK, or 000 in Australia. The concept is simple—if you need aid from police, fire, or ambulance, you pick up a phone and dial and help will be sent in short order.

It’s a service many of us have come to rely on; indeed, it’s function can swing the very balance between life or death. Sadly, in Australia, that has come to pass, with a person dying when their Samsung phone failed to reach the Triple Zero (000) emergency line. It has laid bare an obscure technical issue that potentially leaves thousands of lives at risk.

Peril

Triple Zero is the number to dial for Australian emergency services. Credit: TripleZero.gov.au
Australia’s Triple Zero emergency service becoming a hot-button issue. September 2025 saw widespread failures of emergency calls on the Optus network, an incident that was tied to at least three deaths of those unable to reach help. A series of further isolated cases have drawn more attention to edge case failures that have prevented people from reaching emergency services.

A bigger potential issue with the Triple Zero service has since bubbled up with the increased scrutiny on the system’s operation. Namely, the fact that a huge swathe of older Samsung smartphones cannot be trusted to successfully call 000 in an emergency. The potential issue has been on the radar of telcos and authorities since at least 2024. Since then, on November 13 2025, an individual in Sydney passed away after their phone failed to dial the emergency line. Their phone was using a Lebara SIM card, as managed by TPG and using the Vodafone network, when the incident occurred. Subsequent investigation determined that the problem was due to issues already identified with a wide range of Samsung phones.

The issue surrounds the matter of Australia’s shutdown of 3G phone service, which took place from 2023 to 2024. If you had a 3G phone, it would no longer be able to make any calls after the networks were shut down. Common sense would suggest that phones with 4G and 5G connectivity would be fine going forward. However, there was a caveat. There were a number of phones sold that offered 4G or 5G data connections, but could not actually make phone calls on these networks. This was due to manufacturers failing to implement Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) functionality required to carry voice calls over 4G LTE networks. Alternatively, in some cases, the 4G or 5G handset could make VoLTE calls, but would fail to make emergency calls in certain situations.

Communication Breakdown


It all comes down to the way voice calls work on 4G and 5G. Unlike earlier 2G and 3G cellular networks, 4G and 5G networks are data only. Phone calls are handled through VoLTE, which uses voice-over-IP technology, or using Voice over NR (VoNR) in a purely 5G environment. Either way, the system is a data-based, packet-switched method of connecting a phone call, unlike the circuit-switched methods used for 2G and 3G calling.
Phones like the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are compatible with 4G networks. However, with the shutdown of 3G services, they cannot reliably make emergency voice calls on current Australian networks. Credit: GadgetsGuy, CC BY 3.0
The problem with this is that while 2G and 3G emergency calls worked whenever you had a tower nearby, VoLTE calling is more complex and less robust. VoLTE standards don’t guarantee that a given handset will be interoperable with all LTE networks, particularly when roaming. A given handset might only like IPv4, for example, which may be fine in its home region on its regular carrier. However, when roaming, or when doing an emergency call, that handset might find itself only in range of a different network’s towers, which only like IPv6, and thus VoLTE calling will fail. There are any number of other configuration mismatches that can occur between a handset and a network that can also cause VoLTE calling to fail.

Usually, when you’re in range of your phone’s home network with a modern 4G or 5G handset, you won’t have any problems. Your phone will use its VoLTE settings profile to connect and the emergency call will go through. After all, older models with no VoLTE support have by and large been banned from networks already. However, the situation gets more complex if your home network isn’t available. In those cases, it will look to “camp on” to another provider’s network for connectivity. In this case, if the phone’s VoLTE settings aren’t compatible with the rival network, the call may fail to connect, and you might find yourself unable to reach emergency services.

Specifically, in the Australian case, this appears to affect a range of older Samsung phones. Testing by telecommunications company Telstra found that some of these phones were unable to make Triple Zero emergency calls when only the Vodafone network was available. These phones will happily work when a Telstra or Optus network is available, but fallback to the Vodafone network has been found to fail. Research from other sources has also identified that certain phones can reach Triple Zero when using Telstra or Optus SIM cards, but may fail when equipped with a Vodafone SIM.

