Cloudflare, a well-known player in the world of web security and delivery, is currently facing a significant service outage. This disruption has been affecting users relying on the company’s dashboard for website management and automation.
A closer look at the sophisticated threat and its tactics. The mobile device landscape is under a constant barrage of new threats, with cybercriminals becoming increasingly adept at exploiting vulnerabilities in our everyday technology.
L’immaginario collettivo sugli hacker nordcoreani è ancora legato a stanze buie e monitor lampeggianti. La realtà, come spesso accade nella cybersecurity,
We’re aware of the major #Cloudflare #outage recurrently affecting a large portion of the internet. Many services worldwide are experiencing disruptions, but we’re proud to report that Didroom remains fully operational and unaffected.
Thanks to our resilient architecture and routing independence, all Didroom services continue to perform normally. Users can rely on full access without interruption.
This page provides real-time updates on the operational status of our service, ensuring you are always informed about any issues or incidents that may affe
Mercredi 10 décembre - Surveillance des personnes étrangères : aux frontières du fascisme
La semaine prochaine, nous parlerons de la surveillance des frontières et du rôle que jouent les technologies numériques dans les politiques de contrôle et de répression des populations étrangères.
Nous recevrons Romain Lanneau de @statewatch, une organisation britannique qui documente et analyse ces thématiques ainsi que Paloma et Pauline de Human Rights Observers, une association qui dénonce les violences étatiques perpétrées à l'encontre des personnes déplacées à la frontière franco-britannique.
Rendez-vous le 10/12 à 19h sur Twitch, Peertube et Youtube !
C'EST PAS DE
L'IA
Quand on entend parler d'intelligence artificielle, c'est l'histoire d'un mythe moderne qui nous est racontée. Celui d'une IA miraculeuse qui doit sauver le monde, ou d'une IA douée de volonté qui voudrait le détruire.
The New York Times and its Pentagon reporter, Julian Barnes, are taking the Trump administration to court over the Department of Defense’s unconstitutional requirement that journalists pledge not to report unauthorized information as a condition of gaining access to the Pentagon.
The following statement can be attributed to Trevor Timm, executive director for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF).
“In an era where news networks seem to be caving to Trump’s censorious tactics left and right, it’s refreshing to see The New York Times leading by example and sticking up for the First Amendment in court.
“An attack on any journalist’s rights is an attack on all. And the only way to put an end to the Trump administration’s multipronged assault on press freedom is for every news outlet to fight back at every opportunity. We urge other news outlets to follow the Times’ lead.
“These days, the government has countless platforms of its own to tell the public what it wants it to know. A free and independent press isn’t needed for that. The Constitution guarantees one anyway precisely because the public needs the information the government does not want it to know. The Pentagon’s absurd access pledge has been an affront to the First Amendment since the first day they proposed it. And we look forward to a federal judge throwing it out with the trash, where it belongs.”
Please contact us if you would like further comment.
The federal appellate court for the D.C. Circuit recently affirmed a ruling requiring investigative journalist Catherine Herridge to disclose the sources for her reporting on scientist Yangping Chen’s alleged ties to the Chinese military while an online college Chen founded received federal funds.
The court got it wrong by holding Herridge in contempt for not burning her sources, and Herridge is rightly seeking a rehearing. Worse yet, the misguided ruling was informed by documents about the FBI’s investigation of Chen that were filed under seal, even though the investigation is over and the documents aren’t classified. The appellate court even held a portion of its hearing to decide whether to order Herridge to testify in closed court.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), represented by Schaerr | Jaffe LLP, filed a motion to intervene and unseal the documents and hearing transcript yesterday.
The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy for FPF.
“Journalist-source confidentiality is about safeguarding the public’s right to be informed. Its fate should not be decided in secret hearings about secret documents. Americans deserve to know whether the damages Chen claims to have suffered were because of alleged leaks to Herridge or because of the outcome of the government investigation she reported on. If the latter, it raises the question of whether the court is ordering Herridge to out her sources to aid Chen in pursuing a baseless lawsuit. Surely the bar for compelled disclosure of journalistic sources must be higher than that.
“Opponents of the reporter’s privilege often dream up convoluted hypothetical scenarios to call it a national security risk. But here we see someone suspected of ties to a foreign military able to use the courts to try to find out who in the government U.S. reporters are talking to and the content of those conversations. It goes to show that the real national security risk is the lack of a statutory privilege, which allows courts to issue misguided rulings. Congress should step up and reintroduce and pass the PRESS Act.”
H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a partner at Schaerr | Jaffe, added:
“Public access and government accountability are fundamental to the rule of law, and the notion of ‘secret law’ is anathema to our system of justice. By denying the public access to important judicial records in this case, the court is keeping members of the public from judging for themselves the strength or weakness of the court’s reasoning.”
