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Battalion

Destroying Autocracy – 06 March 2025

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

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.

404 Media reports:

Cellebrite Is Using AI to Summarize Chat Logs and Audio from Seized Mobile Phones

Tech Policy reports:

An Alert to the World: The Role of Social Media Platforms in Bolsonaro’s Disinformation Campaign Targeting Brazil’s Democratic Institutions

Pariah States

The Register reports:

Polish space agency confirms cyberattack

DarkReading reports:

‘Crafty Camel’ APT Targets Aviation, OT With Polygot Files

China’s Silk Typhoon APT Shifts to IT Supply Chain Attacks

Big Media

Joan Westenberg shares:

Why I Won’t Write on Substack

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:

The Generative AI Con

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:

Fediverse Report #106

Joan Westenberg opines:

The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied.

Unfortunately, IFTAS has an announcement:

IFTAS Service Shutdowns

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:

Standards War?

Ghost has an update:

Warp factor 5, Mr. Sulu

FunkWhale announces:

Funkwhale Against Fascism

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:

Bluesky Report – 2025mar.a

TechCrunch reports:

Tapbots teases a new Bluesky app, Phoenix, saying it can’t ‘survive on Mastodon alone’

Tangled is

Introducing tangled

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#106 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #Peertube #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=15

Spaceship at the site of a battle
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Parker51

Day 12 of#The100DayProject. Last night as I was almost falling asleep, I suddenly was thinking about a #ghost dragon beneath towering skyscrapers. Obviously in my mind it looks even better than I can express on paper. The good thing about ghosts and dragons is that nobody has ever seen them IRL. Even if somebody has, they can't proof what they looked like. So that's always easier drawing. I did stick white for something ghosty 😅 #PastInktober #FountainPen #WaterColour #Midori #InkyParkers

Sketch in sketchbook of a white fictional dragon against a blue sky and towering skyscrapers
Replied in thread
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Doug Grinbergs

@Daojoan
Dan Gillmor @dangillmor : I won't subscribe to, much less pay for, newsletters that use #Substack
mastodon.social/@dangillmor/11
Molly White @molly0xfff : Migrating from Substack to self-hosted #Ghost: the details.
citationneeded.news/substack-t

MastodonDan Gillmor (@dangillmor@mastodon.social)Note: I won't subscribe to, much less pay for, newsletters that use Substack. I regret this in some ways, because a number of people whose work I greatly respect have chosen to publish there. I do sometimes link to one of their newletters in my own newsletter, which is published via Ghost. I wish they would publish on a different platform where I could whole-heartedly support their work, including with my money.
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