Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

"FBI admits buying Americans' location data and says it won't stop"

"Patel defended the practice as lawful and useful for national security work, citing compliance with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.Read Entire Article"

https://www.techspot.com/news/111739-fbi-admits-buying-americans-location-data-wont-stop.html

#Privacy

Consider unfollowing that person that always leaves you feeling worse about things.

The most damaging #Brexit Myth: “The UK could keep all the benefits of EU membership with none of the obligations.”

Many Brexiteers genuinely believed:
- the EU would prioritise trade over rules
- the EU would split internally
- the EU would treat the UK as exceptional

None of these things happened because:
- the single market only works because its rules are non‑negotiable
- Brexit made the 27 more united than ever
- the EU applied the same terms to everyone

#Brexitreality #BrexitMyths

@tante This is why I hate talk about "good" uses of #LLM / #GenAI technology.

Those tools are rooted in harm, whether it's theft of creative works, exploitation of developing world labour, or abuse of scarce resources. You can't use them without being complicit in that harm, no matter how noble your cause.

After describing Microsoft's cloud security as "a pile of shit", the US government approved it for federal use.

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-cloud-fedramp-cybersecurity-government

Microsoft used its weight and political connections to overrule expert findings that its systems could not be accepted as fit for purpose.

The U.S. federal government is once again debating whether to extent warrantless surveillance under FISA.

Restore the Fourth has a petition to representatives, asking them to cosponsor reforms that would restore warrant requirements here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/no-to-mass-government-surveillance-cosponsor-plewsagsra

Sharing and signing the petition would be greatly appreciated!

#USPol #privacy #surveillance

Boxes of goodies are ready for the new volunteers trying out the node setup instructions over at https://lores.tech . This will bring us up to 7 people trying out nodes in their own homes, which gives us some great practice on how to coordinate a digital commons for a region like Merri-bek.

#NeighbourhoodFirst #LoRes #merribek

A couple of new reviews posted:

https://the-counterforce.org/gul-demo/
https://the-counterforce.org/the-smarthearts-not-forgotten/
https://the-counterforce.org/stresssysteem-de-vorige-oorlog/
https://the-counterforce.org/the-dissidents-d-o-v-e-a-better-world-split/
https://the-counterforce.org/red-wine-glue-vol-2-comp/
https://the-counterforce.org/komatiite-famine-pact-ep-demo/
https://the-counterforce.org/vending-machine-live-at-abc/

Reminder there are also RSS feeds for everything on the site! There's an RSS feed for reviews only, if that's all you care about: https://the-counterforce.org/tag/reviews/feed.xml

This is the best technical explanation of DLSS 5 I've ever read.

It's contribution time! A couple of days ago we added an new recipe to @coopcloud
Until now, there was only a generic recipe for PHP applications, but now the catalogue contains a dedicated @moodle recipe which we already use in production.

https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/moodle
Feedback welcome.

Gas prices may be high, but at least housing, healthcare, and food are affordable, I assume. https://patreon.com/BrianMcFadden

Law enforcement typically issues a warrant to telecom providers for access to customer location “tower dump” data. Now we have learned Customs and Border Protection purchased location data based on ad IDs.

Read more in our weekly digital security newsletter, and subscribe.

https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/cbp-bought-ad-location-data-for-surveillance/

Revealed: a crypto billionaire’s political base hosting ‘anti-woke’ and rightwing activists in Westminster - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/18/crypto-billionaire-ben-delo-westminster-political-base-the-sanctuary-hosting-anti-woke-rightwing-activists "Pardoned by Trump after violating US banking law, Ben Delo provides funding, networking, and podcasting space for a range of groups, including those with hardline views on migration and abortion"

🔴 Brand new Tom the Dancing Bug now up on Boing Boing
-
🔥 EXCURSIONS ARE HELL
-
https://boingboing.net/2026/03/18/tom-the-dancing-bug-excursions-are-hell.html

And then the national tour for “Privacy’s Defender” continues in #Denver on Friday, and in #Boston and #AnnArbor next week! Click below to buy the book and follow the tour. https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender

Coders using Claude report forgetting how to code themselves. Now MIT releases this study. LLMs are rotting your brain. Stop using them now, before the damage becomes any worse.

"MIT Study Finds Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline"

https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/mit-study-finds-artificial-intelligence-use-reprograms-the-brain-leading-to-cognitive-decline/

In case you needed more reasons to avoid using AI, perhaps the very means to think are enough to consider; unless it's too late to consider...

https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/mit-study-finds-artificial-intelligence-use-reprograms-the-brain-leading-to-cognitive-decline/

Are there any search engines that penalize LLM-generated content?

The NSA kept illegally spying on Americans for years after Snowden blew the whistle, according to a FOIA release.

This is exactly why Section 702, an easily abused warrantless surveillance authority, needs reform.

Time for Congress to stand up to the intel community and protect our privacy.

https://www.pogo.org/investigates/declassified-report-reveals-nsa-broke-surveillance-rules