Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Dear Fedi friends,

A quick update about the exposé I'm writing about that "European social media platform" that had a hurried announcement last week.

The piece is coming and it is JUICY.

But I'm postponing it till after FOSDEM because I got a couple of big scoops last night that I need to develop. Every day I receive new jaw-dropping revelations.

I'm currently channeling my inner Molly White and I'll take advantage of FOSDEM to get more expert opinions. Thanks for all the tips you sent in!

#Forgejo 14.0.2 was just released!

We recommend that all installations are upgraded to the latest version.

Check out the release notes and download it at https://forgejo.org/releases/. If you experience any issues with this release, please report to https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/issues.

#forgejorelease

I know this wouldn't even be helpful - I've witnessed them ask the same question at the slo{t,p} machine over and over again.

And I'm neither going to abdicate my professional standards nor drink this poison.

Let the fucking bubble burst and the perpetrators of this mess stand trial 😡

Getting waken up by the German federal police for an illegal border check. Good morning.

#Schengen #SchengenUltras #CrossBorderRail #FOSSRailPrelude #FOSSRail

And I'll be honest - I know some very fine folks who (for reasons I cannot fathom) consider themselves followers of Christ, but I'd say most of the atheists I know are far better at being Christians (blind faith notwithstanding) than most of the self-identifying 'devout' Christians out there.

Way to go, Philadelphia! The city has introduced new legislation putting real limits on ICE activity. Federal agents will no longer be allowed to operate anonymously no masks, visible identification required, and arrests must be backed by warrants signed by a federal judge.
https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3mdjzn627qk22
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From resistance team of US Natl Park Svc
500+ char posts not resent
Unaffiliated w/ AltNPS
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#AltNPS #Coup #Activism #NationalParkService #FederalGovernment #USpol #Trump

If you'd like to attend Co-op Cloud Kite-flying, our weekly(ish) drop-in where we talk about anything and everything #CoopCloud-related – and *especially* if the current 19 UTC slot doesn't work for you timezone- or schedule-wise: vote now! https://crab.fit/coop-cloud-kiteflying-660087

We'll keep this poll open for the next 2 weeks, until **23:59 UTC on Wednesday 11th February**.

–3wordchant

Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner:
“This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis in a country of 350 million. We outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will. We will find you. We will achieve justice.”💪 #press

Yet another Republican-appointed federal judge blasts Trump regime for lying and ignoring court orders -- and, as usual, does absolutely nothing about it.

Bottom line: Trump is winning his war on the judicial system.

https://archive.ph/JhZ5j

Almost everything about Trump's "Board of Peace" smells of corruption, and Dave Troy's discovery of extremely weird trademarking of the name adds to the reek.

https://america2.news/board-of-peace-trademark-filings-reveal-its-murky-legal-status/?ref=america-2-0-newsletter

Wow, what do you know? https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/585322/900-000-tonne-miscalculation-makes-carbon-target-even-tougher In the past, I've been asked to consult on Aotearoa institutions tracking our carbon sequestration. My findings: the scientists gathering the data are dedicated & working impeccably. The people *managing the digital data and models* have no idea what they're doing. The whole digital system is dubious. Imagine that fossil fuel use is being undercounted. This Gov't is, of course, only making things much much worse.

We got a town/county hearing for an AI data center that wants to get built around here

What should I ask them

"Paywalls don’t just limit the reach of news; they create a void often filled by lies and deceit," writes FPF board member John Cusack.

"Whatever business model journalism settles on is sure to depend on public trust. Paywalls undermine that trust."

https://chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/2026/01/28/ice-raids-government-crackdowns-news-paywall-free-immigrants-low-income-first-amendment-john-cusack

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@SecurityWriter/115969540425890734

To build on what was said below, your whole online existence is essentially three things combined:

1 - Your email account or mail server where you can get password resets.
2 - DNS that protects the mail server from being impersonated.
3 - Your domain WWW server that can publish records that your DNS registrar trusts when issuing certificates.

If you lose control of your email or web server, people can password reset their way into all of your account unless you have some strong second factor as a security key. If you have a secondary email recovery account that would be vulnerable. It could possibly be used to bypass your second factor.