For its part, Samsung has provided a list of models affected by the issue. Some older phones, mostly from 2016 and 2017, will need to be replaced, as they will not be updated to reliably make emergency calls over 4G networks. Meanwhile, newer phones, like the Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, will be given software updates to enable reliable emergency calling. Telecom operators have been contacting users of affected phones, indicating they will need to replace or upgrade as necessary. Devices that are deemed to be unable to safely make emergency calls will be banned from Australian mobile networks 28 days after initial notification to customers.

Broader Problem

Telecommunications providers have been reaching out to customers with instructions to update or replace their devices to ensure they can safely call Triple Zero, whichever local network is available. Credit: Amaysim, via screenshot
This issue is not limited to just Australia. Indeed, European authorities have been aware of issues with VoLTE emergency calling since at least 2022. Many phones sold in European markets are only capable of making emergency calls on 2G and 3G networks, and could fail to reach emergency services if only 4G connections are available. This issue was particularly noted to be a risk when roaming internationally, where a handset sold in one country may prove inoperable with VoLTE calling on a foreign network.

Some blame has been laid on the loose standardization of the VoLTE standard. Unlike 2G and 3G standards, global interoperability is pretty much non-existent when it comes to phone calls. This wasn’t seen as a big issue early on, as when 4G devices first hit the market, 2G and 3G phone networks were readily available to carry any voice calls that couldn’t be handled by VoLTE. However, with 2G and 3G networks shutting down, the lack of VoLTE standardization and interoperability between carriers has been laid bare.

While Australia is currently tangling with this issue, expect it to crop up in other parts of the world before long. Europe is currently working towards 2G and 3G shutdowns, as our other jurisdictions, and issues around roaming functionality still loom large for those taking handsets overseas. Ultimately, end users will be asking a very simple question. If 2G and 3G technologies could handle emergency calls on virtually any compatible network around the world, how did it go so wrong when 4G and 5G rolled around? Old networks existed as a crutch that avoided the issue for a time, but they were never going to last forever. It surely didn’t have to be this way.


hackaday.com/2025/11/19/why-sa…



Smart Bandage Leverages AI Model For Healing Purposes


If you get a small cut, you might throw a plastic bandage on it to help it heal faster. However, there are fancier options on the horizon, like this advanced AI-powered smart bandage.

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have developed a proof-of-concept device called a-Heal, intended for use inside existing commercial bandages for colostomy use. The device is fitted with a small camera, which images the wound site every two hours. The images are then uploaded via a wireless connection, and processed with a machine learning model that has been trained to make suggestions on how to better stimulate the healing process based on the image input. The device can then follow these recommendations, either using electrical stimulation to reduce inflammation in the wound, or supplying fluoxetine to stimulate the growth of healthy tissue. In testing, the device was able to improve the rate of skin coverage over an existing wound compared to a control.

The long-term goal is to apply the technology in a broader sense to help better treat things like chronic or infected wounds that may have difficulty healing. It’s still at an early stage for now, but it could one day be routine for medical treatment to involve the use of small smart devices to gain a better rolling insight on the treatment of wounds. It’s not the first time we’ve explored innovative methods of wound care; we’ve previously looked at how treatments from the past could better inform how we treat in future.


hackaday.com/2025/11/19/smart-…



Omnibus digitale: La Commissione UE vuole distruggere i principi fondamentali del GDPR
La Commissione europea ha pubblicato la sua proposta per il "Digital Omnibus". Le modifiche previste al GDPR ridurrebbero le tutele per i cittadini europei
mickey19 November 2025
wrecking ball destroying GDPR house


noyb.eu/it/digital-omnibus-eu-…



I Paesi Bassi fanno dietrofront: la crisi di Nexperia è davvero finita?

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Il governo dei Paesi Bassi ha restituito Nexperia al legittimo proprietario, il gruppo cinese Wingtech. La crisi con la Cina che ha gettato nel panico le case automobilistiche si avvia verso la risoluzione, ma



In fondo, Nordio è stato sincero!


