[Maya Posch] wrote up an insightful, and maybe a bit controversial, piece on the state of consumer goods design: The Death Of Industrial Design And The Era Of Dull Electronics. Her basic thesis is that the “form follows function” aesthetic has gone too far, and all of the functionally equivalent devices in our life now all look exactly the same. Take the cellphone, for example. They are all slabs of screen, with a tiny bezel if any. They are non-objects, meant to disappear, instead of showcases for cool industrial design.

Of course this is an extreme example, and the comments section went wild on this one. Why? Because we all want the things we build to be beautiful and functional, and that has always been in conflict. So even if you agree with [Maya] on the suppression of designed form in consumer goods, you have to admit that it’s not universal. For instance, none of our houses look alike, even though the purpose is exactly the same. (Ironically, architecture is the source of the form follows function fetish.) Cars are somewhere in between, and maybe the cellphone is the other end of the spectrum from architecture. There is plenty of room for form and function in this world.

But consider the smartphone case – the thing you’ve got around your phone right now. In a world where people have the ultimate homogeneous device in their pocket, one for which slimness is a prime selling point, nearly everyone has added a few millimeters of thickness to theirs, aftermarket, in the form of a decorative case. It’s ironically this horrendous sameness of every cell phone that makes us want to ornament them, even if that means sacrificing on the thickness specs.

Is this the same impetus that gave us the cyberdeck movement? The custom mechanical keyboard? All kinds of sweet hacks on consumer goods? The need to make things your own and personal is pretty much universal, and maybe even a better example of what we want out of nice design: a device that speaks to you directly because it represents your work.

Granted, buying a phone case isn’t necessarily creative in the same way as hacking a phone is, but it at least lets you exercise a bit of your own design impulse. And it frees the designers from having to make a super-personal choice like this for you. How about a “nothing” design that affords easy personalized ornamentation? Has the slab smartphone solved the form-versus-function fight after all?

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hackaday.com/2025/07/26/person…

Adding a camera to a project used to be a chore, but modern camera modules make it simple. But what if you want to read QR codes? [James Bowman] noticed a $7 module that claims to read QR codes so he decided to try one out.

The module seems well thought out. There’s a camera, of course. A Qwiic connector makes hooking up easy. An LED blinks blue when you have power and green when a QR code shows up.

Reading a QR code was simple in Python using the I2CDriver library. There are two possible problems: first, if the QR code contains a large amount of data, you may exceed the I2C limit of 254 bytes. Second, despite claiming a 110-degree field of view, [James’] testing showed the QR code has to be almost dead center of the camera for the system to work.

What really interested us, though, was the fact that the device is simply a camera with an RP2040 and little else. For $7, we might grab one to use as a platform for other imaging projects. Or maybe we will read some QR codes. We’d better pick up a few. Then again, maybe we can just do it by hand.

hackaday.com/2025/07/26/read-q…

Google sta trasformando il suo motore di ricerca in una vetrina per l’intelligenza artificiale, e questo potrebbe significare un disastro per l’intera economia digitale. Secondo un nuovo studio del Pew Research Center, solo l’1% delle ricerche che mostrano un riepilogo basato sull’intelligenza artificiale finisce per cliccare sulla fonte originale. Ciò significa che la stragrande maggioranza degli utenti non visita nemmeno i siti da cui provengono le informazioni.

La funzionalità AI Overview è stata introdotta nel 2023 e ha rapidamente iniziato a dominare i risultati di ricerca, sostituendo il tradizionale modello dei “10 link blu”. Invece di testi in tempo reale di giornalisti e blogger, gli utenti ricevono un riepilogo generato da algoritmi. Il problema è che questi riepiloghi non solo riducono il traffico sui siti, ma spesso portano ad altre fonti meno affidabili.

Questo è ciò che è successo con l’indagine di 404 Media sulle tracce generate dall’intelligenza artificiale per conto di artisti defunti. Nonostante le proteste e le successive azioni di Spotify, le ricerche su Google hanno inizialmente mostrato un riepilogo basato sull’intelligenza artificiale basato su un blog secondario, dig.watch , anziché sul materiale originale. In modalità Panoramica AI, l’articolo di 404 Media non è apparso affatto, ma solo sugli aggregatori TechRadar, Mixmag e RouteNote.

I produttori di contenuti originali stanno perdendo lettori, fatturato e la capacità di operare in modo sostenibile. Anche i contenuti di qualità stanno affogando in informazioni riconfezionate e create senza l’intervento umano. La creazione di falsi aggregatori di intelligenza artificiale è diventata onnipresente: ottengono traffico senza investire nel giornalismo.

A peggiorare le cose, l’IA Panoramica è facile da ingannare. L’artista Eduardo Valdés-Hevia ha condotto un esperimento pubblicando una teoria fittizia di encefalizzazione parassitaria. Nel giro di poche ore, Google ha iniziato a mostrarla come un fatto scientifico. Ha poi coniato il termine “Ingorgo da IA” – e ancora una volta, ha ottenuto lo stesso risultato. In seguito, è riuscito a mescolare malattie reali con altre fittizie, come la Dracunculus graviditatis – e l’IA, ancora una volta, non è riuscita a distinguere tra finzione e realtà.

