Why haven't mosquitoes evolved silent flight?
jsr
jsr@primal.net
npub1vz03...ttwj
Chasing digital badness at the citizen lab. All words here are my own.
"everybody who's out there thinking of using VPNs, let me just say to you directly, verifying your age keeps a child safe...So let's just not try and find a way around. Just prove your age."
- UK government.
WHOA: Could Germany Ban Ad Blockers?
German megapublisher Axel Springer is asking a German court to ban an ad-blocker.
They claim HTML/ CSS of their sites are protected computer programs.
And influencing they are displayed (e.g by removing ads) violates copyright.
I'm in puzzled wonderment at this claim.
Preventing ad-blocking would be a huge blow to German cybersecurity and privacy.
There are critical security & privacy reasons to influence how a websites code gets displayed.
Like stripping out dangerous code & malvertising.
Hacking risks from the online advertising are documented.
Any attempt to force Germans to run all of the code on a website without consideration for their privacy and security rights and needs will end very, very poorly.
Defining HTML/CSS as a protected computer program will quickly lead to absurdities touching every corner of the internet.
Just think of the potential infringements:
-Screen readers for the blind
-'Dark mode' bowser extensions
-Displaying snippets of code in a university class
-Inspecting & modifying code in your own browser
-Website translators
Or blocking unwanted trackers.
This is why most governments do it on their systems.
I'm not a lawyer, but if Axel Springer wins the consequences are just nuts:
Basic stuff like bookmarking & saving a local copy of a website might be legally risky.
The Wayback Machine & internet archives and libraries might be violators.
This might even extend to search engines displaying excerpts of sites.
Code sharing sites like GitHub could become a liability minefield...
The list goes on and on.
Finally, only one country has banned ad-blockers. China.
This is not good company for Germany.
READ MORE: From Mozilla
Bleeping Computer: 
I'm in puzzled wonderment at this claim.
Preventing ad-blocking would be a huge blow to German cybersecurity and privacy.
There are critical security & privacy reasons to influence how a websites code gets displayed.
Like stripping out dangerous code & malvertising.
Hacking risks from the online advertising are documented.
Any attempt to force Germans to run all of the code on a website without consideration for their privacy and security rights and needs will end very, very poorly.
Defining HTML/CSS as a protected computer program will quickly lead to absurdities touching every corner of the internet.
Just think of the potential infringements:
-Screen readers for the blind
-'Dark mode' bowser extensions
-Displaying snippets of code in a university class
-Inspecting & modifying code in your own browser
-Website translators
Or blocking unwanted trackers.
This is why most governments do it on their systems.
I'm not a lawyer, but if Axel Springer wins the consequences are just nuts:
Basic stuff like bookmarking & saving a local copy of a website might be legally risky.
The Wayback Machine & internet archives and libraries might be violators.
This might even extend to search engines displaying excerpts of sites.
Code sharing sites like GitHub could become a liability minefield...
The list goes on and on.
Finally, only one country has banned ad-blockers. China.
This is not good company for Germany.
READ MORE: From Mozilla Open Policy & Advocacy
Is Germany on the Brink of Banning Ad Blockers? User Freedom, Privacy, and Security Is At Risk. – Open Policy & Advocacy
Across the internet, users rely on browsers and extensions to shape how they experience the web: to protect their privacy, improve accessibility, b...
BleepingComputer
Mozilla warns Germany could soon declare ad blockers illegal
A recent ruling from Germany's Federal Supreme Court (BGH) has revived a legal battle over whether browser-based ad blockers infringe copyrigh...
NEW: UK reportedly drops secret demand for Apple encryption backdoor.
Good.
While there was strong activist pressure here the key push came from the US government.
But there is zero rest for the weary as the UK has been leaning much harder into Age Verification.
Which is another mechanism for gaining deep visibility into peoples online activity.
Story: 
While there was strong activist pressure here the key push came from the US government.
But there is zero rest for the weary as the UK has been leaning much harder into Age Verification.
Which is another mechanism for gaining deep visibility into peoples online activity.
Story: The Verge
UK drops demand for backdoor into Apple encryption
Here’s hoping that ADP returns to the UK.
Behind every marble statue account is a...
Designer lets intrusive thoughts win.
Deletes Lorem, calls it a day.
Location tracking based on interior pictures.
It will be abused to target people.
Post the inside your place at your peril. 
Earliest days of vibecoding-as-a-target.
Without a radical increase in security, vibecoders will get wiped out & lose their savings.
And their companies will get hit with fat breaches.
Me? I'm waiting for attackers to figure out how to reliably slip backdoors into vibecoded outputs at scale.
And their companies will get hit with fat breaches.
Me? I'm waiting for attackers to figure out how to reliably slip backdoors into vibecoded outputs at scale.