@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/11/in-fond…
Un grazie sincero al ministro Nordio che, mai come questa volta, ha parlato in modo sobrio, puntuale, senza ambiguità alcuna. Cosa c ‘é di male, ci ha fatto sapere a riprendere e attuare le cose buone del progetto di Licio Gelli, promotore di quella loggia che aveva tra i suoi




Allarmi cyber, 80 attacchi al giorno contro l’Italia. Serve più difesa digitale

@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo

Non è più il tempo di soli sistemi anti missile o bunker sotto terra. La nuova guerra si combatte a colpi di attacchi ibridi al fine di destabilizzare le infrastrutture sociali di un Paese, per questa ragione va approntata una difesa digitale a 360 gradi non più




L’UE lancia il pacchetto per la semplificazione digitale con risparmi fino a 1 miliardo di euro all’anno

L'articolo proviene da #Euractiv Italia ed è stato ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Intelligenza Artificiale
Mercoledì la Commissione europea ha presentato un piano per ridurre la burocrazia nelle leggi sulla privacy e sul

Intelligenza Artificiale reshared this.



Vi viene in mente qualche SW Open Source per gestire la prenotazione di scrivanie in un'azienda dove si fa smart working e le scrivanie vengono usate a rotazione (nessuno ha la sua e quindi ci si mette dove capita)?



Danimarca: crollano i socialdemocratici, a Copenaghen vince la sinistra


@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
A Copenaghen ed in altre città della Danimarca crollano i socialdemocratici, puniti per la loro svolta a destra, e avanzano diversi partiti di sinistra più o meno radicale
L'articolo Danimarca: crollano i socialdemocratici, a Copenaghen vince la sinistra proviene da






Difesa comune, perché l’innovazione non è più un’opzione

@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo

L’incontro promosso da Sopra Steria Italia e dall’Ambasciata di Francia a Palazzo Farnese ha mostrato come la difesa europea stia vivendo una stagione in cui innovazione, governance dei dati e capacità industriali procedono insieme. La discussione tra istituzioni italiane e francesi, vertici militari e



Medici per i diritti umani denuncia uccisioni prigionieri di Gaza nelle carceri israeliane


@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il rapporto, "Deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody: enforced disappearances, systematic killings and cover-ups", descrive una macchina repressiva che con l’inizio dell'offensiva contro Gaza ha acquisito una violenza



Anna Pompili al Festival Margherita per ricordare l’eredità di Etienne Emile Baulieu

📍Auditorium Centro Culturale Roberto Gritti – Biblioteca di Ranica, Bergamo🗓Sabato 22 novembre 2025 – ore 21:00


Nell’ambito del Festival Margherita – Nessun dogma sotto questo cielo, giunto alla sua quarta edizione e dedicato a Margherita Hack, si terrà la presentazione-dialogo “L’eredità di Etienne Emile Baulieu. L’inventore della pillola abortiva RU486”. A portare il contributo dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni sarà Anna Pompili, ginecologa e consigliera generale dell’Associazione, da sempre impegnata nella promozione dei diritti sessuali e riproduttivi. Insieme a lei interverranno il ginecologo Corrado Melega, tra i primi in Italia ad aver utilizzato la RU486.

Sarà occasione per approfondire l’impatto della RU486 in Italia e sulle battaglie ancora in corso per garantirne un accesso realmente libero e sicuro.

L'articolo Anna Pompili al Festival Margherita per ricordare l’eredità di Etienne Emile Baulieu proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.



Margaret Glaspy – The Golden Heart Protector
freezonemagazine.com/articoli/…
Un EP di duetti che è anche una confessione intima C’è qualcosa di profondamente umano nel modo in cui Margaret Glaspy affronta la voce altrui. In The Golden Heart Protector, la cantautrice californiana trapiantata a New York trasforma l’idea del duetto in un gesto di ascolto, più che di esposizione. Non cerca la fusione spettacolare, […]
L'articolo Margaret Glaspy –


ho smesso di avere rispetto per...


