An age-old French nightmare — that of growing German military might — is resurfacing in a new form.
As Berlin inevitably becomes the EU’s dominant military power, our expert @mijrahman.bsky.social explains how strategic autonomy is now in Germany’s hands:
@politico.eu
What a terrible take. As someone who engaged at a policy level with the ePrivacy Directive (& its predecessor 97/66EC), the ePD didn’t ’plaster the online world with pop-ups’. Privacy invading & eroding business models are responsible for that - biz could have chosen a different path
Great thread from Kevin on the airport cyber attacks - “corporate centipede” and “welcome to 1998” being my favourites
ENISA - the EU’s cyber security agency - now saying it’s ransomware
www.reuters.com/business/aer...
"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."
www.computerworld.com/article/4059...
I wrote a similar piece in Slate last year--granted, it was pre-election but the specter for what an authoritarian regime could do with the massive police surveillance apparatus at its fingertips has been hanging over us for awhile.
My new piece in @the-independent.com on the UK's tech prosperity deal:
The deal does not only leave the UK even more dependent on US tech companies, it also once again shows how out of step the country is with tech sovereignty debates in the rest of Europe.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/starm...
jesus christ. transport regulators need to get their acts together.
Although of course disappointing to see that MI6 haven’t done their homework - it’s Tor, not TOR @torproject.org
New: Google will meet the EU’s deadline to propose changes to its advertising technology business after a near-€3 billion fine — but won’t include the full breakup the EU and industry rivals have previously pushed for: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
excited to share that we are following through on our earlier commitments and putting together an independent+neutral organization to house the DID PLC system, includes the directory service
Why is it here to stay? I have seen no scientific evidence that shows that this is legitimate policing, but I have seen evidence of harms that it is causing and no serious debate on societal and democratic impact in the future policinginsight.com/feature/opin...
A friendly reminder that use of Clearview AI's tech is highly restricted if not banned in many parts of the world like the EU, UK, Canada, and Australia. It's been repeatedly fined for contravening these country's laws.
www.404media.co/ice-spends-m...
It's also dismaying that ICANN, which (cl)aims to be globally inclusive, admits it's catering to the US admin's anti-DEI stance. This, despite many calls over the years that it move from USA to a jurisdiction like Switzerland, with a legal framework specifically supporting independent int'l orgs.
A good reminder why the current US administration's anti-DEI stance - & US-based Big Tech's widespread adoption of that - means it's more important than ever to nurture the development of tech & tech companies outside the US, so tech truly can meet the needs of a diverse world.
"If the EU ends up legislating [about encryption] on a technically incorrect basis, we could be left with a law that neither protects children nor citizens' right to privacy – but instead makes everyone more vulnerable" @moltke.bsky.social writes. www.dr.dk/nyheder/vide...
If you had been in Brussels and paid between 800-1200 EUR you might have heard that 👇
DCC 2026 -- our annual competition conference bringing together researchers, policy experts and practitioners -- is accepting paper submissions until October 13. Get those fingers typing ...
We need much more stringent rules about when it is acceptable to film people (and we also need the tech execs pushing these products to be brutally exiled from society)
I covered the protests in London against Trump for @wired.com. Protesters aren't convinced by the AI deal from US tech giants: They want to know what the UK is giving them in exchange for up to $45bn in investment and where the power for data centers will come from www.wired.com/story/climat...
NEW: Criminals are using "SMS blasters"—a version of cell-site simulators used by police to surveil phones in a certain area—to flood people nearby the devices with scam texts. @mattburgess1.bsky.social reports www.wired.com/story/sms-bl...
In Moldova, authorities estimate the Kremlin will spend €100m — €31 per registered voter — to influence the outcome. In the Czech Republic, Kremlin-linked outlets are pumping out more content each day than the country’s major news outlets combined.
After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.
Jaguar Land Rover joins the list of high-profile cyber-attack victims, with production and services disrupted. Is it time to rethink our approach? 🚨
Prof @ciaranm.bsky.social argues operational resilience–not just data breaches–is the real frontline.👇
What if one could automatically monitor what politicians promise and enhance the ability to check, at scale, whether they deliver?
Pledgetracker, by @fullfact.org and researchers, tries to retrieve relevant evidence and reduce human verification effort.
Read their preprint here: lnkd.in/ec5gHYV9
The headlines — £31bn in investment, new jobs, faster medical treatments — sound almost too good to be true. What are we giving up in return?
Me in @theguardian.com on today's US-UK Tech Deal:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
New piece countering hype on terrorist use of Gen AI. Adoption has been slow and its impact minimal, in contrast with criminals (where the impacts have been immediate & significant). But, we should anticipate an increase in adoption, largely in line with broader societal trends in future
The law, if that matters anymore, says that TikTok must relinquish Chinese control over the algorithm.
After nearly a year of delay, China is still going to control the algorithm.
www.ft.com/content/550e...
The EU faces two existential problems. First: how can it tackle its so-called ‘competitiveness problem’ – its subdued rate of economic growth. Solving this problem requires better use of innovations, which – thanks to Europe’s poor track record on commercialising new technologies – are mostly foreign today. The second: how can the EU boost its technological sovereignty, so that it is less reliant on unreliable trading partners? This CERRE Issue Paper by Zach Meyers explores how the EU can reconcile these two priorities – just as the Commission is launching proposals for a European Competitiveness Fund, and a Cloud & AI Development Act, which aim to boost use of technologies like cloud and AI while supporting ‘sovereign’ technological solutions.
🚨 New CERRE Research 🚨
📘Can the EU reconcile #DigitalSovereignty & #Competitiveness?
✍️ By @zach-meyers.bsky.social
This is the first issue paper in a series of forthcoming publications under our newly launched EU Competitiveness Forum.
Read it here 🔗 tinyurl.com/sjcf7u86