The EDPS vs. Single Resolution Board judgment goes to the heart of the EU’s fundamental right to data protection, shaping how artificial intelligence, data spaces and so-called privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) will be governed in practice. The ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) arrives at a crucial time to reiterate what counts as personal data, reinforcing the importance of the protection that the GDPR was designed to guarantee.
Every Thursday of the week, Bastian’s Night is broadcast from 21:30 CET.
Bastian’s Night is a live talk show in German with lots of music, a weekly round-up of news from around the world, and a glimpse into the host’s crazy week in the pirate movement.
Согласно Указу Президента США «Launching the Genesis Mission» от 25 ноября 2025 года, международные лидеры науки и технологий вступают в эпоху экспоненциального ускорения исследований, где страны, откладывающие внедрение суперкомпьютеров, автономных лабораторий и интеграции с передовыми энергетическими объектами, неизбежно отстанут в глобальной технологической гонке. Для России этот сигнал является тревожным: каждый месяц промедления ставит под угрозу наше лидерство в науке, промышленности и цифровой экономике.
Пиратская партия России ещё много лет назад в своей Программе создать открытые научные кластеры с автономными лабораториями, интегрированными с промышленностью и образованием, обеспечив максимальную прозрачность данных и технологий. Реализация этих идей сейчас позволит не только воспроизвести опыт Genesis Mission, но и превзойти его по открытости, прозрачности и масштабируемости.
Любая задержка или отказ правительства неизбежно приведёт к стратегическому отставанию России во всех областях цифровой экономики. Более того, такая пассивность может быть расценена как намеренное торможение инновационного развития, и наша страна не просто отстанет и будет надрываясь догонять США, а будет в целом вычеркнута из человеческой цивилизации вместе с её населением.
Мы предлагаем срочно принять пилотную программу на уровне одной агломерации, которая будет являться не догоняющей, а опережающей и масштабируемой. Первым шагом в масштабировании и создании национальной платформы должны являться в Москва и Сколково (венчурная поддержка, ИТ) и Новосибирск (академические эксперименты), но пилотом мы выбрали агломерацию Екатеринбурга с её в целом уникальным набором существующих и потенциальных возможностей:
Научный потенциал — УрФУ и УрО РАН, а также исторически сильная научно-производственная школа, дают доступ к сильным специалистам в физике, химии, материаловедении, биоинженерии. — Возможность интегрировать университетские лаборатории с промышленными экспериментами. Индустриальная база — Урал — центр машиностроения, оборонной промышленности, металлургии. — Лаборатории и промышленные предприятия можно использовать для испытаний и интеграции новых материалов и технологий. Энергетическая инфраструктура Экспериментальная АЭС с реактором на быстрых нейтронах — уникальная возможность: — Пилотные исследования новых материалов и теплоносителей. — Тестирование ИИ-моделей для оптимизации ядерных процессов и безопасности. — Доступ к надёжной энергии для высокопроизводительных вычислительных центров. Логистика — Город связан авиасообщением и железной дорогой с Москвой, Санкт-Петербургом, Новосибирском и промышленными центрами. — Можно использовать как центральную площадку для интеграции региональных экспериментов. Региональная поддержка — почти новый губернатор с незамыленным взглядом — Екатеринбург и Свердловская область активно поддерживают технопарки, стартапы и инвестиции в высокие технологии. — Возможность создать кластер для ИИ‑науки с участием государства и частного сектора.
Мы представляем готовую для утверждения проект Плана мероприятий. План целесообразно принять целиком а в идеале расширить.
Пояснения по подмероприятиям:
1. HPC‑инфраструктура (High-Performance Computing — «вычисления высокой производительности» или «супервычисления») Проектирование: подготовка инженерного проекта HPC‑центра, минимизация рисков строительства и интеграции. Строительство: возведение суперкомпьютерного центра для ИИ-экспериментов. Подключение к АЭС: стабильное энергоснабжение и резервирование для непрерывной работы.
2. Автономные лаборатории Закупка оборудования: создание лабораторий с роботизированными станциями и автоматикой. Интеграция с HPC: подключение лабораторий к вычислительной платформе и ИИ‑агентам для автономного проведения экспериментов.
3. Энергетика Интеграция с Белоярской АЭС обеспечивает уникальные возможности для научных экспериментов на быстрых реакторах.
4. Открытые данные и ИИ‑платформа Создание репозитория научных и промышленных данных с открытым доступом, публикация моделей и методик.
5. Образование Подготовка специалистов через магистратуры и курсы переквалификации. Создание открытых онлайн-курсов для широкой аудитории.
