⊥ᵒᵚ⁄Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@qoto.org

Bit of an update on here for anybody following the collision (technically an allision) between the cargo ship Solong and tanker Stena Immaculate earlier today in the approaches to the Humber.

Whisper it, the showdown over Apple encryption is THIS WEEK ⏱️

🤐 A secret tribunal will hear the appeal against the UK government’s order to carve a backdoor into Apple’s encrypted services.

🛑 Our cybersecurity and privacy shouldn’t be decided in the shadows.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366620363/Secret-London-tribunal-to-hear-appeal-in-Apple-vs-government-battle-over-encryption

#encryption #Apple #privacy #cybersecurity #security #e2ee #ukpolitics #ukpol

Old saying: if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Modern corollary: if it goose-steps like a nazi and salutes like a nazi, it's the President of the United States.

Regardless of how difficult it is in the short term, I think European dependency on US military tech has to go the way of European dependency on Russian fossil fuels, i.e both changes are going to be long-term, effectively permanent.

Once you overplay your leverage and your customers have to go elsewhere because they don't trust you, they adapt to the new situation and don't come back.

It's an easy prediction because it's effectively the same adversary acting in the same way.

Quick listener question...

What kind of segments do you enjoy the most on @linuxmatters ?

Bonus question: Would you like to hear more about anything we have talked about before?

Reminder that the meeting scheduling badness of the time zone delta between Europe and North America being off by one hour started today will last for three weeks this time.

It may only be a Benchy. But it's mine 🙂 Not bad after 2.5 years of nothing.

a UK tourist has been detained by ICE and imprisoned in the USA - full details on this bsky thread

https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferlcroft.bsky.social/post/3ljxjdhfv4s22

"it seems that she had the wrong visa to go to Canada from the US & was denied entry, & when she (very understandably) attempted reentry to the US, ICE detained her"

Another good catch by @TomSellers - VMware's website advisory has less detail than their github for some reason.

Their github: https://github.com/vmware/vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines/tree/main/security-advisories/vmsa-2025-0004

According to their Github, additional VMware ESXi versions are impacted (e.g. 6.5, 6.7) and older versions are likely impacted but no patches available.

An in the wild exploit for RCE hypervisor escape across every supported (and unsupported) product like this is unprecedent.

I wrote a #DeltaChat blog post for technical users who are skeptical about how it works

Everything You Think You Know About DeltaChat Is Wrong

https://blog.feld.me/posts/2025/03/deltachat-is-actually-good-though/

@delta

The upcoming death of Skype is super inconvenient, I am (or soon to be "was") a regular user of "Skype Out" because it was the most simple way of doing international POTS calls, using my own number (aka, caller id "spoofed"), with WebRTC (so I don't have to mess around with god-awful software, or even worse a real phone)

I don't know of a service (outside of google voice, that I cannot use, because I am in the UK) that can do what Skype Out does/did.

A genuine loss/pain in the ass

"As an engineering leader, you should be constantly working to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete one cycle of a feedback loop." This is good, actionable advice. #Technology https://werd.io/2025/feedback-loops

As we know the 'clever' wheeze of shared ownership that was meant to make more affordable housing available is unravelling as the loophole of service fees is being exploited to raise the overall costs of homes (once the resident has been captured).

Its worth stressing (again) that only a massive increase in social housing (either built or re-purposed) can start to alleviate the problems of the UK dysfunctional housing market!

(and ending the Right to Buy!)

#housing

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/09/uk-housing-associations-accused-of-mis-selling-affordable-homes-as-service-charges-soar-by-up-to-400

Tonight’s family movie night is WarGames (1983) .. for context see https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-was-a-teenage-hacker/amp/

London! 😍

UK Department of Transport vetos Tesla full self-driving mode on British roads: “Road safety is our absolute priority" https://www.yahoo.com/news/britain-blocks-launch-elon-musk-140000186.html

Surprise! People don't want AI deciding who gets a kidney transplant and who dies or endures years of misery

Researchers find AI isn't ready to help with moral decision making Is AI an appropriate source of moral guidance about which patients should be given kidney transplants?…
#theregister #IT
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/03/08/ai_kidney_transplant_moral_decisions/

All ready for the dry ice now.

And ejecting!

#MARCHintosh #RetroComputing