It takes the US to do the sanction job in Finland ”Finland-based HD Parts OY has made thousands of shipments of spare parts since 2022, making it one of the largest foreign suppliers of truck parts to Russian companies.” https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2117

”This week a security deal was announced that could see Chinese police on the streets of Hungary… It has long been Chinese Communist party policy to drive a wedge between Europe and America, and in a narrow sense its investment in Hungary has paid dividends, since Orban has faithfully blocked the EU from issuing communiques criticising human rights abuses in China and been a drag more broadly on security-related affairs, such as the expansion of Nato and support for Ukraine, which also serve Beijing’s wider security interests.”

The Spectator

Hungary has become China’s useful idiot

This week a security deal was announced that could see Chinese police on the streets of Hungary. Despite this, there was remarkably little fanfare ...

”Even when Europe can produce combat forces, they often lack the things needed to fight effectively and for long enough: command-and-control capabilities, such as staff officers trained to run large headquarters; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, such as drones and satellites; logistics capabilities, including airlift; and ammunition to last for longer than a week or so” https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/02/18/can-europe-defend-itself-without-america

”On Bluesky, server choice doesn’t affect what content you see. Servers are only one piece of the protocol — when you browse Bluesky, you see posts that are pulled together from many different servers. This is why you can change your server after signing up without losing your username, friends, or posts.”

Bluesky

Bluesky: An Open Social Web - Bluesky

We’re excited to announce that the Bluesky network is federating and opening up in a way that allows you to host your own data.

”the top 25% most active posters were responsible for 98% of all public videos. The previous study on Twitter reveals a nearly identical statistic, showing that the top 25% posters produced 97% of all tweets. The study also found that age wasn’t necessarily a factor in assessing adults’ TikTok posting habits. Participants aged 18-34 are more likely to use TikTok in the first place than those aged 35-49, but in both age groups, about half of users never posted.”

TechCrunch

Almost half of adults on TikTok have never posted a video, research shows | TechCrunch

Adults on TikTok lean camera-shy, a new study from Pew Research Center suggests. A survey of 2,745 adults who use TikTok revealed that 48% of respo...

”Russia’s war against Ukraine cannot be ended in or by Ukraine. Its roots lie in Russians’ political and societal imagination of what their own country is and what it must be. That imagination, McGlynn shows, has been encouraged and facilitated—but not created—by a propaganda campaign that has lasted a generation.”

Foreign Policy

Ukraine Isn’t Putin’s War—It’s Russia’s War

Jade McGlynn’s books paint an unsettling picture of ordinary Russians’ support for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine.

"Estonia is the only country in the European Union to have such a law under discussion in its parliament. And this raises the question of whether it is safe, what countermeasures can Russia take… Once the law is implemented, the frozen assets of people and companies that have contributed to Russia's illegal actions can be used to pay for the damage that Russia caused to Ukraine.”

ERR

Russian frozen assets bill needs legal clarifications

The Riigikogu hopes to approve a law making it possible to use Russia's frozen assets to compensate for Ukraine's war damages by the end ...

”The institution's cybersecurity "has not yet met industry standards” and is “not fully in-line with the threat level" posed by state-sponsored hackers and other threat groups.”

Brussels spyware bombshell: Surveillance software found on officials’ phones – POLITICO

”in the EU, the DMA's changes will result in a less secure system. We're limiting these changes to the European Union because we're concerned about their impacts on the privacy and security of our users' experience — which remains our North Star. These changes comply with the DMA, and in the weeks and months ahead, we'll continue to engage with the European Commission, the developer community, and our EU users about their impacts.”

AppleInsider

Apple defends its controversial EU App Store plans

Responding to accusations that it has made minimal effort to allow third-party App Stores in EU, Apple says it focused expressly on complying with ...

”Server admins worked together to create ongoing lists of abandoned instances that other admins could use as a basis for a blocklist to protect their own users from the spam attacks. Many servers were simply shut off as their admins decided it would be easiest to wait out the attack or abandon Mastodon altogether.”