... continua qui: noblogo.org/differx/ho-smesso-…

reshared this



La differenza fondamentale di Luciano Floridi

@Politica interna, europea e internazionale

L’intelligenza artificiale non è soltanto una nuova tecnologia: è la forza che sta ridefinendo il nostro presente. Capace di apprendere, adattarsi e decidere in autonomia, l’IA sta già trasformando in profondità la nostra vita quotidiana, l’economia, le imprese, il lavoro, l’istruzione, la politica, la cultura e



intitolerei questo post "i cani del sinai", come il titolo di un celebre libro di Franco Fortini critico verso #israele
seguendo il link https://t.ly/YiBWu si trova un riferimento alle pratiche di #tortura messe in atto dallo stato sionista contro #prigionieri palestinesi. tra queste pratiche ce n'è una, particolarmente atroce e umiliante, che ha una terribile consonanza con quell'espressione fortiniana.
in reply to differx

Dico solo che se io vedo un indirizzo ofuscato per il quale non ho neppure una vaga indicazione che mi anticipi dove porta, senza uno straccio di descrizione che mi spieghi di cosa si tratta, posso solo pensare allo SPAM; non lo seguitò mai.

Se chi pubblica pensa che non valga la pena spendere due minuti per spiegare perché il riferimento proposto può essere interessante, perché mai dovrei dedicare tempo a guardarlo?

Preferisco spenderlo per dire: rispettate chi vi legge.
@differx @poliversity

in reply to Pare 🚲 🌞

@Pare 🚲 🌞 @Poliversity - Università ricerca e giornalismo
ecco il post corretto: poliverso.org/display/0477a01e…


intitolerei questo post "i cani del sinai", come il titolo di un celebre libro di Franco Fortini critico verso #israele
seguendo il link https://t.ly/YiBWu si trova un riferimento alle pratiche di #tortura messe in atto dallo stato sionista contro #prigionieri palestinesi. tra queste pratiche ce n'è una, particolarmente atroce e umiliante, che ha una terribile consonanza con quell'espressione fortiniana.



c'è chi pensa che il fine giustifica il mezzo. che hitler e stalin fossero diversi, perché stalin aveva uno "scopo di giustizia", mentre hitler il male puro. ma alla fine il mezzo mangia la persona, e quindi non c'è differenza tra stalin e hiter, neppure sul piano ideologico, perché alla fine conta quello che fai e quello che hai realizzato, e cioè una dittatura spietata in entrambi i casi.

reshared this



ilgiorno.it/milano/cronaca/stu…

quello che io chiamo un classico involucro vuoto che parla, mangia ma che non ha un'anima o niente dentro. una specie di macchina assassina. che poi è a quanto pare è lo stato finale dell'umanità. anche chi non andrebbe a uccidere la gente per strada, è infatti spesso non in grado di esprimere un pensiero coerente e logico, e tutto sommato diventa difficile da definire una piena persona. che questo coincida con il 60% di definiti analfabeti funzionali?



Perché l’alleanza tra Nvidia, Microsoft e Anthropic non convince i mercati

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Nvidia e Microsoft investiranno 10 e 5 miliardi di dollari in Anthropic. La startup di intelligenza artificiale fondata dai fratelli Amodei vuole accrescere ancora la sua capacità di calcolo, dopo il recente accordo con



La Francia in rivolta sui pesticidi riscrive il rapporto tra scienza e potere


@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il 7 agosto 2025, il Consiglio costituzionale francese ha dichiarato incostituzionale la cosiddetta legge Duplomb, approvata dal Parlamento un mese prima. La norma prevedeva la reintroduzione dell’acetamiprid, pesticida vietato dal 2018 per la sua comprovata



è sbagliato mettere sempre di mezzo la chiesa... ci fosse solo e soltanto unico cattivo... sarebbe bello. di certo gli italiani non sono estranei a questa cultura maschilista e patriarcale, di bullismo e di machismo.

credo che il primo passo per liberarsi della chiesa sia liberarsi dall'ossessione e smettere di parlarne. dopotutto qualcuno diceva che va bene che si parli di qualcuno, anche male, purché se ne parli... parlarne così è dare e sopratutto riconoscere (molto peggio) potere. è un palloncino che va lasciaro sgonfiare naturalmente, senza pestarlo continuamente. da ignorare.

