Welcome to this week’s “Defending Democracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting democracy. 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.
DD 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.
This week we had to evacuate the shit hole known as Florida due to Hurricane Milton. Consequently, we had limited work time and this will be a truncated version.
Featured Item
Joan Westenberg writes:
What causes this “brainrot” phenomenon among the super-wealthy, leading them to embrace bigoted views and alienate the very societies that helped them amass their fortunes?
Billionaire Brainrot: How the Mega Rich Turn MAGA
Hint: $
The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery
The Guardian reports:
A year of war accelerates ‘silent departure’ of Israel’s elite
Any Israelis with any morality left should leave Israel.
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Russian state media faced ‘unprecedented’ cyberattack on Putin’s birthday
Radio Free Europe reports:
Wider Europe Briefing: The EU’s New Plans To Target Russian Threats
The Verge reports:
Google must crack open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
Adobe has a new tool to protect artists’ work from AI
404 Media reports:
The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes
TechCrunch reports:
US government considers historic break-up of Google in antitrust case
Bleeping Computer reports:
Dutch police arrest admin of ‘Bohemia/Cannabia’ dark web market
Ars Technica reports:
Elon Musk’s X loses battle over federal request for Trump’s DMs
The c^nt also backed down 100% in his fight with Brazil. As with Durov in France, these fascist bullies are not so tough when you smack them in the fucking mouth.
The Verge reports;
Judge greenlights FTC’s antitrust suit against Amazon
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
James Muldoon examines:
Feeding the Machine: Seven links between AI and inequalities
404 Media reports:
Hurricane Helene and the ‘Fuck It’ Era of AI-Generated Slop
The Verge reports:
FEMA adds misinformation to its list of disasters to clean up
Tech Policy has:
Challenging The Myths of Generative AI
Pariah States
Cory Doctorow
Pluralistic: China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor (07 Oct 2024)
The Guardian reports:
How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war
The Register reports:
OpenAI says Chinese gang tried to phish its staff
Big Media
Nothing stands out this week.
Big Tech
Tech Policy has:
Challenging The Myths of Generative AI
Terrorists
CBS News reports:
Domestic extremists with “election-related grievances” could turn to violence, intel bulletin warns
ABC reports:
Dozens of San Fernando Valley white supremacist gang members charged in federal indictment, DOJ says
Bellingcat reports:
The Small Bulgarian Streetwear Shop Designing Clothes for the Far-Right ‘Active Club’ Movement
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Surveillance Self Defeat reports:
Seven Steps To Digital Security
The Register reports:
UK’s Sellafield nuke waste processing plant fined £333K for infosec blunders
How should CISOs respond to the rise of GenAI?
Fediverse
The Fediverse Report has:
Last Week in Fediverse – ep 87
Ben Werdmuller looks at:
Bix Dot opines:
[You Can’t Own The Social Web](https://bix.blog/posts/2024-10-05-you-cant-own-the-social-web
Activity Pods announces:
ActivityPods and NextGraph are joining forces
Mastodon announces:
The Verge reports:
Mastodon switches things up to make its app a little easier to use
Threads knows it has an engagement bait problem
TechCrunch reports:
Meta is testing a feature to let you post Instagram Reels directly on Threads
Elena Rossini has:
A great day for writers: introducing Mastodon author tags
Ghost has an update:
Other Federated Social Media
The Fediverse report has:
Last Week in the ATmosphere – Oct 24 week 2
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Defending Democracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or RSS.
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Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
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