If you lose control of your DNS server or your registrar account, then people can impersonate your services such as your web server or mail server for account recovery. A DNS attack could completely remove your existing servers and point traffic to malicious ones as well.

Finally if you lose control of you web server then it could be used to publish .well-known files used for identity verification with certificate authorities, spread malicious files, your imagination is the limit.

As you can see DNS and email are critical. Today everybody outsources their DNS and email. Choose how you manage these as if your identity, finances, and company depend on them.

Basically no one controls their own identities. By running your own email for DNS servers the third-party doctrine would not apply to you, and you would get notice that something was going on with law enforcement.

In the true DIY spirit of PM Press, this fresh batch of fundraiser hoodies has a *personal* touch. They were all hand-printed by actual PM Staff to help us raise money to pay off our warehouse.
Shop here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=255
Or donate directly to our GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/book-by-book-brick-by-brick-pm-press-celebrating-20-years

Blog post showing that with read access to nodes/proxy on a Kubernetes cluster, you get complete RCE:

https://grahamhelton.com/blog/nodes-proxy-rce

Kubernetes official response: Not a bug. We'll just document harder.

🙄

Sanctuary policies are legal. The Supreme Court has been clear for decades that the federal government cannot commandeer state or local governments to enforce federal immigration law. This isn’t “playing with fire.” It’s constitutional law.
https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3mdimmgoca22z
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From resistance team of US Natl Park Svc
500+ char posts not resent
Unaffiliated w/ AltNPS
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#AltNPS #Coup #Activism #NationalParkService #FederalGovernment #USpol #Trump

🔴 Brand new comic now up on Boing Boing
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THE MAGATS, in "Cognitive Disso-nuts"
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https://boingboing.net/2026/01/28/tom-the-dancing-bug-its-the-magas.html

Funny thing from my morning: K-12 students have backed school IT workers into such a corner that they've established their own open-source subculture to combat it. They've even developed some interesting privacy-first approaches, such as logging to local storage and then using other enterprise tools to slurp those logs from student laptops. This means they don't even have to have the extension make calls to remote servers.

Not funny thing from my morning: my son (a minor) was notified that his MIT Scratch profile and projects are going to be used for training AI, and he's upset about it. He doesn't understand why there's no choice to opt out, and I don't either.

It sounds like MIT could learn a thing or two about respecting privacy and boundaries from K-12 IT workers.

"Britain’s reliance on Palantir, the controversial US data surveillance firm, is a “gaping national security vulnerability”, MPs and tech experts have said, as a Nerve investigation reveals how deeply embedded the company is in the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

The Nerve’s investigation shows the company, co-founded by one of President Trump’s most loyal allies, Peter Thiel, is enmeshed in Britain’s civil and defence structures to a far greater degree than previously realised. The Nerve has found at least 34 current and past state contracts across at least 10 government departments, local councils and police authorities.

The investigation also reveals previously undisclosed contracts between Palantir and AWE Nuclear Security Technologies, the agency that underpins Britain’s nuclear deterrence programme.

The agency, formerly known as the Atomic Weapons Establishment, designs and manufactures the nuclear warheads carried by UK submarines. The Nerve has found £15m worth of contracts for “cloud support” on the Crown Commercial Service dashboard, an agency that works with the Cabinet Office and external suppliers.

These contracts are not on the government’s official contract finder website and the Ministry of Defence refused to either confirm or deny their existence. Palantir did not acknowledge or respond to the Nerve’s inquiries.

The Nerve’s research – shown in two infographics here – shows that Palantir has current and historic deals worth £388m with the MOD across at least a dozen contracts and extensions to contracts, and more than £244m with the NHS (12 contracts/extensions). Government agencies and authorities with smaller contracts include Coventry city council, Leicestershire police, DEFRA and the Homes for Ukraine scheme."

https://www.thenerve.news/p/palantir-technologies-uk-government-contracts-size-nuclear-deterrent-atomic-peter-thiel-louis-mosley

#UK #Palantir #Surveillance #Thiel #NuclearWeapons