dopotutto i grandi mangiatori di preti, la cosiddetta sinistra "vera", quella che oggi difende un fascista come putin, ha prodotto una cultura altrettanto tossica...

sarà pur vero che la sinistra, sempre quella "vera", non ha mai mangiato bambini, ma è pur vero che sostiene putin che lo fa, con quelli ucraini. si dice attorno ai 35'000 bambini. che oggi combattono in ucraina a fianco dei russi, con il cervello lavato, e più sfortunati dei russi.



La Francia in rivolta sui pesticidi riscrive il rapporto tra scienza e potere


@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il 7 agosto 2025, il Consiglio costituzionale francese ha dichiarato incostituzionale la cosiddetta legge Duplomb, approvata dal Parlamento un mese prima. La norma prevedeva la reintroduzione dell’acetamiprid, pesticida vietato dal 2018 per la sua comprovata




Oggi è la Giornata nazionale in memoria delle vittime della strada. In occasione della ricorrenza studentesse e studenti parteciperanno, presso il Teatro Don Bosco di Roma, all'iniziativa di formazione in materia di educazione e sicurezza stradale pr…


di Enrico Nardelli È stato appena emesso dal Consiglio di Stato il parere favorevole alle Nuove Indicazioni Nazionali per la scuola dell’...



Kissing is ubiquitous among many animals, especially primates, suggesting deep evolutionary roots of the behavior.#TheAbstract


Scientists Discover the Origin of Kissing — And It’s Not Human


🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Kissing is one of humanity’s most cherished rituals—just think of the sheer variety of smooches, from the “wedding kiss” to the “kiss of death.” Now, scientists have discovered that the origins of this behavior, which is widespread among many primates, likely dates back at least 21 million years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

In other words, our early primate relatives were sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, in the early Miocene period. Moreover, the deep evolutionary roots of kissing suggest that Neanderthals likely smooched each other, and probably our human ancestors as well. The new study is the first attempt to reconstruct the evolutionary timeline of kissing by analyzing a wealth of observations about this behavior in modern primates and other animals.

“It is kind of baffling to me that people haven't looked at this from an evolutionary perspective before,” said Matilda Brindle, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford who led the study, in a call with 404 Media. “There have been some people who have put ideas out there, but no one's done it in a systematic way.”

“Kissing doesn't occur in all human cultures, but in those that it does, it's really important,” she added. “That's why we thought it was really exciting to study.”
A collage of mouth-to-mouth contact across species. Image: Brindle, Matilda et al.
The ritual of the “first kiss” is a common romantic trope, but tracking down the “first kiss” in an evolutionary sense is no easy feat. For starters, the adaptive benefits of kissing have long eluded researchers. Mouth-to-mouth contact raises the odds of oral disease transfer, and it’s not at all clear what advantages puckering up confers to make it worth the trouble.

“Kissing is kind of risky,” Brindle said. “You're getting very close to another animal's face. There could be diseases. To me, that suggests that it is important. There must be some benefits to this behavior.”

Some common explanations for sex-related kissing include mate evaluation—bad breath or other red flags during a smoochfest might affect the decision to move on to copulation. Kissing may also stimulate sexual receptiveness and perhaps boost the odds of fertilization. In platonic contexts, kissing could serve a social purpose, similar to grooming, of solidifying bonds between parents and offspring, or even to smooth over conflicts between group members.

“We know that chimpanzees, when they've had a bit of a bust up, will often go and kiss each other and make up,” Brindle said. “That might be really useful for navigating social relationships. Primates are obviously an incredibly social group of animals, and so this could be just a social lubricant for them.”

Though most of us have probably never considered the question, Brindle and her colleagues first had to ask: what is a kiss? They made a point to exclude forms of oral contact that don’t fall into the traditional idea of kissing as a prosocial behavior. For example, lots of animals share food directly through mouth-to-mouth contact, such as regurgitation from a parent to offspring. In addition, some animals display antagonistic behavior through mouth-to-mouth contact, such as “kiss-fighting” behavior seen in some fish.