Altri esempi: Google che dice agli utenti di mangiare la colla a causa di una barzelletta su Reddit, o che riporta la morte del giornalista ancora in vita Dave Barry. L’algoritmo non riconosce umorismo, satira o bugie, ma le presenta con assoluta certezza. Il pericolo non sta solo negli errori, ma anche nella scalabilità. Come osserva Valdés-Hevia, bastano pochi post su forum con un linguaggio “scientifico” perché una bugia venga spacciata per verità. Google diventa così inconsapevolmente uno strumento per diffondere disinformazione.

Il problema è sistemico. Il traffico di ricerca, che è stato a lungo la base della sopravvivenza di media e blog, sta scomparendo. L’ottimizzazione SEO non funziona più e le piccole imprese , come i grandi media, stanno subendo perdite. Invece di una maggiore concorrenza, assistiamo a un flusso centralizzato di errori e disinformazione, rafforzato dalla fiducia nel marchio Google. Alcune aziende offrono alternative: motori di ricerca senza pubblicità e filtri di contenuto basati sull’intelligenza artificiale. Ma finché Google rimarrà lo standard, gli utenti non otterranno ciò che cercano, ma ciò che l’algoritmo decide di mostrare.

In un commento ufficiale, Google ha definito la metodologia di Pew “non rappresentativa” e ha osservato che “reindirizza miliardi di clic ogni giorno”. Ma i dati raccontano una storia diversa: con le recensioni basate sull’intelligenza artificiale, le persone aprono meno siti web.

E questo sta lentamente ma inesorabilmente distruggendo l’ecosistema della conoscenza umana su Internet.

L'articolo Google trasforma il web in una vetrina per l’AI! Un disastro a breve per l’economia digitale proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

404 Media

2025-07-21 18:41:43

Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission

Spotify is publishing new, AI-generated songs on the official pages of artists who died years ago without the permission of their estates or record labels.

According to his official Spotify page, Blaze Foley, a country music singer-songwriter who was murdered in 1989, released a new song called “Together” last week. The song, which features a male country singer, piano, and an electric guitar, vaguely sounds like a new, slow country song. The Spotify page for the song also features an image of an AI-generated image of a man who looks nothing like Foley singing into a microphone.

Craig McDonald, the owner of Lost Art Records, the label that distributes all of Foley’s music and manages his Spotify page, told me that any Foley fan would instantly realize “Together” is not one of his songs.

“I can clearly tell you that this song is not Blaze, not anywhere near Blaze’s style, at all,” he told me on a call. “It’s kind of an AI schlock bot, if you will. It has nothing to do with the Blaze you know, that whole posting has the authenticity of an algorithm.”

McDonald said that his wife noticed that the song appeared on the Spotify page over the weekend but that they had not contacted Spotify yet. They did contact Lost Art’s distribution partner, Secretly Distribution, and have not heard back. Secretly Distribution did not immediately respond to my request for comment.

"We've flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it has been removed for violating our Deceptive Content policy," a Spotify spokesperson told me in an email after this article was first published.

SoundOn is a music distributor which is owned by TikTok that mostly exists to allow people to upload music directly to TikTok and earn royalties. SoundOn also allows artists to distribute their music to other platforms. TikTok did not immediately respond to my request for comment but I'll update this story if I hear back.

McDonald, who decided to originally upload Foley’s music to Spotify in order to share it with more people, told me he never thought that an AI-generated track could appear on Foley’s page without his permission.

“It's harmful to Blaze’s standing that this happened,” he said. “It's kind of surprising that Spotify doesn't have a security fix for this type of action, and I think the responsibility is all on Spotify. They could fix this problem. One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent practice in its tracks, if they had the will to do so. And I think they should take that responsibility and do something quickly.”

🎵
Do you know anything else about AI-generated music on Spotify or YouTube? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at @emanuel.404‬. Otherwise, send me an email at emanuel@404media.co.

McDonald’s suggested fix is not allowing any track to appear on an artist’s official Spotify page without allowing the page owner to sign off on it first.

“Any real Blaze fan would know, I think, pretty instantly, that this is not Blaze or a Blaze recording,” he said. “Then the harm is that the people who don't know Blaze go to the site thinking, maybe this is part of Blaze, when clearly it's not. So again, I think Spotify could easily change some practices. I'm not an engineer, but I think it's pretty easy to stop this from happening in the future.”

There’s a copyright mark at the bottom of the Spotify page for the AI-generated “Together” from a company called Syntax Error. I couldn’t find any information about a music distribution company by that name, but searching Spotify, I found that the same copyright mark appears on a page for another AI-generated song by Grammy winning country singer-songwriter Guy Clark, “Happened To You,” who died in 2016. That song was uploaded to Spotify last week as well, and also features an AI-generated image of a singer that looks nothing like Clark.