TechCrunch

Spam attack on Twitter/X rival Mastodon highlights 'fediverse' vulnerabilities | TechCrunch

A spam attack that impacted the open source X rival Mastodon, Misskey and other apps highlights how the decentralized social web, also known as the

”Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has lost the connection to its last back-up external power line The ZNPP is still receiving the electricity it needs from its only 750 kV line, but the loss of the 330 kV line means the plant currently has no back-up options available for off-site power. Before the conflict, the plant had four 750 kV lines and six 330 kV lines available.”

Update 212 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine | International Atomic Energy Agency

”To our knowledge, PQ3 has the strongest security properties of any at-scale messaging protocol in the world.” ”Even though they can’t decrypt any of this data today, they can retain it until they acquire a quantum computer that can decrypt it in the future, an attack scenario known as Harvest Now, Decrypt Later.” ”…Level 3 security, where post-quantum cryptography is used to secure both the initial key establishment and the ongoing message exchange, with the ability to rapidly and automatically restore the cryptographic security of a conversation even if a given key becomes compromised.”

iMessage with PQ3: The new state of the art in quantum-secure messaging at scale - Apple Security Research

iMessage with PQ3: The new state of the art in quantum-secure messaging at scale - Apple Security Research

We are introducing PQ3, a groundbreaking cryptographic protocol for iMessage that advances the state of the art of end-to-end secure messaging. Wit...

”[in ’22-23] about 10 billion euros’ worth of goods ended up in Russia via Belarus — either exported directly to Belarus and then resold, or simply shipped through the country… It’s fairly obvious that, in order to make the export controls effective, the Belarus sanctions must mirror the Russia sanctions” https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/in-false-transit-loophole-russias-war-machine-is-supplied-through-kazakh-companies-and-belarusian-warehouses

”The presence of a large proportion of recently produced non-domestic electronic components in a North Korean ballistic missile strongly suggests that the country has developed a robust acquisition network capable of circumventing, without detection, sanction regimes that have been in place for nearly two decades.”

ArcGIS StoryMaps

North Korean missile relies on recent electronic components

Ukraine Field Dispatch, February 2024

”Mr. Assange had to be convinced to redact the names of Afghan civilians who had cooperated with the American military. “Well, they’re informants,” Mr. Assange defiantly told them. “So if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/opinion/julian-assange-extradition-espionage.html

Boycotting banana imports from Ecuador by the EU would flip it again? ”Ecuador was planning to send six Russian military helicopters, long-range rocket launchers and air defense systems to the United States… Ecuador's foreign minister said Monday the country did not plan to send Soviet-era weapons to Ukraine after the president's vow to do so sparked a spat with Moscow over banana and flower exports.” https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240219-ecuador-backtracks-on-plan-to-send-weapons-to-ukraine

It’s called “Flirt With Los.” There’s no algorithm recommending an endless stream of polished photos. There are no “Super Likes” to consider. The app doesn’t try to sell you subscriptions when you run out of swipes. There aren’t any swipes to begin with. There’s only one profile to choose from. You open the app, type in your Twitter or Instagram username, and there he is. It’s a picture of Mayers with two options: “flirt” or “pass.”

Gizmodo

This Guy Made a Dating App Where You Can Only Date Him

You better hope he's your soulmate, because there's only one prospect on Flirt With Los.

”We didn’t expect that it would go mad. In December 2023, Voyager started sending back gibberish instead of data. A software glitch, though perhaps caused by an underlying hardware problem; a cosmic ray strike, or a side effect of the low temperatures, or just aging equipment randomly causing some bits to flip. The problem was, the gibberish was coming from the flight direction software — the operating system, as it were. And no copy of that operating system remained in existence on Earth.”

Death, Lonely Death — Crooked Timber

”This is part of Russia's hybrid attacks, which are not dissimilar to the bomb threats emailed to schools and cyber attacks… The public does not talk about what is happening in other countries. I would say with high confidence that such action has not only been against Estonia but has also been against other countries. Here we are no different… It is a broader trend today that both Russian and Chinese special services are approaching people through social media”

ERR

ISS: Russian special services behind attack on Estonian minister's car

The Internal Security Service (ISS) said it has identified the people who vandalized cars belonging to the interior minister and a journalist last ...