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Spot the speculative circumvention of text censorship & blocking, and consider how this will enable online harms as well as online helps
Speech is a great freedom, and it will be adapted to communicate even in the most limiting of circumstances. The actual issue is one of intent. Most online safety legislation unwisely ignores this challenge.
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How to write a calculator app. Correctly. | Chad Nauseam Home
This is a very cute read, and quite educational from a software engineering and recreational mathematics perspective: https://chadnauseam.com/coding/random/calculator-app
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Mastodon will add quote posts, even though some users don’t want them | The Verge
Remember, kids: Quote-Tweets served no purpose on Twitter other than abuse… or maybe not. Perhaps people who go around demanding “safety by design” might like to reconsider the usability impact. https://www.theverge.com/news/613376/mastodon-quote-posts-update
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“The ICO […] say they don’t expect you to implement age assurance measures which […] pose a significant & disproportionate economic impact on businesses” | @pwaring@fosstodon.org
The ICO has published some interesting information on Age assurance, which references the Online Safety Act. The Introduction in particular makes it clear that age assurance comes with potential problems, including: 1. Disproportionate intrusiveness (e.g. processing special category data) 2. Inaccuracy 3. Discrimination (e.g. groups who don’t have access to ID) So not only do…
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Secret U.K. spy order imperils press freedom
And it’s not just U.K. journalists who need to be concerned. As others have pointed out, once the U.K. claims this power, it will be a hop, skip, and a jump to other countries — including authoritarian ones or ones on their way there — demanding similar powers. It’s not hard to imagine what Russia,…
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UK accused of political ‘foreign cyberattack’ on US after serving secret snooping order on Apple | Computer Weekly | Wyden-Biggs-Gabbard letter published
In a letter to the recently appointed US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Ron Wyden of Colorada and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona bluntly ask the administration to kick the UK out of the 65-year-old UK-USA signals intelligence sharing agreement, commonly known as “Five Eyes” if they do not now withdraw the…
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Apple Faces Potential App Store Antitrust Probe in China | MacRumors
10 points for anybody who can guess where this is going: Chinese regulators are said to be particularly focused on whether Apple’s fees for local developers are unreasonably high. They’re also examining if the company’s prohibition of third-party app stores and payment methods stifles competition and negatively impacts Chinese consumers. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/05/apple-potential-antitrust-probe-china/
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Joint Letter on the UK Government’s use of Investigatory Powers Act to attack End-to-End Encryption | Global Encryption Coalition
The consensus among cybersecurity experts could not be clearer: there is no way to provide government access to end-to-end encrypted data without breaking end-to-end encryption, thus putting every user’s security and privacy at risk. https://www.globalencryption.org/2025/02/joint-letter-on-the-uk-governments-use-of-investigatory-powers-act-to-attack-end-to-end-encryption/
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U.K. call for a back door to Apple devices threatens Americans, senator says | Washington Post
If the top U.S. ally does not back off, they said, Gabbard should consider limiting the deep intelligence sharing and cooperation on cybersecurity between the countries. A copy of the letter was reviewed by The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/13/apple-uk-security-back-door-adp/ Archived at: https://archive.is/2025.02.13-120308/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/13/apple-uk-security-back-door-adp/ Via:
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The Apple TV App Is Now Available on Android | Daring Fireball
“hell froze over” https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/12/apple-tv-app-for-android
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Swedish Armed Forces: “Signal should be used to defend against interception of calls & messages via the telephone network and to make it more difficult to spoof telephone numbers”
Nice to see *both* privacy *and* enhanced authenticity of end-to-end encrypted communications being mentioned in the framing for adoption of Signal. The article is worth a read, not least because Signal is not being adopted for classified communication, but instead for improved day-to-day security of all basic communication. https://cornucopia.se/2025/02/forsvarsmakten-infor-krav-pa-signal-for-samtal-och-meddelanden/ (via Google Translate)
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“The original illegal harms consultation drew flak for its sheer bulk: a tad over 1,700 pages. The final round of illegal harms documents is even weightier: over 2,400 pages in all”
The only thing better than regulation is more regulation. This makes us so much safer, and doesn’t negatively affect growth or technology adoption whatsoever: Cyberleagle: The Online Safety Act grumbles on https://www.cyberleagle.com/2025/02/the-online-safety-act-grumbles-on.html
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