A third song that includes the Syntax Error copyright mark, “with you” by Dan Berk, was uploaded at the same time and also features an AI-generated image of a singer who looks nothing like him. Berk did not immediately respond to a request for comment but according to a spokesperson for Reality Defender, a deepfake detection company, all the tracks “have indicators that show a higher-than-normal probability of AI generation.”

AI-generated music on Spotify is not a secret at this point. Last week, a band with more than a million streams on Spotify, Velvet Sundown, made headlines when it finally admitted it was AI-generated. Last year, Sam wrote about AI-generated Christmas music flooding Spotify. But what’s happening with Clark and Foley is much worse. This is not someone trying to monetize AI slop under a new name, but assigning that slop to the name of dead artists without asking for permission.

Update: This article was updated with comment from Spotify.

Nothing Is Sacred: AI Generated Slop Has Come for Christmas Music

AI-generated Christmas classics that dwell in the uncanny valley are giving listeners the creeps.

^{Samantha Cole (404 Media)}

Il panorama delle minacce non dorme mai, ma stavolta si è svegliato con il botto. Il 18 luglio 2025, l’azienda di sicurezza Eye Security ha lanciato un allarme che ha subito trovato eco nel mondo cyber: è in corso una campagna massiva di exploit contro i server SharePoint on-premises, usando una nuova catena di vulnerabilità battezzata ToolShell, fondata su due CVE freschi freschi di catalogo: CVE-2025-53770 e CVE-2025-53771

L’attacco è tutt’altro che teorico: ha già colpito università, aziende energetiche, migliaia di PMI e, secondo il Washington Post, almeno due agenzie federali USA. Si tratta di una catena RCE (Remote Code Execution) non autenticata, che sfrutta versioni esposte pubblicamente di SharePoint e, cosa ancor più grave, è in grado di bypassare le patch precedenti legate a exploit mostrati al Pwn2Own Berlin 2025.

Non è un semplice bypass: è una seconda ondata

I due nuovi CVE, in realtà, sono evoluzioni mutanti di una precedente catena di exploit: CVE-2025-49704 e CVE-2025-49706. In quella circostanza, l’exploit partiva da un bypass dell’autenticazione per arrivare a un’esecuzione remota di codice. Microsoft intervenne con una patch… che però si è rivelata un cerotto su una ferita ancora infetta.

CVE-2025-53770 reintroduce la falla di deserializzazione che consente la RCE, mentre CVE-2025-53771 ripristina l’autenticazione bypassata. In pratica, ToolShell è un replay migliorato del vecchio attacco, con una nuova verniciata e una maggiore efficacia.

A peggiorare il quadro: le installazioni vulnerabili non sono poche. Shodan ne conta oltre 16.000 esposte pubblicamente, principalmente negli Stati Uniti, seguite da Iran, Malesia, Olanda e Irlanda. E molti server, come spesso accade, continuano a esporre dettagli di versione negli header HTTP, offrendo ai threat actor esattamente ciò di cui hanno bisogno per colpire chirurgicamente.

Cosa ottiene un attaccante?

Una volta compromesso, ToolShell permette di estrarre le chiavi crittografiche di SharePoint (ValidationKey e DecryptionKey), consentendo l’accesso persistente al sistema anche dopo l’applicazione delle patch. Come se non bastasse, la natura centralizzata di SharePoint, spesso integrato con Outlook, Teams, OneDrive e Active Directory — apre la porta a un’esfiltrazione dati su larga scala e alla compromissione di intere infrastrutture collaborative aziendali.

È un attacco silenzioso e profondo, come il morso di un serpente velenoso: dopo l’iniziale RCE, vengono installate web shell persistenti, raccolte credenziali, e se possibile, effettuata lateralizzazione all’interno della rete.

Cosa dice l’analisi tecnica?

Secondo il sandbox report associato al sample [SHA256: 1116231836ce7c8c64dd86027b458c3bf0ef176022beadfa01ba29591990aee6], l’exploit esegue un file ASP (“spinstall0.asp”) che è responsabile del drop della webshell. Il comportamento osservato include l’enumerazione dei dispositivi fisici di storage e l’invocazione di comandi via cmd.exe, confermando le capacità di persistence e reconnaissance.

Il report MITRE ATT&CK allega la catena a ben 14 tattiche tra cui Initial Access, Execution, Privilege Escalation, Credential Access e Command and Control, una vera sinfonia dell’intrusione avanzata.

Il vantaggio (ormai evidente) del cloud

Mentre SharePoint on-prem diventa bersaglio preferito dei threat actor, la versione cloud SharePoint Online resta immune. Il perché è chiaro: patching centralizzato, threat hunting automatico, controllo continuo e minore esposizione. La differenza tra on-prem e SaaS in termini di sicurezza non è mai stata così visibile.

Come a dire: chi ha scelto il cloud ha preso l’ombrello prima della tempesta.