Neuroticism? Ripping.
Conscientiousness & agreeableness? Dipping.
Via FT:
Via FT: Client Challenge
NEW: 🇩🇪Germany's top court says spyware severely violates fundamental rights.
Bans spyware in cases with <3year sentences.
Enforces tough proportionality tests on all surveillance.
Restricts spyware to serious cases.
Interesting development.
Court says: capturing data at the source (i.e. on someone's phone) is maximally invasive.
Especially given how much of our lives happens online.
They also surface the security risks to systems from this kind of surveillance.
Watching Germany's highest court grapple with spyware's invasiveness & rights violations is instructive.
States wielding spyware without robust legal limitations and tight judicial oversight... are almost guaranteed to be violating their citizens' basic rights.
In so many jurisdictions, state secrecy & lack of effective legal challenges means spyware harms happening daily
Huge credit to German digital freedoms organization #digitalcourage
for bringing this case.
Court statement:
Restricts spyware to serious cases.
Interesting development.
Court says: capturing data at the source (i.e. on someone's phone) is maximally invasive.
Especially given how much of our lives happens online.
They also surface the security risks to systems from this kind of surveillance.
Watching Germany's highest court grapple with spyware's invasiveness & rights violations is instructive.
States wielding spyware without robust legal limitations and tight judicial oversight... are almost guaranteed to be violating their citizens' basic rights.
In so many jurisdictions, state secrecy & lack of effective legal challenges means spyware harms happening daily
Huge credit to German digital freedoms organization #digitalcourage
for bringing this case.
Court statement:
Rules on preventative and criminal procedural (source) telecommunications surveillance and criminal procedural remote searches are constitutional for the most part
In orders published today, the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rendered its decision on two constitutional complaints concerning s...
Internet-connected microphones in school bathrooms.
What could go wrong?
Mandated microphones in private spaces are a bad idea.
Throwing invasive sensors into private spaces rarely fixes socially scary problems.
But is almost guaranteed to have risky downsides. 
Story: 
Mandated microphones in private spaces are a bad idea.
Throwing invasive sensors into private spaces rarely fixes socially scary problems.
But is almost guaranteed to have risky downsides.
Story: WIRED
It Looks Like a School Bathroom Smoke Detector. A Teen Hacker Showed It Could Be an Audio Bug
A pair of hackers found that a vape detector often found in high school bathrooms contained microphones—and security weaknesses that could allow ...
Regular people know that age verification mandates won't work.
But they are worried about their children's safety, and they aren't being offered non-dystopian alternatives.
LLM chat exposures keep on coming.
Why? My theory is that these platforms don't do a very good job explaining to users what their public/share features mean.
Result: users may think that while something is public that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is indexing or caching.
Story:
Story:
404 Media
More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on Archive.org
The issue of publicly saving shared LLM chats is bigger than just Google.
What took them so long?
Maybe they had to dust off exploits from the 2000s?
Or maybe the better question is: how many unnoticed breaches have happened here.
It is an open secret (ask any lawyer) that these court filing systems are incredibly out of date.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/06/federal-court-filing-system-pacer-hack-00496916
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/06/federal-court-filing-system-pacer-hack-00496916
Own goal alert.
Governments constantly demand more access to monitor us.
But are completely reckless about the systems they use to handle that data.
Harming all of us.
Age verification laws are coming fast.
And, from my perspective, opponents are struggling to find impactful messaging to explain to the general public the damage they are about to do to freedom.
Or to propose alternate futures that address the underlying anxieties.
Sure, most folks that are here on #Nostr intuitively understand the dangers... And nod along when we gesture at the dangers of surveillance overreach.
But I worry that the common language for talking about these initiatives typically relies on some priors that are not universally shared outside people that live and breathe concerns about tech.
Saying that something is a surveillance dystopia works on me. But not the neighbors.
I'm guilty of being inside this language bubble too, and it's hard to escape.
Yet, when faced with politicians talking about protecting kids from bad things that parents feel they see right now... I worry that the communities doing pushback are struggling to:
1 -find framing that makes *enough sense* to the vast majority of people that they say 'ok this is net bad' and push back
2- find their own ways to productively connect with the anxieties that politicians are drawing on. E.g. worried parents.
3- offer things that are honest, well meaning alternative paths for the underlying problems
Anyone have thoughts on this? #AskNostr
We are in the opening chapter of using vibecoding to assert your rights.
And reclaim your freedoms.
Tremendous time to be alive.
It seems to me like a strong anti-AI view is becoming left / progressive coded.
I'd love to understand this better.
Anyone have thoughts?
Sauce: 
Google bad ux.
And you'll get your results in Comic Sans.
Try it