6. Промышленная интеграция Пилотные кейсы внедрения ИИ на предприятиях региона. Льготы и субсидии для стимулирования частного участия.
7. Нормативная поддержка «Регуляторный sandbox» ускоряет согласования и обеспечивает прозрачность.
8. Управление и KPI Координационный совет с открытой панелью мониторинга обеспечивает контроль и прозрачность бюджета.
9. Безопасность данных Внедрение Zero‑Trust архитектуры и аудит для защиты данных и интеллектуальной собственности.
10. Научные приоритеты Ускорение исследований в материалах, биотехнологиях и квантовых технологиях с публикацией результатов.
11. Информационная открытость Публикация методик и результатов экспериментов в открытый доступ, поддержка принципов свободы знаний и прозрачности.
Проект Плана мероприятий:
№
Направление
Подмероприятие
KPI
Сроки
Ответственные
Уровень ответственности
Территориальная привязка
Ориентировочные инвестиции (млрд руб)
Источник финансирования
1
HPC‑инфраструктура
Проектирование суперкомпьютерного центра
Завершено проектирование
0–6 мес
Минцифры РФ, Минобрнауки РФ
Федеральная
Сысертский район
0,5
Государство
2
HPC‑инфраструктура
Строительство HPC‑центра 100–200 ПФлопс
Доступность ≥95%
6–18 мес
Минцифры РФ, подрядчики
Федеральная
Сысертский район
12
Государство + ГЧП
3
HPC‑инфраструктура
Подключение к АЭС и резервным сетям
99,5% времени непрерывной работы
6–12 мес
Росатом, Минэнерго РФ
Федеральная
Белоярский район
2
Государство
4
Автономные лаборатории
Закупка и установка роботизированных станций
7 лабораторий оснащены
6–12 мес
УрФУ, индустриальные партнеры
Региональная + Частная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
4
Регион + Частные инвестиции
5
Автономные лаборатории
Интеграция с HPC и ИИ‑агентами
100% лабораторий подключены
12–24 мес
Минобрнауки РФ, Минцифры РФ
Федеральная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
1
Государство
6
Энергетика
Интеграция с Белоярской АЭС
≥10 пилотных экспериментов/год
6–12 мес
Росатом, Минэнерго РФ
Федеральная
Белоярский район
2
Государство
7
Открытые данные и ИИ‑платформа
Создание открытой научной базы
500+ датасетов, 200+ моделей
6–12 мес
Минцифры РФ, Координационный совет
Региональная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
0,5
Государство + гранты
8
Образование
Подготовка магистров и специалистов
≥1000 человек/год
12–24 мес
УрФУ, УрГЭУ, ИТ-парки
Региональная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
1
Регион + Частные стипендии
9
Образование
Онлайн-курсы и открытые материалы
≥5 курсов в год
6–12 мес
УрФУ, Институт цифровой трансформации
Региональная
Онлайн
0,2
Гранты + Регион
10
Промышленная интеграция
Пилотные кейсы внедрения ИИ
≥50 кейсов
18–36 мес
Координационный совет, предприятия
Частная + Региональная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
2
Частные + ГЧП
11
Промышленная интеграция
Льготы и субсидии
≥10 компаний воспользовались
12–36 мес
Министерство инвестиций СО
Региональная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
0,5
Регион
12
Нормативная поддержка
Регуляторный эксперимент «sandbox»
100% согласований
0–12 мес
Правительство СО, Минцифры РФ
Региональная + Федеральная
Екатеринбург + агломерация
0,1
Регион
13
Управление и KPI
Координационный совет и открытая панель мониторинга
“EU Tax Notice: Our records show you owe an outstanding balance. Failure to clear this amount immediately will result in legal action. Your case is being prepared for submission to the Court of Law.” – because you were in some database as an entrepreneur.
“This is an urgent official alert! We have found irregularities in your residency or identification documents. You must pay the penalty fee today to avoid deportation or further action against your family.” – because your immigration status was registered somewhere.
“This is <ABC bank>’s security team. We have detected a suspicious withdrawal attempt on your account. To stop your funds from being frozen, please verify your card details and security code immediately.” –because payment information was kept after purchase completion.
These scripts are examples of the increasingly advanced methods cyber scammers use in the EU.
Cyber scams in the EU are becoming more advanced. Using an emergency, authoritative identities, and extremely dire consequences – A tailor-made situation for people to panic and fall victim to the tricks of cyber scammers. Scammers use stolen personal data to craft these digital traps, making them appear convincing. These scams are designed to push individuals to respond quickly, share sensitive details, or transfer money. As digital systems grow and more information moves across platforms, it is becoming harder to distinguish a genuine alert from a carefully crafted scam.