Microsoft e Recorded Future: corsa alla contromisura

Microsoft ha rilasciato aggiornamenti d’emergenza nel patch Tuesday di luglio e ha pubblicato specifiche raccomandazioni: applicare le patch (se disponibili), abilitare l’AMSI, usare Defender, e, dettaglio importantissimo, ruotare le chiavi ASP.NET per spezzare la persistenza post-exploit. Tuttavia, SharePoint Server 2016 resta ancora senza una patch ufficiale al momento in cui scriviamo. Un incubo per chi non può migrare.

Parallelamente, Recorded Future ha creato un Nuclei template per rilevare CVE-2025-53770, utile per attività di threat hunting automatizzate. Il template sfrutta un endpoint /vti_pvt/service.cnf e analizza la build SharePoint esposta per rilevare versioni vulnerabili.

Un ulteriore elemento critico è che esiste già un proof-of-concept pubblicato su GitHub, cosa che ha sicuramente accelerato l’adozione dello sfruttamento da parte degli attori malevoli.

Considerazioni finali

La vicenda ToolShell mette a nudo (di nuovo) il ritardo strutturale nella gestione dei sistemi on-premises, specie in aziende e PA con infrastrutture legacy, dove il patching non è né rapido né costante. Ma va anche oltre: ci sbatte in faccia la cruda realtà di una gestione superficiale della superficie di esposizione e della visibilità interna.

Chi gestisce infrastrutture SharePoint esposte dovrebbe agire immediatamente: patch dove disponibili, isolamento dei sistemi vulnerabili, controllo dei log, ricerca di webshell, e soprattutto, un riesame strategico delle scelte infrastrutturali. È il momento di smettere di trattare la sicurezza come una check-list e cominciare a considerarla un processo vivo, continuo, e, se serve, doloroso.

Chi resta fermo in questo momento… sta già arretrando.

L'articolo Gli Exploit SharePoint sono in corso: aziende e enti nel mirino proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Ethernet is how we often network computers together, particularly when they’re too important to leave on a fussy WiFi connection. Have you ever thought about listening to Ethernet signals, though? Well, you totally could, with the NSA selector from [wenzellabs].

The NSA selector is a Eurorack module, designed for use as part of a larger modular synthesizer. There are lots of fun jokes and references on the PCB, but the front panel really shows you what this module is all about. It’s got a pair of RJ45 jacks, ready to receive your Ethernet cables through which data is flowing. They’re paired with a single audio output jack. “Any bit on the network will be sent to the audio output,” [wenzellabs] explains.

The device operates in a relatively simple fashion. Network traffic from one jack is forwarded to the other, unmodified. However, it’s also spat out to a simple digital-to-analog converter and turned into audio. This thing doesn’t play digital audio formats or anything like that—it just turns raw Ethernet signalling into audible noise.

Raw signal noises might not sound very appealing, but let’s be real here. If you liked nice sounds, you wouldn’t be into Eurorack. Skip to 25:46 in the video below if you just want to hear the final product.

youtube.com/embed/vfgySTaM1TI?…

Thanks to [mazzoo] for the tip!

hackaday.com/2025/07/26/listen…

Il 16 luglio 2025, la terza edizione della China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo si è aperta come da programma a Pechino, con la partecipazione di 651 aziende e istituzioni provenienti da 75 paesi e regioni. Jen-Hsun Huang, fondatore e CEO di NVIDIA, presente alla conferenza per la prima volta, ha pronunciato un discorso di apertura indossando un tradizionale abito Tang, rompendo con la sua consueta giacca di pelle.

Durante il suo intervento, Huang ha spiegato di aver iniziato il discorso in cinese per rispetto verso il pubblico, ma di aver preferito poi proseguire in inglese per riuscire a comunicare meglio concetti complessi. Alla fine, è comunque tornato al cinese per sottolineare alcuni passaggi chiave, dimostrando la sua volontà di avvicinarsi al contesto locale.

Huang ha elogiato apertamente Huawei, definendola “non solo molto innovativa, ma anche un’azienda di dimensioni e forza straordinarie”. Secondo lui, Huawei è più grande di NVIDIA per personale, capacità tecniche e ampiezza di attività. Ha anche sottolineato i risultati impressionanti dell’azienda nella guida autonoma, nell’intelligenza artificiale e nella progettazione di chip, sistemi e software.

Huang ha aggiunto che il mercato cinese dell’AI continuerà a crescere con o senza NVIDIA: se la sua azienda non fosse presente, Huawei troverebbe sicuramente una soluzione. I risultati ottenuti da Huawei, ha ribadito, sono “assolutamente degni di rispetto e lode” e rappresentano la prova di un’azienda straordinaria, capace di superare difficoltà e ottenere successi concreti.

Alla domanda se Huawei sia considerata più come concorrente o come partner, Huang ha risposto che, pur essendo competitor diretti, nutre nei confronti dell’azienda cinese ammirazione e rispetto. Secondo lui, il mondo è abbastanza grande da permettere una competizione duratura e sana, senza che i rivali diventino necessariamente nemici.

In conclusione, il discorso di Jen-Hsun Huang alla Chain Expo ha trasmesso un messaggio di apertura e riconoscimento verso i progressi tecnologici cinesi, ribadendo l’importanza della concorrenza come motore di innovazione, ma sempre in un clima di rispetto reciproco.