The team ultimately defined kissing as “a non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.” Many animals engage in kissing under these terms—from insects, to birds, to mammals—but the researchers were most interested in primates.

To that end, they gathered observations of kissing across primate species and fed the data into models that analyzed the timeline of the behavior through the evolutionary relationships between species. The basic idea is that if humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees all kiss (which they do) then the common ancestor of these species likely kissed as well.

The results revealed that the evolutionary “first kiss” likely occurred among primates at least 21 million years ago. Since Neanderthals and our own species, Homo sapiens, are known to have interbred—plus they also shared oral microbes—the team speculates that Neanderthals and our own human ancestors might have kissed as well.

While the study provides a foundation for the origins of kissing, Brindle said there is not yet enough empirical data to test out different hypotheses about its benefits—or to explain why it is important in some species and cultures, but not others. To that end, she hopes other scientists will be inspired to report more observations about kissing in wild and captive animal populations.

“I was actually surprised that there were so few data out there,” Brindle said. “I thought that this would be way better documented when I started this study. What I would really love is, for people who see this behavior, to note it down, report it, so that we can actually start collecting more contextual information: Is this a romantic or a platonic kiss? Who were the actors in it? Was it an adult male and an adult female, or a mother and offspring? Were they eating at the time? Was there copulation before or after the kiss?”

“These sorts of questions will enable us to pick apart these potential adaptive hypotheses,” she concluded.

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.




HOPE Hacking Conference Banned From University Venue Over Apparent ‘Anti-Police Agenda’#News #HOPE


HOPE Hacking Conference Banned From University Venue Over Apparent ‘Anti-Police Agenda’


The legendary hacker conference Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) says that it has been “banned” from St. John’s University, the venue where it has held the last several HOPE conferences, because someone told the university the conference had an “anti-police agenda.”

HOPE was held at St. John’s University in 2022, 2024, and 2025, and was going to be held there in 2026, as well. The conference has been running at various venues over the last 31 years, and has become well-known as one of the better hacking and security research conferences in the world. Tuesday, the conference told members of its mailing list that it had “received some disturbing news,” and that “we have been told that ‘materials and messaging’ at our most recent conference ‘were not in alignment with the mission, values, and reputation of St. John’s University’ and that we would no longer be able to host our events there.”

The conference said that after this year’s conference, they had received “universal praise” from St. John’s staff, and said they were “caught by surprise” by the announcement.

“What we're told - and what we find rather hard to believe - is that all of this came about because a single person thought we were promoting an anti-police agenda,” the email said. “They had spotted pamphlets on a table which an attendee had apparently brought to HOPE that espoused that view. Instead of bringing this to our attention, they went to the president's office at St. John's after the conference had ended. That office held an investigation which we had no knowledge of and reached its decision earlier this month. The lack of due process on its own is extremely disturbing.”

“The intent of the person behind this appears clear: shut down events like ours and make no attempt to actually communicate or resolve the issue,” the email continued. “If it wasn't this pamphlet, it would have been something else. In this day and age where academic institutions live in fear of offending the same authorities we've been challenging for decades, this isn't entirely surprising. It is, however, greatly disappointing.”

St. John’s University did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hacking and security conferences in general have a long history of being surveilled by or losing their venues. For example, attendees of the DEF CON hacking conference have reported being surveilled and having their rooms searched; last year, some casinos in Las Vegas made it clear that DEF CON attendees were not welcome. And academic institutions have been vigorously attacked by the Trump administration over the last few months over the courses they teach, the research they fund, and the events they hold, though we currently do not know the specifics of why St. John’s made this decision.

It is not clear what pamphlets HOPE is referencing, and the conference did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the conference noted that St. Johns could have made up any pretext for banning them. It is worth mentioning that Joshua Aaron, the creator of the ICEBlock ICE tracking app, presented at HOPE this year. ICEBlock has since been deleted by the Apple App Store and the Google Play store after being pressured by the Trump administration.