But there is more to dig into and understand about the cyber threats the world faces at the cusp of the digital revolution.
Whenever the words cyber and threat appear in the same sentence, the general perception is of digital scams/frauds (like the few mentioned earlier) that have a financial impact. Cyber crimes encompass a broader range of dangerous activities beyond money theft. It includes data theft for malicious and anti-social activities, ransomware, supply-chain attacks, and many more similar activities.
A cyber threat is any potential malicious act that seeks to damage, disrupt, or gain access to a computer system, network, or digital data by violating the security protocols.
It is a broad term that covers any vulnerability, attack, or activity that poses a risk to digital information and infrastructure.
Key Components of A Cyber Threat
Component
Definition
Examples
Confidentiality
Stealing or disclosing sensitive information to unauthorized parties.
Data breaches, corporate espionage.
Integrity
Illegitimately altering or destroying data, making it unreliable or unusable.
Tampering with financial records, modifying system files.
Availability
Preventing legitimate users from accessing systems or data when needed.
Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, ransomware.
Recent Examples
In September 2025, a ransomware attack on Collins Aerospace’s MUSE check-in system collapsed operations at several major European airports (including hubs in Brussels, Berlin, London Heathrow, and Dublin. Thousands of travelers were stranded at airports. Airport authorities resorted to manual checks, leading to widespread delays, cancellations, and chaos.
In August 2025, a cyberattack targeted Miljödata, an IT service provider in Sweden used by approximately 80% of Swedish municipal administrations. This attack disrupted essential services across over 200 municipalities by denying access to sensitive administrative data. The attackers demanded a ransom of approximately 146,000 euros to prevent the data leak.
According to the EU’s judicial cooperation agency (Eurojust), cybercrime remains among the top five crime categories handled across member states. In 2024 alone, the number of cybercrime cases in comparison to the previous year increased by 25%.
These handful of examples explain the far-reaching and devastating impact cybercrime can have on individual users, administrative bodies, businesses, and nations. The underlying point is that cyber scams are about more than just money theft.
These incidents prove that the actual cost of cybercrime is the erosion of public trust and security. When breaches enable identity theft and profiling, attacks on critical infrastructure and vulnerable supply chains become rampant. This systemic failure and the escalating threat environment must serve as a point of reference for any change to be incorporated into the laws pertaining to the digital space and data security.
Considering this broader picture, the digital reforms now underway under the ‘Digital Omnibus’ that aim to rework existing GDPR frameworks raise serious questions. Granting greater access to user data now opens a new Pandora’s box.
Digital rights advocates like the European Pirates andEDRI warn that the reforms proposed in the Digital Omnibus package are primarily a rollback of the GDPR rules that have so far kept data secure. Citizens must understand the risks involved.
What Could GDPR Rollback Mean?
In the context of an expanding net of cyber threats across the EU, the proposed GDPR reforms could mean easier access to data, with fewer implications for data leaks and a greater risk of misuse.
More data access, less control: If companies are allowed easier access to personal data, or if consent/logging requirements are relaxed, more individuals’ information could become available, giving scammers richer material for phishing, identity theft, or social engineering.
Lower accountability and weaker security hygiene: With less onus on companies (small to mid-cap) to document data processing or adopt rigorous security measures, data is more prone to exploitation. Poor security practices can lead to breaches and the leaking of personal or financial data, which criminals can then exploit.
Ease for supply-chain or infrastructure attacks: As the 2025 airport ransomware case shows, malware or ransomware attacks often exploit systemic dependencies. Therefore, it’s not only about individual banking or shopping fraud. If data protection and regulation are weakened, the “attack surface” for system-wide harm increases.
Increased profitability and scale for cybercriminal operations: With abundant data and lax oversight, fraudsters can run more convincing scams on a larger scale, boosting their success rates and returns.
Conclusion: Data Protection Is A Matter Of Security
The Digital Omnibus debate often emphasizes convenience, competitiveness, and lighter regulation for businesses. But data protection laws like GDPR have always served a dual purpose: protecting privacy and defending citizens from cyber threats. Weakening them may reduce compliance burdens for some companies today. But in the long run, it could also open the door to more scams, data theft, and large-scale cyber disruption.
If Europe values both individual rights and collective security, then scrapping or diluting these protections deserves scrutiny.
Cambridge PD says the data won’t be shared outside of Cambridge and people’s rights will be protected, but Flock hasn’t agreed to this limitation. We know that Flock shares the data widely. Once the ALPR records and video are in Flock’s system, they are as good in ICE’s hands or the hands of any other police department who wants to track people.
The Public Safety Committee meeting will be in the Sullivan Chamber of Cambridge City Hall at 795 Massachusetts Avenue. You can participate in person or via Zoom. After this meeting, the committee’s proposal will go back to the city council.