L'articolo Jen-Hsun Huang elogia Huawei alla China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Modern musicians may take for granted that a wide array of musical instruments can either be easily connected to a computer or modeled entirely in one, allowing for all kinds of nuanced ways of creating unique sounds and vivid pieces of music without much hardware expense. Not so in the 1930s. Musicians of the time often had to go to great lengths to generate new types of sounds, and one of the most famous of these was the Leslie speaker, known for its unique tremolo and vibrato. Original Leslies could cost thousands now, though, so [Levi Graves] built a modern recreation.

The Leslie speaker itself got its characteristic sound by using two speakers. The top treble speaker was connected to a pair of horns (only one of which produced sound, the other was used for a counterweight) on a rotating platform. The second speaker in the bottom part of the cabinet faced a rotating drum. Both the horns and drum were rotated at a speed chosen by the musician and leading to its unique sound. [Levi] is actually using an original Leslie drum for his recreation but the sound is coming out of a 100-watt “mystery” speaker, with everything packaged neatly into a speaker enclosure. He’s using a single-speed Leslie motor but with a custom-built foot switch can employ more fine-tuned control over the speed that the drum rotates.

Even though modern technology allows us to recreate sounds like this, often the physical manipulation of soundwaves like this created a unique feeling of sound that can’t be replicated in any other way. That’s part of what’s driven the popularity of these speakers throughout the decades, as well as the Hammond organs they’re often paired with. The tone generators on these organs themselves are yet another example of physical hardware providing a unique, classic sound not easily replicated.

youtube.com/embed/eUIq9w_LypY?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/25/a-mode…

Last year, [Deep Tronix] wished to teach colors to his nephew. Thus, he built a toy to help educate a child about colors by pairing them with sounds, and Color Player was born.

The build is based around the TCS34725, an off-the-shelf color sensor. It’s paired with an ESP32, which senses colors and then plays sounds in turn. [Deep Tronix] made this part harder by insisting on creating their own WAV playback system, using the microcontroller, an SD card, and its on-board digital-to-analog hardware.
The map of colors and sounds.
The toy operates in three primary modes. Color-to-tone, color-to-sound, color-to-voice. Basically, a color is scanned, and then the Color Player creates a tone, plays back a pre-recorded audio sample, or spells out the name of the color that was just scanned.

[Deep Tronix] also included jolly mode, which just color cycles a few RGB LEDs. However, there’s a game inside jolly mode as well, created for an older nephew to play with. Enter the right button combination, and you unlock it. Then, the device suggests a color and you have to run around, find it, and scan it to score.

We love a good color game; somehow this build seems even more compelling than Milton Bradley’s classic Simon toy.

youtube.com/embed/ytrSYcFd_d0?…

youtube.com/embed/LAM36I9Wtz4?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/25/buildi…

Zines (self-produced, small-circulation publications) are extremely DIY, and therefore punk- and hacker-adjacent by nature. While they can be made with nothing more than a home printer or photocopier, some might benefit from professional production while losing none of their core appeal. However, the professional print world has a few gotchas, and in true hacker spirit [Mabel Wynne] shares things she learned the hard way when printing her solo art zine.
As with assembling hardware kits, assembling a zine can take up a lot of physical table space.
[Mabel] says the most useful detail to nail down before even speaking to printers is the zine’s binding, because binding type can impact layout and design of an entire document. Her advice? Nail it down early, whether it’s a simple saddlestitch (staples through a v-shaped fold of sheets), spiral binding (which allows a document to lay flat), or something else.

Aside from paper and print method (which may be more or less important depending on the zine’s content) the other thing that’s important to consider is the finishing. Finishing consists of things like cutting, folding, and binding of the raw printed sheets. A printer will help arrange these, but it’s possible to do some or even all of these steps for oneself, which is not only more hands-on but reduces costs.

Do test runs, and prototype the end result in order to force unknown problems to the surface before they become design issues. Really, the fundamentals have a lot in common with designing and building kits or hardware. Check out [Mabel]’s article for the full details; she even talks a little about managing money and getting a zine onto shelves.

Zine making is the DIYer’s way to give ideas physical form and put them into peoples’ hands more or less directly, and there’s something wonderfully and inherently subversive about that concept. 2600 has its roots in print, but oddball disk magazines prove one doesn’t need paper to make a zine.

hackaday.com/2025/07/25/zine-p…

Indian Time, a newspaper that served the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, built and informed a loyal audience of Indigenous readers on the U.S.-Canada border for over 40 years.

Then, it vanished.

In late December 2024, the paper’s last edition was printed and website updates screeched to a halt. Indian Time’s hand was forced by the same pressures affecting newspapers nationwide — declining ad revenue and struggling finances. Despite breaking inimitable stories about the Mohawk Nation, the paper could not afford to keep the ink flowing.

“We thought the economic climate of Akwesasne could hold us,” said Marjorie Skidders, the longtime and last editor of Indian Time, “but it didn’t.”

