<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Programmer\u2019s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can sign up now<\/a> and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqu\u00e9 and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you\u2019ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Muni Town writes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I’ve been trying to write this piece for years, really ever since I finished the first version of Open Source Explained (a v2 will drop early next year). Every time I get started I’m just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the commentariat accusing me of WrongThink.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I drop it, because I’m tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Understanding ownership is power<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s important to understand the codes in your life, because your life is made up of them. Once you understand which codes you already have access to and even the right to inspect, you can see more clearly which other codes you ought to have insight into.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nothing makes me more anxious than writing about open source licensing because nothing brings out more opinion-havers, the vast majority of whom are speaking from a point of privilege-blindess in the western world. The widespread ignorance of the deeper power struggle at play (which we’re losing) has brought the free world to the very brink, so I’m pushing past the discomfort to honor the urgency of our moment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Open Source Power<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ukraine Is Jamming Russia\u2019s \u2018Superweapon\u2019 With a Song<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Radio Free Europe reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Britain\u2019s Disposable Vape Ban Has Boosted Ukraine\u2019s War Effort<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechCrunch reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Five people plead guilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies as \u2018remote IT workers\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Surveillance Tech Provide Proteir Was Hacked<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n a16z-backed super PAC is targeting Alex Bores, sponsor of New York\u2019s AI safety bill \u2014 he says bring it on<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Software Maxims has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How FOSS Won and Why It Matters<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Open Future announces:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Open Future Joins the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elon Musk Could ‘Drink Piss Better Than Any Human in History,’ Grok Says<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Literally, pathetic.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Framasoft has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Renforcez l\u2019internet du partage en contribuant \u00e0 la robustesse de Framasoft<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Support our 2026 campaign!<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Game over: Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk\u2019s Grok AI<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechPolicy Press reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brazil Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Framework for Platform Liability<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Center for Democracy and Technology has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Center for Democracy and Technology has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechCrunch reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Databricks co-founder argues US must go open source to beat China in AI<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco\u2019s mistakes, says Anthropic chief<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Architects of Online Influence: How Creators, Platforms, and Policymakers Shape Political Speech<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechPolicy Press says:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MIT Technology Review reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Quantum physicists have shrunk and \u201cde-censored\u201d DeepSeek R1<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Corporate Europe reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Preparing a roll-back of digital rights: Commission’s secretive meetings with industry<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Brussels Times reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Secret EU plans to allow Big Tech to train AI with our personal data<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis \u2013 by taking knowledge hostage<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump, Republicans try again to stop states from regulating AI<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechCrunch reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n US, UK, and Australia sanction Russian \u2018bulletproof\u2019 web host used in ransomware attacks<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Forbes reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Has Samsung Installed \u2018Unremovable Israeli Spyware\u2019 On Your Phone?<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tens of thousands more ASUS routers pwned by suspected, evolving China operation<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n DarkReading reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chinese APT Infects Routers to Hijack Software Updates<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TBD<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk\u2019s Grokipedia<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MalwareBytes reorts:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Researchers find hole in AI guardrails by using strings like =coffee<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ACLU reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yep.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechPolicy Press reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Tech Oligarchs Profit from the Logic of ‘Finitude Capitalism’ and What to Do About It<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Privacy Guides has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n DarkReading asks:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Can a Global, Decentralized System Save CVE Data?<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heise reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Signal or Delta Chat peeps.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ben Werdmuller reports on:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The State of the Open Social Web<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Great Stuff as usual from Ben.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ForBetter explores:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The future of hope on the Social Web<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connected Places has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fediverse Report \u2013 142<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fediverse Report \u2013 143<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laura Hargreaves has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don\u2019t Have To)<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Big news with Mastodon this week:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n My next chapter with Mastodon<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Future is Ours to Build – Together<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hopefully the new regime (foundation vs. benevolent dictator) will focus on trust & safety and not trying to be Twitter 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris Sturmsucht shares:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fediverse: a new open and social web<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connected Places has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ATmosphere Report 143 – Eurosky Live<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechCrunch reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bluesky announces moderation changes focused on better tracking, improved transparency<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p><\/ul>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Keep fighting!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to this week’s \u201cDestroying Autocracy\u201d. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69],"tags":[57,66,67,92,74,65,75,58,77,59,153,86,143,63,61,252,250],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3954"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3984,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954\/revisions\/3984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TPF-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure>\n
\n\nFeatured Item(s)<\/h2>\n
\n\nThe response to Russia\u2019s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery<\/h2>\n
\n\nNeutral<\/h2>\n
\n\nThe Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back<\/h2>\n
Pariah States<\/h3>\n
Big Media<\/h3>\n
Big Tech<\/h3>\n
\n\nCybersecurity\/Privacy<\/h2>\n
\n\nFediverse<\/h2>\n
\n\nSlightly Decentralized Social Media<\/h3>\n
\n\nCTAs (aka show us some free love)<\/h2>\n
\n