If you would like to provide public comment, you can use their public comment sign up form to sign up. The meeting can be viewed on the city’s open meeting portal. Cambridge residents may also view on Channel 22-City View Local Access.
We especially encourage Cambridge Pirates to speak out at the meeting.
ICE, Secret Service, Navy All Had Access to Flock's Nationwide Network of Cameras
A division of ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy’s criminal investigation division all had access to Flock’s nationwide network of tens of thousands of AI-enabled cameras that constantly track the movements of vehicles, and by extension people, according to a letter sent by Senator Ron Wyden and shared with 404 Media. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the section of ICE that had access and which has reassigned more than ten thousand employees to work on the agency’s mass deportation campaign, performed nearly two hundred searches in the system, the letter says.
In the letter Senator Wyden says he believes Flock is uninterested in fixing the room for abuse baked into its platform, and says local officials can best protect their constituents from such abuses by removing the cameras entirely.
The letter shows that many more federal agencies had access to the network than previously known. We previously found, following local media reports, that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had access to 80,000 cameras around the country. It is now clear that Flock’s work with federal agencies, which the company described as a pilot, was much larger in scope.
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Brunner zieht Parlaments-Position dem Ratstext vor und bietet Verlängerung der Übergangsregelung an
Breite parteiübergreifende Front im EU-Parlament gegen Massenüberwachung und Alterskontrollen
Lob für Verhandlungsführer Zarzalejos, der alle Fr…
Commissioner Brunner states preference for Parliament’s position over Council text and offers extension of interim rules
Broad cross-party front in EU Parliament against mass surveillance and mandatory age checks
Praise for Chief Negotiator Zar…
Commissioner Brunner states preference for Parliament’s position over Council text and offers extension of interim rules
Broad cross-party front in EU Parliament against mass surveillance and mandatory age checks
Praise for Chief Negotiator Zar…
Commissioner Brunner states preference for Parliament’s position over Council text and offers extension of interim rules
Broad cross-party front in EU Parliament against mass surveillance and mandatory age checks
Praise for Chief Negotiator Zar…
While this twist makes it more likely that the outcome of the trilogue will be positive, this is still a very bad move by the commissioner.
As commissioner, it's his job to argue for the position held by the commission, not his own personal beliefs. This is a betrayal of his colleagues, and should cost him his job.
Advanced phishing tactics utilizing a sophisticated tool known as Evilginx are becoming increasingly common, raising serious concerns for security professionals and users alike.
“Why should lawmakers reject the EU’s #DigitalOmnibus?”, you might ask. Say no more: here are 🔟 reasons.
The Omnibus is being sold as a competitiveness boost but this framing misses what’s really at stake.
These changes don’t simplify, don’t support SMEs & they don’t fix enforcement. What they do is erode accountability, fragment protections, & shift power further toward actors already shaping Europe’s digital ecosystem.
Here is a somewhat complete list of emails of the current European Commission you could use to send an email to the representatives with the information.
@silmathoron@floss.social @gael@mastodon.social @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu
Here's an impartial list of all European Commission MEP's email addresses.
Dear friends at #Dyne, you know how much I appreciate your work...
but please, get rid of all those trojan horsestrackers CDNs on your website!
You don't need them: just copy the css and js on your web hosting and reference them from there, so that no external connection can track visitors.
#uBlockOrigin is a great tool to identify and block such trackers, but I dream of a world where websites fostering #surveillance get shamed and nobody give them any credit.
@giacomo we are not perfect, but we work in it. dyne.org is cookie free, the newsletter is self hosted but depends on ghost which forces use of sendgrid for smtp... we are making pressure upstream about this... then there are the trackers. Its a long walk.
Ogni volta che apri una scheda, non stai semplicemente aprendo una finestra sul mondo. Stai alzando il sipario su un palcoscenico dove tu sei il protagonista involontario, e decine di attori nascos…
With the rise of Serverless functions, static site generators like Next.js have become ubiquitous in web development, streamlining functionality and boosting speed.
Die Multimedia-Plattform des Europäischen Parlaments ist das offizielle öffentlich zugängliche Repository für die Medienproduktion des Sekretariats des Europäischen Parlaments, verwaltet von der Generaldirektion Kommunikation (DG COMM).
The multimedia platform of the European Parliament is the official public available repository of the media production of the Secretariat of the European Parliament, managed by the Directorate-General for Communication (DG COMM).
La plateforme multimédia du Parlement européen est le référentiel officiel accessible au public pour la production médiatique du Secrétariat du Parlement européen, géré par la Direction générale de la communication (DG COMM).