Now, a population of over 10,000 people across two different countries is living under a tribal news blackout. With no paper of record, the community must rely on the local government, social media, and non-native news sources to piece together a broken portrait of Akwesasne life.

“There is no coverage of anything to hold anyone accountable, politically,” Skidders said. “There’s no coverage of meetings, there’s no coverage of gatherings.”

To better understand the demise of one of America’s oldest Indigenous newspapers and the impact on its community, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a webinar July 22 with Skidders, former Indian Time reporter and FPF contributor Isaac White, and U.S. Press Freedom Tracker Senior Reporter Stephanie Sugars.

youtube.com/embed/LCogo7I-zl8?…

Since the paper’s shuttering, no publication has stepped up to fill the void, White said. His frustration is compounded by the fact that he and Skidders are still the first points of contact for community members and sources they developed while at Indian Time, whom he has to remind “that the paper is closed” when they reach out to share a tip. It takes a “sensational” story, he said, to “draw outside reporters here.”

“A lot of us will say, ‘We are the invisible people,’” White said. “That’s one of the things that hurt so bad with Indian Time being gone. Who really cares about us, except for us? And I think that that’s a fair question to ask.”

He raised a couple of timely examples: Conservative commentator Ann Coulter recently posted on social media that, “We didn’t kill enough Indians,” a remark condemned by the Native American community but that drew little attention from national news outlets.

White also noted that, with all the coverage of the Trump administration’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center, there has been little mention of the fact the facility was built on land belonging to the Miccosukee Tribe.

These are stories White and Skidders would have loved to share their perspectives on, but no longer have a platform to do so, they said.

“I think that kind of encapsulates everything,” White said. “Those two instances are things that really highlight why coverage of Indian culture is not sufficient, not even close to sufficient — and why we need our independent news outlets, like Indian Time or any other ones.”

Indian Time’s uniqueness as an independent tribal publication made the loss sting all the more. Many Indigenous news outlets “fell under the wing of the tribal government,” Skidders said. That afforded Indian Time’s staff freedoms other tribal journalists often didn’t have, like reporting without fear or favor.

“We strived to work the best that we could and be independent. And we never satisfied anyone,” she added. “We were either too one way or too the other way, but we just worked to try and do the best that we could.”

Like anywhere else in the world, press freedom violations can and do occur on Indigenous lands. White himself was arrested while covering a Mohawk land claim dispute in May 2024, and a large number of arrests and assaults of journalists took place during Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017.

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But documenting these incidents requires additional sensitivity, Sugars said, as few tribal constitutions enumerate press freedom protections.

“There are a large number of things that we document in terms of denial of access, demands for prior review, tribal councils having control over funding, distribution, hiring, firing, decisions, things of that nature,” she said of the Tracker. “It is challenging for us to cover those things because we don’t want to be imposing our ideas about what is wrong or right.”

White also discussed cultural differences. The notion of objectivity becomes complicated in situations where Indigenous journalists are reporting on their own neighbors, to whom they are bonded outside the domain of a journalist-source relationship.

In the moments before White was arrested covering the land claim demonstration, for example, he said he helped community elders unload food and water from a cooler and prop up a canopy to shield them from the rain. “It was just a reflex,” he said, but after he was arrested, he was afraid outside journalists would see his common courtesy as unprofessional.

“I come from a longhouse. Margie comes from a longhouse. It’s something that you just do. If wood needs to be split, you just do it. If something needs to be cooked in the cookhouse, you help,” he said. “That’s just the way that we’re taught to do things.”

When White told Skidders what happened, she empathized with his moral conflict.

“It didn’t bother me,” she said. “Wherever he goes, whatever he’s doing, he’s a Mohawk first. And he’s going to behave honorably like that.”

The Akwesasne elders, like those White helped, treasured Indian Time, Skidders said. They were, after all, the “biggest population” of the paper’s readers, and they relished staying informed about the community.

“Now it’s gone,” she added about the paper. “I don’t know how we could do it again.”

White himself is trying to keep the flame alive. He runs a podcast available on YouTube called “Sage Against the Machine” (@SageAgainstTheMachinePod), which offers a more “unfiltered look” at Mohawk news. But its “raw” and conversational nature isn’t a platform to plumb deep topics like a newspaper, and it is no replacement for the dedicated work of Indian Time.

“By the book, as a journalist, you cannot do it part time,” he said. “It’s just not feasible. It’s a loss.”

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Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s the 122nd day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and the 41st day that Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest. Read on for more.

Paramount makes its capitulation official

President Donald Trump announced this week that he’d received CBS News parent Paramount Global’s $16 million payment to settle his frivolous lawsuit. Just days later, Trump’s FCC issued its long-delayed approval of Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media, confirming what we all knew — the payment has nothing to do with legal fees or liability risks and everything to do with greasing the wheels of a corrupt administration.

As Freedom of the Press Advocacy Director Seth Stern told Columbia Journalism Review, Paramount threw CBS journalists and the First Amendment under the bus, while making itself a punchline. “People can’t trust a news outlet that is bribing the same officials it’s supposed to hold accountable,” Stern said. But we’re not done fighting back against the enablers of this shakedown of a settlement — more on that soon. Read more in CJR.

