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.
As noted before, starting next year I am willing to spend 10 hours weekly on The Programmer’s Fulcrum. It’s the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing. I appreciate all of you.
Featured Item
In a late addition, Connected Places writes:
Building a decentralised network like the fediverse thus means not only building a social network that spreads out over many different nodes, but also building an infrastructure for the network to run on that is itself decentralised. What’s happening to SocialHub is symptomatic of this broader tension, where these decentralised systems promise to distribute power, but they still need coordination mechanisms to function.
SocialHub and the Substrate of Decentralised Networks
Nate Matias has this great story of perseverance:
That’s when I got an email from Enel X Way, an Italian power company, that the software in the boxes that charge our cars would be disconnected in just a few short weeks. I immediately thought of Mark, whose medical care required reliable travel to the nearby city of Syracuse.
Across our entire neighborhood, forty homes had exactly the same box, many supported by a New York State electric charging grant. And now all of us were about to have tens of thousands of dollars in critical infrastructure lose functionality – infrastructure we relied on to get to work, access medical care, and live our daily lives.
Escaping the chains of tethered products: the Juice Rescue project
Great stuff!
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Deutsche Welle reports on:
AI’s role in Ukrainian wartime media
ic3 announces:
404 Media reports:
Attorneys General To AI Chatbot Companies: You Will ‘Answer For It’ If You Harm Children
EuroNews reports:
EU defends sovereign right to regulate tech against Trump’s latest tariff threat
EU tech chief to ‘fight back’ against Trump’s allegations, Commission says
Amnesty calls on governments to reign in Big Tech. But as Trump’s tech threat looms, will they?
Bits of Freedom reports:
Vivaldi announces:
Vivaldi takes a stand: keep browsing human
Literally awesome.
TechPolicy reports:
Perspective Europe Cannot Wait to Fight Trump’s Assault on Democracy
In fuck up Techno Feudalism news, XDA Developers share:
Syncthing ruined cloud storage for me in the best possible way
And OMG Ununtu reviews:
Zen Browser — What Mozilla Firefox Should Be?
I use it and love it.
And Ars Technica reports:
Framework Laptop 16 update brings Nvidia GeForce to the modular gaming laptop
They also have:
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
APC reports:
Full disclosure: Marking a legal victory for big tech transparency in South Korea
TechCrunch reports:
Microsoft headquarters go into lockdown after activists take over Brad Smith’s office
Boycotting all Microsoft and Israeli products will achieve more than stunts. But publicity from them could result in more boycotts.
US sanctions fraud network used by North Korean ‘remote IT workers’ to seek jobs and steal money
Neutral
TechPolicy has:
Why We Need a Carnegie Moment for the Age of AI
To Create Transparency Regulation for Digital Platforms, Look to Lessons from Other Sectors
The Guardian asks:
Is the AI boom finally starting to slow down?
If only hopes and prayers worked.
TechCrunch reports:
OpenAI co-founder calls for AI labs to safety-test rival models
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Face Scans to Estimate Our Age: Harmful and Creepy AF
Cloud68 reports:
Chat Control: A Threat to Privacy that Does not Solve the Core Issue
The Intercept has:
Accepted at Universities, Unable to Get Visas: Inside Trump’s War on International Students
The Dissenter reports:
ACLU Demands US Court Immediately Order Release Of Journalist In ICE Detention
404 Media reports:
CBP Had Access to More than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide
Flock Wants to Partner With Consumer Dashcam Company That Takes ‘Trillions of Images’ a Month
TechCrunch reports:
DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud server, says whistleblower
The Guardian reports:
Trump threatens tariffs on countries that ‘discriminate’ against US tech
TechPolicy reports:
Ars Technica reports:
FCC chairman helps AT&T cement dominance with $23 billion spectrum deal
Pariah States
The Register reports:
AWS catches Russia’s Cozy Bear clawing at Microsoft credentials
BleepingComputer reports:
New Android malware poses as antivirus from Russian intelligence agency
Silk Typhoon hackers hijack network captive portals in diplomat attacks
Poynter reports:
Five more journalists were killed covering the war in Gaza
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The next internet for news? Publishers gather to discuss protocols over platforms
Staying true to American media technical incompetence traditions, they advocate for ATProto. The Open Media Network advocates for ActivityPub.
Big Tech
OS News reports:
Have I ever said, fuck Google. Peeps, please get a Linux or de-googled Android device and only use f-droid apps.
TechCrunch reports:
Security researcher maps hundreds of TeslaMate servers spilling Tesla vehicle data
Infrequently reports:
Forbes reports:
Intel Worked With Chinese Firms Sanctioned For Enabling Human Rights Abuses
TheNextWeb has:
Opinion: Trusting an unverified AI agent is like handing your keys to a drunk graduate
404 Media reports:
Imgur’s Community Is In Full Revolt Against Its Owner
Have these folks not heard of Pixelfed? 😉
Futurism reports:
OpenAI Says It’s Scanning Users’ ChatGPT Conversations and Reporting Content to the Police
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Rebecca Williams shares:
Ars Technica reports:
Senator castigates federal judiciary for ignoring “basic cybersecurity”
EuroNews reports:
AI is increasing cyberattacks worldwide and Europe is one of the hardest hit regions. This is why.
The Register reports:
ZipLine attack uses ‘Contact Us’ forms, White House butler pic to invade sensitive industries
Microsoft can’t guarantee data sovereignty – OVHcloud says ‘We told you so’
Putin on the code: DoD reportedly relies on utility written by Russian dev
Crims laud Claude to plant ransomware and fake IT expertise
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Some thoughts on Bsky, age verification and Mississippi law
We Distribute reports:
Social Web Foundation is Betting Big on Client-to-Server API
Good.
Activity Pub has:
Handing off activitypub.rocks to the ActivityPub community
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Hamish Campbell has:
The stubborn few who show up with shovels, laptops, and trust
Path and Patches shares:
TechCrunch reports:
Threads tests a way to share long-form text on the platform
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
NiemanLab reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Bounce launches a service for moving accounts between Bluesky and Mastodon
The New Public reports:
Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable
I don’t usually share items from the Nazi bar but since this is by the founder of Blacksky, I’m making an exception.
Ars Technica reports:
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community
At least it’s not Shitter.
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 even our future home in 2026, if you want a headstart.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
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