La piattaforma multimediale del Parlamento europeo è il repository ufficiale di accesso pubblico della produzione mediale del Segretariato del Parlamento europeo, gestito dalla Direzione generale per la comunicazione (DG COMM).
"do you think it's OK for the police to open every single letter to check the content and have them approve it before it's sent?" answer: "what a ridiculous question, don't you think about the children?".
So wenig ich von der Chatkontrolle halte - das Verbot von social media (im Sinne Facebook/Instagram & Co.) für U16/17 finde ich wichtig und notwendig.
Als Vater von drei Teenagern sehe ich, was das gerade erzeugt und kämpfe mit enormem Aufwand darum, meine Kids von dem Scheiß fern zu halten, während ringsrum die Smombies mit ihren 15-Sekunden-Clips ihrem brain rot frönen.
Che Guevara Roma, sabato 6 dicembre alle ore 16:30 CET
🍝Spaghetti Hacker👩💻
— due incontri per pensare e praticare un rapporto diverso con la tecnologia
(N.B. Il titolo dell’iniziativa non ha nulla a che vedere con il libro.)
CONDIVIDI PARTECIPA DIFF
— due incontri per pensare e praticare un rapporto diverso con la tecnologia
(N.B. Il titolo dell’iniziativa non ha nulla a che vedere con il libro.)
CONDIVIDI PARTECIPA DIFFONDI
📅 Martedì 18 novembre, ore 18:00
PEDAGOGIA HACKER — con Collettivo C.I.R.C.E.
Un’esplorazione su come costruire relazioni più consapevoli con il digitale.
Rivolto a chi educa, crea, si prende cura o semplicemente vuole abitare la tecnologia con un’attitudine critica e conviviale.
Per ridurre l’alienazione tecnica e sperimentare forme di immaginazione liberatoria.
📅 Sabato 6 dicembre, ore 16:30
SERVER RIBELLI — con Giuliana Sorci e Collettivo BIDA
Un percorso nella storia dell’attivismo digitale in Italia: dagli hacklab nei centri sociali agli hackmeeting degli anni ’90, fino alle nuove comunità hacker e all’esperienza di mastodon.bida.im.
(N.B. Il titolo dell’iniziativa non ha nulla a che vedere con il libro.)
CONDIVIDI PARTECIPA DIFFONDI
📅 Sabato 6 dicembre, ore 16:30 SERVER RIBELLI — con @giulianasorci@mastodon.world e il Collettivo @Collettivo Bida oltre a @kappazeta e altri ancora
Un percorso nella storia dell’attivismo digitale in Italia: dagli hacklab nei centri sociali agli hackmeeting degli anni ’90, fino alle nuove comunità hacker e all’esperienza di mastodon.bida.im.
Inizia:Sabato Dicembre 06, 2025 @ 4:30 PM GMT+01:00 (Europe/Rome)
Finisce:Sabato Dicembre 06, 2025 @ 9:00 PM GMT+01:00 (Europe/Rome)
🍝Spaghetti Hacker👩💻
— due incontri per pensare e praticare un rapporto diverso con la tecnologia
(N.B. Il titolo dell’iniziativa non ha nulla a che vedere con il libro.)
CONDIVIDI PARTECIPA DIFFONDI
📅 Martedì 18 novembre, ore 18:00
PEDAGOGIA HACKER — con Collettivo C.I.R.C.E.
Un’esplorazione su come costruire relazioni più consapevoli con il digitale.
Rivolto a chi educa, crea, si prende cura o semplicemente vuole abitare la tecnologia con un’attitudine critica e conviviale.
Per ridurre l’alienazione tecnica e sperimentare forme di immaginazione liberatoria.
📅 Sabato 6 dicembre, ore 16:30
SERVER RIBELLI — con Giuliana Sorci e Collettivo BIDA
Un percorso nella storia dell’attivismo digitale in Italia: dagli hacklab nei centri sociali agli hackmeeting degli anni ’90, fino alle nuove comunità hacker e all’esperienza di mastodon.bida.im.
The underground cybercriminal ecosystem has witnessed a worrisome development - the rise of a highly sophisticated remote access trojan (RAT) known as K.G.B. RAT.
Michigan’s Grand Blanc Township thinks it has discovered a trick to weasel out of accountability: charging a reporter more for government records than most people earn in two years.
Independent journalist Anna Matson filed two requests for records about the township’s fire chief, Jamie Jent, being placed on administrative leave. That decision — later lifted after outcry from residents and firefighters — reportedly came after he raised concerns about staffing issues following the tragic September shooting at the township’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The government told her she’d have to pay a combined $164,000 in labor costs ($100,000 for her first request and $64,000 for a second) for finding and reviewing the records in order for them to respond to the request. That’s ridiculous. Michigan’s legislature should act to ensure that other local governments don’t get any ideas.