Journalists starve in Gaza

Reuters, the Associated Press, BBC News and Agence France-Presse jointly expressed their alarm about the terrible plight of journalists in Gaza, and particularly the risk of starvation. As one journalist put it, “I used to chase the truth. Now I chase calories.”

“Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in war zones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them. We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there,” their statement said.

We told CJR that “no matter what else they do while in power, governments and presidents that supported these horrors, and tolerated the killing of journalists who reported on them, will be remembered first and foremost for their complicity.” We also published a profile of the journalist who wrote our article, in collaboration with the Intercept, about the dire situation facing journalists in Gaza, Neha Madhira. Read it here.

Radio silence on the reservation

Indian Time, a newspaper that served the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, built and informed a loyal audience of Indigenous readers for over 40 years.

But in late December 2024, the paper printed its last edition. Indian Time’s hand was forced by the same pressures affecting newspapers nationwide — namely, declining ad revenue. The paper could not afford to keep the ink flowing.

To better understand the demise of the newspaper and the impact on its community, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a webinar with Indian Time editor Marjorie Skidders, former Indian Time reporter and FPF columnist Isaac White, and U.S. Press Freedom Tracker Senior Reporter Stephanie Sugars. Read more and watch the discussion here.

ICE must stop harassing journalists

According to a recent report by AMNY, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents making arrests in New York City immigration courts are harassing journalists by photographing journalists’ press credentials and falsely telling them that common areas of the courthouse are “restricted areas” from which they can’t report.

These intimidation tactics can chill constitutionally protected reporting. That’s why FPF and other press freedom groups wrote to the New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and to the Federal Protective Service asking that they reaffirm that journalists have the right to report the news in New York courts without intimidation and that they develop policies to end ICE’s harassment of journalists.

Read the full letters here and here, and a follow-up report from AMNY here

Comey cellphone tracking points to privacy erosion

You may remember that the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security launched an investigation into former FBI Director James Comey for posting a picture on Instagram during his beach vacation of seashells spelling out “8647.”

Since then, the government has apparently been exercising emergency authority to warrantlessly track his real-time cellphone location, despite the absence of anything resembling an emergency. This abuse of power is also a threat to journalists and sources. Read more here.

Kentucky prosecutors must drop charges

Two Cincinnati journalists were arrested in Kentucky for documenting a protest, despite zero evidence that they did anything wrong.

The absurd felony rioting charges against them were dropped this week after we, along with the Society of Professional Journalists and National Press Photographers Association, wrote a letter to prosecutors expressing our concerns. But the misdemeanor charges against them are still pending, and they shouldn’t be. Read the letter here.

What we’re reading

Hypocrisy on display (Press Club of Southwest Florida). If the Trump administration hates interview editing enough to shake down CBS for $16 million over its Kamala Harris interview, why is it prosecuting journalist Tim Burke for exposing far more significant edits by Tucker Carlson of his interview with Ye?

Trump White House removes WSJ from Scotland trip press pool over Epstein report (CNN). “Hopefully the Journal reporters who were planning to join Trump for his golf trip are relieved that they can spend their newfound free time investigating more important stories, from Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein to his unprecedented efforts to bully the press,” Stern told CNN.

This bill would fine social media companies $5 million every day for not fighting ‘terrorism’ (Reason). “The idea that the federal government even talked to social media platforms about their moderation was a major scandal … A bipartisan bill, however, would make it mandatory for social media companies to work with the federal government.”

Family, supporters urge release of Spanish-language journalist in ICE custody (The Associated Press). “Growing up, I didn’t always understand why my dad was so obsessed with his work, why he’d jump up and leave dinner to chase down a story. But now I do,” said Mario Guevara’s son, Oscar, who now works as a photojournalist.

FBI spied on journalists and activists who organized ‘Russiagate And WikiLeaks’ panel (The Dissenter). The surveillance was revealed by documents the FBI turned over to Defending Rights & Dissent as part of ongoing litigation under the Freedom of Information Act.

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Siamo a un bivio. Non uno qualunque, ma quello esistenziale. L’Intelligenza Artificiale non è più fantascienza, è la nebbia che si addensa sul nostro cammino, ridefinendo ogni certezza. Ci costringe a una domanda scomoda: “siamo pronti a rimettere in discussione chi siamo?” Questa non è una minaccia, è un’occasione. È l’opportunità di guardarci dentro, di riscoprire la nostra essenza più selvaggia e irriducibile. Questo articolo è un viaggio intrapreso da chi, come me, ha unito l’indagine filosofica all’azione del coaching. Un dialogo potente tra due forze antiche: la filosofia che scava nell’abisso umano (da Platone a Sartre) e il coaching che trasforma l’astrazione in energia pura. Perché questa unione?

Perché l’IA non è un problema teorico. È il dilemma esistenziale che brucia le nostre certezze “qui e ora”.

