Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Tech Policy writes:
The year is 2028. The world’s leading economies are in turmoil as artificial intelligence systems, once hailed as engines of progress, have outpaced human governance.
AI-driven financial markets operate beyond regulation, executing trades at speeds incomprehensible to human oversight. AI legal agents flood the courts with appeals and counterappeals, paralyzing the judicial system. Generative AI platforms tailor disinformation campaigns with surgical precision, dismantling electoral processes before governments can intervene.
Meanwhile, a handful of oligarchs with exclusive control over the most advanced AI systems command unprecedented influence, bypassing legislatures and setting policies through proprietary governance mechanisms.
Democracy, once thought resilient, is crumbling under the weight of unchecked artificial intelligence.
It’s hard not to see a trajectory towards such a world in today’s headlines. Yet, this future is not inevitable.
AI at the Brink: Preventing the Subversion of Democracy
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery
9 to 5 Mac reports:
Brazilian court gives Apple 90 days to allow sideloading on iOS
ArsTechnica reports:
Apple refuses to break encryption, seeks reversal of UK demand for backdoor
NextGov reports:
US spy chief directs legal review of UK’s Apple backdoor demand
Computing reports:
Call to exempt small sites from the Online Safety Act
EuroNews reports:
EU Commission looking to speed up 5G defence from foreign interference
TechCrunch reports:
EU must ‘fully’ apply its market fairness rulebook on Google, search rivals urge
Jan Wildeboer describes:
From iCloud to Nextcloud: Contacts
404 Media reports:
French University to Fund American Scientists Who Fear Trump Censorship
Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe
NetzPolitik reports:
Open source funding on the brink : “Delivering what’s needed to make Europe sovereign”
Tech Policy has:
Looking for an Exit: Europe’s Way to Public Digital Infrastructures
The Register reports:
Do you DARE? Europe bets once again on RISC-V for supercomputing sovereignty
UK watchdog investigates TikTok and Reddit over child data privacy concerns
The Electronic Frontier Foundation introduces:
Meet Rayhunter: A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying
BleepingComputer reports:
US charges Chinese hackers linked to critical infrastructure breaches
US seizes domain of Garantex crypto exchange used by ransomware gangs
Andre Garzia opines:
The Web Should Be A Conversation
Sim, meu homem!
Ben Werdmuller says:
The web was always about redistribution of power. Let’s bring that back.
Joan Westenberg writes:
Big Tech Wants You Trapped. The Open Web Sets You Free
Neutral
The Register reports:
Microsoft unveils finalized EU Data Boundary as European doubt over US grows
It begins: Pentagon to give AI agents a role in decision making, ops planning
The Markup reports:
AI Chatbots Can Cushion the High School Counselor Shortage — But Are They Bad for Students?
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
BitDefender reports:
Stop targeting Russian hackers, Trump administration orders US Cyber Command
The Guardian reports:
Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats
Meanwhile BleepingComputer reports:
DHS says CISA will not stop monitoring Russian cyber threats
The Register has more:
So … Russia no longer a cyber threat to America?
Given that the people running these agencies are now lying, moronic, incompetent, fascist c^nts, who knows what to believe.
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Russian, Chinese intelligence seek to recruit fired US federal employees, CNN reports
This would be funny if weren’t disastrous.
Rolling Stone reports:
New DOGE Staffer Has Ties to a Sanctioned Russian Oligarch
How surprising.
404 Media reports:
Cellebrite Is Using AI to Summarize Chat Logs and Audio from Seized Mobile Phones
Tech Policy reports:
Pariah States
The Register reports:
Polish space agency confirms cyberattack
TechCrunch reports:
Russian propaganda is reportedly influencing AI chatbot results
DarkReading reports:
‘Crafty Camel’ APT Targets Aviation, OT With Polygot Files
China’s Silk Typhoon APT Shifts to IT Supply Chain Attacks
Bleeping Computer reports:
Microsoft: North Korean hackers join Qilin ransomware gang
The Guardian
Israeli military creating ChatGPT-like tool using vast collection of Palestinian surveillance data
Big Media
Joan Westenberg shares:
Substack is for c^nts and fascists. Use Ghost or Buttondown instead. And you should become a paid subscriber to Joan’s site as well.
Speaking of, The Guardian has:
The LA Times’ AI ‘bias meter’ looks like a bid to please Donald Trump
TechDirt announces:
Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
Big Tech
Where’s Your ‘Ed At explains:
TechCrunch reports:
Anthropic quietly removes Biden-era AI policy commitments from its website
Jumping on the coward bandwagon.
OpenAI’s ex-policy lead criticizes the company for ‘rewriting’ its AI safety history
404 Media reports:
Google and Amazon AI Say Hitler’s Mein Kampf Is ‘a True Work of Art’
Terror
Micah Flee is:
Exploring the Paramilitary Leaks
Cybersecurity/Privacy
DarkReading reports:
Third-Party Risk Top Cybersecurity Claims
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft Teams tactics, malware connect Black Basta, Cactus ransomware
Fediverse
The Fediverse Report has:
Joan Westenberg opines:
The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied.
Unfortunately, IFTAS has an announcement:
I just started a small monthly donation, but they need big money for the things they just dropped.
FOSS Academic asks are we in a:
Ghost has an update:
FunkWhale announces:
And fuck anybody who has a problem with it!
Elena Rossini shares:
PeerTube: the Fediverse’s decentralized video platform (part 1: first impressions)
Failing newspaper, The New York Times reports:
A Long-Shot Bet to Bypass the Middlemen of Social Media
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
The Fediverse Report has:
TechCrunch reports:
Tapbots teases a new Bluesky app, Phoenix, saying it can’t ‘survive on Mastodon alone’
Tangled is
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.
- Or follow Battalion on Bluesky.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
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