There’s nothing unusually burdensome about Matson’s requests. If the township’s recordkeeping is so shoddy and its search capabilities so lacking that it costs six figures’ worth of employee time to find some emails and documents, that’s the township’s problem, not Matson’s. If anything, it begs another Freedom of Information Act request to figure out how the township reached that level of incompetence, and what officials are spending money on instead of basic software.
The township doubled down on evasiveness when Matson showed up to a board meeting last week to contest the fees, and it made nonsensical excuses to enter into closed session so that it could discuss its secrecy in secret.
Maybe the township thinks the fees will discourage the press from trying to hold it accountable. More likely, it will do the opposite: inspire reporters to keep digging. Intrepid journalists see obvious obstruction tactics like these and think, “I must be on to something.” We’re confident Matson will eventually uncover whatever the township doesn’t want her and her readers to see.
Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, like the federal FOIA and state public records laws across the country, was intended to let everyone — not just rich people — find out what their government is up to and how their money is being spent.
The law allows agencies to charge reasonable fees — copying costs, mailing expenses, and limited labor charges calculated at the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of doing the work. Agencies aren’t permitted to charge for the first two hours of labor, and they can only charge for search and review time if not doing so would result in “unreasonably high costs.”
Officials are taking advantage of the media’s weak financial position to hold accountability for ransom.
We’re not fans of charging any labor costs for FOIAs. Tax dollars already pay for agencies to maintain public records. Allowing the public to access them is a basic government function. But putting that aside, how does finding records about one employee during a limited time frame — which was all her first request sought — cost six figures? The $64,000 price tag for the second request for departmental records is equally absurd and also shows the arbitrariness of the whole thing — how does the broader request cost less than the narrower one?
This obstruction tactic is hardly a local innovation. Last year, Nebraska’s legislature had to step in after the state’s Department of Environment and Energy tried charging the Flatwater Free Press more than $44,000 to review environmental records. It claimed figuring out what exemptions to the public’s records law applied would be time-consuming — essentially making the press pay for their time figuring out legal arguments to not give it the records it wanted.
The Trump administration — which has attempted to close FOIA offices and fired officials who released embarrassing information pursuant to FOIAs — recently demanded journalist Brian Karem pay a $50,000 bond just to expedite a lawsuit for documents about the classified records Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. It’s far from the first instance of fee bullying by the federal government, regardless of who is president.
Trump, of course, claims he did nothing wrong by taking those documents, but doesn’t want to let the public be the judge. The situation in Grand Blanc Township is similar — the same government that may have punished a fire chief for speaking up about public safety wants to punish a journalist for asking questions about it. It’s secrecy stacked on secrecy.
It’s no coincidence that so many of these overcharging cases involve requests by independent journalists or small local outlets. The government knows the news industry is struggling economically. That’s no secret. Officials are taking advantage of the media’s weak financial position to hold accountability for ransom. If they get their way, transparency will become a luxury only affordable to major media outlets that are unlikely to have much interest in public records from Grand Blanc Township in the first place.
The township needs to rescind its invoice, apologize to Matson, and get her the records she’s entitled to right away. Beyond that, state legislators need to put politics aside and follow Nebraska’s example by narrowing what the government can charge the public for its own records and making those limits unambiguous (and of course, they should also remove absurd provisions exempting the governor and legislature from transparency).
And if agencies have the nerve to defend these shakedowns in court, judges should hold government lawyers accountable for whatever frivolous legal arguments they concoct to justify charging well over the cost of a house in Detroit for basic transparency.
The White House has launched a media bias tracker to catalog instances of supposedly distorted coverage by the press. Predictably, the site is long on hyperbole and short on substance.
The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):
“If Trump thinks the media is getting stories wrong or being unfair to him, he should release the public records, correspondence, and legal memoranda that prove it, instead of wasting time and taxpayer money on silly websites.
“He’s got more power than anyone to correct the record with documented facts and has countless platforms on which to do so. Instead, he calls reporters ‘piggy’ and posts empty rants that don’t refute anything, while doing everything in his power to hinder Americans’ access to public records containing verifiable facts.
“Trump’s anti-speech antics are highly unpopular, and I doubt many people take his ramblings about ‘fake news’ seriously at this point. He has made it extremely clear that his beef is not with media bias but with journalists not flattering him and regurgitating his lies. It’s a safe bet that his bias tracker will not have anything to say about the influencers and propagandists he favors over serious journalists.
“People understand the obvious conflict inherent in an image-obsessed presidential administration appointing itself the arbiter of media bias. I expect that after the initial wave of publicity, few Americans will be paying attention to this latest stunt, let alone consulting it when deciding what news to consume. The gimmick is wearing thin.”