Riscoprire l’umano tra Filosofia e Coaching

Dai frammenti di Eraclito alle decostruzioni di Derrida, la filosofia è sempre stata un’immersione nell’essere. Oggi, quel tuffo ci porta in una nuova, vertiginosa voragine: l’intelligenza artificiale che non è solo tecnologia, è un crocevia metafisico che sta riscrivendo la mappa dell’umano. Coscienza, identità, libertà: le coordinate vacillano. Come Socrate usava lo specchio maieutico, l’IA ci obbliga a scavare sotto la superficie.

La Filosofia si domanda senza sconti:

“Cosa resta di noi quando le macchine pensano, imparano, creano?”

Qual è il limite invalicabile della nostra umanità?”

Il Coaching risponde con la sfida all’azione:

“Come possiamo definire la nostra unicità in questo caos digitale?”

“Quali sono i valori irrinunciabili che nessuna IA potrà mai imitare?”

Non si tratta di competere con la macchina. Si tratta di riscoprire la nostra “quidditas” irripetibile, ciò che nessun algoritmo potrà mai ridurre a codice.

Dalla doxa ai dati

Platone ci avvisava: attenzione alla doxa (opinione) contro l’episteme (sapere fondato). Oggi l’IA moltiplica la doxa all’infinito, sommergendoci di dati che simulano conoscenza senza radici. Siamo nell’era della disinformazione perfetta!

La Filosofia ci scuote con la domanda:

“La quantità di informazioni produce saggezza o solo rumore?”

Il Coaching ci mette alla prova:

“Come possiamo trasformare la valanga di informazioni in vera consapevolezza?”

“Quali strumenti interiori dobbiamo affinare per discernere, filtrare, e trovare la profondità nel dubbio, non nel flusso incessante?”

Imperfezione umana

Heidegger metteva in guardia dalla tecnica (Gestell), che rischia di ridurre l’uomo a “fondo disponibile”, a pura risorsa ottimizzabile.

La Filosofia ci lancia una provocazione:

“Siamo disposti a rinunciare alla nostra autenticità, in nome di una sterila efficienza digitale?”

Il Coaching ci sprona:

“Come possiamo celebrare e proteggere quelle qualità intrinsecamente umane che nessuna macchina replicherà mai?”

Costruire il domani

Sartre sentenziava: “Siamo condannati a essere liberi”.

Ogni algoritmo che plasmiamo, ogni sistema di IA che rilasciamo, porta la nostra impronta etica. Non possiamo scappare dalla scelta.

La Filosofia ci interroga con l’urgenza di un’epoca:

“Qual è il peso della nostra responsabilità etica nel disegnare questi nuovi mondi digitali?”

“ Stiamo costruendo un ponte verso un futuro aperto o una gabbia dorata, perfetta e senza uscita?”

Il Coaching ci incalza con una domanda vitale, orientata al futuro:

“Quali scelte attive stai compiendo oggi per modellare il domani?”

“ Sei un costruttore consapevole o un semplice spettatore?”

Conclusione

Siamo qui, al cospetto dell’intelligenza artificiale, non come servi ma come creatori, e come esseri chiamati a ridefinire sé stessi. La nostra essenza non è nella performance, ma nel modo in cui abitiamo il mondo, unici e irripetibili. La nostra risposta non è nella fuga, ma in una nuova, profonda formazione dell’umano.

In concreto, cosa possiamo fare per accogliere questa sfida?

• La Filosofia ci insegna che possiamo accettare il dubbio critico. In particolare, non accettare passivamente le informazioni generate dall’IA. Chiedersi sempre la fonte, la logica e le implicazioni etiche. Sviluppare un pensiero indipendente e non delegare mai la nostra capacità di discernimento agli algoritmi.
• Il Coaching ci fa allenare la consapevolezza. E si traduce in trasformare la mole di dati in vera conoscenza attraverso la riflessione. Scegliere attentamente a cosa esporre la nostra mente. Dedicare tempo alla lettura profonda, alla conversazione autentica e all’introspezione.

L’intelligenza artificiale ci sta chiedendo: “Siamo disposti a riscoprire, a difendere, a rivendicare ciò che di noi non potrà mai essere replicato, ossia quel frammento di infinito che ci rende, in ogni epoca, irriducibilmente unici?”

È tempo di risvegliare la nostra “imprevedibilità sacra” come direbbe Rudolf Otto, teologo e filosofo tedesco e, con coraggio e consapevolezza, scrivere il prossimo capitolo della nostra autentica umanità.

Siamo noi, con la nostra capacità di porci domande profonde e di agire per il nostro bene e quello collettivo, la vera frontiera dell’intelligenza artificiale! Essa non è una minaccia da cui fuggire, ma un deserto in cui seminare la nostra più profonda e radicale umanità.

Sarà la nostra capacità di fiorire nel caos, di abbracciare l’incompiuto e di innamorarci della nostra stessa imprevedibilità, a determinare se questa sfida ci spingerà verso l’abisso o ci farà ascendere a una nuova, gloriosa forma di esistenza.

La scommessa è aperta: “Saremo all’altezza di noi stessi?”

L'articolo Oltre il codice: quando l’IA ci ricorda chi siamo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.