“Our content has always been somewhat edgy and we take pride in challenging policies we see as unfair, exposing security weaknesses, standing up for individual privacy rights, and defending freedom of speech,” HOPE wrote in the email. The conference said that it has not yet decided what it will do next year, but that it may look for another venue, or that it might “take a year off and try to build something bigger.”

“There will be many people who will say this is what we get for being too outspoken and for giving a platform to controversial people and ideas. But it's this spirit that defines who we are; it's driven all 16 of our past conferences. There are also those who thought it was foolish to ever expect a religious institution to understand and work with us,” the conference added. “We are not changing who we are and what we stand for any more than we'd expect others to. We have high standards for our speakers, presenters, and staff. We value inclusivity and we have never tolerated hate, abuse, or harassment towards anyone. This should not be news, as HOPE has been around for a while and is well known for its uniqueness, spirit, and positivity.”




“Most drivers are unaware that San Jose’s Police Department is tracking their locations and do not know all that their saved location data can reveal about their private lives and activities."#Flock


ACLU and EFF Sue a City Blanketed With Flock Surveillance Cameras


Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the city of San Jose, California over its deployment of Flock’s license plate-reading surveillance cameras, claiming that the city’s nearly 500 cameras create a pervasive database of residents movements in a surveillance network that is essentially impossible to avoid.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Services, Immigrant Rights & Education Network and Council on American-Islamic Relations, California, and claims that the surveillance is a violation of California’s constitution and its privacy laws. The lawsuit seeks to require police to get a warrant in order to search Flock’s license plate system. The lawsuit is one of the highest profile cases challenging Flock; a similar lawsuit in Norfolk, Virginia seeks to get Flock’s network shut down in that city altogether.

“San Jose’s ALPR [automatic license plate reader] program stands apart in its invasiveness,” ACLU of Northern California and EFF lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. “While many California agencies run ALPR systems, few retain the locations of drivers for an entire year like San Jose. Further, it is difficult for most residents of San Jose to get to work, pick up their kids, or obtain medical care without driving, and the City has blanketed its roads with nearly 500 ALPRs.”

The lawsuit argues that San Jose’s Flock cameras “are an invasive mass surveillance technology” that “collect[s] driver locations en masse.”

“Most drivers are unaware that San Jose’s Police Department is tracking their locations and do not know all that their saved location data can reveal about their private lives and activities,” it adds. The city of San Jose currently has at least 474 ALPR cameras, up from 149 at the end of 2023; according to data from the city, more than 2.6 million vehicles were tracked using Flock in the month of October alone. The lawsuit states that Flock ALPRs are stationed all over the city, including “around highly sensitive locations including clinics, immigration centers, and places of worship. For example, three ALPR cameras are positioned on the roads directly outside an immigration law firm.”

Andrew Crocker, surveillance litigation director for the EFF, told 404 Media in a phone call that “it’s fair to say that anyone driving in San Jose is likely to have their license plates captured many times a day. That pervasiveness is important.”
DeFlock's map of San Jose's ALPRsA zoomed in look at San Jose
A search of DeFlock, a crowdsourced map of ALPR deployments around the country, shows hundreds of cameras in San Jose spaced essentially every few blocks around the city. The map is not exhaustive.

The lawsuit argues that warrantless searches of these cameras are illegal under the California constitution’s search and seizure clause, which Crocker said “has been interpreted to be even stronger than the Fourth Amendment,” as well as other California privacy laws. The case is part of a broader backlash against Flock as it expands around the United States. 404 Media’s reporting has shown that the company collects millions of records from around the country, and that it has made its national database of car locations available to local cops who have in turn worked with ICE. Some of those searches have violated California and Illinois law, and have led to reforms from the company. Crocker said that many of these problems will be solved if police simply need to get a warrant to search the system.

“Our legal theory and the remedy we’re seeking is quite simple. We think they need a warrant to search these databases,” he said. “The warrant requirement is massive and should help in terms of preventing these searches because they will have to be approved by a judge.” The case in Norfolk is ongoing. San Jose Police Department and Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.




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.

Roberto Rossetti reshared this.