Please contact us if you would like further comment.
Trump Administration Outlines Plan to Throw Out an Agency's FOIA Requests En Masse
The Department of Energy (DOE) said in a public notice scheduled to be published Thursday that it will throw out all Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to the agency before October 1, 2024 unless the requester proactively emails the agency to tell it they are still interested in the documents they requested. This will result in the improper closure of likely thousands of FOIA requests if not more; government transparency experts told 404 Media that the move is “insane,” “ludicrous,” a “Pandora’s Box,” and “an underhanded attempt to close out as many FOIA requests as possible.”
The DOE notice says “requesters who submitted a FOIA request to DOE HQ at any time prior to October 1, 2024 (FY25), that is still open and is not under active litigation with DOE (or another Federal agency) shall email StillInterestedFOIA@hq.doe.gov to continue processing of the FOIA request […] If DOE HQ does not receive a response from requesters within the 30-day time-period with a DOE control number, no further action will be taken on the open FOIA request(s), and the file may be administratively closed.” A note at the top of the notice says it is scheduled to be formally published in the Federal Register on Thursday.
The agency will send out what are known as “still interested” letters, which federal agencies have used over the years to see if a requester wants to withdraw their request after a certain period of inactivity. These types of letters are controversial and perhaps not legal, and previous administrations have said that they should be used rarely and that requests should only be closed after an agency made multiple attempts to contact a requester over multiple methods of communication. What the DOE is doing now is sending these letters to submitters of all requests prior to October 1, 2024, which is not really that long ago; it also said it will close the requests of people who do not respond in a specific way to a specific email address.
FOIA requests—especially complicated ones—can often take months or years to process. I have outstanding FOIA requests with numerous federal agencies that I filed years ago, and am still interested in getting back, and I have gotten useful documents from federal agencies after years of waiting. The notion that large numbers of people who filed FOIA requests as recently as September 2024, which is less than a year ago, are suddenly uninterested in getting the documents they requested is absurd and should be seen as an attack on public transparency, experts told 404 Media. The DOE’s own reports show that it often does not respond to FOIA requests within a year, and, of course, a backlog exists in part because agencies are not terribly responsive to FOIA.
“If a requester proactively reaches out and says I am withdrawing my request, then no problem, they don’t have to process it,” Adam Marshall, senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me. “The agency can’t say we’ve decided we’ve gotten a lot of requests and we don’t want to do them so we’re throwing them out.”
“I was pretty shocked when I saw this to be honest,” Marshall added. “I’ve never seen anything like this in 10 years of doing FOIA work, and it’s egregious for a few reasons. I don’t think agencies have the authority to close a FOIA request if they don’t get a response to a ‘still interested’ letter. The statute doesn’t provide for that authority, and the amount of time the agency is giving people to respond—30 days—it sounds like a long time but if you happen to miss that email or aren’t digging through your backlogs, it’s not a lot of time. The notion that FOIA requesters should keep an eye out in the Federal Register for this kind of notice is ludicrous.”
The DOE notice essentially claims that the agency believes it gets too many FOIA requests and doesn’t feel like answering them. “DOE’s incoming FOIA requests have more than tripled in the past four years, with over 4,000 requests received in FY24, and an expected 5,000 or more requests in FY25. DOE has limited resources to process the burgeoning number of FOIA requests,” the notice says. “Therefore, DOE is undertaking this endeavor as an attempt to free up government resources to better serve the American people and focus its efforts on more efficiently connecting the citizenry with the work of its government.”
Lauren Harper of the Freedom of the Press Foundation told me in an email that she also has not seen any sort of precedent for this and that “it is an underhanded attempt to close out as many FOIA requests as possible, because who in their right mind checks the federal register regularly, and it should be challenged in court. (On that note, I am filing a FOIA request about this proposal.)”
“The use of still interested letters isn't explicitly allowed in the FOIA statute at all, and, as far as I know, there is absolutely zero case law that would support the department sending a mass ‘still interested’ letter via the federal register,” she added. “That they are also sending emails is not a saving grace; these types of letters are supposed to be used sparingly—not as a flagrant attempt to reduce their backlog by any means necessary. I also worry it will open a Pandora's Box—if other agencies see this, some are sure to follow.”
Marshall said that FOIA response times have been getting worse for years across multiple administrations (which has also been my experience). The Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have cut a large number of jobs in many agencies across the government, which may have further degraded response times. But until this, there hadn’t been major proactive attempts taken by the self-defined “most transparent administration in history” to destroy FOIA.
“This is of a different nature than what we have seen so far, this affirmative, large-scale effort to purport to cancel a large number of pending FOIA requests,” Marshall said.
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